stand so widely apart as a superficial observation t Propter quod est unumquodque, et illud magu9 a would conclude. St Thomas here, and often else- favourite saving of the schoolmen, answering to some where, with Aristotle (see Physics, II, v, 2), bridges such Aristotelian Greek as St' ov Lcaaroy, k&kuvo over the difference between them, arguing the opera- fiaWor. To defend the saying, we must have at hand tions of conscious and of unconscious nature to be distinctions between 'cause9 (causa per se) and 'occa- both teleological. But is there any one agent whose sion 9 (causa per accidens); also between having an intention or contrivance extends throughout all nature? attribute 'virtually and in a better way9 (etninenter) That is the argument of B. I, Chap. XIII, where and having it ' precisely in this form 9 (JbrmaTtter).
2. God is the last end of things and the prime agent of all (Chap. XVII). But an end established by the aftion of an agent cannot be the prime agent: rather it is the effe6t produced by the agent. God therefore cannot be the end of things as though He were anything established in being thereby, but only as some pre-existent objeft for them to attain.
4. An effe6l tends to an end in the same way that the producer of the effe6t a6ts for that end. But God, the first producer of all things, does not aft in view of acquiring anything by His aftion, but in view of bestowing some- thing by His a6tion: for He is not in potentiality to acquire anything, but only in perfect a6tuality, whereby He can give and bestow. Things then are not direfted to God as though God were an end unto which any accretion or acquisition were to be made: they are direfted to Him so that in their own way they may gain from God God Himself, since He Himself is their end.
CHAPTER XlX-That all Things aim at Likeness to Qod ALL things evidently have a natural appetite for being, and resist de- structive agencies wherever they are threatened with them. But all things have being inasmuch as they are likened to God, who is the essential subsistent Being, all other things having being only by participation. All things therefore have an appetite for likeness to God, making that their last end.
4. All created things are some sort of image of the prime agent, God: for every agent a6ts to the produftion of its own likeness:* now the perfe6tion of an image consists in representing its original by likeness thereto: the image in fa6t is made on purpose. All things then exist for the attainment of the divine likeness; and that is their last end.f CHAPTER XX— How Things copy the Divine Qoodness NOT all creatures are established in one and the same degree of good- ness. The substance of some is form and actuality, — that is to say, something which, in point of essence, has the attribute of aftual being and goodness. \ The substance of other beings is composed of matter and form: this substance has the attribute of aftual being and goodness, but only in respeft of part of itself, namely, the form. While then the divine sub- stance is its own goodness, a simple substance (or pure spirit) partakes of that goodness to the extent of its essence, but a composite substance to the extent of some part of its essence. In this third grade of substances again there is found a difference in being. For, composed as they are of matter and form, the form of some of them fills the whole potentiality of the matter, so that there remains not in the matter any potentiality to any other form, and con- sequently not in any other matter any potentiality to this form: such are the heavenly bodies, into the essential constitution of which their whole matter enters. § In other bodies the form does not fill the whole potentiality of the * That is, to the production of something pro- § Qiue ex tota materia sua constant, and are conportionate to and in keeping with itself. sequently incorruptible. Cf. II, Chap. LXVIII. In t Some attribute or other of the Creator is relu- B. Ill, Chap. LXXXII (not here translated) the cent in every creature, according to the being which heavenly bodies are said to be magis formalia omnibus it has and the energy it displays, not however that aftis, more thoroughly informed, or possessed by their attribute which serves best the immediate purposes form. — Wholly devoid of truth as this theory has of man, and ministers most to his security and com- proved to be, still it has its importance in the Jiistory fort. This world is not exa&ly built for an hotel. of scholastic thought, and is continually assumed in X Still the essence is limited, and the a&uaJ being the writings of the schoolmen. False in astronomy, the accordingly finite and created. He refers of course to theory may yet come true of the bodies of the Saints the angels, who are i pure forms ' (B. II, Chap. L). in the resurrection: see IV, Chap. LXXXVI.
