Chapter 14

How accidental acts are contained in the essence
of the human soul

866. The question: 'How are accidental acts contained potentially in an ens?' is extremely serious and difficult, like all questions which consider the internal construction of an ens. Here, too, we have to start from a long way back.

867. First, we must remember that in speaking of an ens whose nature and internal constitution we want to discover, we are dealing with an ens existing before our mind, not about some other ens. Unless we had mentally conceived this ens, we could neither reflect on it nor talk about it. The existence of a mentally non-conceived being is different from that of a conceived being which, in addition to what is in the former, contains our conception, the work of our spirit (cf. 57-70).

Second, we must also remember that we know an ens in a different way from that in which we know its mode, its intrinsic order. As we said, we know it through a natural intuition; we gather its intrinsic order a posteriori, from experience, when we perceive the reality.

868. Third, we need to note carefully the following rule, which can never be sufficiently repeated: 'All that regards an ens and is supplied by intuition, is essentially objective; all that regards the intrinsic order of an ens, and comes from our experience, is subjective.' This rule enables us to distinguish what is objective from what is subjective in being, as we perceive it.

This principle could be misunderstood if we wished to infer from it that everything subjective in our knowledge were false. In this case, nothing true would be known about the subject. On the contrary, everything we know of the subject and its appurtenances is true provided we do not claim that the subject and its appurtenances are object. In this way, what we know subjectively is true if we affirm it subjectively, just as it would be false if we affirmed to ourselves that we knew it objectively.

Nevertheless, what is true always arises from the object as from its formal cause in the same way that every cognition arises from the object. This is so true that the subject alone, and everything subjective, would be unknown as subject and subjective without the light of the object. For example, when I say: 'I (subject) exist, I affirm the existence of MYSELF, as subject.' Existence is objective, although that to which it is referred is subject. This is applicable whether we are speaking about possible or real existence. If I did not annex either possible or real existence to the subject, the latter would remain totally unknown and would not exist in any way for me, an intelligent being.

869. It follows that for human beings, and for every other intelligence, reality exists only in so far as it is known. The very act of knowledge adds objective being, called existence, to the real subjective thing. It is also the act of knowledge, therefore, which adds truth to the real, subjective thing because truth is simply that which is.(53)

870. Granted all this, we ask: 'How are accidental acts contained virtually in the essence of the soul?'
It is clear that this is a question concerned with the intrinsic order of an ens, and cannot therefore be solved without recourse to some fact. Everything more that we can say is reduced to demonstrating lack of contradiction or absurdity in the fact. Sometimes, however, the fact itself seems at first sight to be loaded with contradictory elements.

871. In our case, there is no lack of apparent contradiction. On the one hand, the soul is a single, simple ens; on the other, it presents itself with a plurality of acts and potencies. We now have to add other considerations to what we have already affirmed about this in the first part.

872. Light comes to us in such an arduous argument from the ontological principle which I have already explained (cf. 34-44): 'The substances which make up the universe are so cohesive and packed together that one sustains another, and informing it, as it were, makes it be. This takes place without any of these substances losing what makes it distinctive, and without its being confused with another.' Hence, a law of continuity arises between substances which, however, does not destroy their specific distinction.

Another consequence is what I have called synthesism of nature. For example, the nature of the sensitive soul cannot be conceived without our positing some extended element, that is, the felt and sensiferous element which provides our concept of body. Nevertheless, the soul is a substance altogether different from the extended element and the body. In its turn, the extended, felt element can neither be understood nor conceived unless we suppose that it exists in what is simple, from which it receives unity. Here again, though, the extended, corporeal element is a substance altogether different from the soul. We have two substances, therefore, one of which sustains the other and makes it exist, but neither of which can be conceived without the other. Yet there is still an immense difference between the two.

