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Chapter 4

The Two Series Of Powers,
Objective And Subjective,
That Originate From The Intellect

521. We now have to take into account the more particular powers in order to see how they are attached to the intellect and how they originate from it in due order. We shall examine the nature of the intellect, therefore, to discover how all other intellective faculties are conceived within it. Such an examination shows that these faculties can be divided into two groups: objective and subjective faculties. In order to complete the listing of these faculties, we shall consider the passive faculties, as the title of this section requires, and the active faculties as occasion demands. In the following section, we shall examine further the active faculties.

522. The intellect results from the union of two terms, the intellective principle, the subject, and being as understood, the object.
Being manifests itself to the subject; its own proper activity consists in this manifestation. It does not act, however, as real substances do, but simply manifests itself without undergoing any alteration or change whatsoever. We call such a way of acting, which has nothing in common with the action of real substances, the intelligibility of being.

The intelligent principle cannot withdraw itself from the presence of this self-manifesting being. Being shines in the subject which cannot raise any opposition to what it sees. But the subject is not merely passive in its union with being. It is in fact intensely active in this first act, its very act of existence.

523. On these two united elements, that is, on the two activities of subject and object, two series of powers depend. It is, of course, true that in the rational or moral order no power is posited without requiring for its production harmony and concurrence between the two activities. Nevertheless, two series of powers can be distinguished, each of which has one of the two elements as its principal or dominant agent. The first series of powers (objective powers) comes into play if the manifestation of being dominates in such a way that the subject concurs in the manifestation only with the activity required by natural necessity; the second series of powers (subjective powers) results where activity greater than that required by natural necessity is found in the subject.

524. Let us analyse the act of the intellect, and see how it contains the root of both objective and subjective powers.

As long as being, and being alone, is manifest to the human spirit, only the manifestation of being is found in the spirit which does not yet feel itself. The object, in manifesting itself, acts only as something intelligible. It does not change but rather creates the substance to which it manifests itself. At this point, the human spirit does nothing more than understand. The sole result is an objective power.

525. But now the spirit reaches out to being as seen. Sense, an intellective sense which modifies the subject itself, begins to operate in the spirit. This sense is a subjective power.
This is the source of the two kinds of human powers, objective and subjective.

526. These objective and subjective powers develop in human beings, therefore, according to the development of the two principles from which they originate, namely, the object which manifests itself and the subject which reaches out. The object has to manifest new forms and aspects of itself to the spirit; the subject must pass to new modes of being and undergo diverse attractions. We have to investigate how the object changes itself before the mind so that the spirit may move from the vast, uniform intuition of indeterminate being to the vision of being in its various determinations and limitations; we also have to see how the subject changes by adhering with different degrees of intensity to the intuited or perceived objects. As we said, all the operations of the objective and subjective human powers are reduced to change in the object and the subject.

527. The object develops before the eye of the understanding only on condition that new feelings, to which the object can be applied, arise in the subject. The object is determined by the relationships these feelings have with it. In the same way, the subject acquires new states and modes of being only by obtaining new feelings. The feelings of the human subjects are in turn provided by their animality.

528. The human subject can develop in the order of intelligence only on condition that it is identical with the animal subject.

529. Let us first see, therefore, how it is possible to conceive that the feeling or animal principle and the intellective principle are not two, but one and the same principle in the human being.

The possibility is understood easily enough if we consider the analysis already provided of the feeling principle and the intellective principle. As we saw, the nature of the feeling principle is determined by the nature of what is felt, while the nature of the intellective principle is determined by the nature of what is understood. Feeling in this case is called `animal' feeling because the thing felt is endowed with extension, while the understanding is called `human' only because the thing understood is indeterminate being (cf. 504-507).

We may now consider the relationship of the feeling principle and the intellective principle with the felt element and the understood element. Here the activity of the two principles is subject to a relationship of passivity. Because this is so, there can be no repugnance in conceiving that the same principle is the subject of two kinds of passivity instead of one. In other words, a single principle is passive relative to two different agents each of which exercises its own mode of operation upon the principle.

