PROPOSITION LXXXIII.

Every Being, as such, is true.

The following is the proof. Every Being is actually conformed to the Divine Intellect, and is of itself conformable to the finite intellect. But in this conformity Ontological Truth consists. Consequently, every Being, as such, is true. The Minor is thus declared. Being is either Infinite or finite. Both are actually conformed to the Divine Intelligence; -- Infinite Being, because of its real identity with that Intelligence; finite Being, because the knowledge of God, considered as speculative, is infinite and infinitely perfect; considered as practical, is the Cause of the existence, and the Measure of the Truth, of finite Being. Both, again, are conformable to the finite intellect; because, in that they are one, they are intelligible. It is added in the Enunciation of the Thesis, Being, as such, i.e. Being as Being; because defect of Being is not true, for the simple reason that it is nothing, and, therefore, can have no attribute, Transcendental or other. This will be explained more clearly and fully in the solution of the difficulties.

DIFFICULTIES.

I. Can a lie be true? Yet, it is evidently not mere nothingness. Therefore, it is something real. Consequently, not all Being is true.

ANSWER. This, when examined, is no great difficulty. For a word may be considered entitatively, as a certain emission of articulate sound; or it may be considered as a mere symbol of thought; or it may, lastly, be considered as the intentional symbol of Being. As an emission of articulate sound, (which is its entity), it is true. Regarded as a mere conventional symbol of thought, it is symbolically true; for the thought conveyed by it is the one intended to be conveyed by the speaker, and is accepted as such by the hearer. So far, the lie is symbolically true; true, therefore, in its conventional nature. But, if it is taken for the symbol of the entity concerning which the speaker intends to convey a difform Judgment -- difform in his own consciousness; then it is false. But this is moral, not ontological, or even conceptual, falsity.

II. The second objection is a much more serious one; and it is this. It seems impossible to deny, that certain entities are difform from the human practical intellect. This assertion will be best explained by an example. An artist is engaged to paint the portrait of a man. He forms his conception of the sitter; and proceeds with his work. The picture is no likeness; and is even a deformed representation of the human face. Add another example, to make the illustration complete. Let it be supposed that a painter has formed in his mind or imagination the conception of a beautiful, and (if the term be lawful in such connection) original, landscape. He sets about realizing it on canvas; and in the end his trees are no trees, his river is lead, and his mountains, in the back-ground, as if they had been cut out of tin. Surely, in these and similar instances, the picture is difform from the conception in the mind, i.e. from the practical intellect and, therefore, false. Accordingly, St. Thomas says, 'the productions of art, then, are denominated false, simply, and absolutely, in so far as they fall off from the form of art. Hence, an artist is said to produce a false work, when he is deficient in the practice of art.'^{1} So again, Wherefore, the work of an artist is said to be true, in so far as it reaches the idea of art; and false, when it is deficient in the idea of art.'^{2} We have, then, the authority of St. Thomas for saying that artificial entities may be 'simply and absolutely false.'

ANSWER. It cannot be denied that there is often a marked discrepancy between a work of art, and the ideal; and this discrepancy is of a different kind in different cases. For the ideal may mean the conception of the artist, or it may denote tbe admitted principles of art; and the discrepancy, therefore, may apply to the one or the other. If it is between the particular production and the principles of art that the discrepancy is found; here, at all events, there can be no ontological falsity, properly so called. For the principles of art are not the measure of the work; but rather the conception in the mind of the individual artist, which was its exemplar cause, and from which it proceeded. Yet, it may be observed, in passing, such is precisely the discrepancy of which St. Thomas speaks, in the two passages which have been quoted in support of the objection. But the objicient may still press his difficulty. According to the above hypothesis, the artist actually works on an imperfect idea; but intends to work on a really and perfectly artistic ideal, and thinks he is doing so. True, but irrelevant. The production de facto proceeds from the imperfect idea, and is conformable to it. His intention has nothing to do with the matter. This may be confirmed by an illustration. Suppose that an artist has in his mind habitually a perfect ideal of the human form, yet on a special occasion conceives, and executes, a gross caricature; the production could not in such case be called false. On the contrary, in the instance supposed, the truth of the representation would be found in its very grotesqueness. Why? Because the pattern idea was grotesque. Exclude now the perfect ideal from the caricaturist's mind; what difference would it make to the truth of the caricature? So, then, an artist may unintentionally work on an imperfect conception, deeming it perfect; yet the production will be ontologically true, because it is conformable to the practical intellect which is its cause. That the artist has mistaken an imperfect for a perfect ideal, is a speculative error; antecedent to the conception on which he works.