The same law is noticeable if we speak about the rational soul. It is impossible to conceive an intelligence without a primal object.(54) But the essential object of intelligence is being in general, which cannot be called substance because it is more than substance. Hence, between the substance of the rational soul and the object which informs it, there is an infinite distance in nature which makes one totally unconfoundable with the other. Yet the rational soul is what it is only in virtue of this other thing, which is not the rational soul, but dwells in it in its own way. The same is true of being in general which, although it can be understood without the human soul or any other contingent intelligence, is essentially intelligible (intelligibility itself) and can be conceived only in so far as its very own essence is understood. This explains our a priori deduction of the existence of God, that is, of an intelligent reality whose nature is not different from that of intelligible being itself, even though the intelligent reality is distinguished from intelligible being through intimate relationship.(55)

873. More light will be thrown on what I have said if we consider the ontological cohesion of the substances from which creation results. We can classify things in the following way:

1. Sometimes two substances sustain and actuate one another in such a way that one of them is thought of as principle (substance-principle) and the other only as term (substance- term). It is clear that these are two species of substance because the first idea we have of each is not only different from but even opposite to the first idea we have of the other, with which it is in synthetical relationship. We see this in the two substances of soul and body.

874. 2. Sometimes a substance is sustained and actuated by a term which, as I said, is not properly speaking a substance. This occurs with the intellective soul, whose term is ideal being, essentially object. In the conception of being, we find no act different from being. In fact, we understand clearly that the act with which it is can only be being itself. At this elevated level, the communication of different substances ceases; substances no longer buttress one another, as it were, nor sustain one another. All that we have is being, which is superior to all substances. The intellective soul leans as it were on this being and, in doing so, exists.

875. Our examination of the interior of contingent substances, which we undertook for the sake of discovering the order of their constitution, provides another classification which forms part of the first, but is worth considering separately.

1. Some substances are extrasubjective. Their existence is only relative to other finite substances. We recognise the truth of this if we remember that we have to speak of substance according to the concept given us by perception. The words we use are imposed on things as a result of perception. But every sensitive principle is excluded in the concept of corporeal or material substance, substance-term. Consequently, the act of any subjective, proper existence is also excluded. Such a substance is left with existence relative to a sensitive principle only, precisely because it is not perceived except as felt. It is only our understanding which adds the act of existence in an absolute way. We noted, however, that the understanding does this because otherwise it would not be able to conceive such a substance; the understanding does not intend to change the nature of the substance nor add anything foreign to it. The act of subjective existence, which must certainly be present, is not something additional that pertains to the corporeal reality we have perceived, but is supposed virtually by thought. It springs from the necessity of knowledge; it is neither a specified nor specifying act about which we can, through reflection, induce that it pertains to some other ens outside the body, that is, to something we have called corporeal principle.

876. 2. Some substances are subjects because they are principles. A principle, although it may have a synthetical relationship with its term, is nevertheless conceived prior to its term. Hence its real existence is physically relative not to things which precede it but only to things which follow on it. Sensitive souls are substances of this kind.

Nevertheless, these substances still do not have any selfness. 'Self' is not proper to them, nor properly speaking are the words 'his' or 'hers', nor any personal pronoun. We speak of them, however, as if they had some existence in se, and we apply personal pronouns to them. We do this, as I said, not to transnature them, but to conceive them mentally. By acting like this, we do not intend to attribute our own selfness to them, but the objective and subjective mode of being without which we cannot mentally conceive them. This mode supposes that 'a being has its own proper act, that it is something in itself, and therefore has an ITSELF, has some personship'. In fact, being which is not person is incomplete; person is the ontological condition of being. Merely sensitive souls, therefore, are subjects, but incomplete subjects, and do not have that reality necessary for their constitution as real entia.