This most simple, undivided principle, which is subject on the one hand to the passivity produced by the action of the body, and on the other to the passivity, or better, receptivity of universal being is precisely what we call the human spirit.

530. In the human spirit (the feeling-intellective principle), therefore, are virtually contained all the powers which later, at given opportunities, show themselves as distinct through their various operations. The very act by which the spirit exists is its universal thrust for action which takes place in as many different ways as its activity later develops and manifests itself.

We have already seen the order and mode in which the animal powers develop but we still have to examine the way in which the spiritual powers come to act. The process presents us with a wonderful alternation between objective and subjective powers, both of which receive continual impetus and movement from what occurs in the feeling and animal element of human beings. Our present task, therefore, which we will undertake immediately, is to see how, as animality develops, intelligence also is activated.

531. Universal being, intuited by the mind, receives its determinations from relationship with feeling. Through feeling, human beings communicate with real being; and every reality echoes and relates to some corresponding ideal entity. To feel, to pass to the idea corresponding to the felt reality and simultaneously to advert that the felt reality is a determinate being: this is what we mean by intellective perception.

532. The elements of perception, that is, universal being and the fundamental feeling, are first given to human beings by nature: once united, they would bring about perception of themselves. As a result, classical writers said that self-perception was given by nature; and St. Thomas rightly teaches that we know ourselves habitually.(223) This means that the elements of self-perception are always present to us, enabling us to unite them easily and promptly when occasion arises, and so arrive at self-perception. All this takes place naturally and spontaneously so that we do not seem to acquire any new knowledge, but rather to reflect on what we already possess as though it were something completely familiar and natural.

When a baby understands for the first time the meaning of the monosyllable `you' addressed to itself, it has such an easy, spontaneous perception of itself that it experiences no sense of wonder in discovering the perception. It does not and cannot realise that at this moment its intellective state has taken a great step forward. It would have to reflect in order to advert to what it has done, but is as yet incapable of such reflection.

We need to distinguish, therefore, between the immediate perception of ourselves and reflection upon ourselves which takes place after we have perceived ourselves. The second function is very different from the first, and is carried out only much later. But some self-perception, whose elements are given by nature, is soon present through the use of language.

533. If we consider exterior perceptions, we see that the external senses furnish the matter of these perceptions by means of the feelings with which they provide us. These senses begin to function as soon as we exist; they are prior to and independent of what we learn from articulated language.

534. Self-perception and the perception of exterior things are two functions of the same faculty of perception. Our first faculty to develop, therefore, is the objective faculty of perception. Its purpose is to provide our spirit with determinations and actuations of being, with new objects, and with determinate, real beings.

535. Generally speaking, the intellective spirit is inclined and directed from the beginning to the act of understanding, just as the sense is avid for feeling. We may believe, therefore, that a degree of vital pleasure is naturally and essentially connected with all intellective perceptions just as a degree of pleasure accompanies all sensations, as sensation. What we have called intellectual sense begins to reveal itself along with the perceptions of real things; it is a subjective faculty corresponding to the objective faculty of perception.

536. Nevertheless, this intellectual sense is still only a passive faculty, a pleasing, diffused feeling that the percipient subject experiences as a result of communication with another being by means of the intellect. Each passive faculty, however, has its counterpart in an active faculty.(224) Consequently, some activity proper to the intellective principle, which we normally call intellective or rational spontaneity, must correspond to this intellective sense.

537. Rational spontaneity is first drawn into activity by animal instinct just as the intellective sense originates by means of the animal sense, which provides the matter for rational perceptions. When a baby is drawn by animal instinct to carry out certain operations proper to animals, the subject undertaking these actions is both a sensitive and intellective principle. If this principle encounters difficulties in the execution of its animal operations, it uses all its powers to overcome the obstacles. Amongst these powers are those of its intelligence which the subject then makes use of in order to satisfy its animal instinct. Rational spontaneity is first roused in this way.

