Chapter 2
The Feeling Subject
789. We must now describe special subjects, and among them the human
subject, the specific aim of our discussion.
We have defined the subject as `a feeling being in so far as it contains within
itself a supreme principle of feeling'. Feeling, therefore, is necessary for a
subject, but not material feeling or any other special feeling whatsoever; we
are dealing with feeling in the widest possible sense of the word. In this
sense, feeling includes intelligence, because intelligence has for its
foundation a feeling proper to the soul. This feeling exists in and through the
intuition of the idea, which, on revealing itself to the soul, produces in it
an intellective sense. Attributing such a feeling to the intelligent soul is
confirmed by the most ancient, authoritative use of language.(358)
790. Subjects, therefore, are of two kinds: feeling and intellective. To these we have to add the human being, a mixed, feeling-intellective subject or, simply a rational subject.
791. When talking about the feeling subject, we did not consider it in
general but in the form and nature it manifests in animals. In this form the
subject is equipped with many accidents, and with appetitive and instinctive
faculties as well as feeling. Our investigation must be limited to it because
it is the only feeling subject we know.
The concept of the feeling animal subject depends principally on the concept of
the animal's individuality. In this respect we have seen what
constitutes the simplicity and unity of the feeling principle, and have
distinguished the mathematical simplicity attributed to a point from spiritual,
non-abstract, real unity. This unity does not consist in being term to an
extension but in having a nature entirely different from extension(359)
We also said that extension is a mode of sensation or more
precisely a mode of the that which is felt, and is itself something
felt. It resides in the term of feeling (the thing felt), not in the principle
(the feeling thing).
We then noted that extension measured with bodies constitutes only a
relationship between one assignable part in a felt thing and the other
assignable parts of the thing, that is, between one felt thing and another.
Measured extension, therefore, can be conceived only by perceiving at the same
time the assignable parts of the felt thing or of many continuous felt things.
On the other hand, if we compare the thing felt with the feeling principle, the relationship in which extension consists is completely removed. The only relationship left is that of a higher order of things, a relationship between feeling and felt, not between extended and extended. Consequently, although the activity of the feeling principle spreads, as it were, into the whole of the felt, extended thing, it does not take on any extension. It does not spread as an extended thing spreads and diffuses itself in extension, but in the way a feeling force enfolds its terms, that is, in an entirely simple, unextended way.
That the force and activity required for perceiving something extended is itself unextended and simple was also demonstrated by us. As we said, it is obviously absurd and contradictory to affirm that something extended feels what is extended. We will see this immediately if we consider that nothing extended can exist without that which is continuous, and that the continuous can exist only in what is unextended. Nothing continuous exists unless the parts are simultaneously united to each other without any interval. Such unity can be brought about only by an entirely simple principle different from all the parts into which the continuum can be divided. No part of the continuum is united with the others; it has an existence of its own. Hence, it cannot make a whole with the others unless a principle, alien to the parts, is added and draws all the parts into a single whole containing the relationships of continuity and co-existence.
The continuum, therefore, supposes a simple principle which feels it, just as the principle is required by all the relationships which do not exist in the individual terms of the relationship, but in their union and harmony.
792. This observation allows us to correct an ontological teaching frequently encountered in modern philosophy which asks how the substance remains unchangeable in an individual while the accidents change. The argument runs: `The individual has two parts, one of which changes and one of which does not. The part that does not change is called substance or object; that which changes, accident.'
In my opinion, this does not sufficiently explain the relationship between accidents and subject. I accept that one of the properties of what is called `subject' is that of being unchangeable relative to the accidents. But we must bear in mind that the subject cannot be subject of the accidents, unless it participates in the change of the accidents which it bears, as it were, within itself, sustaining and supporting them. We have to explain, therefore, how the subject remains unchangeable while the accidents, which subsist in and through the subject, change.
This is the real difficulty, and it is not solved by simply distinguishing two parts in the individual and affirming that something unchangeable and something changeable is present. We need to demonstrate the relationship of these two parts, to reconcile them, and explain how what is unchangeable and what is changeable can constitute a single individual.
