Chapter 17

The nature of habits, and how they are contained in
the essence of the soul

908. I turn now to habits. I want to show how their multiplicity does not prejudice the unity of the soul, just as I showed that this unity is not prejudiced by the multiplicity of acts and potencies. What has been said will help us to do this. But to proceed more clearly, I will begin by defining what is meant by habit, and I will determine its nature.

909. Generally speaking, habit is some acquired, accidental disposition of the soul which places the soul in a better or worse state, and makes it more apt to act in a given way.(67)

910. 'Habit' has therefore two principal meanings, 1. relative to the essence of the soul and 2. relative to its potencies.

911. Relative to the soul's essence, habit is that which adds something better or worse to the soul's natural state, placing the soul in a better or worse state than it would have had without the habit.

912. Relative to the soul's potencies, habit is a disposition which gives the potencies greater facility to act in a given ordered or disordered, good or bad way.

913. An example of the first meaning is the state of a soul made better morally by an act of virtue or the acquisition of merit, or made worse by a sin or fault.
An example of the second meaning are all skills, which are acquired dispositions for acting without difficulty to produce what skills should produce.

914. Careful consideration reveals that strictly speaking both meanings of habit are applicable to the intellective, moral soul. The second meaning is applicable to the merely sensitive soul, which totally lacks personship. Because the sensitive soul is not the cause of its own actions and possesses no ideal norm to follow, it is susceptible of natural perfection only one step at a time. One sensitive soul can be perfected in its nature to a greater or lesser degree than another; the same soul can even flourish or wane, although what it gains or loses pertains to nature, not to any habit which makes it better or worse. For example, a sensitive soul (an animal) with a term that is greater, more manifold, stimulating and better organated for the preservation of life is much more actuated. But this greater actuation is of the same nature as natural actuation. All we can say is that its nature has increased or diminished; it has not been made better or worse. 'Better or worse' can be used only in a kind of transferred sense, in so far as we apply what is human to the archetypal idea of that animal. Thus, a larger body is not necessarily a better body, nor does it possess habit; it simply has a greater quantity of matter.

On the other hand the potencies of a sensitive soul can have habits understood in the second sense, that is, as a disposition of the potency to act in a given way.
The rational soul, however, because it has an ideal norm to follow, is susceptible not only of greater or lesser natural activity but of being better or worse, according to its degree of conformity to its norm. This conformity endows it with dignity, merit and the right to eudaimonological good, which properly speaking does not pertain to its nature. It is a relationship with something other than the soul. This is precisely why we speak of 'habit'. In virtue of this relationship the soul acquires a better or worse state. The relationship itself is better or worse, and this explains why the goodness or evil of the relationship is reflected in the soul.

915. This also explains how the soul can have supernatural habits, if God is joined to it. God is not a natural object and therefore does not pertain to the nature of the soul; he comes to it from outside. However, in some way this kind of habit adds to the essence of the soul a kind of new nature, something which no other habit adds.
We must now consider habits in the second sense, that is, as dispositions of the potencies to act in a given way. In doing so, we will note several things about their nature.

916. First of all, we must note that the classification of the habits of potencies must follow the classification of potencies themselves.
Potencies are of two kinds: some have only one purpose, others, the higher potencies, are ordered to directing and commanding the lower potencies. Hence, habits either perfect a potency in its own purpose or perfect the order of the potencies by carefully disposing and evaluating those which must direct others.

917. Although habits by their nature perfect potencies, they sometimes indirectly cause harm, and disorder in the subject. This happens when a habit perfects potencies that have to be directed and subordinated and gives them greater force and promptness of action than that given by the commanding potency. In this case the potency perfected by a habit is disturbed and causes disorder in the ens, which it sometimes destroys.

918. We must now see how habits are produced. We have already been helped in this by seeing how potencies and their accidental acts are produced and constituted.

919. I said that accidental acts arise through the accidental change of the term informing an ens. These second acts presuppose a first act, that is, the informed ens itself, in which there is principle and term. The term, when accidentally changed and made able to arouse a second, accidental act, arouses the activity of the principle. Although this accidental act is transient, its cessation leaves a residue of actuality in the principle. Consequently, a principle that has more actuation is more prepared for, and responds more energetically to a new stimulation which it receives from the term. The term thus changes for a second time, just as it did the first time when it aroused the accidental act. This law shows that a greater frequency of acts must produce greater habit, although habit begins with the first, accidental act.

920. Because the cessation of the act involves the removal of the term that aroused it, we may perhaps find it difficult to understand how the principle of an ens must remain more actuated when the accidental act ceases. We could object that, even if this were the case, it would no longer be true that an actuality in the principle of an ens depends (as is supposed) on the action and the inherence of the term. We should instead be looking for some other cause of the greater or lesser actuation of the principle. If the principle remains more actuated when the term has ceased, such a cause will be independent of the actuation arising from the term.

I reply. When the transient act ceases, the inherence of the term does not entirely cease. We see this in the acts of both sensitive and rational faculties.

921. Indeed, when sensitive faculties have had an external perception or have experienced a passive or active feeling, some trace of what it has experienced remains in the sense. It is certain that the sensitive principle preserves in its felt element a modification produced by the action of external bodies on the body it is vivifying, even when these bodies have ceased to act. It is also certain that some kind of passion or an instinctive inclination remains, even after the cessation of an action in our felt element. These permanent modifications are the cause of habits, or rather are the habitual activity of the sensitive principle.