877. 3. Finally, some subjects are perfect because they possess a SELF, and hence can rightly be said to have existence in SE. These are intellective substances. They are principle-entia and do not depend upon any other contingent, consequent or antecedent substance, but solely on eternal, divine being. These substances alone possess selfness and can say: MYSELF, as I have explained (cf. 71-80). But granted the existence of MYSELF, a true cause exists. Such causes are true agents, endowed with freedom. The act with which these substances exists is independent of every created substance. They can, therefore, stand above all others and act in such a way that they are not necessitated by the action of any creature. This has to be understood, of course, in so far as they are pure intelligences, not bound to sensitive or corporeal being as human beings are. In our own human case, we have a mixture of corporeal sensitivity and intelligence.

878. Having classified substances according to their intrinsic order of construction, we can finally turn to the question we have in hand: 'How are accidental acts contained in the essence of the human soul?' This question depends upon a more general question: 'How are accidental acts contained in the essence of substances?'
The general answer to this question arises from what has been said. It can be stated as follows: 'Different contingent substances are reciprocally united in such a way that one sustains the other and makes it exist. It is sufficient therefore to conceive some change in the ontological union in order to conceive how substances must be modified in different ways. These modifications are the accidental acts of substances.'

879. The accidental acts of substances depend therefore upon the ontological connections which substances have amongst themselves. Such acts can be called 'extrinsic'.

880. The unity of substance is thus maintained in the multiplicity and variety of its acts, and one of the most difficult problems of ontology is resolved. The nature of the act called contingent substance is such that it is joined to another substance, and through this nexus subsists. Consequently, although no change is posited in the very act itself of substance, the substance acquires another mode and comes to be actuated differently when there is some change in the ontological contact between itself and something different from itself. The change does not lie in the substances, therefore, but in their different ontological connection, although there is some change in the substance in so far as its actuality depends on the mode of that connection.

881. In how many ways can we conceive variation in such a connection?

1. First, we can conceive the total destruction of connection. In this supposition, the synthesising substances are themselves annihilated. Thus, if we separate the sentient principle from what is felt, the sensitive soul is annihilated. It no longer exists where all feeling and every possibility of feeling have been extinguished.

If we separate what is felt from the sentient principle, we annihilate corporeal, material substance. In this case, we no longer find extension, nor sensiferous force, nor external force which changes the sensiferous force, nor sensible qualities — all of which are the constituent elements of the concept of body.
If we separate the intellective soul from ideal being, the former no longer exists because that which understands nothing is not in any way an intellective soul. But if we separate ideal being from the soul, we realise that of its essence it must be understood. It is not, therefore, annihilated because it is independent of the soul and of every substance in this world, although it presupposes some real thing that has an identical existence with it.

882. 2. Second, we can conceive that one substance joined to another, to which it gives actuality, is changed, either through substitution by some other substance, or by being joined either by another substance or by another substantial part (as in the case of matter, whose parts are numerically separate substances, although of the same nature).

883. The first case is impossible. If the substance giving actuality to another were entirely changed, the substance receiving actuality would no longer be because it receives its nature and formal existence from its connection with the first substance. Thus, if the soul no longer had as its term the felt, corporeal element, but some intelligent being, it would no longer be a soul (cf. 184-199).

884. The second case, in which we are dealing with one substance uniting itself to another of the same species, is possible in different ways. We are dealing with corporeal, material substance, and therefore of different portions of the same substance.

Consider, for example, the different species of brute animals. Properly speaking, all non-intelligent animals constitute a single species. They are specifically equal substances; an equal, first act of existence is conceived in all of them. This consists in the union of a sentient principle with a harmoniously stimulated, felt entity. Animals appear different because of the variety of quantity of the felt element, of the stimulus, and of the harmony with which the sentient principle is stimulated. These are the three elements which make up animal substantiality.

This variation in the connection between the two substances (soul and body) does not properly speaking change substance, but places it more or less in act with the result that animals are more or less perfect. On the other hand, these varieties cannot be called transient accidents because the felt element has been changed substantially and stably. So, common sense considers these varieties as different species. If we wished to call them varieties, we would have to distinguish two species of variation. The first would be constitutive varieties, the second consecutive or transient varieties, which are accidents relative to the first kind of variety.