GOD THE END OF CREATURES matter: hence there still remains in the matter a potentiality to another form, and in some portion of matter there remains a potentiality to this form, as appears in the (four) elements and bodies composed thereof. Now because a privation is a negation in a substance of that which may well be in the substance, it is clear that with this form, which does not fill the whole potentiality of the matter, there is compatible the privation of some form due to that substance. No such privation can attach to a substance, the form of which fills the whole potentiality of its matter; nor to a substance which is essentially a form; still less to that Substance, whose very being is His essence. Further it is clear that, since evil is the privation of good, there is in this lowest order of substances changeable good with admixture of evil, a changeableness to which the higher orders are not liable.* The substance therefore that ranks lowest in being is lowest also in rank of goodness.
We likewise find an order of goodness among the parts of a substance composed of matter and form. For since matter, considered in itself, is poten- tial being, f while form is the adtualisation of that being, and the substance composed of the two is adtually existent through the form, the form will be good in itself; the compound substance will be good as it aftually has the form; and the matter will be good inasmuch as it is in potentiality to the form. But though everything is good in so far as it is being, it need not be supposed that matter, as it is only potential being, is only potentially good. For 'being* is an absolute term, while there is goodness even in relation: for not only is a thing called 4 good ' because it is an end, or is in possession of an end, but also, though it has not yet arrived at any end, provided only it be ordained to some end, a thing is called 4 good ' even on that account. Though then matter cannot absolutely be called 4 being ' on the title of its potentiality involving some relation to being, yet it may absolutely be called 4 good ' on account of this very relation. Herein it appears that 4 good ' is a term of wider extension than 4 being/ Yet in another way does the goodness of the creature fall short of the divine goodness. As has been said, God possesses the highest perfection of goodness in his mere being: but a created thing does not possess its perfeftion in point of one attribute only, but in point of many: for what is united in the highest is multiple and manifold in the lowest. J Hence God is said to be fraught with virtue and wisdom and a6tivity in one and the same respect, but a creature in different respects. The greater the distance at which a creature stands removed from the first and highest goodness, the greater the multiplication of points requisite for it to be perfectly good. But if it cannot attain to perfect goodness, it will hold on to an imperfect goodness in a few points. Hence it is that, though the first and highest goodness is absolutely simple, and the substances nearest to it approach it alike in goodness and in simplicity, still the lowest substances are found to be more simple than other substances higher than they are, as the elements are more simple than animals and men, because they cannot attain to the perfeftion of knowledge and under- standing to which animals and men attain. § It appears therefore from what # An angel may sin, and may be punished by stance' {corpus), but the potentiality underlying God: but apparently no physical mishap can befall that substance.
him in the way of accident or disease. May not how- X We are told elsewhere that in the highest ever the state of an angel in sin be described as a guilty being there is found the unity of differences, frenzy? S The greatest minds are simple, — and deep: t It must ever be borne in mind that * matter* little minds also may be simple, — and shallow. Well in this phraseology does not mean 'material sub- thought out, this remark of St Thomas will explain has been said that, though God has His goodness perfect and entire in the simplicity of His being, creatures nevertheless do not attain to the perfe&ion of their goodness by their mere being, but by many details of being. Hence, though every one of these creatures is good in so far as it has being, still it cannot absolutely be called good if it is destitute of other qualities requisite for its goodness; as a man devoid of virtues and subject to vices is good in a certain way, inasmuch as he is a being and inasmuch as he is a man, but on the whole he is not good, but rather evil. For no creature then is it the same thing to be and to be good> absolutely speaking, although every creature is good in so far as it has being: but for God it is quite the same thing to be and to be good, absolutely speaking. Now, as has been shown, everything tends finally to some likeness of the divine goodness; and a thing is likened to the divine goodness in respect of all the points which appertain to its own proper goodness; and the goodness of a thing consists not only in its being, but in all other qualities requisite for its perfection: from which considera- tions the consequence is clear, that a thing is finally ordained to God, not only in its substantial being, but likewise in those accidental qualities that appertain to its perfeftion, and also in respeft of its proper activity, which likewise belongs io the perfection of a thing.