In the foregoing cases, the production of art is supposed to be in conformity with the ideal of the artist who executes it. But what if it is not; as in the examples which the objicient has brought forward? Here lies the main difficulty. In such cases, one thing is plain. The defect is not in the conception, but in the execution. Hence the cause of the defect is not the ideal of the artist, but something else. But what of that? As a fact, the production is compared with the conception; and is found to be difform or discrepant. Therefore, it is false in relation to the practical intellect from which it proceeded. True, but the comparison is unjust; and there is really no falsity in relation to the practical intellect. Why so? Because the deficiency of the work did not proceed from the practical intellect, but from defective execution, or some accident. And we have a sign of this in the fact, that the practical intellect of the artist is the first to discover the defect. To make this reply more clear, suppose a not impossible case. An artist of high celebrity is finishing a picture of the best promise; when he chances to upset a bottle of ink over it, and it is ruined. Would any one dream of saying that the picture was false? Well then, suppose now that, from an ignorance of the proper mixture of colours, the trees and verdure of his early spring appear in the brown tints of autumn, to his utter dismay; would it not be equally unjust to lay the fault at the door of the conception, and to say that the effect is not conformable with its exemplar cause? As a fact, the ideal of the artist is not difform from such production, for it never really had that production for its object; and, therefore, the production cannot be called false in relation to that ideal conception, since it is not the effect of such idea, so far as its imperfection is concerned. Wherefore, it may be called incongruous; but not, properly speaking, false. If it should be further asked: According to what model, then, is it to be judged? it will suffice to say that, in so far as it proceeds from, and corresponds with, the conception of the artist, it is comparable with this latter. Its deficiency, formally considered, needs no further exemplar or other cause, because it is a simple privation; materially considered, it is due either to accident or to want of practical skill. For this reason, the Greek Philosopher deemed this practical skill (empeiria) to be totally distinct from aesthetical cognition (gnôsis poiêtikê). As to the passages cited from St. Thomas in support of the objection; besides the animadversion already made in the solution of the difficulty, thus much has to be said. In both places, the observations are, as it were, parenthetical, and illustrative; for the discussion does not turn on the productions of art, but on the Ontological Truth of created Being. On this subject the Angelic Doctor remarks, that the Truth of finite Being is not measured by comparison with the speculative intellect which is accidental to it; but by simple and absolute comparison with the Divine practical Intellect, on which such Being depends, as an effect on its Cause. Then he proceeds to say, that created things depend on the Divine Intellect, in somewhat the same way as productions of art depend on the human intellect. But productions of art are called, (dicuntur, -- used carefully in both passages, as though to mark the analogical and improper use of the words), true or false, not in comparison with the intellect of the chance spectator, but with the ideal, or with the practical intellect of the artist who has produced them. So, in like manner, it is with the things of nature. This paraphrase will enable the reader to see, that St. Thomas does not attribute real falsity to a work of art; but uses the words in a transferred and analogical sense. And this is in accordance with his general teaching again and again repeated, that there can be in Being no such thing as falsity, properly so called; because every Being is true. If, then, those productions of art, which have formed the subject of discussion, are only called false in this secondary sense, as implying their discordance with the ideal; the difficulty has vanished.

III. The third objection is intimately connected with the preceding; but presents far less difficulty. It is based on the known existence of natural monsters, such as, for instance, the Siamese twins; or the woman born with a pig's head; or a lamb born with six legs; and many other such malformations recorded in books of Physiology. The argument is as follows. It cannot be imagined, that the Divine Prototypal Idea of such creatures included these monstrosities. Consequently, such Beings would be discrepant from their Exemplar in the Divine Intellect; therefore, ontologically false.

