Book 2
(analytical)

Activities of the human soul - how the soul's potencies differ

Introduction

932. Philosophy, according to the ancients, was happy to be judged by the few;(70) the masses were kept at a distance as the greatest sages confided the finest fruits of their meditation to tested disciples. I cannot do that. My love for people makes me want to speak to the whole of mankind. What I think I can say to one person, I am glad to say to all.

On the other hand, judgment is the right of the few hearers or readers who have sufficient knowledge. The majority do not possess enough knowledge to make me happy with their judgment, and would do better, for the sake of their own dignity and for the advancement of science, if they paid quiet attention. This applies to intelligent people as well. Often, they have neither the time nor will to devote to fundamental questions. Sometimes they are distracted by the turmoil of life or by other studies; sometimes they see no need for careful meditation (a very common prejudice!), and never manage to attain clear, intimate persuasion of the truth. These people, too, would do more for themselves and philosophy by remaining quiet.

Perhaps I should qualify that last sentence. Intelligent people could help philosophy considerably if over-confident, curious writers were criticised severely, and a flourishing new form of education enlivened national morality (this will happen soon, I think). The dignity proper to authors would then increase, and they would be ashamed of writing about subjects to which they had given little thought. But this is not the case today. Conscience seems to play no part in writing. Very few authors think they have a moral duty to think carefully before communicating their opinions to the public. Clarity and certainty (the fruit of patient, careful study) are not seen as moral pre-requisites for publication; there is no harm, it would seem, in causing confusion in the minds of others.

933. I would not be surprised to find that the questions I have dealt with in the previous book are considered useless and difficult, and thus finicky, by some at least of my fellow-citizens (not all, though, thank heaven!). People imagine that problems about humanity and other matters can be made easy or difficult at will. They prefer to be satisfied with superficial, lying and presumptuous knowledge rather than work hard and lovingly to become disciples of nature, ready to follow her courageously with all the energy they have wherever she goes, even to her darkest recesses. Well, if this is the case with some of my compatriots I am still quite content to go on. Let them lie back in their comfortable chairs, if they wish, and sing all day: 'You won't have much company.' They will be singing to themselves.

934. So far, I have explained the distinction between the essence of the soul and its potencies or activities. We have seen that while the essence is a single principle, its activities are multiple. My conclusion is justified by a very beautiful ontological law concerning the communication of beings. This law allows many, different beings to communicate with a single being and arouse in it different activities in keeping with the variety of the beings, but without affecting the unity of the principle. The principle always remains a first, single act, virtually embracing second, multiple acts. In this way the order of being is followed, because those entities which, considered in themselves, are multiple, are one considered in their common principle. We must now distinguish the activities of the soul by deducing them from its essence, that is, by showing how they emerge gradually from that first, single, very extensive act which virtually contains them.

Notes

(70) Cicero, Tusc , bk. 2: 1.