ART. I. -- THE FIRST OPERATION OF THE INTELLECT AND THE PERCEPTION OF ESSENCES.
40. In the first development of knowledge analysis precedes synthesis, that is, the first operation of the intellect is not judgment, but simple apprehension of essence. -- Some philosophers, as Reid, Kant, and Cousin, teach that the intellect first pronounces instinctive judgments, and afterwards arrives at ideas, by abstracting the elements contained in these judgments. But this is an error. For (1) any power which, by its nature, is only gradually developed, does not acquire its full perfection in its first act; but judgment is an act of perfect knowledge, whereas simple apprehension is merely an act of initial knowledge; therefore, simple apprehension precedes judgment. Moreover, (2) a judgment presupposes a knowledge of the agreement or disagreement of two terms; but, in order to perceive this relation, evidently we must first know the two terms. It is (3) also a mistake to assert that, the intellect by one and the same act perceives the two terms and their agreement or disagreement; for, in order to perceive the agreement or disagreement of two things we must first have ideas of them, and then compare these ideas by a reflex act. Hence one and the same act would be both direct and reflex, which is contradictory. We must, therefore, conclude that the mind begins by analysis, and that it first apprehends the essence, separating it by abstraction from the conditions by which it is affected in nature; then follows synthesis, which it effects by judgment, when it establishes a union between the terms perceived.
41. The proper object of the intellect in our present life is the essence of material things. -- As the intellect, in our present life, can form an idea only when the imagination has presented to it a sensible image, and as this image must have for its object something material, the proper object of the intellect, in our mortal life, must be the essence of material things.
42. Among the essences of material things, some are immediately known, while others are known mediately, or by means of deduction. -- Certain essences, as those of "rest, motion," etc., are self-evident; this must be the case, since otherwise human knowledge would be impossible. But, on the other hand, many essences, even of sensible things, are known to us only by means of reasoning; for example, the essence of "life."
43. In the cognition of material objects there are three degrees of abstraction employed by the human intellect; in the first degree, it abstracts from the individuality of the objects and considers them only as sensible; in the second, it abstracts also from their sensible and mutable qualities to regard only their quantity; in the third, it abstracts from matter altogether to contemplate the immaterial. -- The first objects of cognition in this life are individual, sensible, material things. The intellect abstracting from the individuality or thisness of the objects about us in the visible world, such as "stones, plants, and animals," contemplates them merely as sensible.
It may further abstract from all the modifications that qualify sensible objects, to regard their quantity, and then it considers continuous quantity, as "lines, surfaces, solids," and discrete quantity, as "number."
Lastly, it may abstract altogether from matter, and regard only the immaterial. What is immaterial may be negatively so, as the nature of "being, substance, accident," etc., which though realized in sensible objects, may be abstracted from them; or it may be positively immaterial and exclude all matter from its nature, as the "human soul" and "God." Of these three degrees of abstraction, the first is the limit of the physical sciences, the second of mathematics, the third of metaphysics.
44. In the immediate perception of essences, the intellect begins with the most universal concepts. -- Although adapted by nature to acquire knowledge, the intellect at first knows nothing. It proceeds gradually in the act of cognition, and does not, by its first effort, attain to perfect knowledge. Thus, before possessing a determinate and distinct cognition, it begins with a very universal notion. It is the same with the intellect as with the senses, which, in perceiving an animal, for example, first perceive it as a body, then as an animal, and afterwards as this or that animal. Experience also confirms this truth for the less perfect the language of a people, the more is it wanting in precise and definite terms; the more perfect the language and the more civilized the people who speak it, the richer is it in enact and well-defined expressions.
45. The first idea formed by the intellect is that of being. -- The intellect first perceives that which is most universal; but since the most universal idea is that of being, the first thing perceived by the intellect is the essence of being; other things are known only as some determination of being. It must not, however, be supposed that, when the intellect is once developed, it must begin by perceiving the idea of being before any other essence whatever, for this occurs only in the first development of intellect; eventually, it first perceives some determinate essence, and afterwards attains to more universal ideas by an analysis of its reflections.