If a new sense were added to an animal (this can be conceived as possible relative to imperfect animals, although I do not think it possible for perfect animals if we are speaking about corporeal senses), a constitutive, stable change would take place because of the union of a new felt element. This would differ from the preceding felt elements not only from the point of view of quantity, but also because of the quality of the connection.

885. The concept of what I have called integral parts of a whole also arises from possible variations of quantity and quality in substances ontologically joined to other substances. A man whose leg has been amputated suffers a constitutive, stable change in so far as a part of the substance which should have adhered to him according to his ideal type does so no longer. Nevertheless, the essence of that man remains intact. Nothing of the first idea of that man is changed. What changes is the ontological union through which human beings subsist.

886. 3. Finally, change in the ontological union does not always entail stable change in one of the two substances. In this case, the only change is that one substance is united to a different degree or in a different way to its companion, and in a transient, variable manner. This gives rise to the accidental, common changes to which created substances are subject.

887. Applying all that we have said to the human soul, we see that it is informed by two elements: the corporeal felt element (corporeal substance) in so far as the soul is sensitive, and ideal being in so far as it is intellective.

As we have seen (cf. 672-675), perfect sensitivity in the human soul resulting from the human organism seems a necessary predisposition for intelligence. But granted a given conformation of the human organism, that is, of the felt element, it does not follow, if the soul is to be sensitive in a human manner (suitable for receiving intelligence), that the conformation is so determined as to make variation impossible. Hence, differences in sex, age, temperament, states of health and degrees of perfection in the organism, and so on. These differences are:

1. partly stable. As such they pertain to the varieties or constitutive accidents according to nature, such as sex;
2. partly changes of integral parts. This occurs in monsters who either lack some part or have had some part added to them. This is another class of varieties or constitutive accidents against nature;
3. partly of quality alone. Examples are: different degrees of health, black or white skin.

888. As we said, animal constitution is a necessary predisposition for rationality. Humans, therefore, receive the matter of cognition, and the signs according to which they reason, from animality and, consequently, their aptitude for reasoning at different levels of perfection. Such an aptitude depends on the facility with which they possess, recall, maintain or mix at will different sensible signs of things. The result is multiple variety in the reasoning and affective faculty corresponding to the varieties we have indicated in human animality.

889. Moreover, if the being intuited by humans were to acquire reality, their intellective state would change substantially. This would entail a passage from the natural to the supernatural state (an argument pertaining to theology). This change to the supersubstantial form of human beings would be followed by a relative change in their reasoning faculty, and even in their body as a result of the activity exercised by the intellective part on the animal part (cf. 288-389).

890. These varieties, which may be according to or against nature, and integral or qualificative, are called accidental in the sense that they are not contained in the idea of the human being. They are relevant, however, to all the varieties of state. They are not transient acts, about which we still have to speak.

891. Corporeal matter, because thought of as term, is necessarily inert (cf. 816-822); it does not include any passage from potency to act. All its mutations happen from outside. It is merely passive. Its acts, therefore, are passive, or rather are not acts properly speaking, but passions. These passions of corporeal entia are always related to quantity and thus cause change in plurality, forms, localities of bodies, and so on.

It would seem that sensitive beings have accidental acts, which can indeed receive that name. But if we consider carefully how the sensitive being is constituted, we notice that these acts have their sufficient reason not in the sensitive being itself, but in the substance sustaining and actuating it, that is, in corporeal substance. The different ways in which the sensitive being is sustained and actuated cause the accidental mode of its activity. As we saw, it is an activity because it is a principle-ens.

