INTELLIGENCES subsisting apart are subsistent essences. Now the definition of a thing being the mark of its essence, is the mark of its' species. Subsistent essences therefore are subsistent species. 2. Difference in point of form begets difference of species, while diffe- rence in point of matter begets difference in number. But intelligences sub- sisting apart have nothing whatever of matter about them. Therefore it is impossible for them to be several in one species.
4. The multiplication of species adds more nobility and perfection to the universe than the multiplication of individuals in the same species. But the perfection of the universe consists principally in intelligences subsisting apart. Therefore it makes more for the perfection of the universe that there should be many intelligences different in species than many different in number in the same species. || • There is a vast lacuna in nature, if nothing in t Another expression of the Aristotelian andschothe scale of being intermediates between man and lastic principle, that the actual precedes the potential. God. It may be said that disembodied spirits so § In other words, that every angel is a species by intermediate, especially if we allow, what St Thomas himself, and is definable, being the one possible object does not, that, once parted from the body, the soul answering the definition.
expands into a pcrfed spiritual substance, with no II A sort of canon of cosmic architecture. And in remaining natural exigency of reunion with the body, the architecture of human hands it makes more for Yet even so, if spirits exist which have been in the beauty of a frieze to have a procession of various bodies, why not other spirits which never have been figures, like the procession of Athenian knights in in bodies? Throughout this argument we cannot the frieze of the Parthenon, than to have one cast travel beyond congruity. For the fact of the exis- reproduced all round, suggestive of so much a foot, tence of angels we require either experience, which It makes for the beauty, and adds to the expense, we have not, or divine revelation, which we have. but with the Creator there is no question of ext He means material and sensible things, which pense. But is not every human character the presentabecome intelligible only by the understanding form- tion of a distinct history, and every human face and ing universal concepts to view them with. See p. 146. form expressive of an individuality all its own?
CHAPTER XCIV— That an Intelligence subsisting apart and a Soul are not of one Species A DIFFERENT type of being makes a difference of species. But the being of the human soul and of an intelligence subsisting apart is not of one type: the body can have no share in the being of a separately subsisting intelligence, as it can have in the being of the human soul, united with the body as form with matter.
3. What makes a species by itself cannot be of the same species with that which does not make a species by itself, but is part of a species. Now a separately subsisting intelligence makes a species by itself, but a soul not, it is part of the human species.
4. The species of a thing may be gathered from the activity proper to it: for activity shows power, and that is an indication of essence. Now the proper activity of a separately subsisting intelligence and of an intelligent soul is understanding. But the mode of understanding of a separately sub- sisting intelligence is quite different from that of the soul. The soul understands by taking from phantasms: not so the separately subsisting intelligence, that has no bodily organs in which phantasms should be.* CHAPTER XCVl-That Intelligences subsisting apart do not gather their Knowledge from ObjeEis of Sense A HIGHER power must have a higher objeCt. But the intellectual power of a separately subsisting intelligence is higher than the intellectual power of the human soul, the latter being lowest in the order of intelligences (Chap. LXXVIII). Now the objeCt of the intelli- gence of the human soul is a phantasm (Chap. LX), which is higher in the order of objeCts than the sensible thing existing outside and apart from the soul.f The objeCt therefore of a separately subsisting intelligence cannot be an objective reality (res) existing outside the soul, as though it could get knowledge immediately from that; nor can it be a phantasm: it must then be something higher than a phantasm. But nothing is higher than a phantasm in the order of knowable objeCts except that which is an aCtual term of intelligence. Intelligences subsisting apart therefore do not gather their intellectual knowledge from objeCts of sense, but understand objeCts which are of themselves terms of intelligence.!
3. According to the order of intelligences is the order of terms of intelli- gence. But objeCts that are of themselves terms of intelligence are higher in order than objeCts that are terms of intelligence only because we make them so. Of this latter sort are all terms of intelligence borrowed from sensible things: for sensible things are not of themselves intelligible: yet these sen- sible things are the sort of intelligible things that our intellect understands. A separately subsisting intelligence therefore, being superior to our intelli- gence, does not understand the intellectual aspeCts of things by gathering * Throughout this chapter St Thomas confines I A ' term of intelligence * (intelTtgibile) is what himself to the human soul still informing the body, answers to a universal concept: it is the scientific t " Higher in the order of objedls " in this, that the aspedl of a thing (ratio, note, p. 1 1 1), what we call the phantasm has a quasi-spiritual existence in the human 'principle' of a thing, as of 'youth,' 'manhood,' mind: on the other hand, lower in this, that the 'tree,' 'steam-engine,' as distinguished from the em- sensible thing is a substance, the phantasm an acci- bodiment of that principle in these and those par- dent. It will be remembered that the phantasm is ticular materials. It is the Xtfyos, not the *-a0iy. It is objcftum quo, not objeBum quod (p. 145). what some think Plato to have meant by an 'idea.'
them from objefts of sense: it seizes upon those aspe&s as they are in themselves.