Help in doing this can be found in my earlier observation that the extended, the continuum and the multiple exist solely in what is simple and one. This relationship must be accepted for what it is, without the introduction of anything arbitrary on the part of our ever active imagination. If we keep in mind the genuine nature of this relationship, which unites what feels and what is felt, we understand how that which is felt can change without any necessary change in the principle of feeling (that which feels). When only the felt (to which extension is proper) changes, no change takes place in the nature of the relationship between that which is felt and that which feels - the relationship, as we said, is not one of extension but of sensility. The source, therefore, of the modifications and accidents in an individual is that which is felt, which we have also called `the matter of feeling'. This is the sense, it seems to me, in which we must take St. Thomas' statement that `an individual composed of matter and form subsists, relative to the accidents, in dependence upon matter'.(360)
The explanation, therefore, of how what is changeable exists in the unchangeable must be sought in the real relationship of what feels and what is felt. This explanation is not only similar to, but the same as, the explanation we gave when we asked how the extended existed in the unextended.
The changeable and the extended remain solely within the sphere of what is felt and do not form part of the relationship which binds that which feels and that which is felt. Similarly, that which feels is united to what is extended and changeable not because the extended and changeable have the nature of extended and felt but because they have the nature of that which is feelable and that which is felt. Extension and changeability, therefore, do not enter into the feeling principle, which remains simple and unchangeable. Nevertheless, that which is extended and changeable is united to the principle through their property of being feelable. In other words, everything that is felt in a feeling object is changeable. But that which feels, in so far as it feels, changes neither in regard to itself nor in regard to the nature of its relationship with what is felt.
793. We now come to the second question, which we have already touched on in various places: `Does a subject (we are still talking about a feeling animal) feel itself? It is as important as the first question for anyone wishing to penetrate more deeply the notion of a feeling subject.
It is clear that if that which feels were to feel itself, it would to this extent lose its relationship of feeling element and become part of what is felt. Its relationship as a feeling element is contrary to any relationship as felt, which can never be confused with that which feels. The reply, therefore, to the question must be: that which feels is never felt. The feeling element is a being that belongs to the order of intelligible, not feelable things;(361) it is a real noumenon and not a phenomenon. Thus, everything felt, in so far as felt, belongs to the term, not the principle of feeling.
We must take careful note of the felt element in an extended feeling. Obviously, nothing is felt beyond the extension in which the feeling is diffused. The extended-felt element is the only thing which is felt; it is a single thing, not two things. Nevertheless, in this one thing (the extended-felt) some passivity and some activity is felt. Both are felt because to feel is to act and experience simultaneously - action and experience are felt. Thus, the feeling principle feels experience and action fused as one and as contributing co-causes which continually place the extended-felt element in act. The term of the feeling principle is that in which passivity and activity appear as feelable. The feeling principle's passivity and activity, fused together in the feeling element, constitute the mode of being of the feeling element itself. Although the feeling element does not properly speaking feel itself, it feels its mode of being in the extended-felt element. We can take a rough example from a solid sphere. If we supposed that the sphere does not feel itself but only its spherical form, we could say that the sphere feels the spherical form without knowing that the form belongs to it. This is precisely what happens in purely animal feeling: the material, feeling subject feels what is extended in various ways. In the extended element, the subject feels experience and action fused together,(362) but never refers what it feels to itself (such reference is proper to human beings); the subject's feeling stops at this point and goes no further. The pronoun `self' cannot be applied to what is merely animal.
794. Certain consequences calling for our consideration follow from these
observations:
1st. If the whole of what is felt is included in what is extended, and
feeling exists solely through what is felt, it follows that the feeling element
does not, as such, feel itself. Once more, therefore, we have to repeat that
the only way in which the felt element can divide into parts without destroying
the feeling is for the feeling principles to multiply because the feelings are
multiplied.
795. 2nd. Hence, we can infer that the unicity of the feeling, and therefore the unicity of the animal (note, I am speaking of unicity, not unity or simplicity), depends on the perfect continuity of the felt-extended element.