But this activity is sustained, informed and actuated by its term, that is, by the felt element. When the latter changes, the activity of the sensitive being increases or diminishes, and reveals itself in different ways without, however, any change in the law or in its own theme. For example, if we view a surface over which different coloured, arranged shapes pass, the reason for the successive change lies altogether outside the eye, whose activity remains the same as long as the eye looks, although what is presented to it changes. The eye always sees with the same power, with the same act, although the visual act seems to change. The change, however, takes place in the term, not in the eye. Nevertheless, this term of our act of vision is necessary for sight; the term seen by the eye actuates vision. Thus as the surface which is seen changes, the eye's act changes, although its theme (the seeing principle and the law by which surfaces are seen) remains the same. Now, there is no doubt that if the number of the shapes on the surface seen by the eye were to diminish, and the shapes were to grow smaller, the eye would begin to see fewer things. If the images were to cease altogether, the eye would see only a uniform surface. But if this visible surface were to decrease, the act of sight would also decrease. If the visible surface vanished altogether, the act of sight would also cease; there would simply be no vision. This is because the act of sight does not depend solely upon itself, but is conditioned to its term, In other words, visual activity does not increase, diminish or cease through any deficiency of its own, but through some deficiency in the term actuating and informing it.

In the same way, every sensitive principle resulting from this kind of duplication of substances ceases with the cessation of the substance that serves as its form and term, and changes as this substance changes. The sensitive principle itself ceases or changes through its own deficiency or through spontaneous increase or diminution of activity.
But if this were so, surely the sentient principle would be only passive, to the detriment of any explanation of the animal phenomena in which the sensitive principle is seen to act on the body, as for example the circulation of the blood?

The objection is not valid, precisely because all these movements are explained by the primal activity of the sentient principle. This activity is always acting on its term, according to the same law and the same theme. So if, for example, some irritation, some sharp pain causes an increase of circulation, this would mean, according to me, increase of action in the sentient principle. The increase does not arise because the sentient principle has of itself augmented its own activity, but simply because the activity it already possessed has found another term to actuate and inform it at a higher level, and thus enable it to develop. If, for example, I place an opaque body in the rays of the sun, and then substitute a diaphanous body, the sun's rays fall in both cases according to the same law, and with the same speed and incision, upon the body placed under them. In the first case, however, they are blocked and reflected; in the second, they pass through, not because they have modified their own activity, but because their activity, in unfolding, is conditioned by the bodies of varying nature which lie in the path of the rays.

892. Human accidental acts are sensitive and intellective. As sensitive, they develop in the way I have described. As intellective, they cannot develop unless they have recourse to their own term, that is, to the idea (object, being in general) which actuates intellective activity. Being in general, however, is extremely simple, and per se unchangeable. Consequently, the intellect, as such, is also unchangeable in the order of nature. It is only susceptible of a supernatural change when ideal being is realised before it. This happens only in the order of grace and glory, something which is superior to human philosophy. We can however doubt whether ideal being itself shines with the same light on all human intellects. For myself, I would be inclined to deduce the primal difference in intelligence from the rational order rather than from the intellective order alone.

893. The rational order begins with a fundamental perception (cf. 254-271). Its development starts as soon as the human being perceives exterior realities in the order of ideality. Acts of perception depend, therefore, on the realities which fall within our feeling. They develop by having recourse to the variety present in the term of perception and to the primal rational activity through which the soul is always inclined and as it were directed towards the perceptible term present to it in feeling. The soul has no need to posit any spontaneous change beginning in this primal activity. Reflection in human beings is then determined according to human needs. These reflective acts are unfolded in the same way because needs immediately make themselves felt in the animal nature of human beings. Only when we acquire the use of individual freedom(56) does a very different kind of act become clear in us. The explanation of this fact seems, however, to require that the agent move himself in such a way that the passage from potency to act does not depend on the term but on the operating principle.

894. Here lies our greatest difficulty. We have to explain how these accidental acts do not eliminate the unity of the acting principle. The matter is indeed so difficult that even when a person succeeds in understanding how to solve this kind of philosophical mystery, he still has immense difficulty in putting his thought into words that have some real meaning for others. But I shall try.

