Chapter 5

The distinction between the actual and virtual potencies
of the soul

959. Two kinds of potency must be distinguished in the soul: actual and virtual. Actual potencies are those whose term is supplied by the nature of the soul; virtual potencies, those whose term is not supplied by the soul but produced by the soul's action.
It is true that even the potencies we call actual are in fact not distinguishable, as long as they remain immersed in the essence of the soul. They are joined in the unity of the principle, where they lie quiescent, so to speak. At least they cannot be distinguished as potencies, whose concept involves a relationship with different kinds of accidental acts. But when accidental acts arise and the soul's term alters without changing its specific nature, the potencies we call actual appear.

960. Now, just as the terms of the human soul are two (the felt element and the understood element), so the actual, primitive potencies are two: sense and intellect. Each is endowed with a passive and an active faculty: sense with the active faculty of instinct, intellect with the active faculty of will.

961. Granted that the soul has felt and understood elements, where the two potencies of sense and intellect terminate, the term of a new potency arises. This term is the coupling of the felt and understood elements. By means of this coupling, 'the felt element is known in the understood element', that is, in the idea, and as known can be willed and loved. This derived potency is reason whose task is to apprehend the unity of an ens; in other words, it apprehends the identity of an ens in the felt and understood elements, that is, in reality and in the idea, as well as in its order. The potency, although a consequence of the first two (this is why it can be called derived), is not only in human nature virtually, but actually. As we have seen, we have in our soul a first, fundamental perception of our animality. This consists in the union of the intellective soul with the body, which gives rise to the human composite. This perception is the first act by which reason exists (cf. 254-285).

962. If, however, moral potency is to be posited in act, the soul needs more than the real and ideal elements, the terms of sense and intellect, and more than their logical union, the term of reason. The existence of moral potency requires at least the perception of an intellective being to whom we can give all the affection it merits. In other words, we can esteem and love this being for itself. It is not, as in the case of brute beings, a mere means for ourselves. This just measure of our esteem is where morality begins.

963. Furthermore, the nature of morality, which is the act completing and perfecting being, includes a certain relationship with the whole of being. Hence its object can only be intelligent being, understood as end, and understood as such because intelligent being touches upon the infinite.(72) Thus, although we feel, we do not naturally perceive or know any intelligent being, not even ourselves. Our animality, which we naturally perceive, is not ourself, which explains why we lack the term of moral potency and must obtain it through use of our reason. Hence moral potency is correctly called virtual as well as consequent and derived, because the only thing we find in human nature is a power for producing the term of the potency and positing it in being. The same must be said about bilateral freedom which follows moral order, as we have said, and about reflection which presupposes perception and is a function of reason.

964. From all this, we can see that potencies, faculties and functions originate from each other whenever they accompany their accidental acts and produce a product which itself becomes a term, a variable term, of the soul's activity. Consequently, this activity, when related to its variation, is understood as potency, faculty or function.

965. Before we discuss special potencies, it would be helpful to present a synoptic schema [Schema 1] of actual, derived and virtual potencies, so that the complex of potencies can be readily identified and our investigation proceed more easily.

Notes

(72) PE , 101-113.