922. This can be understood better if we bear in mind that the activity of the sensitive principle is greater and more extensive than it seems; it does not terminate simply in a sensation, in the felt element alone, but acts on the sensiferous element. With every change of the felt element, the activity acts on the sensiferous element in order to adapt it to itself. By doing this the activity can enjoy the best possible state; this is the origin of its organising power (cf. 474-489). Its state improves in corresponding proportion after it has experienced certain sensations and, by means of the activity these have aroused in it, has adapted the sensiferous element to itself in the best possible manner.

This will be more clearly seen if we bear in mind the law of sensuous instinct, which is part of the principle's activity. Before finding a pleasant sensation, the sentient principle is unable by its activity to produce the sensation for itself. However, after experiencing such a sensation, the sentient principle exerts all its energy to maintain it. If it cannot do this fully (because the external stimulus that aroused the sensation has been removed), it maintains some part of the sensation, to which it adapts its sensiferous element, which has not been removed, as much as possible. It now has a tendency to reproduce the sensation as soon as possible. Whenever the occasion returns through the renewed application of the external stimulus, the principle is already prepared and keen to co-operate promptly with the stimulus so as to enjoy the same pleasure. As I said, the sensiferous element, which the principle has kept in the attitude necessary for this kind of actuation or prepared for the effect, helps it to maintain this greater activity. Indeed, the sole action of the external stimulus does not arouse the pleasant sensation; a principal role in the arousal is played by the movements of the sensiferous element. These movements depend on the disposition of the soul at the time of the accidental act which, although it ceases, does not do so entirely. The sensiferous element remains on the alert, although the external stimulus has ceased.

This is confirmed by the fact that sensitive habits cease whenever the human body (and therefore the sensiferous element), is incorrectly disposed, just as sensitive activity itself ceases if the body becomes disorganised and destroyed. We are thus able to explain the habits of the sensitive faculties and the total development of the sensuous instinct, which pertains principally to habitual activity.

923. Habits of the rational faculties also can be explained in a similar way, by means of the term which remains fixed as it were in the soul, even after the cessation of the bodily feelings which occasion reasoning.

In fact, in the order of rationality, we have:
1. A constant, immutable term, that is, indeterminate being in its ideal form.
2. Perceptions, that is, transient acts.
As we saw, these acts leave some traces in sense, some instincts which arouse images, and some active and passive feelings. The traces and residue contain the stimulus for acts of intelligence which are used to arouse the activity of concepts, etc. Language also pertains to the sensible order because it is composed of sounds and other sensations, which themselves leave traces in internal sensitivity. Habits of the sensitive faculties therefore and instinctive movements explain how rational potency is aroused and drawn to its many acts by what is sensible, even when no external stimulus acts in sensitivity.

3. Finally, what happens in sensitive activity happens in rational activity which, after an act, retains an inclination to repeat the act because something of the object remains in the intelligence. We can understand this if we consider that the object of reason is a sensible element considered as an ens which, because it pertains solely to intelligence, is retained by the intelligence in an (ideal) concept even after it has ceased to be perceived.

924. But two things still need investigation:
1. Can the ideal concept remain without any sensible trace to which to refer it?
2. Can the perception of the real existence of a mentally conceived ens remain?

Relative to the first question, I maintain that the determinate concept of an ens cannot be actually thought without reference to some trace of its reality. Nevertheless, while the trace lasts, intellective activity certainly acquires habits in relationship to the trace. The fact of abstracts, which seem not to refer to any trace of reality, does not invalidate the first part of my position. Careful consideration reveals that these abstracts depend on and refer to some element of the trace, not to the whole of it. It seems that the mind can think of abstracts only when aided by some trace of their reality.

925. On the other hand, persuasion of their subsistence, experienced in the past, requires proof which involves some perception of reality that the same ens still subsists. Similarly, the help of some sensible trace seems indispensable if we are to be persuaded that we have perceived something subsistent in the past (that is, we remember it). The sensible element is sometimes the matter proper to rational cognition and sometimes the stimulus to its act of rational cognition, as I will later explain.

926. The habits of each rational potency would therefore cease totally if every corporeal felt element were removed from the soul without being replaced by another bearing some relationship to the previous elements.

927. It does not follow however that remote habits of the rational principle cease altogether. As I said (cf. 701-711), the separated soul preserves the principle of space, which is the remote principle of the body. This principle can be a subject of remote habits, that is, vestiges of acts of the living subject.

928. We now know something of the nature of habits and are aware that as activities they are maintained by terms which arouse the acts and potencies of the soul. If follows that even multiple habits do not prejudice the unity of the soul. Their multiplicity depends not on the soul but on its terms. The soul's different activities are reduced to an identical principle which can be abstractly conceived as a kind of per se indeterminate activity, actuating itself in different ways according to the variation of its terms.

929. This principle, united to its terms, has its own activity because it is a substance distinct from its terms. Thus its activity and inclination increase. But completely divided from its terms it is no longer conceivable, and so no longer possible.

Notes

(67) It has been said that there are habits inherent to human nature or even essential to it. I do not wish to discuss this question here. I am speaking only about acquired habits.