ANSWER. There can be no difficulty here; because it is of all things most certain, that there is nothing either immediately created, or brought into existence with the co-operation of secondary causes, which has not its corresponding Idea in the Divine Intelligence. Yet, as the subject is one that might cause perplexity in the minds of some, it will not be inopportune to consider it more nearly. The Angelic Doctor has stated, in a passage already quoted in the earlier pages of this work, that the Prototypal Ideas in God principally represent the essential nature of each finite Being, but do not stop there; for they also perfectly represent the individual determinations of each creature in the minutest particulars. 'Following this division, it is first of all plain, that the creature in essential nature is conformable to the Divine Idea. It is not here, that any monstrosity or malformation can be found; but only in the individual modifications. These, however, are accidental to the nature of Essence. Now, these accidental monstrosities or malformations may be regarded in two ways; either as simply Being, or as aberrations from order and proportion, and therefore privations. Thus, the pig's head on the porcine woman may be considered as a real entity simply and absolutely, or as something that offends against order and proportion. The former is evidently represented directly in the Divine Idea, the latter indirectly and implicitly; for there is no direct and explicit representation of a privation. But, it may be said, the implicit and indirect Pattern of a monstrosity is a derogation from the Divine Wisdom and Perfection. By way of answer we may first of all inquire, how far is this criticism to go? Few would perhaps be inclined to deny that a pug nose, or juvenile obesity, involves a certain aberration from the order of proportion; yet, would any one venture to maintain, that to suppose, in the Divine Wisdom, exemplar Ideas of individuals so constituted, would be a derogation from the Divine Perfection. But, it may be further urged, that the last-named peculiarities are not, after all, what we usually call monstrosities. Cannot, however, such difference be traced, in not a few instances, to the rareness and unexpectedness of the one, and the frequent recurrence of the other? Still it must he owned that, in certain cases, such as that of the porcine woman, there is a manifest and repulsive confusion of the established order. Besides, these abortions are produced through the intervention of secondary causes; and, therefore, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose, that the operation of these causes may produce in the creature a difformity from the Divine Idea. Nevertheless, such a hypothesis is impossible. For secondary causes cannot act without the Divine Concurrence; which necessarily presupposes the Divine Idea of the creature that is yet to be, and the Divine Will concurring with the secondary causes in its production. As, therefore, if an artist chooses of his own free will to design a caricature, the resulting sketch cannot be justly denominated false in relation to his conception; so, in a somewhat similar manner, if God knowingly and willingly concurs in the production of monsters, these creatures cannot be justly called false in relation to the Divine Intellect from which ultimately they proceed. How this can be consistent with the Goodness of God, is another matter beside the present question. There may be reasons for it knowable by man, such as punishment of sin; and there may be reasons that man cannot at present fathom. Nor is it our business. It suffices that such beings cannot exist, save in conformity with a pre-existing Type in the Divine Intelligence. But can they be false relatively to their second causes? Impossible; for falsity supposes intellect, as its connoted term; and natural entities are in no wise produced by finite intellect, but by corporal activities. But, at least, do they not exhibit a discrepancy from the perfect Ideal of that nature in the creative Intellect of the Uncreated, so that they may be said to be reductively false in relation to the second cause, inasmuch as this latter is directed, by that Ideal, to the production of a perfect effect? To a certain extent this may he admitted. But such deviation is not a discrepancy from the Exemplar Idea of the particular creature; and, therefore, does not make the creature false in relation to the intellect of the second cause, as proximately directed by the Divine Exemplar Idea. Moreover, such discrepancy does not arise from any defect of the intellect of the second cause; which is excluded, as has been shown. Wherefore, these abortions could not be called false, properly speaking; but rather, in accordance with the ordinary way of speaking about such things, monsters or faults of nature, (peccata naturae), -- expressions which denote a dissonance from goodness or perfection, not from Truth.

It now only remains, before concluding this Article, to consider certain questions which arise out of a comparison between Conceptual and Ontological Truth. For it is a natural subject of inquiry, whether Truth is predicated univocally of the Intellect and of Being; whether these two kinds of truth ever meet in the same subject; and whether Conceptual, is a mere determination of Transcendental, Truth, or distinct from it. The three following Propositions will resolve these points, in the order in which they stand.

{1} 'Dicuntur igitur res artificiales falsae simpliciter et secundum se in quantum deficiunt a forma artis; unde dicitur aliquis artifex opus falsum facere, quando deficit ab operatione artis.' 1ae xvii, 1, c.

{2} 'Unde opus artificis dicitur esse verum, in quantum attingit ad rationem artis; falsum vero, in quantum deficit a ratione artis.' Periher. L. s, Lect. iii, v. m.