796. 3rd. Thirdly, we are able to deduce the correct concept of the sameness or identity of an animal and determine what is changeable and not changeable in an animal. It is clear that this identity cannot be founded solely on the feeling principle; the feeling principle is not felt and therefore could never disclose such identity. Furthermore, the feeling principle alone, separated from everything that is felt, cannot be conceived as something subsistent but only as a beginning of subsistence which is completed by the felt element. Finally, a feeling element without a term would be an indefinite, unlimited principle lacking any individuation. Only in the felt element, therefore, must we seek the identity or sameness of feeling. This identity resides in the identity of action limited and balanced by the experience undergone in the extended element. Thus, the extended element changes, changing the quality of the feeling diffused within it, but the active-passive mode of the feeling element (which adheres to the felt element and is itself felt) never changes. Both continuity in space and the active-passive mode itself of being in time are that which maintain the identity of an animal. Reality is the foundation of these elements of identity. As we said, individuality is a primitive property of real being, and from it come the identity of space, the identity of the mode of being in time, and incommunicability.
To clarify the matter further, we should note that passivity and activity must be considered as a single act in which are found energy and limitation, an act glimpsed under the two forms or relationships of passivity and activity. We have seen that all the passive phenomena to which the animal is subject are virtually included in the first passivity, that is, the fundamental feeling, and that all the active phenomena manifested in the animal are virtually included in the primitive activity, that is, the life instinct by which the feeling principle concurs in the production of the fundamental feeling. The explanation of everything the animal will experience and do is found in the first element. When the animal feels this first activity, which embraces all its experiences and actions, it feels a single thing, a single act. In other words, the unicity, unity and identity of the animal consist, in my opinion, in the unicity, unity and identity of that which is first felt and developed but not changed. From being implicit it becomes explicit, and, because it has initially within itself what is passive and active, it must subsequently become part of the animal's feeling.
Moreover, the single act (the root and source of so many modifications) need not be felt by the animal as its own (this relationship is discovered by reason alone). It is sufficient for it to be the principle of, and govern effectively, the act it feels, and to posit the active and passive elements which make up this act. There is no choice in this, only a physical connection provided by nature. Nor is it required that the feeling element reflect on itself, or turn back upon itself in any way in order to perceive itself as agent and receiver. Its term is outside itself; here it commands and has all its existence, without ever returning to itself. The very existence of the animal is transfused, as it were, into the outside world. Consequently, if all experience and action is removed, leaving only the feeling principle, the principle itself completely disappears and our concept of animal is destroyed [App., no. 11].
Notes
(358) St. Basil, comparing the soul's action with the action of intelligence, says: `Let no one protest: "You, with your head in the clouds, what do you mean by coming here and philosophising about an incorporeal and totally immaterial essence?" I think it's absurd to allow the senses to make free with what concerns them and then to prevent the mind from carrying out its own activity; the mind reaches out to intelligible things just as feeling reaches out to feelable things. Furthermore, God our Creator placed natural judgments in us without the guidance of human authority. Nobody teaches the eye to see colours and shape, or hearing to perceive sounds and voices, or taste to perceive flavours, or touch to perceive hard and soft, hot and cold things. In the same way no one teaches the mind to deal with intelligible things.' Ep. 8, Class. 1, n. 8.
(359) Aristotle said that indivisibility relative to quantity is not the same as indivisibility relative to species, although indivisibility according to aristotelian species is more a dialectical indivisibility than anything else. Cf. De Anima, bk. 3, less. 11 [6].
(360) S.T., I, q. 29, art. 2. ad 5. This statement seems at first sight to be contradicted by the following: `Accidents proper to something are the effects of substantial forms' (S.T., q. 29, art. 1, ad 3). However,, the statements are easily reconciled: the subject is the cause of the accidents in so far as it supports them and they subsist in and through it, but the matter itself exists only on condition that it is united to a substantial form. The substantial form, therefore, puts the matter in act; the matter, once activated by the substantial form can change and give rise to all the accidental changes.
(361) But this does not mean it pertains to things which are intelligible of themselves. These constitute the ideal world. That which feels pertains to intelligible things by means of ideas.
(362) By `fused together' I mean that the felt extended element contemporaneously unites in itself a feeling of pressure and a feeling of action.