Chapter 16

'Continuation' -
The action of the rational principle and of its transient acts

1269. I want now to explain the transient acts of the rational principle. This, as we have seen, has several activities:

I. Intellective activity, which has the intuition of being as its first immanent act. The term of this activity is ideal being.

II. Perceptive activity, which consists in perceiving real ens. This activity has the perception of its own fundamental feeling as its immanent act. It also has many transient acts which are explained as soon as we know that they arise on the occasion of the modification of the fundamental felt element. Because this element is perceived naturally, its modifications must also be perceived. External bodies, in their turn, are also perceived necessarily as a sensiferous force because of the violence they exercise in the fundamental feeling.

III. It also has reflective activity. We have already given at least a partial explanation of the transient acts of reflection. Reflection begins from the same principle, that is, 'the transient act is the very activity of the first act when this is given an opportunity of moving and adjusting itself in its most natural way.' In fact, reflection is moved to its transient acts:

1270. a) by animal instinct, whose acts are transient acts of the animal fundamental feeling. Because this feeling is naturally perceived by us, all the instinctive movements are also perceived. When human animality rouses itself and moves towards the satisfaction of some need, rational perception accompanies all these movements and actions. But because man is a single, rational principle, he endeavours with all his powers - even his rational powers - to obtain the desired satisfaction of his animal needs.(138) This obliges him to fix his attention on means and ends, that is, to reflect on his own perceptions. This whole work of the understanding is always moved to action by the principle we have noted: 'The subjective feeling adjusts itself in the most commodious and pleasant way.' Reflection is attention whose act encompasses all the terms proportioned to it. Disquiet, however, and need are new terms for reflection. It constantly finds new outlets, as it were, open to it. It is like water in a container: as soon as a hole appears in it, the water flows out, not as a result of some new power, but through the same gravitation and pressure which it exercises in the container as long as the continuous sides of the container held it compressed;

1271. b) by the rational instinct in a similar way. An example of this is curiosity. When something unexpected happens, we spontaneously desire to know why the cause, which first produced one effect, now produces something quite unexpected. We reflect upon this and are not at ease until we find the solution to the difficulty. As we know, 'when the mind is faced with an apparent contradiction, its rational act is not complete and at rest until the contradiction has been resolved. The term of thought is being, and being is devoid of contradiction. Consequently, thought is not at rest until it has removed the contradiction and thus restored its term.' The same can be said about any question, about any scientific difficulty. When this new object appears before the intelligence, the way is open to an act of reflection which wishes to grasp the object in its totality;

1272. c) by a decree of the will which, having proposed some end, necessarily moves reflection to seek the means. Otherwise, the act of will would remain unfulfilled and disenabled relative to the need of its primal activity.

1273. IV. Will and practical activity can also be explained in other ways. - But the rational principle moves to the kind of transient acts which are called 'willed' through the new objects given to it by other potencies. These objects, which are new terms, call for and provoke the development of new activities according to the principle already laid down: 'The first, immanent act of the soul whenever it receives new terms is no longer in a satisfactory state, but naturally carries out its activity which previously had been held in check and existed only as an active endeavour because of the obstacle, that is, the way in which it is restrained.'

1274. V. Finally, we have bilateral freedom. As we saw, transient acts of this freedom are the most difficult to explain. - The difficulty is this. If the first, immanent act of the soul is carried out naturally when it receives new terms, and the furthering of the primal activity is the same activity which by a law of nature adapts itself to its most commodious and convenient state, transient acts are necessary. They are determined by the nature of the first immanent act and by the quality of the terms applied to them.

In this case, bilateral freedom, or indifference, is no longer present.- In considering the potency of bilateral freedom, it seems necessary to say that it is moved by the subject itself in complete independence of the terms given to it. If this is so, we find ourselves in the same difficulty which we have endeavoured at great length to overcome. If this difficulty is not removed, the transient act remains unexplained. It either has a full cause in its subject (immanent act) and then must co-exist with the subject and no longer be a transient, but an immanent act, or it does not have the full cause in its subject and depends on the terms of the subject itself (every stimulus given to the subject by a foreign agent is itself a term) and is necessitated. Or again, it arises from the subject without any possibility of finding the full cause. In this case, it comes into collision with the principle of cause. This difficulty, which is apparently very grave, led many leading philosophers to deny freedom.

They were wrong. Their investigation into the nature of this faculty was insufficient. But careful consideration of the faculty as I have described it in Anthropology(139) will provide a suitable way for dispersing this terrible difficulty, as we shall see immediately.

First we have to determine the precise term or proper object of freedom. We already know that this term is 'the choice between two contrary volitions.'(140) But the essence of freedom does not consist in choosing or not choosing; it consists in the way we choose one of two volitions. When two volitions are presented as a choice to the spirit, either we make a choice or not. If not, there is no act of will; if we do, there is an act of will.
Granted, therefore, that we are determined in making or not making a choice, and granted even that we are moved to carry out this act by some spontaneous necessity, we are not deprived of our freedom provided that in doing the act we remain free to choose one volition rather than the other.

Again, we may find that the two volitions from which we have to choose are present to our spirit and that we are necessarily moved to the transient act by the new term given to our immanent activity (this term is formed by the two contrary volitions from which we can choose, and the need to make the choice).(141) Nevertheless, we are not necessarily moved to carry out the act in one way rather than another, that is, to choose one rather than the other of the two volitions; we can choose whichever of the two we wish. We are free, therefore, perfectly free. This freedom does not appertain to the part of activity coming from the term, but to the part pertaining to the already constituted and actuated principle.

1275. But what sufficient reason explains the choice of one volition rather than the other? This kind of question shows a deficient grasp of the force of my definition of bilateral freedom. If 'freedom is the faculty to choose between two volitions', the act of this faculty is the choice. The act of the faculty consists precisely in determining oneself to one rather than the other of the two volitions; it is not the faculty positing the volitions themselves, but the choice of one of them. The reason for the choice, therefore, is the faculty itself, the very activity of the choosing principle. But this faculty, when moved by the presence of its term, comes into act, that is, it chooses between the volitions. Although it is drawn to act necessarily just as other powers are, the cause which draws it is completed by means of the new term, that is, the two volitions, to which the faculty is drawn. It is drawn necessarily to a free act which is its very own; that act is precisely the choice of which we have spoken.

Notes

(138) AMS , 530-534.

(139) AMS , 636-643. The wise reader should not attribute to immodesty or discourtesy my frequent recommendation to pay serious attention to certain difficulties. Very often, questions arise whose subtlety and delicacy make them hard and difficult to understand by even the cleverest people. Let me say very simply with St. Augustine: 'This comes about because what I write will be read not only by you and those who think like you, but by others who lack your intelligence and experience. Nothing can dissuade them, so determined are they, for better or worse, to know my works. You see how much care must be taken in writing, especially about things so great that GREAT MEN HAVE TO WORK HARD AT THEM' (Ep. CLXII).

(140) This is not intended to exclude choice between different but not contrary volitions. Several acts are posited when a choice is made between different volitions. The choice consists in deciding whether to do one of them or not. This means choosing between contraries, the elementary choice to which any choice between volitions is always reduced.

(141) It will be said that we are free even in making or not making the choice. This is true, of course, but in this case a distinction has to be made between the choice which becomes the object of our choice and the act with which we choose between making or not making the choice. I place necessity in the act-choice , not in the object-choice . I agree that we are free relative to the objects of choice.