Book 1 - The Human Being
22. The first definition: the human being is an intellective and volitive animal subject.
23. The second definition: the human being is an animal subject endowed with the intuition of indeterminate-ideal being and with the perception of its own corporeal fundamental feeling, and operating in accordance with animality and intelligence.
Chapter 1
Comments On The Most Celebrated Definitions
Of Human Being
24. Two of the best known definitions of human being have come down to us from antiquity. One, attributed to Plato and recently sustained by de Bonald, says: `The human being is an intelligence aided by organs.'
25. The other definition is found in Aristotle and amongst the Scholastics: `The human being is a rational animal.'
26. Bonald's comments in favour of the first definition are more than sufficient to eliminate the strange definitions of human being proposed by our modern materialists, but they do nothing to free his own definition from the defect already pointed out by Plato's most famous pupil. That is, if we say that `the human being is an intelligence aided by organs', we leave undetermined the connection between organs and intelligence. But without this connection, there would be no human being. An angel, for example, furnished with a body which served him as a kind of instrument without his informing it, would not be a human being, although the definition in question would apply very well to such an angel.(12)
27. The aristotelian definition, accepted by the Scholastics in general, certainly has its advantages but, it seems, can scarcely be freed from the following defects. 1. The simple words `rational animal' express the intelligent but not the volitive part of this animal, although both parts are elements in the essence of human being and differ greatly from each other. The intellective part entails a kind of receptivity, the volitive part a kind of activity. The human being is not only something inert and receptive; his very nature is founded principally in his own activity.
28. It is true that the volitive part of the human being actually
originates as a consequence of his intellective element, but there is no
proof that this happens necessarily and that the opposite involves absurdity.
If there is such a proof it could be defended only with great difficulty, as
far as I can see, on the ground that the concept of will is included in that of
intellect, and vice-versa, so that the two elements functioned as terms of a
relationship. In this case it would be logically repugnant to think of a being
that simply received light without its being moved to act in accordance with
that light. But as far as I can see such logical repugnance cannot be
demonstrated.
The will, therefore, which is the active part of the human being must be noted
and expressed in the definition. Later we shall see that this active part of
the human being is properly speaking the seat of human personality (cf.
832-837).
29. 2. Again, it seems more appropriate to call the human being an
intellective rather than a rational animal because the
intellect precedes reason and provides the principle of human
reasoning. The proper act of reason is to pass mentally from one thing to
another, an impossible transition for reason unless it first receives
something. As St. Thomas says, it is our intellect that first intuits what is
given to us: `Every rational, discursive act depends upon the intuition of
principles. This intuition pertains to the intellect.'(13)
Reason, therefore, is not properly speaking the first human power, but
originates from the intellect, as a brook from a spring, when the intellect
associates itself with the animality that furnishes the matter of knowledge.
After asserting that the human being is an animal, it would be better therefore
to place intellect rather than reason in the definition.
30. Others, however, have made a much more serious mistake by extending the definition of human being to matters beyond the basic, inborn elements of human nature, to effects and derivations of what is inborn. Sociability provides us with one example of this. Romagnosi, who saw that human beings differ from brutes by reason of sociability, erred in thinking that sociability must, therefore, be inserted into the definition of human being. Sociability as a difference dividing humans from animals is not entitled to a place in the definition of human being because only basic differences arising from basic elements, not secondary differences, are to be found in such a definition. And it is clear that sociability originates in human beings as a necessary effect of their possession of intellect, reason and will. It does not form anything of itself, as though it were not already seminally present in the intellective and volitive faculties that must without doubt be expressed in the definition. Otherwise, there would be no end to what might be included in the definition of human being. Every degree of human development would have to be expressed in it because each differentiates humans from brute animals. Even the famous definition, attributed to Plato, that the human being is a `laughing animal', would not be out of place because laughter is indeed a specific human difference. Nevertheless, laughter depends upon the intelligence and affective power with which we apprehend mentally the unexpected quirk which produces a feeling expressed in laughter.
31. 3. A third defect in the aristotelian definition is no less serious.(14) Stating simply `the human being is a rational animal' could give the impression that the subject were an animal and nothing more, and that rationality were simply a property, faculty or attribute of this animal. In this case, reason would form part of the human subject only in the same way as the faculties or qualities which are not the subject, but spring forth as the subject's first acts. The subject must in fact be conceivable as distinct from its faculties or qualities in such a way that it remains after the latter have been mentally abstracted from it. But this needs clarifying.
32. There are two orders: the order of things and the order of ideas. In the order of things some are so connected with others that they cannot subsist without them. In the order of ideas also, there are connections and dependencies between ideal things in such a way that one cannot be conceived without another. But the connections and dependencies between things are not the same in both the order of things and the order of ideas. Consequently, certain things cannot subsist without others although the mind can conceive these things separately. Let us apply this to our argument.
A given subject cannot subsist without its faculties and particular powers. This is valid in the order of things. But in the order of ideas, the same thing can be conceived as subsistent, that is, can be thought of as a being, without its having to be thought with its faculties and particular powers. This mental function is what we call abstraction. On the other hand, it is impossible, even through abstraction, to think the subject while abstracting from an element that forms and constitutes the subject itself. If I omit what is essential to the subject, I lose the idea of the subject entirely. In other words, it becomes something else in my mind.
33. We affirm, therefore, that the intellective element has to form
part of the human subject in such a way that without this part I can no
longer think the human being, even through abstraction. Without the intellect,
the subject of human understanding no longer remains.
Considering the form of the definition, `a rational animal', in this light, we
see that the word `animal' expresses all that pertains to the subject.
The animal is the subject that reasons, while rationality becomes an operation
and faculty (although essential) of the animal (subject). No reasoning
principle is present in the human being; it is the animal principle
that reasons. It would seem therefore that this definition does not faithfully
express the nature of humanity because it does not show the true connection
between animality and intelligence, that is, between the feeling
principle and the reasoning principle.(15)
Notes
(12) Fr. Gioachino Ventura clearly shows the limitation of this definition in his De Methodo Philosophandi.
(13) S.T., I, q. 79.
(14) The Scholastics defined the human being as a rational rather than an intellective animal because they saw that the quality rational distinguished the human being from angelic intelligences as well as from brute beasts. Angels understand, but they do not reason. Despite my preference, therefore, for intellective rather than rational in the definition of human being given above, rational has its merits, and we shall make good use of it elsewhere.
(15) The Scholastics' acceptance of this aristotelian definition of human being caused great trouble when they tried to prove that the intellective soul must be the form of human nature. If the subject, human being, was animal and nothing more, it became necessary to prove that the intellective soul was the form of the body. This difficulty is apparent in the extremely subtle arguments of St. Thomas in S.T., I, q. 76, art. 1, where he endeavours to show how the soul can be the form of the human being (and we may note that form of the body and form of the human being are phrases used promiscuously in this article). In the end, after a great number of subtle distinctions, St. Thomas himself concludes: `The intellective soul is indeed the form of the body according to its essence, but not according to its act of understanding; understanding is the kind of act which is done entirely without the instrumentality of a bodily organ' (ibid.).