New Essay Volume 3

Appendix 6. (1143)

[Idea and essence; potency and act]

I have already said that tbe spiritual vision tbat we possess of being is the primitive fact from which we have to start. We do not need therefore, to he over-subtle about the extraordinary mystery associated with this marvellous, unique fact. The normal argument, 'I cannot explain the nature of this fact, therefore the fact does not exist', is inadmissible. Rather, we should be prepared to affirm more modestly and reasonably, 'I cannot deny the existence of this fact which, however, is a mystery to me. I see nothing like it in nature; it is such that I cannot apply to it the laws which govern all other facts present in sensible nature. Nevertheless I cannot deny it'. All we can do is analyse the fact and then, after analysing it, wonder at it.

The result of our analysis, carried out thoroughly and without prejudice, will show that the root of things is in ideas, in intelligence. The essence that we think in the idea is the essence which subsists, except that in the idea it is possible, and in the subsistence is in act. This is the great, sublime teaching of antiquity which taught: 1. that 'essence' is what is thought by means of the idea (cf vol. 2, 646); 2. that the subsistence of any thing is the act of the essence. Oportet... quod ipsum esse comparetur ad essentiam,... sicut actus ad potentiam [It is necessary... for being itself to be related to essence... as act is related to potency] (St. Thomas, S.T., 1, q. 3, art. 4). According to this teaching, therefore, the same essence is that which is thought in the idea and that which subsists, except that the former is the potency of the latter, the latter the act of the former. Hence St. Thomas teaches, 'It can rightly be said that even ens' (not only what is true, the idea of ens) 'is both in things and in the intellect', because ens itself is comprehended in the idea, although only in potency.

If we go on to consider ens in potency, which is in the idea, we can say that the essence is in things and in the intellect; but if we consider the whole idea of ens, we say more correctly that truth, rather than ens, is in the intellect. St. Thomas says: Ipsa natura cui advenit intentio universalitatis, puta natura hominis, habet DUPLEX ESSE, unum quidem materiale secundum quod est in materia naturale, aliud autem immateriale secundum quod est in intellectu [Nature itself - for example, the nature of the human being - when joined with the comprehension of universality has a TWOFOLD BEINGS* . It possesses a material being in so far as it is in material nature, and an immaterial being in so far as it is in the intellect] (De An., bk 2, less. 12). Elsewhere, after having said that truth properly speaking is in the intellect, he adds: Quamvis posset dici, quod etiam ens est in rebus et in intellectu, sicut et verum licet verum principaliter in intellectu, ens vero principaliter in rebus [Although it could be said that ens, too, is both in things and in the intellect just as that which is true is in both. That which is true is, however, principally in the intellect just as ens is principally in things] (S.T., I, q. 16, art. 3).

Every thing, every (finite) essence has therefore two modes, two states, according to this ancient teaching. The first state is in potency, the second in act. In so far as it is in potency, it constitutes the idea; it is in the intellect, and the relationship which it has with itself in act is called truth. In so far as it is in act, it is the thing as subsisting; it has its own existence outside the mind, and is properly called ens. The distinction between potency and act, one of the most simple and necessary of all distinctions, has its first origin here, with its roots in the incipient nature itself of knowledge. It can be explained only because it is directly linked with the primary fact of human knowledge which itself bears no antecedent explanation. And here I must draw attention to a wise thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas.

Investigating the origin of materialism as it appeared in the first Greek philosophers, they found its source in the philosophers' ignorance of the distinction between potency and act. Who could have imagined that the lack of such a distinction would have been the cause of materialism?

But there are many superficial modern thinkers, I think, who are disposed to consider the distinction between potency and act as a useless, scholastic distinction, or at least as a distinction of little importance. It is characteristic of profound genius, on the other hand, to grasp the relationships between widely separated things, to assign the most distant causes to what takes place in human events and minds, and to foresee in the principle proper to any doctrine the ultimate consequences that will inevitably develop from it. Ordinary people will become aware of these consequences when they actually occur, and only then will people see how to judge the principle with an argument ab absurdo, the most common and effective argument that mankind possesses.

Both Aristotle and St. Thomas made use of the wisdom which sees consequences and the most practical effects in extremely abstract principles when they ascribed the cause of materialism to the lack of the distinction between potency and act. In fact, if we reflect solely on the actual existence of things, and not on their potential existence, we are never able to form for ourselves a correct concept of the manner in which things exist in our human intelligence, but only of the way in which things exist in their matter. The act by which things exist is identical with their existence in their matter; potency, on the contrary, is synonymous with their existence in the mind. If we know only the actual existence of these things, the nature of the mind remains unknown. All that is left are things in their matter - materialism is the inevitable result. St. Thomas wrote wisely: Quia antiqui naturales nesciebant distinguere inter actum et potentiam, ponebant animam esse corpus [Because the natural philosophers of old were ignorant of the distinction between act and potency, they posited the soul as body] (S. T., I, q. 75, art. 1, ad 2). The expressions, 'An essence is in potency', and 'An essence is in the mind', are identical. I have shown elsewhere that essence in potency, essence in the mind, idea and truth are identical phrases, and themselves identical with representations, that is, likenesses of subsistent things (cf. vol. 1, 106 ss. and vol. 2, 1020 ss.). We shall develop this observation later.
Our possession of essence in potency, representation, likeness, and so on, is what forms knowledge, the intellectual light. All these things thus receive a clear and obvious definition.