Chapter 13

Continuation — The supreme law of practical reason:'Acknowledge ens'

1399. We must show that the principle of cognition which constitutes the supreme law governing theoretical reason also furnishes practical reason with the supreme law according to which it must act . Thus, if the law of theoretical reason is 'An ens is the object of knowledge', the law of practical reason is 'An ens must be the object of practical knowledge'.
We say that theoretical reason acts according to the principle of cognition because it either does not act at all or, if it does act, is bound to this principle. Even errors therefore must be attributed to practical reason, as we have seen.

On the other hand, we say that practical reason MUST act in conformity with the same principle because its action can be carried out in two ways, either in conformity with its law or not. If it acts in conformity with the law, it is upright; if not, it is wayward. This is precisely what is to be explained, as I said, but before giving an explanation, let me set out a few notions.

1400. An insensitive ens is not a subject of good or bad. It acts according to its own necessary laws and always in an ordered way. Only human beings require it to act differently and, due to a kind of mysterious illusion, attribute bad and good to it. We do this by binding it to our own ideas, to which of course it is not bound. For example we say, 'This must be a pear, but it has been eaten by worms. It is bad.' The statement would indeed be true if the pear should have been perfect and possessed what is contained in the idea of pear, but it lacks this requirement. If we measure the pear against the full-specific idea , we would find it to be what it should be. On the other hand, measuring it against the abstract idea means we are considering in the object a relationship which enters into the constitution not of the pear's intrinsic order but of a hypothetical, extrinsic order linked to an idea imposed on it.(226) In short, matter, whatever its shape, is not a subject because a subject is always a principle-ens , while the concept of matter is solely that of term-ens .

1401. Sensitive entia and rational entia are however subject to good and bad.
The good proper to both consists in some activity to which their badness is also reduced. Each can have an activity which does or does not conform with its essence. If it conforms, it is in a good state; if not, it is in an bad state. The essence of the sentient principle requires the performance of its activity without its finding obstacles on the part of its term. If the principle encounters obstacles, pain results.
The same happens in the rational principle which, depending on the aim and endeavour of its essence, acts in a given way. If for any cause it does not act in this way, there is disorder. It suffers because, being feeling throughout, it must feel its own disorder.

1402. But if up to this point one formula suffices to express the good or poor state of the sensitive and rational principles, the infinite difference between what is good and bad for these two principles becomes apparent immediately. I must explain. The difference between good or bad in one principle and good or bad in the other is rooted in the difference of their terms, from which their activities originate and their nature is determined. As I said, good and bad proper to an ens which is susceptible of good and bad depends on the disposition of its activity.
The term of the sensitive activity is the material , extended element together with its passions; the term of the rational principle is an ens . Consequently sensitive activity is the seat of what is good for the sensitive ens, and takes place when it can diffuse its passions into the extended element in proportion to its instinct. Rational activity is the seat of what is good for the rational principle when, without any opposition or struggle, it adheres to its term which is ens. We now have the first law of reason: 'Adhere to an ens'.

1403. In fact the rational principle can never cease to be rational and therefore can never cease to have an ens as its term. If it has an activity of its own, as it certainly does, it is not purely receptive; this also must have an ens as its term. The law of this activity must come to it from the ens, according to the principle that every subject susceptible of good and bad possesses some good when it adheres perfectly to its term, and some bad when it fails to adhere to its term in the way required by its essence.
The rational principle therefore, whether purely receptive (called 'theoretical reason') or active (called 'practical reason'), must as one and the same principle have the same term from which it necessarily receives the laws of its operation.

1404. But in so far as it is receptive, the rational principle receives purely in its own way, which is through intuition. Union with its term does not depend upon the principle precisely because it is receiver, not agent; union depends on the term itself, on the ens given to the intuition of the principle whose constitution is fixed and determined by a necessity foreign to it, that is, by that necessity which constitutes it as it is.

But as active, the rational principle itself posits its act. If an act is performed, the rational principle performs it; if not performed, the rational principle does not perform it; in other words, the rational principle is the cause. The necessity of this act can never be the same as the necessity of the principle's receptivity of an ens. Even if the activity of the rational principle were not carried out properly and uprightly, the principle would still be. However, it would not be, if it did not receive ens. Hence, the first difference between the rational principle as theoretical and the rational principle as practical is that while a first theoretical act is necessary for the constitution of the principle, a practical act is not .

As I said earlier, this fact alone would be sufficient to explain fully how the principle can deviate from its own natural law . The most complete explanation however is found by examining the nature of moral freedom, the way this potency is constituted, and the way it results from the collision of categorically opposed agents. But all these things have already been discussed and I must presume they are known to the reader.

1405. Because the word 'activity' is common to every ens, we must now examine the rational principle's own particular nature and kind of activity. We must first distinguish its activity from all other activities, and then from the primordial, receptive activity of theoretical reason.
A rational principle must be rational activity, that is, some way of knowing, but first knowledge is proper to theoretical reason. The activity of practical reason must therefore be another way of knowing, a way of knowing that takes pleasure in the known object, of appropriating the object and of discovering one's own good in it. Hence an ens relative to practical reason gains the notion of good .