CHAPTER XXI- That Things aim at Likeness to God in being Causes of other Things A THING must be first perfe6t in itself before it can cause another thing. The last perfection to supervene upon a thing is its becoming the cause of other things. While then a creature tends by many ways to the likeness of God, the last way left open to it is to seek the divine likeness by being the cause of other things, according to what the Apostle says, We are God's coadjutors, (i Cor. iii, 9).* CHAPTER XXIV— That all Things seekgood^ even Things devoid of (Consciousness AS the heavenly sphere is moved by a subsistent intelligence (Chap. XXIII), and the movement of the heavenly sphere is directed to generation in sublunary creatures, the generations and movements of these sublunary creatures must originate in the thought of that subsistent intelligence. Now the intention of the prime agent and of the instrument is bent upon the same end. The heavenly spheres then (coe/um) are the cause the riddle how it comes to pass that, while the bearing spheres being either all moved by X?od, or highest being is simple and one, nevertheless in bio- all by angels at His bidding, or all by the frimum logical and political science differentiation of organs mobile, the frimum mobile itself being either moved by marks the higher animal and the more highly de- God, or by an angel, or having a soul of its own, but veloped state. There is a poverty-stricken simplicity: in any case obeying God. "It nfakes no difference," there is a clumsy multiplicity, a sort of boorish says St Thomas, "to our present purpose, whether wealth: there is also an artistic multiplicity, where the heavenly sphere is moved by a subsistent intellievery detail is subordinate to one design. A cosmos is gence united with it as a soul, or by an intelligence a manner of unity: a chaos is * a manifold.' The subsisting apart; and whether each of the heavenly grandest and highest of beings is a formal unity, actu- spheres is moved by God, or whether none of them ally one, virtually many and all. is moved by Him immediately, but they are moved * In chapter XXII it is argued that the move- mediately through created spirits; or whether the ment of the heavenly spheres goes to engender things first alone is moved immediately by God, and the on earth (motio ipsius cceli ordinatur ad generationem). others through the medium of created spirits; pro- In chapter XXIII it is argued that the movements vided it be held that the movement of the heavens of the heavenly spheres are not done mechanically, but is the work of spirit." are set up and kept going by intelligence, the starof sublunary motions by virtue of their own motion, which is impressed upon them by a spirit. It follows that the heavenly spheres are the instrument of spirit. Spirit then is the prime agent, causing and intending the forms and motions of sublunary bodies; while the heavenly spheres are the instru- ments of the same. But the intellectual outlines of all that is caused and intended by an intelligent agent must pre-exist in his mind, as the forms of works of art pre-exist in the mind of the artificer, and from that mind (et ex eo) those forms must pass into the things made. All the forms then that are in sublunary creatures, and all their motions, are determined by the forms that are in the mind of some subsistent intelligence, or intelligences. Therefore Boethius says that the forms which are in matter have come from forms apart from matter. In this respeft the saying of Plato is verified, that forms existing apart are the originating principles of the forms that are in matter: only, Plato supposed these forms to subsist by themselves, and to be immediate causes of the forms of sensible things; we suppose them to exist in a mind, and to cause sublunary forms through the instrumentality of the motion of the heavenly spheres.
