Appendix 40.

(966) [Ideas and need of intellectual activity]

Tradition has uninterruptedly passed down from the earliest times the truth that some activity of the understanding is necessary for the formation of ideas. For Plato, separate ideas were necessary, as well as subjective activity. Aristotle posited activity in the human being which resulted in the concept of understanding which possessed a primal, essential act. This activity of the understanding, necessary for forming ideas from sensations, is manifest in everything said by the Fathers of the Church. St. Augustine speaks powerfully about it: Et quia illa corpora sunt, quae foris per sensus carnis adamavit, eorumque diuturna quadam familiaritate implicata est, nec secum potest introrsum tamquam in regionem incorporeae naturae ipsa corpora inferre, imagines eorum convolvit, et rapit factas in semetipsa de semetipsa. Dat enim EIS FORMANDIS QUIDDAM SUBSTANTIAE SUAE [These things which [the soul] loved externally through the carnal senses are bodies with which it has become entangled by a kind of daily familiarity, but which it cannot transport within, into the region, as it were, of incorporeal nature. It shapes certain images of them, therefore, and draws within itself what it has itself made. IT GIVES TO THEIR FORMATION SOMETHING OF ITS OWN SUBSTANCE] (De Trinit., bk. 10, c. 5). We see here the extent of the activity attributed by Augustine to the soul in the formation of ideas. Surely this truth could not be missed in the centuries of barbarism? Anyone uncorrupted by false systems could not fail to see how the understanding acts in the formation of its ideas on the occasion of sensations.

Another witness comes from the eighth century: Charlemagne. Describing the origin of ideas, he uses expressions which clearly indicate intellectual activity -Alcuin writes, 'Nunc autem consideremus miram velocitatem animae in formandis rebus quas percipit per carnales sensus, a quibus quasi per quosdam nuntios quicquid rerum sensibilium' (note, he says sensible not all things) 'cognitarum vel incognitarum percipit, mox in seipsa earum ineffabili celeritate format figuras, informatasque in suae thesauro memoriae recondit' [Let us now consider how extraordinarily quickly the soul forms things which it perceives through the bodily senses. Through these, as if they were messengers, it perceives something of sensible things (note, he says sensible not all things), both known and unknown. Immediately and with the utmost speed, the soul forms images of them and stores these in the treasury of its memory]. A little further on he gives the following definition of the soul: 'Anima, seu animus, est spiritus intellectualis, rationalis, SEMPER IN MOTU* , semper vivens, bonae malaeque voluntatis capax' [The soul, or spirit, is an intellectual, rational spirit, ALWAYS IN MOVEMENT, always alive, and capable of both good and evil will]. Concerning its activity he says: 'Nec etiam aliquis potest satis admirari, quod sensus ille vivus atque coelestis, qui mens, vel animus nuncupatur, tantae mobilitatis est, ut ne tum quidem, cum sopitus est conquiescat' [Nor should anyone be surprised at the great mobility of this living, heavenly sense called mind or spirit which, even in sleep, does not rest] (De Animae ratione ad Eulaliam virginem).

Five centuries later, St. Thomas and others like him taught the same doctrine about the necessity of an intellectual activity, if sensible things were to be suitable for the understanding to perceive. Elsewhere I have given clear demonstrations of this. It is indeed extraordinary that St. Thomas not only denies to sensations the aptitude for being per se perceptions of the mind, but does not even accept them as abstractions unless they are universalised by the intellect. He expressly teaches: 'Formae sensibiles, VEL A SENSIBILIBUS ABSTRACTAE, non possunt agere in mentem nostram, nisi quatenus per lumen intellectus agentis immateriales redduntur, et sic efficiuntur quodammodo homogeneae intellectui possibili, in quem agunt' [Sensible forms, OR FORMS ABSTRACTED FROM SENSIBLE THINGS, cannot act in our mind without their being made immaterial through the light of the acting intellect and becoming in some way homogenous to the possible intellect in which they act] (De Verit., 10, art. 6, ad 2). We can therefore say that all centuries have acknowledged the fact 'that an activity of the understanding is necessary for the acquisition of ideas'.