538. But we need to consider carefully the components of this first function of rational spontaneity. The abstract ideas of end and means play no part in it. Its formation depends on a simple act of will and on a command given to the very actions to which the baby is drawn by instinct. The first function of rational spontaneity is indeed the cradle of the will, but only in so far as will has perception as its guide. The baby perceives intellectually the movements of instinct, which it simply wills and commands.

539. These first volitions do indeed contain an act of choice and an act of command, in addition to the intellective sense united with diffused feeling.(225) However, they contain no evaluation. The willed and commanded instinctive movements are simply an object which gratifies sense and is loved. No judgment is made about its worth. This would require an abstract rule not yet formed by the baby.

We call this first function of intellective spontaneity affective volition.

540. The subjective faculties corresponding to the objective power of perception are, therefore: intellectual sense (a passive faculty) and rational spontaneity in its first function, namely, affective volition (an active faculty).

541. After this level of subjective development, another objective faculty, abstraction, begins to develop, stimulated by the use of language coupled with animal instinct, as we have shown.(226)

542. Abstraction, which simply fixes attention on perceptions and on ideas if they have already been formed, always presupposes an act of reflection concerned with the observation of certain common properties and qualities in the perceptions and ideas to the exclusion of all the others. By means of abstraction, specific ideas are first drawn from perceptions, then generic from specific ideas. Generic ideas can become ever more generic and abstract until the universal and most abstract of all ideas are attained. Abstraction, therefore, is a function of reflection and attention, and develops through innumerable degrees almost to infinity; it moulds and marvellously embellishes the ideal world of the human mind.

543. If we consider that abstraction alone provides human beings with all the rules by which they act, we can see the extent to which any new activity of rational spontaneity depends on this power of abstraction.

544. The ideas of material or spiritual good and evil are abstract ideas.

By material good, I understand what is good for the body; by spiritual good, I understand opiniative good, or even what constitutes enjoyment for the spirit. Note that a real good or evil is not to be confused with the abstract idea of good and evil.

Our perception of real good and evil is enough to enable us to want or to reject them (cf. 539, 540), although we may still not have any distinct idea of a species or a genus of good, nor of good in general (all these are abstract ideas). Real good can be desired by means of what I have called `affective volition'; but it cannot be valued without some specific, generic or universal idea which serves as a rule for our evaluative judgment.

For example, how can I judge that a loaf seen by me is something good? Note that I am not asking how I can desire the loaf, but how I can judge it to be good. Abstract ideas are not needed to desire it; the animal appetite, whose act or desire can be perceived and willed immediately by the rational principle, suffices for this. But desiring the bread is not of itself sufficient for judging that what I see with my eyes is good. In addition I need at least the specific idea of nutrition as good, and I must also know beforehand that bread is something to eat, something nourishing. Then I can judge. And this judgment is always a syllogism, whose major is given by abstraction, and would run: `That which nourishes is good.' Only when this major premiss has been formed by me mentally, and I know that the object perceived with my senses is nourishing, can I make my judgment and conclude that the object is good.

All the rules, therefore, rendering judgments possible are provided by abstraction which has its own possibility in indeterminate-ideal being, the most universal of all rules. This being, provided by nature, is the source of our perceptions, that is, of our primitive judgments.

The objective faculty of abstraction is therefore the principle and cause of 1. a most noble subjective faculty which follows in its wake, providing another function of rational spontaneity, and 2. another level of will which I call evaluative volition

545. Abstraction, therefore, in offering new objects to the mind, obviously provides the will with new stimulation.

All objects of abstraction are ideal, and hence universal. They are the universal good and evil of every species or genus; pure, essential good and evil in that species or genus, without admixture of any determinate object; unlimited and unrealised good and evil which, pure and abstract, is a kind of common form shared by the real objects of different species and genera.