Thus it is not difficult to see how natural bodies, devoid of intelligence, move and aft for an end. For they tend to their end, being dire6ted thereto by a subsistent intelligence, in the way that an arrow tends to its end, directed by the archer: as the arrow from the impulse of the archer, so do natural bodies receive their inclination to their natural ends from natural moving causes, whence they derive their forms and virtues and motions. Hence it is plain that every work of nature is the work of a subsistent intelligence.* The credit of an effe6t rests by preference with the prime mover, who guides in- struments to their purpose, rather than with the instruments which he guides. Thus we find the operations of nature proceeding in due course and order to an end, like the operations of a wise man. It is evident therefore that even agents devoid of consciousness can work for an end, and strive after good with a natural appetite, and seek the divine likeness and their own perfection. It is further evident that, the more perfect the power and the more eminent the degree of goodness, the more general is the appetite for good, and the more • Incidentally and indirectly, Sir Isaac Newton original Latin of the Contra Gentiles, B. Ill, Chapp.
may be said to have done as much for theology and XXII, XXIII, LXXXII-LXXXVIII, CIV, CV. St psychology as he has done directly for astronomy. He Thomas speaks of the 'heavenly bodies' meaning has banished from the speculations of the psychologist thereby, not the stars, but the star-bearing crystal and the theologian all concern about the stars, all in- spheres. The corpus cceleste, 'the heavenly body' par terest in corpus catleste and primum mobile. He and his excellence with him, is the tenth and outermost cryssuccessors have wiped out for ever star-worship and talline sphere, which by its diurnal motion from east astrology; and astronomy thus remaining on their to west controls the motion of all inferior material hands, they have assorted it among the sciences to things, and is called the primum mobile. St Thomas which it is nearest akin, namely, dynamics and che- argues that this outermost sphere itself is moved by mistry, to trouble the metaphysician no more. — Of old, some intelligence, either by a soul animating it, or by men worshipped the stars, as the Hebrew prophets an angel, or immediately by God. Through this prireproached the people with adoring all the host of mum mobile, St Thomas thinks, God governs the mobeaven (4 Kings xxi, 3, 5: Ezech. viii, i6:Jer. xix, 13: tions and fixes the qualities of the whole material Amos v, 26: Acts vii, 42). When they had ceased to universe. So the St Thomas of the thirteenth century, worship, men still believed in the stars, and star- but so not Aquinas Moaemus. We must not build our carrying crystal spheres, affecting the origin and de- theology on a mistaken astronomy. On the whole we velopment of planets and animals on earth, and even may do well, following Newman's lead, to seek God human thoughts and elections. From these fancies certainly in the starry heavens, which are ever telling Plato is fairly free: he speaks with scant respect for his glory (Ps. xviii), but to seek Him still more in the the stars in Rep. vii, 529. Nor do they go for much hearts and consciences of men, in the realm of mind in the genuine writings of Aristotle. It was the Orien- rather than in the realm of matter. This, according to tal genius of the Neo-Platonists, and after them the St Thomas, is the mode of natural cognition by which Arabians, that brought in the heavenly bodies to the the angels know God, " through study of their own perturbation of mental philosophy. Albertus Magnus substances" (Chap. XLIX). And our soul is a spiriand St Thomas followed this lead. I may refer to the tual substance also.
distant from self are the objefts for which good is sought and unto which good is done. For imperfeft beings tend solely to the good of the individual; perfect beings to the good of the species; more perfect beings to the good of the genus; and God, who is the most perfeft in goodness, to the good of all being. Hence some say, not without reason, that goodness as such is diffusive of itself.
CHAPTER XXW-That the End of every Subsistent Intelligence is to understand God THE proper a6t of everything is its end, as being its second perfeftion:* hence what is well disposed to its own proper a6t is said to be vir- tuous and good. But to understand is the proper a6t of a subsistent intelligence: that then is its end. And the most perfect instance of this aft is its final end and perfection: this is particularly true of a6ts which are not directed to production, a<5ts such as understanding and feeling. But since such a£ts take their species from their obje6ts, and are known through their ob- jects, any given one of these a6ts will be the more perfeft, the more perfe6t its obje6t is. Consequently, to understand the most perfect intelligible object, which is God, will be the most perfect instance of the activity of understand- ing. To know God then by understanding is the final end of every subsistent intelligence.