4. The manner of adtivity proper to a thing corresponds to the manner and nature of its substance. But an intelligence subsisting apart is by itself, away from any body. Therefore its intelle&ual activity will be conversant with objects not based upon anything corporeal.
From these considerations it appears that in intelligences subsisting apart there is no such thing as adlive and potential intellect, except perchance by an improper use of those terms. The reason why potential and active intel- lect are found in our intelligent soul is because it has to gather intellectual knowledge from sensible things: for the active intellect it is that turns the impressions, gathered from sensible things, into terms of intellect: while the potential intellect is in potentiality to the knowledge of all forms of sensible things. Since then separately subsisting intellects do not gather their knowledge from sensible things, there is in them no aCtive and potential intellect.
Nor again can distance in place hinder the knowledge of a disembodied soul (anima separata). Distance in place ordinarily affeCts sense, not intellect, except incidentally, where intellect has to gather its data from sense. For while there is a definite law of distance according to which sensible objeCts affeCt sense, terms of intellect, as they impress the intellect, are not in p/acey but are separate from bodily matter. Since then separately subsistent intelli- gences do not gather their intellectual knowledge from sensible things, distance in place has no effeCt upon their knowledge.* Plainly too neither is time mingled with the intellectual activity of such beings. Terms of intellect are as independent of time as they are of place. Time follows upon local motion, and measures such things only as are in some manner placed in space; and therefore the understanding of a separately subsisting intelligence is above time. On the other hand, time is a condition of our intellectual activity, since we receive knowledge from phantasms that regard a fixed time. Hence to its judgements affirmative and negative our intelligence always appends a fixed time, except when it understands the essence of a thing. It understands essence by abstracting terms of understanding from the conditions of sensible things: hence in that operation it understands irrespectively of time and other conditions of sensible things. But it judges affirmatively and negatively by applying forms of understanding, the results of previous abstraction, to things, and in this application time is necessarily understood as entering into the combination. t # St Thomas does not deny the cognition of space are timeless, as Aristotle says of the relation of the to angels and disembodied spirits: but he says that diagonal to the side of the square: time makes no distance does not limit their knowledge, as it limits difference in that relation. But when an engineer our sense-perception, and our knowledge in conse- comes to apply such calculations to practical work, quence. Even the human mind, having once com- he re-enters upon considerations of time and place, passed the idea of a thing, thinks of the thing The affirmative and negative judgements spoken of irrespective of distance, e.g., the depths of stellar in the text make accidental propositions: now accispace. dental propositions involve time, e.g., ' there stood t Mathematical calculations are irrespective of a lion in the way': essential propositions do not, time: they deal with the 'essences of things,' which e.g., 'a lion is an animal of the cat tribe.'
CHAPTER XCVII— That the J\dind of an Intelligence subsisting apart is ever in the act of understanding WHAT is sometimes in actuality, sometimes in potentiality, is mea- sured by time. But the mind of an intelligence subsisting apart is above time (Chap. XCVI). Therefore it is not at times in the act of understanding and at times not.
2. Every living substance has by its nature some a&ual vital a6tivity always going on in it, although other activities are potential: thus animals are always repairing waste by assimilation of nourishment, though they do not always feel. But separately subsisting intelligences are living substances, and have no other vital activity but that of understanding. Therefore by their nature they must be always actually understanding.
CHAPTER XCVIII— How one separately subsisting Intelligence knows another AS separately subsisting intelligences understand proper terms of intel- lect; and the said intelligences are themselves such terms, — for it is independence of matter that makes a thing be a proper term of intel- lect; it follows that separately subsisting intelligences understand other such intelligences, finding in them their proper objects. Every such intelligence therefore will know both itself and its fellows.* It will know itself, but in a different way from that in which the human potential intellect knows itself. For the potential intellect is only potentially intelligible, and becomes actually such by being impressed with an intellectual impression. Only by such an im- pression does it become cognisant of itself. But separately subsisting intelli- gences by their nature are actually intelligiblef: hence every one of them knows himself by his own essence, not by any impression representative of another thing.