First, we have to remember that freedom (I am speaking of bilateral freedom) is the faculty for choosing between two volitions.(57)

Next, consider how bilateral freedom resides only in the moral order where we are dealing with a choice between a volition harmonising with law, and its opposite. Outside this case, there is no reason for inducing human beings to put subjective evil before good, or lesser subjective good before greater good.(58) When, however, we are dealing with a comparison between the subjective order and the moral-objective order, it is possible to understand how we can put the smallest moral-objective good before the greatest subjective good, or do the opposite by placing subjective good before any great moral-objective good.

The explanation lies in the fact that the subjective order and the moral-objective order do not pertain to the same category; moreover, their various levels cannot be compared or measured. They have nothing in common, neither species nor genus, and consequently no true similarity nor even any true analogy. If we consider moral good purely as such (as it appears in moral obligation), we find that it has no force to detach us from the subjective good with which it comes in collision, unless we add to it our own energy and determine ourselves in its favour. It is precisely here that freedom lies.

The moral order, that is, the ideal-moral order (the law) is, therefore, the term of moral activity just as subjective good is the term of real activity. Because these two terms are categorically distinct, the two activities which they sustain and actuate are also categorically distinct. Each activity varies its accidental acts according to change in its own term. The soul, because it has a double term, has a double, categorically distinct activity, whose terms have no common measure. When these terms come into collision, therefore, they cannot determine the soul to develop through one activity rather than another. The soul itself has to enter the field, as it were, and decide for itself. This is where the soul's freedom lies, as I have said before. The whole difficulty, therefore, consists in explaining how the soul, which is one, can have two such distinct activities and adhere to one rather than another without its being determined by either.

It is not absurd that the soul should have two terms. The twofoldness is in the terms, not in the principle (cf. 161-173). The soul's two activities arise from the twofold term because, as I have said already, the adhering term actuates the principle to which it adheres. Granted two categorically different terms, two categorically different activities are aroused in the soul. The greatest difficulty lies in explaining how these two activities, being categorically different, can have a single principle, that is, the soul.

895. In offering an explanation, we must first consider that these categories are a consequence of the forms of being. We said that identical being is in three forms or modes, that is, real, ideal and moral mode.

These three incommunicable categories, although far more distinct among themselves than differing genera, come together in being, that is, in the unity of being. Granted this nexus — in other words a single seat of the categories where an extremely simple unity resides with an extremely distinct trinity — we can understand how being, which communicates with the soul under the real and moral categories, can maintain, not destroy, unity in the soul provided that we conceive in the soul, prior to its real and moral activity, an activity contemporaneous with the soul and connected with the unity of being. The presence of this activity in the soul is proved simply by considering intelligence, which has being as its term. It is true that this faculty has being under its ideal form for its term, but even prior to this it has for object pure being because it cannot communicate with the ideal form of being without communicating with being itself, which is manifested in this form. Hence we also find in the soul effective unity and trinity, an obvious trace of the divine Trinity. The soul has a single activity in so far as it communicates with being. All the other activities, even those as categorically distinct as the real and moral activities of which we have spoken, are unified in this single activity. But because being, which although one and extremely simple has three forms, it is not absurd that the soul, to which being is communicated, should be both extremely simple and possess three categorically distinct activities in its unity.

896. We still have to explain how this single activity (which corresponds to being and in which reside the two real and moral activities corresponding to the two categories of being) can determine itself when some collision prevents contemporaneous acceptance of both.

