Chapter 7

Every human activity begins from the rational principle

1188. Having summarised the teaching on human nature, and seen how it is completed in the rational principle, the seat of unity in human beings, we now have to turn our attention to the activity which springs from this human principle. Our aim is to investigate this activity and consider its laws. First, however, we must separate out those activities which are mixed with human activity, but are not human activity itself. Confusing these two kinds of activity would be a real obstacle to our discussion. Confusing concepts necessarily leads to error.

1189. What we have said shows that five activities are seen in the human being. Only one of these is proper to the human being as such.

1. We recognised the existence of extension, the term of the animal-sentient principle, which although residing in this principle is not the principle. Such activity, although immanent, does not produce second acts. Consequently, it cannot be thought of as substance, but only as entity. We did not investigate the cause of this activity, but were content to note that it has an essential relationship with the sentient principle. It is, therefore, absurd to think of this activity outside the principle.

1190. 2. We recognised the existence of a corporeal activity which shows itself in extension, in which it becomes the term of the animal-sentient principle. As extended, this corporeal activity also has an essential relationship with the sentient principle. In other words, it must have its seat in this principle. It cannot be thought outside it. This activity, however, which is seen in extension, is not extension, just as it is not the sentient principle. Such corporeal activity has not only its first act of existence, but second acts also. It does not present itself to the sentient principle as an immobile and immutable term, but with movement and varied appearances. The proximate cause of this activity, which is foreign to the sentient principle, was named corporeal principle. When this principle makes its action felt in the soul, it is called sensiferous power. We did not investigate the nature of this principle but did ask ourselves what it might be or not be in itself. We considered the cause which prompts bodies to move according to the law of attraction and, as terms of our sentient principle, to change position and aspect. This cause was located, with highly probable arguments, in the animation of the elements. Hence, 1. sometimes the activity itself of the sentient principle changes and moves its term; 2. sometimes the corporeal term of a sentient principle is changed by a principle which the sentient principle does not perceive and is probably another sentient principle. We leave aside the cause of mechanical movement, which has its origin elsewhere.

1191. 3. We also recognised the activity of the animal-sentient principle. It is this activity which constitutes the animal. From what we have said, it is clear that this activity has the power of changing the extended-felt element. It is also clear that the rational principle perceives feeling as entity, and hence can act in it; this however does not destroy the activity of the sentient principle. Consequently, although the activity of the rational principle can act in feeling and change it according to certain laws, the activity of the sentient principle, which is an essential element of feeling, remains. We also saw that simple perception changes nothing in feeling; perception does not alter or counterfeit perceived objects. Nevertheless, the rational principle, although it perceives the felt element, cannot act on it directly because it perceives this element essentially in the sentient principle and, therefore, as constituted by this principle. The rational principle must change and move the sentient principle so that the latter in turn may change what it constitutes, that is, the extended-felt element. Two activities, therefore, are found to operate in the same felt element: one (the sentient principle) acts directly; the other (the rational principle) acts indirectly, that is, by moving the sentient principle.

Sometimes, these two activities clash and give rise to the battle of concupiscence. Moreover, the activity of the sentient principle is limited, nor is it the only activity that forms and moves the felt, extended element. Other activities, such as the sensiferous force, and various sentient principles also play their part. In the same way, the sentient principle is sometimes in harmony with foreign activities which have the power of constituting or of changing bodies; sometimes it is out of harmony with these activities and either prevails, or is overcome. Everything depends on the degree of force exercised by the opposing principles, which gives rise to the battle called 'disease'. In the same way, the rational principle is sometimes out of harmony with all these activities. It could join forces with the struggling sentient principle, or even with the activity of the foreign principles when these bind and dispossess the sentient principle and thus prevent it from subjecting itself to the activity of the rational principle and serving it.

1192. The opposition to the rational principle may arise, however, from the sentient principle itself rather than from the foreign agent. In this case, the primal perception which serves as bond between the rational soul and animal body is defective. This explains why the rational principle is sometimes without its full, natural forces, and cannot ensure obedience from its inferior.(114)

1193. 4. We also recognised intellective activity, which consists in the intuition of being. This intuition has not and cannot have any reaction to being.