A difficulty: Since all knowledge, as it is the knowing mind, is a likeness of the thing known, and one separately subsistent intelligence is like another generically, but differs from it in species (Chap. XCIII), it appears that one does not know another in species, but only so far as the two meet in one com- mon ratio, that of the genus.
Reply. With subsistent beings of a higher order than we are, the know- ledge contained in higher generalities is not incomplete, as it is with us. The likeness in the mind of 4 animal,' whereby we know a thing generically only, yields us a less complete knowledge than the likeness of 4 man/ whereby we know an entire species. To know a thing by its genus is to know it imper- fectly and, as it were, potentially; to know it by its species is to know it perfectly and actually. Holding as it does the lowest rank among subsistent intelligences, our intellect stands in such pressing need of particular detailed # A 'proper term of intellect' is a form apart understands: it is an angel. An angel, according to from matter, as ' brightness*,' * clearness,' * lucidity,' St Thomas, is a personified form, quality, or attriapart from 'this bright button,' 'this clear sky.' The bute: what attribute exactly, it is not for us to say.
separation of the form apart from matter is either We men cannot " count the host of heaven, and call physical or logical. Where the separation is logical them by their names."
only, the form cannot really exist except in matter; t A separately subsisting intelligence, or angel, is and from matter the human intellect gathers it by an Iptyvypv fKos, or living idea, more or less in the abstraction and generalisation. The angel somehow Platonic sense. Now an idea is nothing, if it be not gathers the same form without having to study the a term of intellect. The human mind then comes to matter in which it resides. But when the form is know itself by getting an idea of something else: the physically distinct from matter, — when it subsists by angel knows himself always and essentially, because itself, — such an immaterial, subsisting form lives and he is an idea.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES likenesses, that for every distindt object of its knowledge it requires a distindt likeness in itself: hence the likeness of * animal* does not enable it to know c rational/ consequently not 4 man ' either, except imperfectly. But the intel- lectual presentation in an intelligence subsisting apart is of a higher power, apt to represent more, and leads to a knowledge, not less perfect, but more perfect. By one presentation such an intelligence knows both 4 animal * and the several specific differentias which make the several species of animals: this knowledge is more or less comprehensive according to the hierarchical rank of the intelligence.* We may illustrate this truth by contrasting the two extremes, the divine and human intellect. God knows all things by the one medium of His essence; man requires so many several likenesses, images or presentations in the mind, to know so many several things. Yet even in man the higher understanding gathers more from fewer presentations: slow minds on the other hand need many particular examples to lead them to knowledge. Since a separately subsistent intelligence, considered in its nature, is potentially open to the presentations whereby 4 being ' in its entirety (totum ens) is known, we cannot suppose that such an intelligence is denuded of all such presentations, as is the case with the potential intellect in us ere it comes to understand.f Nor again can we suppose that this separately subsistent intelligence has some of these presentations actually, and others potentially only. For separate intelligences do not change (Chap. XCVII); but every potentiality in them must be actualised. Thus then the intellect of the sepa- rately subsistent intelligence is perfected to the full extent of its capacity by intelligible forms, so far as natural knowledge goes. \ CHAPTER XClX-Tbat Intelligences subsisting apart know Ma- terial Things y that is to say^ the Species of Things Corporeal SINCE the mind of these intelligences is perfect with all natural endow- ments^ as being wholly adtualised, it must comprehend its obje£t, which is intelligible being, under all its aspects. Now under intelligible being are included the species also of things corporeal.
2. Since the species of things are distinguished like the species of num- bers, || whatever is in the lower species must be contained somehow in the higher, as the larger number contains the smaller. Since then separately sub- sistent intelligences rank higher than corporeal substances, all properties that in a material way are in corporeal substances must be in these separately sub- sistent intelligences in an intelligible and spiritual way: for what is in a thing is in it according to the mode of the thing in which it is.^f * According at the angel belongs to a higher or ton), the type of heathenish intelle&ualism, as the lower * choir/ great Duke saw.
t " We cannot suppose that such an intelligence II Every whole number is taken to be a separate is denuded of such presentations," because such sup- species. The maxim affords an insight into the schoposition would involve that intelligence in total lastic view of the ideal immutability and distinct and darkness as to the fads of its environment, which necessary order of species.