But one may say: c It is true that the last end of a subsistent intelligence consists in understanding the best intelligible obje£t, still the best intelligible obje6t, absolutely speaking, is not the best objeft for this or that subsistent intelligence; but the higher any subsistent intelligence is, the higher is its best intelligible object; and therefore the highest subsistent intelligence created has for its best intelligible obje6t that which is best absolutely; hence its happi- ness will be in understanding God; but the happiness of a lower subsistent intelligence will be to understand some lower intelligible object, which is at the same time the highest of the obje6ts that can be understood by it. And particularly it seems to be the lot of the human understanding, on account of its weakness, not to understand the absolutely best intelligible object: for in respeft of the knowledge of that truth of which there is most to be known the human intellect is as the bat's eye to the sun.'
Nevertheless it may be manifestly shown that the end of every subsistent intelligence, even the lowest, is to understand God. For (a) the final end of all beings, to which they tend, is God (Chap. XVIII). But the human under- standing, however it be lowest in the order of subsistent intelligences, is nevertheless superior to all beings devoid of understanding. Since then the nobler substance has not the ignobler end, God Himself will be the end also of the human understanding. But every intelligent being gains its last end by understanding it. Therefore it is by understanding that the human intellect attains God as its end.
(c). Everything most of all desires its own last end. But the human mind is moved to more desire and love and delight over the knowledge of divine things, little as it can discern about them, than over the perfect knowledge that it has of the lowest things, f * To be able to act is the 'first perfection': actu- and normal animal of eacfc species. Moreover, relially to be in action is the 'second.' gious questions have been and are of predominant t St Thomas speaks of the good man, who is the interest to civilised mankind, normal man, as the zoologist describes the healthy GOD THE END OF CREATURES (e). All sciences and arts and practical faculties are attractive only for the sake of something else: for in them the end is not knowledge but production of a work. But speculative sciences are attractive for their own sake, for their end is sheer knowledge. Nor is there found any action in human life, with the exception of speculative study, which is not direfted to some other and further end. Even aftions done in sport, which seem to be done in view of no end, have a due end, which is refreshment of mind, to enable us thereby to return stronger to serious occupations: otherwise we should play always, if play was sought for its own sake, which would be unbefitting.* Therefore the pra6tical arts are ordained to the speculative, and all human a£tivity has intelle<5tual speculation for its end. In all due ordination of sciences and arts, the character of final end attaches to that science or art which issues precepts as master-builder to the rest: thus the art of navigation, to which belongs the management of a ship, lays down precepts for ship-building. In this relation Metaphysics (pbilosophia prima) stand to all speculative sciences. On meta- physics they all depend, and from that science they receive their principles and directions how to proceed against deniers of principles, f This first philo- sophy is wholly directed to the final end of the knowledge of God: hence it is called a divine science. The knowledge of God therefore is the final end of all human study and activity.
(/). In all series of agents and causes of change the end of the prime agent and mover must be the ultimate end of all, as the end of a general is the end of all the soldiers who serve under him. But among all the compo- nent parts of man we find the intellect to be the superior moving power: for the intellect moves the appetite, putting its object before it; and the intel- lectual appetite, or will, moves the sensible appetites, the irascible and con- cupiscible: hence we do not obey concupiscence except under the command of the will. J The sensitive appetite, crowned by the consent of the will, pro- ceeds to move the body. The end therefore of the intellect is the end of all human aCtions. But the end and good of the intellect is truth; and conse- quently its last end is the first truth. The last end then of the whole man and of all his activities and desires is to know the first truth, which is God.
