Chapter 6
Person
832. Person can be defined as `an intelligent subject'. A more exact definition would be: `Person is a substantial, intelligent individual in so far as the individual contains a supreme, active and incommunicable principle.'
833. If we compare this definition with the definition we have given of subject, we see that the words `subject' and `person' express the intrinsic order of being in a feeling individual. They each have for their foundation a relationship between the intrinsic principle (on which the subsistence and all activity of the individual depend) and everything else in the individual that is supported and activated by the principle.(395)
It is true that not everything in a substantial individual constitutes properly speaking subject or person, but, as I said, subject and person are founded on the supreme principle within the individual. Other elements, which can indeed form part of the individual itself, pertain to subject or person only through the very close connection they have with the supreme principle, in virtue of which they subsist and together with which they form a single individual.
Hence, just as we call `subject' that which is a supreme principle of activity in any feeling individual whatsoever, intelligent or not, so we call `person' that which is the supreme principle in an intelligent individual. Thus, the difference between subject and person is the difference between genus and species because we take feeling in the most universal sense, which includes understanding (understanding can be reduced to a special kind of feeling). Person, therefore, is a class of the most noble of subjects, the intellective.(396)
834. The definition also indicates the other properties of person. Person must be:
1st. A substance.
2nd. An individual, and therefore pertaining to real, not purely ideal things.
3rd. Intelligent.
4th. An active principle - `activity' here should be understood in its widest sense, which in a way includes passivity. Person is the principle to which, as the ultimate source, all the individual's passivity and activity is referred.
5th. A supreme principle, such that nothing is present in the individual which is superior to this principle and changes its existence. If other principles are present, they must depend on the supreme principle and subsist in the individual through their bond with the individual.
835. Note that the personal principle is called supreme not because it must have other principles below it, but because it excludes any principle above it. The word `supreme' could give the impression of having something below it since it seems to imply a relationship with something lower. But to call supreme that which could in fact be unique cannot be unacceptable - `first', for example, can mean one without reference to others. However, `supreme' could be substituted by `independent', or something similar.
836. 6th. Incommunicable - this is a consequence of the preceding properties, and in a way is understood in the notion of individual. An individual cannot communicate itself without ceasing to be the individual it was. The incommunicability of subject and person must be understood in this way.
837. We see from all these facts that person is not absolutely and necessarily identical with that which is expressed by the word `myself'. There is a marked difference, a difference of concept, between person and `myself', just as there is a difference between `subject' and `myself'.
It is true that `myself' principally expresses an intelligent subject, and we use the word solely to mean our own personality, of which we are conscious. For this reason `I' is called a personal pronoun. But if we consider the matter carefully, we can without contradiction imagine in an individual an intellective principle which is conscious of itself without its being a supreme principle. The word `I', but not `person', could be correctly applied to this principle.
Notes
(395) Hence, `person' cannot mean simply either a substance or a relationship. It must mean a substantial relationship, that is, a relationship found in the intrinsic order of being of a substance.
(396) St. Thomas says that `person means that which is most perfect in all nature, and subsists in a rational nature' (S.T., I, q. 29, art. 3, corp.). He shows how the word `person', originally meaning a mask used by actors in the theatres, came to mean human beings constituted in dignity. He says: `Because actors played the parts of famous people in comedies and tragedies, the word "person" was applied to those who had this dignity. - And because subsisting as a reasoning nature is a great dignity, every individual of reasoning nature is called "person"' (S.T., I, q. 29, 3, ad 2).