darkness would be a stultifying of the whole nature 4 There must be, for instance, a spiritual fragrance of intelligence. The only question can be, how the and an intellectual velocity. As the parables of the angelic intelligence becomes possessed of these pre- Gospel show — and indeed the whole scheme of bible sentations. As we shall see in Chap. C, St Thomas exegesis supposes it — the things and the doings of this takes them to be innate ideas. visible material world are types of invisible realities.
t Man is what he becomes by development Uwti4): Nature is constructed on hierarchical lines. Our angelic being, as such, is a perfeQ consnrnmatm (tc\os) mortal minds ascend feebly where the angels descend from the first. in their strength, by a sort of Jacob's ladder, we by § There are evil angels, "clever devils" (Welling- type from earth to heaven, they by antitype from heaven to earth.
CHAPTER G-That Intelligences subsisting apart know Individual Things INASMUCH as the likenesses representative of things in the mind of a separately subsistent intelligence are more universal than in our mind, and more effe&ual means of knowledge, such intelligences are instrudted by such likenesses of material things not only to the knowledge of material things generically or specifically, as would be the case with our mind, but also to the knowledge of individual existences.
1. The likeness or presentation of a thing in the mind of a separately sub- sistent intelligence is of far-reaching and universal power, so that, one as that presentation is and immaterial, it can lead to the knowledge of specific prin- ciples, and further to the knowledge of individualising or material principles. Thereby the intelligence can become cognisant, not only of the matter of genus and species, but also of that of the individual.
2. What a lower power can do, a higher power can do, but in a more excellent way. Hence where the lower power operates through many agencies, the higher power operates through one only: for the higher a power is, the more it is gathered together and unified, whereas the lower is scattered and multiplied. But the human soul, being of lower rank than the separately sub- sistent intelligence, takes cognisance of the universal and of the singular by two principles, sense and intellect. The higher and self-subsistent intelligence therefore is cognisant of both in a higher way by one principle, the intellect.
3. Intelligible impressions of things come to our understanding in the opposite order to that in which they come to the understanding of the sepa- rately subsisting intelligence. To our understanding they come by way of analysis {resolutio)^ that is, by abstradtion from material and individualising conditions: hence we cannot know individual things by aid of such intelli- gible or universal presentations. But to the understanding of the separately subsisting intelligence intelligible impressions arrive by way of synthesis {com- positio). Such an intelligence has its intelligible impressions by virtue of its assirpilation to the original intelligible presentation of the divine understand- ing, which is not abstracted from things but produdtive of things, — produ&ive not only of the form, but also of the matter, which is the principle of indi- viduation. Therefore the impressions in the understanding of a separately subsisting intelligence regard the whole objefl, not only the specific but also the indivualising principles. The knowledge of singular and individual things therefore is not to be withheld from separately subsistent intelligences, for all that our intelleft cannot take cognisance of the singular and individual.* # In the days of the schoolmen, as in those of and scientific men busy themselves accordingly about Aristotle, exclusive of philosophy and theology, one the vicissitudes that do actually overtake such existing speculative science alone had attained any real de- things. The most thorough comprehension of the velopment, mathematics. Philosophers therefore drew specific essence of a fig could not instruct a man, — their illustrations from mathematics. Now it is true no, nor an angel either,— on the fact whether there in mathematics that a perfect comprehension of the will be a plentiful or a poor crop of figs in Palestine universal carries a knowledge of all subordinate par- in the year 19 10. This fact, and indeed the whole ticulars. Whoever comprehended a hexagon com- course of natural history, — apart from the free acts of pletely, would know all things that ever could be God and man, and the effect of those acts upon ma- affirmed of any hexagon, as such. And it is only with terial things, is absolutely deducible from a knowledge the hexagon as such, that is to say with the hexagon of the c universal nature ' of physical agents, joined to as a form, that the mathematician is concerned: he a knowledge (not contained in the * universal ') of the cares nothing about its material. But in the world of primitive collocation of materials. But could even natural history, while still only the lion, as such, or angelic intellect make this stupendous deduction of the fig, as such, is the strict matter of science: never- the whole history of the physical universe from its theless this scientific knowledge is only obtainable by primary data?
