Part Six

Conclusion

CHAPTER 1

Epilogue of the Theory

1020. The original potencies of the soul are two senses, one for particular things, which constitutes the potency normally called 'sensitivity', and one for universal things,(247) which constitutes the potency normally called 'intellect'.(248)

1021. Every potency, is a particular first act, constituted by an inherent term essential to it. This term is called 'matter' if it is passive relative to the potency, and form if it is, as object, in a state of mere presence relative to the potency. This presence is such that it posits the subject in the act which constitutes the potency (cf. 1006 ss.).
The essential term of the sensitivity is its matter; the essential term of the intellect is its object and form (cf. 1010, 480-485).

1022. The sensitivity is external or internal. External sensitivity has body, that is, extended corporeal matter, as its essential term. Internal sensitivity has for its term the feeling of myself and the idea (cf. 473-479, 630-672).
The fundamental feeling of one's own body constitutes the potency of external sensitivity (cf. 721-728).
The simple feeling of myself constitutes the potency of internal sensitivity (cf. 692-720). The feeling that perceives the idea of being in all its universality constitutes the potency of the intellect (cf. 480-485).

1023. If the matter of sensitivity is removed, the sensitive ens no longer exists. If the form of the intellect is removed, the latter ceases, but the concept of sensitive ens remains intact. Hence, the idea of being in all its universality is a true, apprehended object, and distinct from the sensitive ens. But the term of the sensitivity is constitutive of the sensitive ens and, because indistinguishable from it, cannot be called 'object' (cf. 1010 ss., 409-429).

1024. Perception and intuition require something distinct from the perceiving subject, and are therefore essentially extrasubjective; sensation requires only some matter (cf. 449, 742-752). Hence intellect is an intuition; sensitivity is simply a primal feeling.

1025. All these potencies exist in my fundamental feeling prior to their various operations, that is, in the feeling of myself together with my body (sensitivity) and my intellect.
This intimate, perfectly one feeling unites sensitivity and intellect. It also possesses an activity, which I would call 'spiritual sight' (rationality), by which it sees the relationship between sensitivity and intellect. This function constitutes the primal synthesis (cf. 528-555).

But if we consider more generally the activity originating from the intimate unity of the fundamental feeling, that is, if we consider myself as capable of seeing relationships in general, we call it reason, of which the primal synthesis becomes the first function (cf. 622, 480-482).
If we consider the same activity under the special respect of the union that it brings about between a predicate and a subject, it is called the faculty of judgment (cf. vol. 1, 337).

1026. The primal synthesis is the judgment with which reason acquires intellective perception.
But we cannot rise to any operation unless we are given some stimulus, or mover.
External sensitivity is the first potency drawn to operate by the stimuli of external bodies upon our organs (cf. 514 ss.). When external sensitivity has been aroused by these stimuli it informs our consciousness of a passivity coming not from our own body, but from a body separate from ourselves. This new feeling, that is, the modification of our fundamental feeling, becomes sense perception as the term of an external action, although previously it was simply feeling and a fundamental perception through which the soul is united to the body (cf. 630-691).

1027. The first matter of human cognitions ministered by sensitivity consists therefore in:

1. A feeling of myself, perceptive of the body (fundamental feeling).
2. The sensations or modifications of this feeling.
3. The sense perceptions of bodies.

1028. When reason considers these things in relationship with being in all its universality, and produces intellective perceptions, it adds universality to the particular changes experienced in our spirit, and under this aspect is called the faculty of universalisation. All direct acts of reason depend upon this special potency (cf. 490-500).
Reflective acts are proper to reflection, another function of reason (cf. 487-489).

1029. The objects of reflection are all acts of our spirit, in so far as it reasons, and terms of these acts. Thus, there is some impropriety in applying the word 'reflection' to the direct application of our understanding to sensations (cf. [App., no. 12]). The objects of reflection, therefore, are:

1. A feeling of myself as perceptive of the idea of being in all its universality.
2. Acts of the faculty of universalisation.
3. Acts of reflection, and its terms or results.

Reflection has two operations, synthesis and analysis; it separates and unites (cf. 490 ss.). The faculty of abstraction (cf. 494 ss.) pertains to analysis.

1030. External stimuli excite external sensitivity. Physical instincts, by moving the phantasy initially, arouse the faculty of universalisation.
Corporeal images awake the potency for dividing ideas from perceptions.
Only language, received from society, can draw the faculty of abstract ideas into its act and furnish human beings with dominion over their own potencies, that is, with the use of freedom (cf. 483 ss.)

1031. Free activity, that is, dominion over one's own potencies acquired through abstract ideas furnished by language, provides the final impetus to the development of all one's potencies, and opens the way to the indefinite growth of the different human faculties.

(247) I have explained what must be understood by 'universal thing' (cf. vol. 1, 107ss.). Nothing can be universal in itself. Everything, in so far as it is, is singular and determinate. A universal, therefore, is something through which many things, or rather an indefinite number of things, can be known. Universality is a mere relationship found only in ideas which, as we have seen, are things with which we know an indefinite number of other things. From this point of view, we call an idea a 'species'. It is true that at first sight there appears to be something besides ideas that can be called 'universal' and in this sense a portrait perhaps seems universal because it represents all its look-alikes. But this is misleading: the portrait is universal only in so far it is joined to an idea. It is only through the idea of the portrait that the mind is able to compare the portrait and the people it resembles, and to find the likeness which does not exist in the portrait but in the single idea with which the portrait and persons resembling it are thought. It is the unity of the idea which constitutes the likeness between similar things, as we see in our example of the portrait and the persons resembling it (cf. vol. 1, 177).

(248) We have reduced the power of understanding to a primal sense (cf. 553-558).