The worth of these real objects depends, in turn, upon the extent to which they share in this common form. Objects which share more extensively in that form of good are judged better and valued more highly. Such judgments can be made by us only through comparison and confrontation of the objects with the abstract form which therefore is needed as a rule for the evaluation of objects. But an object, when it is esteemed by us as good, can be desired and willed not only with our animal instinct, but by means of a totally spiritual instinct arising as a consequence of this judgment, and completed and confirmed by an explicit decree of the will.

Such is the nature of volition. As we can see, it is composed of three acts: the evaluative or value judgment, the spiritual instinct that draws human beings towards good as soon as they have valued it, and the decree of the will that decides it wants to satisfy this instinct.

546. This evaluative volition takes new forms as abstraction increases. The first abstract ideas of evil and good are the specific ideas of physical good and evil. Consequently the first ends the baby puts before itself, and the first rule it follows in its activity, is to obtain the physical good and avoid the physical evil of which it has formed a concept for itself. At this level of development, the baby's evaluative volitions completely agree with his affective volitions, just as these harmonise perfectly with his animal instincts, which they strengthen and assist. At this age, the baby's powers are in complete peace and concord.

547. Nevertheless, even at this stage, choice, a new form of evaluative volition, begins to appear. The baby, who cannot reach out to all physical good as he would wish, has to choose which he judges best for satisfying his instincts.

548. These repeated acts of choice already begin to produce in the baby opinions or habitual judgments about the value of things. For example, fruit that the baby has greatly enjoyed will be noted mentally as very worthwhile. This opinion, formed very early on, will induce him to choose the same fruit without trying any other, even much later in life when its real taste has diminished for him. He seems to taste and savour the fruit, if not with his palate, at least with his memory and through the opinion he retains of it.

549. The factual existence of opinions requires the greatest attention because it shows the presence in a subject of an altogether singular force capable of increasing or diminishing the value of objects. If the fruit of which we are speaking is esteemed extremely pleasant by the child not because it is so now but because it used to be, it is clear that the habitual esteem retained in the child's spirit is founded on and caused by the energy of the subject, the child himself, not by the present reality of the object. It is the subject who has created for himself, as it were, a quality that is no longer real. It is precisely at this point that what I call the subject's practical force begins to make its appearance. Mental retention of habitual, lasting and active opinions about the value of things, even when the real things have diminished in value, or lost their value completely, is the first act of the practical force. The object retains its worth for the subject, not because the object merits the worth, but because the subject continues to provide this worth by adding to it something of his own - his persuasion, his belief, his own act of creation.

550. New kinds of good soon manifest themselves to the child's mind as the objective faculties continue to develop and present him with new objects. Although he first esteemed only that which brought him pleasure, he soon begins to appreciate also the things which he knows to be means for obtaining, preserving and renewing the pleasure.

551. Hence, the child reaches out to all the objects around him, to everything in fact that will serve some purpose: house, garden, rooms, clothes and toys - all help to develop in the child's spirit the idea of property, of that which is his own.

552. Feelings and needs of a totally different, spiritual kind begin to develop in him contemporaneously with the opinion he forms about the value of the good which surrounds him, considered as a means to his own physical pleasure. These needs can all be embraced under the heading desire for one's own greatness, which very soon takes three special forms: an instinct for superiority, an instinct for power, and an instinct for glory or esteem from others.

553. This inclination of human nature for self-aggrandisement springs from two causes. First, the more human beings feel, and feel their own activity and capacity, the more their enjoyment increases. This cause of greatness is instinctive and immediate, the offspring of the intellective sense. It is included in the subjective faculties amongst affective volitions.

But the human being is also endowed with ideal being and capable not only of perceiving many beings but also of comparing them in order to discover which has more and which has less entity. Having a greater degree of entity means having greater worth. Human beings desire to acquire the greatest possible quantity of entity because they want to be worth a great deal, and to tip the scales of intelligence heavily in their own favour. This second cause, the offspring of the intellect as objective power, has its place amongst evaluative volitions.