1406. To indicate this active, lively knowledge I use the phrase 'practical acknowledgement'.
This act of practical reason is the first act of will .
The supreme law of theoretical reason is therefore the supreme law of practical reason. The difference is purely in the relationship of each reason to the same term: the relationship of theoretical reason is 'receptivity'; of practical reason, 'adherence'. I have explained both.

1407. What I have said about the supreme law of theoretical reason must be applied to practical reason.
First of all, I have distinguished between total thought and abstract thought . I noted that the latter can indeed draw our attention to itself and become the exclusive term of our attention. But it cannot exist alone in the human mind where total thought must always be present, even if neglected and unnoticed. Granted that 'an ens is the object of knowledge', there is clearly no knowledge unless all that is essential to an ens is in the mind, although one part of it can be in the mind in one way, for example, accompanied by attention, and the other part in another way, unaccompanied by any actual attention.
This teaching is extremely important in practice because practical reason contains a very noble rule, 'the supreme rule of prudence'.

1408. Attention, although energy pertaining to practical reason, is an activity influencing theoretical reason and strengthening its acts. As we shall see more clearly later, practical reason possesses an action which effects theoretical reason in various ways. But practical reason is already active at the start of attention, and the cognitions to which the spirit attends become more easily and efficaciously norms and principles of human action.

1409. Human beings can therefore direct their actions in two ways, either in conformity with what they know through total, complex thought , or exclusively in conformity with what they know through partial , abstract thought . If human actions correspond to complex, total thought, they are themselves complex and total; if their norm is abstract thought, they are defective and imperfect. It is here precisely that we find the supreme rule of prudence, which can be stated positively as: 'Act in keeping with total thought' or negatively: 'Be careful not to act according to partial, abstract thought.'

1410. However we must bear in mind that acting according to the norm of complex, total thought can be of two kinds of varying perfection. If thought is total but without analysis and abstraction, action, although substantially prudent, will lack some accessory element. The action will be imperfect in its accidents. The result is two degrees of prudence: the prudence of those who act according to complex, total thought but without analysis and abstractions; the other, more perfect, of those who act according to both total and abstract thought. They do not take abstract thought alone but unite it with total thought, that is, they consider the abstractions as joined to the objects on which the abstractions were made.

1411. I will not develop this teaching any further, although it is of supreme importance. The reader can find a most enlightening example of its efficacy in the way I have applied it to political prudence in Society and its Purpose ,(227) where I called the faculty of total, complex thought simply faculty of thought , and the other faculty, faculty of abstraction.

1412. This general rule gives rise to the more special rule, 'When acting, keep to the substance and never sacrifice it to the accidents,' which I discussed in another work.(228) Substance, which is the first act of every ens, must be present in the object of total thought; it can be lacking only in abstract thought.(229)

1413. Theoretical reason has various acts which I reduced to three: intuition , perception and reflection . Similarly the laws which govern these different acts must be reproduced or have their corresponding laws in practical reason , which I must now discuss.

1414. The object of intuition is an ens, a total ens, but under the ideal form. The only way in which we can enjoy and unite ourselves to an ideal ens is by contemplation. The law proper to practical reason is therefore the inclination to contemplation of the idea which, according to different relationships, becomes truth, type, beauty, etc. Every inclination proper to an ens is a law of its action because its action, and its activity in general, is in a good state when in conformity with its essential, natural inclination.

1415. Certain conditions are required if the inclination to the contemplation of ideas is to be activated. Without these conditions natural intuition lacks the effort for activity and remains theoretical, not practical.

1416. The single, principal condition is 'the comparison between a real ens and an ideal ens'; properly speaking a real ens is the term of rational activity. But because every real being is given to the rational principle by means of the idea and in the idea, the rational activity, which is moved by the real term, can also affect the idea and, when moved, fix itself on it. Active contemplation is developed in this way, and can also be called simply 'contemplation' as opposed to simple 'intuition'. Furthermore, just as pleasure is present in every act of the rational principle, so is love, which can be defined in general as 'fruition of the object'.

1417. In the second place, because the essence of every real ens is understood in what is ideal, intuition also produces in the rational principle an inclination or predisposition to every real ens. However, the essence is only virtually understood; the mode of the ens is not seen until it is perceived. This is the usual teaching of philosophers, who say that 'the object of the intellective appetite, that is, of the will, is good in its common notion'.(230)

1418. Ideal being therefore, the object of intuition, per se produces in human beings inclinations and propensities but not acts, which come later when suitable stimuli have been received. The inclinations can be reduced to two: 1. the inclination to contemplation, and 2. the inclination to every knowable, real good.(231)

1419. Let us now consider perception and see what the laws governing perception contribute to practical reason.
The law of perception is: 'A limited ens perceived in feeling is referred to and seen in ideal being' in such a way that the perception contains 1. a feeling or reality, 2. an ideal ens, and 3. the (imperfect) relationship of identity between these two.
An ideal ens is infinite and per se complete. If a real ens is rationally perceived and referred to it, the limits of the real ens are also perceived because, by referring a real ens to the totality of being, we see the degree to which every real ens participates in and realises being in itself.

