The Active Faculties
Of Human Understanding
567. Because we cannot consider powers without first considering acts, we must first determine the nature of human acts.
Chapter 1
The Human Act
568. Every act proper to a human being is called `human', and is carried out with powers found only in human beings, not in brute animals.
569. Intellect and will are powers found in human beings, but not in brute
animals. Hence, a purely intellective act must be called `human', because it is
done by a power proper to human beings but not possessed by brute animals.
Amongst theologians, Giuseppe Antonio Alasia recognised that intellective
perception must be placed among human acts. He says that human acts `include
the act done solely by the intellect, that is, simple perception, the act with
which the human assents to the truth known manifestly as true'. He adds:
`Although these acts do not spring from free will, they are called
"human" because they result from powers which distinguish the human
being from other animals. They proceed, that is, either from the intellect
alone, or from the intellect and will simultaneously. In the latter case, the
will tends towards a thing with a movement that is necessary but not free.'(228)
570. However, despite this clear teaching, even Alasia did not give an accurate definition of the human act which he defined as `a movement in the human being proceeding from knowledge of the end as end'.(229) The human being does not begin to act for an end known as end without first exercising the power of abstraction (cf. 541-550). But long before we form abstract ideas, we act with our intellect which has different functions prior to the function of abstraction. All the acts of these functions are human, according to Alasia's own principle.
Notes
(228) Comment. Theol. Moral., Dissert. I, c. 1, n. 3.
(229) Ibid., no. 2.