We want our own greatness, therefore, in equal measure with an affective as well as an evaluative volition. The affective volition of our own greatness is revealed as soon as we come to perceive ourselves. Evaluative volition, however, requires in addition reflection upon ourselves and comparisons between beings and with ourselves. When all these new kinds of good manifest themselves to us, our sphere of choice is immensely extended.

554. Our choice no longer lies amongst physical goods alone; it now falls between physical and spiritual good which, as different kinds of good, soon come into collision with one another. Our act of choice now differs greatly from what it was.

As long as we had to choose between physical goods, our choice was directed by the animal instinct itself, which always selected what was more pleasurable. Now, however, the choice lies between physical and spiritual good, which are not of the same kind. A true conflict breaks out between the various active powers because different powers preside over the two kinds of good, the animal instinct over physical good, the spiritual, volitive instinct over spiritual good. One of these powers has to surrender, sacrificed to the victory of the other.

Victory can go to the spiritual good in two ways: either because the spiritual instinct (affective volition) conquers, or because the decretorial will conquers (evaluative volition). In the first case, the spiritual instinct takes on prevalent, but accidental vigour. In the second, the practical, decretorial force, by which the will subjects instinct, exerts increased strength.

555. But this practical, decretorial force draws much of its vigour from the reality of the objects themselves, and from natural spontaneity - or rather, this force is itself simply a power for using valiantly, and directing, the constitutive elements and inferior forces of human nature.

556. We must note, however, that whenever the practical force of human freedom turns towards evil by following a wrong opinion or formal error, it exercises special energy. In this case, the practical force itself creates the object, and acts according to its own creation.

557. In order to know the full range of command exercised by this spiritual power which we call practical force, we have to consider the stages by which it moves from its seat in the most elevated part of human nature, and specifically in the act of judgment, in order to reach, move and dominate the lower powers. Its influence falls upon them mediately, not immediately, as it communicates its impulse down the line from one power to another until it reaches the lowest.

558. The first, proper act of the practical force is that with which it forms its opinion of the good or evil in some thing. Note, however, that this opinion is not concerned only with good considered in itself. The practical judgment of which we are speaking affirms the quantity of good present in something relative to the subject who judges, and always relative to something obtainable. Our judgment is indeed practical, not theoretical if, after affirming that a given thing contains an immense good, that this immense good is good for us and that it can be obtained by us, we then go on to will it.

This first act of our practical force moves the power nearest to it, that is, our power of spiritual affectivity. It is impossible for us to judge that a given thing contains an immense good, and a good that is good for us and obtainable by us, without our spirit's being filled with joy, hope, courage, and so on. These spiritual affections communicate themselves with their own special effect to human animality which they render active, by giving rise first to internal and then to external animal activity with which human beings tend towards the attainment of that good.

559. If, however, these spiritual affections are sometimes barely feelable or perhaps even unobservable, the evaluative judgment induces the relative action in our members either immediately or by means of an express decree.

560. At this point a completely new extension of human activity is revealed. So far, the human being has known different kinds of good which have drawn his powers into motion. But he has thought only of himself. Now, as he finds himself in society with others, he realises that the things he has judged good for himself are also good for beings exactly like himself.

Here we find an order of things - the moral order - far more sublime than anything already encountered. The human being soon realises that he cannot be content and happy at the cost of making others miserable. On the contrary, he must seek the happiness of others as though it were his own. What inner light shines, enlightening him in this sublime way, leading him to limit his own enjoyment by ordering it in harmony with the enjoyment of others?

561. He discovers this law revealed in his heart along with the knowledge of the existence of other human beings by means of his faculty for esteeming and evaluating all things objectively, that is, as they are, rather than as related to him. This faculty of objective evaluation, the essentially objective and absolute faculty, is a consequence of the first and most sublime of his powers, which intuits being and constitutes his intelligence.
There are now two ways in which the human being can judge things. He can evaluate them relative to himself, and relative to human nature in general; he can evaluate them subjectively, or evaluate them objectively by weighing the degree of entity they possess in themselves.