ART. II. -- HOW THE INTELLECT KNOWS INDIVIDUAL BODIES.
46. The intellect perceives particular bodies by perceiving its own act of abstraction of the intelligible object from the phantasm, which is always representative of an individual material entity. -- The intellect judges and reasons about particular bodies; it must, therefore, know them. But, as the universal alone can be the proper object of the intellect, the knowledge which it has of the individual is not direct, but indirect (per accidens); that is, it does not know the individual as its proper object, but it knows it only through the act of a faculty which has the individual for its proper object. The intellect thus apprehends the act of an inferior power or faculty on account of the unity of the soul, in virtue of which one faculty cannot act without the next higher being apprised of its action. Hence particular bodies are known by the soul in two ways: directly, through the senses and the imagination; indirectly, by the intellect, which perceives its own act of abstracting the intelligible species from the phantasms of the imagination. This manner of knowing is called per accidens by the Schoolmen, which they compare to that of knowing substance by sense. The eye sees color per se, the colored object per accidens. The intellect knows the universal directly (per se) the individual indirectly (per accidens).
47. The reflection of the intellect upon its act of simple apprehension is both consciousness of that act and the perception of the essence apprehended by the act. -- The intellect in reflecting on the act by which it has perceived the essence of a sensible object must know both the act and the object perceived by the act. Thus, when it has the idea of a "flower," it may turn to this idea, and then know both that it has this idea and that the object from which it has abstracted the essence is a flower. This reflex act of the intellect receives the name of psychological consciousness when it is viewed as a modification of the intellect, but when it is considered as an expression of the object known, it is called ontological consciousness, or the intellective perception of the material and individual.
48. Man knows the material and individual through the senses; but intellect adds something to the sensitive cognition, since it regards the individual not merely as a fact, but as the concrete realization of the essence which it has abstracted from the individual. -- When the intellect is directed to the consideration of the individual, it is already in possession of the idea which it has abstracted from it; hence it cannot prevent the light of this idea from being reflected upon the individual object, nor the individual from being presented to the intellect as the concrete realization of the essence perceived through the idea.
The reason of this fact is not only subjective, inasmuch as the senses and imagination have their seat in the same soul as the intellect; but also objective, since the individual perceived by the senses is truly the same as that from which the intellect has abstracted the universal.
ART. III. -- THE SOUL'S KNOWLEDGE OF ITSELF.
49. The soul does not know itself immediately by its essence, but only by its operations. -- The soul has no innate idea; it does not, therefore, know itself from its very origin, through its essence. But since its essence is present to it, the soul is capable of perceiving its own existence easily without reasoning. And it attains to this perception as soon as it becomes conscious of any one of its operations.
50. The soul does not know the nature of its essence immediately, but by reasoning. -- In order that the soul may perceive its own existence, it suffices that it be present to itself and perceive an act of which it is the principle. This is not the case with the knowledge which the soul acquires of its essence, for it attains this by means of deduction. For in perceiving another being, the soul perceives that the idea by which it apprehends the being is immaterial; thence it concludes that the principle whence the idea proceeds is also immaterial. From this property of immateriality the soul afterwards deduces the other properties which it possesses.
ART. IV. -- HOW THE HUMAN SOUL KNOWS GOD.
51. The soul does not know God immediately, but it rises from created things to a knowledge of His existence. -- The intellect perceives directly the essences abstracted from sensible things. From the perception of these essences follows immediately a cognition of the first principles of reason. By reflection on these acts of the intellect, we at once perceive our own existence and by our senses that of corporeal individuals distinct from us. In this all other knowledge, including that of God, has its source, and is, consequently, only mediate knowledge.
52. The first notion which we acquire of God is that of His existence, under the relation of first cause. -- Creatures present themselves to us as contingent beings, which, consequently, must have a cause; thus, by the principle of causality we are led to assign them a first uncreated cause.