1420. Because the term of practical reason is an ens given by theoretical reason and all its functions, a perceived ens must also be the term of practical reason. Furthermore, if the act of practical reason consists in adhering to its term, it must adhere to the perceived ens in the way this is perceived. But ideal being perceives these entia as measured so that one is perceived as greater and another as smaller. Thus, it is a law of practical reason that it adheres to entia according to their measure. Even when the subject perceives only one real ens, it sees whether it is limited or unlimited by comparing it with what is ideal, and must adhere to it exactly as it is, that is, with an affection measured and proportionate to the ens.
This is the moral principle, 'the law of moral order'. It prescribes that the affective acknowledgement given to known, real entia be proportionate to their limits considered relative to the ideal, complete ens and, in the case of several, in comparison with each other.(232)

1421. There is another very noble consequence: moral good has an infinite nature in so far as its object is always an infinite ens.
Perception never presents us with an isolated, limited ens, relative only to itself. What is limited is always united with and measured by what is ideal, complete and infinite. The object of practical reason is never confined to a finite-real ens, but always joined to what is ideal and infinite, with which it constitutes the good proper to practical reason. Consequently, the act of adhesion found in practical reason is subject to ideal being in general as its supreme norm and rule, which it reveres more than any finite real ens.

1422. This is precisely the essential characteristic of what is moral: it always embraces the TOTALITY OF BEING in which it ends and according to which it regulates itself. Moral good, therefore, is of its NATURE INFINITE; it cannot be compared with any other finite good such as eudaimonological good which, unaccompanied by what is moral, terminates in what is finite. Moral goodness, which orders human beings to the whole of being, to infinite being, furnishes this order with infinite worth. And this is the constant, uniform judgment of mankind.
It cannot be objected that the real ens adhered to is finite. Adherence depends on prior adherence to what is ideal and infinite and, as such, measures and determines the quantity of adherence due to any real ens.

1423. If the real ens were itself infinite, the moral good would be infinite in both respects, that is, relative to the infinite dignity of the norm revered above all finite things, and relative to the real object. Here morality, because it acquires an infinite value, would be infinitely greater than in the case above, where however there is an infinite value. As we saw, 'infinite' is an ontological property which cannot be partly lost; either it is all lost or it all remains, that is, infinity remains because it is such by nature, not by addition or according to quantity.

1424. The act proper to practical reason is the practical acknowledgement of what is first known theoretically. This is morality, and its first act is carried out by means of reflection.
Reflection however is twofold, abstractive and integrative . But a third function can be added, that of simply acknowledging what is known without any abstraction or reflection being exercised on it.
Consequently practical reason must also have three functions: 1. the willed acknowledgement of what is known, 2. acknowledgement accompanied by abstraction, division and separation, that is, acknowledgement of only a part of what is known, and 3. acknowledgement with integration.

1425. If practical reason acknowledges a known ens purely for what it is in theoretical cognition, its action is natural. It unites itself to the term determined for it by its own essence, by its essential inclination — its act is good.
But if instead of simply acknowledging its term as a whole, it wills to abstract from one part while willing to adhere to another, it does not reach the totality of its term — it is wayward and its act is evil. Every immoral act therefore contains an arbitrary abstraction contrary to nature. I have explained elsewhere how human beings can be drawn to act in opposition to the essence of their rational principle, which is themselves.(233)

1426. Furthermore, when practical reason limits and restricts its attention and activity to a part of the known object, it deprives itself of some light, it blinds itself. The ignorance and blindness present in every vice and wayward act also produces erroneous consciences, from which it is very difficult to free ourselves. Even awareness of them is difficult.(234)

1427. Integrative reflection , as a function of practical reason, contributes most nobly to human perfection. It raises us to God, where moral order attains its ultimate perfection, and practical reason reaches its ultimate, divine term which, as essential being and the beginning and end of things, completes the order of known ens. Its term is now not only all that is under the ideal form but also under the real form, although the second cognition is negative. Religion is therefore the crown of morality, and just as morality opposed to religion is not morality but rather extreme wickedness, so without religion it is like a roofless house whose roof is nothing more than a outline on an architect's plan!

Notes

(226) Teodicea , 434-464.

(227) 839-843.

(228) The Summary Cause for the Downfall or Stability of Human Societies .

(229) Prudence is a moral virtue when complete, not when incomplete. The law of prudence which I have given applies equally to the virtue of prudence and to prudence, understood simply as 'the ability to achieve any purpose'.

(230) St. Thomas, S.T. , I, q. 59, art. 4.

(231) Teodicea , 389-394.

(232) Cf. NE , vol. 1, 180-187, where I explained how what is ideal is always the measure of what is real.

(233) Teodicea , 396-410.

(234) CS , 406-458.