If we are to reach some solution (and this is our aim), we have to consider that in entire, complete and absolute being(59) the forms of being can never come into collision. The real form is conceived as principle, the ideal form as means and the moral form as end. Thus the order of being is such that the moral form is compared to the other forms as their complement and perfection. In the same way, even where being is participated in a limited fashion, the moral form can never properly speaking lose the element of end and perfection which forms its concept. If, therefore, it were put after the others and made to serve as means, or set aside altogether, some disorder would be present. In other words, the intrinsic, natural order of being would be destroyed. A visceral combat, present in being itself, would tend to destroy being, which can only exist with its proper order. Hence the soul, or any intelligence having being with its categories as its term, must in its first act observe the order furnished by being which, by communicating itself, sustains and actuates the soul. It follows that the still undefiled soul, when acting according to its well-ordered first activity, would retain in its operations an order wholly analogous and corresponding to the order of being itself; the soul would be determined to act with moral perfection by the order of being. We have to suppose, therefore, the existence in the soul of some spontaneity for acting morally, that is, of clinging always to moral good without ever sacrificing it to real good.

This limits our question. We simply have to explain how the soul can abandon the moral order to pursue purely real, or subjective good. In other words, how is sin possible? If we can explain this, we shall also have explained freedom and its accidental acts.

Consider, then, that the soul, in so far as it possesses real activity, is extremely mobile. Any good or evil whatsoever, however small, is sufficient to determine it to act.(60) Moreover, as long as this operation is not opposed to the moral order, the soul acts according to the spontaneity proper to its real activity. When, however, the operation is opposed to the moral order, the two activities are seen to clash and determine the soul in contrary directions. Each of these activities, taken singly, would be sufficient to make the soul act, but granted the collision, which of them will conquer?

Moral activity is superior because of the excellence and breadth of the term which produces it. This term is being in its completion and final perfection which embraces everything. If this moral order were to act in the soul with the efficacy of which it is capable it should produce consistently prevalent spontaneity. But this order, although the term of the soul, does not act upon the soul with total efficacy. The soul does indeed understand the dignity of the moral order and the absolute necessity for preferring it, but does not derive from this understanding the force necessary to repress the spontaneity of real activity.

It can, however, succeed in repressing this spontaneity provided that of itself it unites itself more closely to the moral term that informs and actuates it. This increases the salutary force that the term has over the soul, and morally invigorates it. The soul sees the necessity for doing this, as we said. Knowledge of this necessity certainly does not determine but simply counsels the soul that it can, if it wishes, determine itself in that direction. I say 'if it wishes', that is, if it increases the vigour of its moral spontaneity by adhering more intimately to the moral term and thus receiving an increase of force.(61) Hence, its vision of moral necessity, this special term of its intelligence, is the fount of its freedom. Through it, the soul knows what it can and must do, although it is not determined in its will.

Intelligence, therefore, is the fount of freedom because intelligence presents to the soul the moral order and its supreme necessity. It shows the soul that the force it is lacking, and for which it depends on the moral order, can come to it from this order. As we have seen, the other activities of the soul are determined to their acts by determined objects or terms which actuate and sustain the activities. In the same way, freedom is determined by its object which, however, is that of intelligence. The object of intelligence for its part embraces two opposite elements, real and moral, without determining the soul to one or the other. The soul, however, finds in this object the possibility for making the moral element prevail because the object reveals to the soul the supreme excellence of morality, together with its necessity and finally its power of being actuated in an unlimited way. Thus the soul is left capable of determining itself towards what is better, or of giving in to what is wrong.

I conclude: every real substance which, through ontological nexus, sustains and actuates another, gives it some determined activity. But ideal being, when joined ontologically with another substance (the soul) gives it only a potency for determination, not a determined activity.

Notes

(53) Sistema filosofico , 56-70.

(54) NE , vol. 2, 1005-1019.

(55) NE , vol. 3, 1456-1460.

(56) AMS , 543-559.

(57) Ibid ., 606-611.

(58) Ibid ., 560-566.

(59) Teodicea , 384-397.

(60) AMS , 623-627.

(61) I do not mean that the soul can really do everything in the moral order. Its forces are limited. It can also be determined to sin, even before it acquires the use of its freedom, as we see from the dogma of original sin. I am speaking here in theory (as Aquinas often does, although some people misunderstand him). I am considering the soul in itself, prescinding from its particular circumstances; I am supposing that the conditions for its action are present.