observation and experiment upon actual Hons, or figs; We judge of angels from the analogy of the hu- GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES CHAPTER Q\-Whether to Separately Subsisting Intelligences all Points of their Natural Knowledge are Simultaneously Present NOT everything is actually understood, of which there is an intellec- tual impression actually in the understanding. For since a subsistent intelligence has also a will, and is thereby master of his own a6ts, it is in his power, when he has got an intelleftual impression, to use it by aftually understanding it; or, if he has several, to use one of them. Hence also we do not aftually consider all things whereof we have knowledge. A subsistent intelligence therefore, knowing by a plurality of impressions, uses the one impression which he wishes, and thereby aftually knows at once all things which by one impression he does know. For all things make one in- telligible objedl inasmuch as they are known by one presentation, — as also our understanding knows many things together, when they are as one by com- position or relation with one another. But things that an intelligence knows by different impressions, it does not take cognisance of together. Thus, for one understanding, there is one thing at a time adlually understood. There is therefore in the mind of a separately subsisting intelligence a certain succes- sion of a6ts of understanding; not however movement, properly so called: since it is not a case of a6tuality succeeding potentiality, but of aftuality following upon a6tuality. But the Divine Mind, knowing all things by the one medium of its essence, and having its aft for its essence, understands all things simultaneously: hence in its understanding there is incident no succession, but its a6t of understanding is entire, simultaneous, perfedt, abiding, world without end. Amen.
man mind. The human mind knows what is called at he supposes that, over and above their essential nature, Oxford 1 the manifold * of individual material things there was stamped upon them at their creation a mul- through the senses. To the intellect of man, away from titude of intelligible impressions, innate ideas in fad, sensation, this ' manifold ' of individuals is unintelli- corresponding to the facts of creation; and that by gible, as St Thomas also says it is unintelligible, be- knowing themselves, as thus impressed, they know the cause intellect always universal ises. How then shall world. Scot us disagrees with St Thomas on this point: pure intelligence, apart from all faculty of sensation, indeed it remains a very open question. St Thomas's know the individual? The analogy, which has been words are (1. c): our guide, here breaks down. We cannot deny to the " The impressions whereby angels understand are angel the cognition of individual things: nor, I think, not gathered from things, but are connatural to the even with St Thomas for our guide, can we give a said angels...Angels are wholly free from bodies, satisfactory account of how he has that cognition. If subsisting immaterially in intellectual being: and the schoolmen had a fault, it was that of explaining therefore they gain their intellectual perfection by an too much: though, I dare say, they considered many intellectual efflux, whereby they received from God of their explantions merely hypothetical and tentative, presentations of known things along with their intel- See B. I, Chapp. VIII, IX. lectual nature...In the mind of an angel there are In the Summa Theologua, I, q. 5 5, art. 2, St Thomas likenesses of creatures, not from the creatures them- more clearly faces the difficulty of attributing to angels selves, but from God, who is the cause of creatures." any knowledge of the actual facts of creation. He ac- But from this it would seem that angels ought to knowledges (art. 1) that the mere consciousness of know all future events, a corollary rejected by St themselves in their own essential nature would be in- Thomas, q. 57, art. 3. sufficient to afford them such knowledge. Therefore Google BOOK III GOD THE END OF CREATURES Google BOOK III GOD THE END OF CREATURES CHAPTER l-Preface to the Book that follows 7 he Lord is a great God, and a great J^ing abote all gods. For the Lord will not rejetf bis people, because in bis bands are all the ends of the earth, and the heights of the mountains be beholdeth. For the sea is bis, and be made it, and bis hands have formed the dry land (Ps. xciv).
IT has been shown above (B. I, Chap. XIII) that there is one first of beings, possessing the full perfection of all being, whom we call God. Out of the abundance of His perfection He bestows being on all things that exist; and thus He proves to be not only the first of beings, but also the first principle of all. He bestows being on other things, not out of any necessity of His nature, but by the free choice of His will, as has been shown (B. II, Chap. XXIII). Consequently He is master of the things that He has made: for we have dominion over the things that are subjeft to our will. This His dominion over the things that He has brought into being is a perfe6t dominion, since in producing them He needs the aid of no exterior agent, nor any subjeft matter to work upon, seeing that He is the universal efficient cause of all being. Of the things produced by the will of an agent every one is direfted by that agent to some end: for some good and some end is the proper objeCt of the will: hence the things that proceed from will must be dire&ed to some end. Everything attains its last end by its own a6tion, which is directed by Him who has given to things the principles whereby they aft. It needs must be then that God, who is by nature perfe6t