53. The knowledge of God as first cause of all created beings contains in germ all the other notions which we can acquire of Him. -- A cause must contain all the perfections which it produces in the effect and it must exclude those imperfections of the effect which are not due to its causality. But the First Cause, being independent and therefore infinite, extends His power to all possible beings, and immeasurably surpasses all the perfections of creatures. Now, there are three ways by which we may know the divine attributes: (1) by the relation of cause to effect, (2) by the exclusion of the imperfections of creatures, (3) by pre-eminent possession of every perfection. By the first, that of causality, we know that God is the efficient, final, and exemplar cause of all things, that He is their preserver and ordainer; by the second, that of exclusion, we deny of God whatever in creatures implies some defect, as "limitation, dependence, mutability;" by the third, that of pre-eminence, we attribute to God in an infinite degree all perfections, such as "goodness, wisdom, beauty." The union of these two ways of preeminence and exclusion enables us to form the most exalted idea that we can have of God, by conceiving Him as absolutely pure Being, that is, as the Being that simply is, without any augmentation or super-added determination to the simple and pure nature of being.
54. The idea of the finite is farmed by the union of the idea of being with that of privation. -- The finite is that which exists, but with limits, that is, it is affected by a privation of being. When the intellect "looks out upon an object external to itself," it forms the idea of being. On instituting a comparison between this object and objects which it knows already, it observes what is wanting in each, and thus conceives the idea of privation. The union of these two ideas gives the concept of the finite. From this explananation we see the error of Descartes and Malebranche, who assert that the idea of the finite is deduced from that of the infinite.
55. The idea of the infinite follows as a consequence from the idea of first cause. -- The intellect, having already the idea of the finite and the idea of God as first cause, easily perceives that the First Cause cannot be limited by itself or by any other cause, and thus conceives it without limits, that is, as infinite. Locke and Condillac, confounding the idea of the infinite with that of the indefinite, assert that the idea of the infinite is obtained by constantly adding to a given finite perfection yet another finite perfection. But this hypothesis is absurd; for the infinite, being essentially without limits, is not susceptible of increase or diminution; the finite, on the contrary, is essentially limited, and however much it may be increased ever remains limited and, therefore, finite, since its increment is, according to Locke, always finite.
56. From the idea of the finite is derived that of the conditional or contingent, that is, of being which does not contain in itself the reason of its existence. -- By the finite is meant limited being; but that which is ever tending to being and not to the absence of being cannot limit itself; it must, therefore, be limited by an external agent. But the external agent which gives it limits must also give it its existence, in which those limits are found. In other words, the being is contingent, since the contingency of a being consists precisely in this, that it receives existence from another, as from its cause. As the opposite of the finite is the infinite, so the opposite of the contingent is the necessary and absolute, or that which exists in virtue of its own essence, and in which all is pure act.
ART. V. -- NECESSITY OF SENSIBLE IMAGES FOR INTELLECTION IN OUR PRESENT LIFE.
57. The human intellect in its present state of union with the body, can apprehend no object without the aid of a sensible representation in the imagination. -- Experience teaches us that when the imagination is disturbed or incapable of acting, as in sickness or lethargy, the intellect is likewise disturbed or powerless to produce any idea. It further shows that when we wish to think of anything, even if it be spiritual, we always form a sensible representation; and likewise, when we communicate our ideas to another, we make use of figures and sensible images. Besides this proof from cxperience, reason demonstrates a priori that, in our present life, we cannot, without the concurrence of sensible images, either form ideas or even make use of the ideas which we already possess. For action follows being, that is, the action is always conformed to the essence and mode of existence of the being that acts. But the essence of man is a soul substantially united to a body and the intellect's present mode of existence is in union with the sensitive faculties. In order, then, that man may act as man, he must do so with the concurrence of the two elements of which he is composed; and the action of intellect naturally requires the co-operation of the senses. We thus see the admirable harmony existing between the subject that operates, the faculty by which he operates, and the object of the operation. The subject is a composite of soul and body; the faculty is the intellect united to sensitive faculties; the object is an essence realized in an individual and sensible body.