5. Finally, we recognised and described at length the activity of the rational principle.

1194. We proved that the first three activities are not properly speaking human activities by noting that sometimes they are in opposition to the human being. If they were human activities, they could never oppose rational activity, which is human.
Nevertheless, they are of assistance to the constitution of the human being. The first activity, extension, serves as the condition by which man can perceive bodies; the second and third activities, that is, the sensiferous power and the sentient principle, help as instruments of the rational principle. The sensiferous power acts as direct and the sentient principle as indirect instrument.(115)

1195. We also saw why the rational principle is not always able to make use of its instruments by controlling and dominating their power. What we said can be reduced to the following two reasons.

1. The weakness and imperfection of the rational principle which cannot rule the force of the animal-sentient principle, granted the imperfection of the fundamental perception.

2. The weakness of the sentient principle which is not sufficiently well connected to and harmonised with the sensiferous principle, on which it depends.

1196. The first three activities, therefore, are not proper to human beings. The same cannot be said of the other two if we consider them in their nexus, through which they form a single activity, that is, the rational activity.
In fact, intellective activity, the simple intuition of being, although the first act constituting an intellective principle, is not yet the complete principle of the second acts in which the activity of the soul is manifested. We are speaking, however, of the activities of the soul in order to explain the laws governing their operation; in other words, we are searching for the cause of second acts without confining ourselves to the first act which finishes totally in itself.

Considering the rational principle, we see that it always contains the act proper to the intellective principle. The rational principle could not perceive any real ens without first intuiting ideal being. The subject, therefore, which intuits ideal being (and to this extent is called intellective principle), is the same as that which perceives real ens, and to this extent is called rational principle. The intuition of ideal being does not exhaust the activity of the subject. Consequently, the intuition of ideal being is an act of the subject, but not of the whole subject, not of the whole man. A subject, as we know, is posited by that first act which potentially embraces in itself all second acts.

The intuition of ideal being can also be considered as a necessary condition for acts of the rational principle. Here, we notice an admirable analogy between the animal and intellectual orders. In the former, the apprehension of space is present as a condition for the apprehension of body. In the latter, the intuition of ideal being is present as the preliminary condition for the perception of real being. Pure space, therefore, is a highly satisfactory symbol of indeterminate, ideal being. In space, bodies are perceived sensitively; in being, real entia are perceived intellectively. Ontology asks the following question: 'Are the symbols, scattered in sensible nature, of what happens in intelligent nature the necessary consequences of the intrinsic order of being, or an effect of the supremely wise will of the Creator?' But we must return to our own question.

1197. How must we define the rational principle in order to include fully in its definition the first act of the human subject with its different forms? - We define it as follows: 'The rational principle is the power by which we apprehend being as being, under its three forms. This power is wholly in act relative to the ideal form, partly in act and partly in potency relative to the real form (it is in act relative to fundamental animal-feeling which it perceives, and in potency relative to different terms of this feeling which successively change the feeling) and in potency relative to moral being.

1198. Hence, in the rational principle which is rendered one by the unity of being, there is first the intellective principle as the first form of its act. Also present radically are the three supreme orders of the human potencies and faculties, that is, the orders of potencies and faculties which are referred to the idea, to things (real), and to eudaimonological-moral good.

1199. The rational principle, therefore, has one, single object, being. But as being is in three forms, so too the first act of the rational principle is also in three forms respectively. The third form, however, is initially in potency, not in act. This can be conceived because the presence of the act of the first two forms necessarily gives rise to the relationship between them, that is, to the third form.(116)

Notes

(114) This explains the mysterious nature of the defect which theology callsoriginal sin . I have already written about this in an appropriate work.

(115) Aristotle makes a similar distinction. He speaks of two classes of 'things which occur relative to the soul'. Some seem to be passions proper to the soul, others seem to in-exist in animals for the SAKE OF THE SOUL. De An ., 1: 1.

(116) There would be no potency without a first act. This is clear from what we said about the concept of potency in NE , vol. 2, 1005-1019.