Prior to this, only the first kind of judgment had been available to the human being; actual morality was therefore impossible for him. Now, as he develops judgments of the second kind, he immediately feels moral necessity, knows the law and experiences the sanction of interior approval and remorse. His activity has two ways open before it which arise from the two rules revealed to him. He can act either according to his subjective or objective esteem of things.

562. The two rules, which sometimes agree, can also disagree and clash. The second is authoritative, and commands the first as a master commands his subject. The first only attracts, it never commands the subject. We must now ask, therefore, how human beings can obey the commands of the second and repudiate the attractions of the first, and how they can sacrifice their own good for the sake of the respect demanded of them by the absolute good.

These questions are not easy to answer. To do so, we have first to understand that there is a hierarchy amongst absolute entities and good, and therefore an absolute order or absolute disorder. Secondly, we must grasp that the human being as intellective feels and perceives only ideal being and absolute being, as we have said. He does not even perceive himself except absolutely. His existence as an intellective being, therefore, is not to be found in the subject, but in the world of absolute beings and in objectivity. Consequently, the objective order, in so far as the intellective subject procures it, is the proper order of the intellective being; objective disorder, in so far as he procures it, is his own order.

If the human being were simply a purely intellective, volitive being and possessed only the act by which he saw and adhered to beings, he would be naturally moral just as the animal is naturally sensitive.(227) Moral necessity exists in the objective, absolute world; the human being shares in moral necessity in so far as he shares in this objective, absolute world. Such necessity is of its nature invincible and insuperable precisely because the nature of beings which form the objective, absolute world is invincible and insuperable. Moral necessity demands, prescribes, commands, orders, chastises and rewards as part of its own necessity. If we ask, therefore, how the human being can act according to the objective esteem of things without regard to their subjective esteem, we have to reply that he draws the strength to do so from the objective and absolute world itself in which he exists and lives as an intellective being.

563. At this point we can view the extent of this moral power in the human being and see how it decreases and increases.
The strength of moral power with which we conquer the attractions of subjective good depends upon our share in the absolute world of beings. Because of this, Christianity points to our weakness in doing good as long as we exist in the natural order where we share only incipiently and tenuously in essential being, the principle of the absolute order of beings; it also indicates that we can do all things when helped by divine grace through which we share abundantly in essential, absolute being.

564. When our powers reach the stage at which we act morally, the act of choice takes on a new form, the third of those to which this function is susceptible. We no longer compare different aspects of physical good (the first form); nor do we compare physical with spiritual good (the second form); we now compare subjective good with something that has its own objective dignity, and choose between them.

565. Our practical force also extends itself in new, more wonderful ways. Putting the objective dignity of things on one side of the scales, and their subjective worth on the other, it inclines the balance in favour of the former as though all the weight were on the side of objective dignity alone. But the practical force can also draw us into error by creating an illusion of weight which leads us to give the advantage to subjective good.

566. We shall examine later the way in which `freedom of indifference', as it is called, is manifested in this choice between subjective and objective good. Here it is sufficient to conclude by pointing out once more that the development of human powers, which we have described very briefly, takes place through an unceasing alternation of objective and subjective powers. Objective powers, however, always precede subjective powers in their development so that the human spirit always puts forth some new kind of activity after new kinds of objects have been revealed to it.

And here we must pause to examine each of our active faculties. These require more attention because they have a closer connection with moral discipline.

Notes

(223) Cf. OT, App., no. 1; Certainty, 1181-1190.

(224) The correspondence between active and passive faculties did not escape St. Thomas' acute observation: `Appetitive powers must be in proportion to apprehensive powers' (S.T., I, q. 83, art. 4, corp; cf. also I, q. 64, art. 2, corp. and q. 80, art. 2, corp.).

(225) `Choice' is an act of volition which does not exceed the limits of the will; `command' is that act with which the will directs the movement of powers different from itself. A third kind of act, which is propagated to human powers but without any positive command, could be called a `stimulated act'.

(226) OT., ibid.

(227) Cf. Teodicea, 390-415.