(g). There is a natural desire in all men of knowing the causes of the things that they see. It was through wonder at seeing things, the causes ot which were unseen, that men first began to philosophise. Nor does enquiry cease until we arrive at the first cause: then we consider our knowledge per- fect, when we know the first cause. Man then naturally desires so to know the first cause as his last end. § But the first cause is God; and the last end • Why 'play always' rather than study always? scarcely have been the 'direction* which St Thomas Our bodily constitution unfits us to do either one or had in mind. Thilosophia prima here means metathe other. But what St Thomas means is that, if physics and psychology, culminating in natural theoplay were an end in itself, we should play all we can, logy. There is no better specimen of it than these which sundry men do, — and boys, if you let them. The first three books Contra Gentiles. Accordingly it is passage is suggested by Aristotle, Etk. Nie. X, vi, 6. defined in book I, chap. I, as wisdom.
St Thomas does not observe the delight of the t Cf. Romans VI, 12. We do not obey to the artist in the work of his hands, nor consider how doing of a 'human act,' an act, that is, of which few scholars study for study's sake, nor generally we are masters and for which we are responsible: it how much of pure speculative interest is blended is of * human acts ' alone that St Thomas speaks here, with practice, and how much thinking is done for § But how if the first cause be unknowable? Says material gains. As Aristotle might have said, to 3c Aristotle, Eth. Nic. III. iv, 7: "Wish extends to imkoX dtvpovvrts $TifH0vpyovfiev Kai xpos Xfififtara possibilities, such as immortality." St Thomas would d€k>povptv. reply that nature never fixes desire on an object that t There is a Scholastic maxim, contra negantem is absolutely and under every respect unattainable. principia Justibus est argumentandum; but that can of man, and of every subsistent intelligence, is called blessedness or happiness. To know God then is the blessedness and happiness of every subsistent intelligence.* Hence it is said: This is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God (John xvii, 3).
CHAPTER XXVI- That Happiness does not consist in any Act oftheWiltf SINCE a subsistent intelligence in its a6tivity arrives at God, not by understanding alone, but also by an aft of the will desiring and loving Him and taking delight in Him, some one may think that the last end and final felicity of man is not in knowing God, but rather in loving Him, or exercising some other aft of the will upon Him; especially seeing that the objeft of the will is good, which bears the charafter of an end, whereas truth, which is the objedt of the intellect, does not bear the character of an end except in so far as it {ipsum) too is good. Hence it seems that man does not attain his last end by an aft of intelleft, but rather by an aft of will. But this position is manifestly proved to be untenable.
1. Happiness, being the peculiar good of an intelligent nature, must attach to the intelligent nature on the side of something that is peculiar to it. But appetite is not peculiar to intelligent nature, but is found in all things, though diversely in diverse beings: which diversity however arises from the different ways in which they stand to consciousness. Things wholly devoid of con- sciousness have only natural appetite, or physical tendency. Things that have sensitive consciousness have sensible appetite, under which the irascible and concupiscible are included. Things that have intelleftual consciousness have an appetite proportionate to that consciousness, namely, the will. The will therefore, as being an appetite, is not a peculiar appurtenance of an intelligent nature, except so far as it is dependent on the intelligence: but intelligence in itself is peculiar to an intelligent nature. Happiness therefore consists in an aft of the intelleft substantially and principally rather than in an aft of the will.
2. In all powers that are moved by their objefts the objefts are naturally prior to the afts of those powers. But such a power is the will, for the desi- rable objeft moves desire. The objeft therefore of the will is naturally prior to the aft. The prime objeft of will then precedes every aft of will. No aft of will therefore can be the prime objeft of volition. But the prime objeft of will is the last end, which is happiness. Happiness therefore cannot pos- sibly be itself an aft of will.
3. In all powers that can refleft on their own afts, the aft of that power must first fix on some objeft, and then fix on its own aft. For if the intelleft understands that it understands, we must suppose that it first understands some thing, and afterwards understands its own understanding of that thing: for the aft of understanding, which the intelleft understands, means the understanding of some objeft. Hence we must either proceed to infinity; or, coming to some first objeft of understanding, this objeft, we must say, will not be a sheer aft of understanding, but some intelligible thing. Similarly * God is the objeBive last end finis qui); and hap- St Thomas and Aristotle are right, and the Scotists