Chapter 34 (Part 1)

Psychological laws corresponding to the cosmological laws
directing practical reason —
The psychological law of spontaneity

1666. We have reduced to two the cosmological laws imposed on the rational principle by the nature and order of the world: the law of motion and the law of harmony. In the same way, we can reduce to two the psychological laws corresponding to the cosmological. As we said, the activity of the rational principle is influenced partly by its excitatory term and partly by the activity itself of the excited principle which, having been put in motion, operates according to its law of spontaneity and, having received harmonious elements from the world, once more contributes something of its own vigour in rendering its own activity harmonic. The operating principle also enjoys this activity in so far as it manifests in the principle a law of harmony that completes and informs the harmony of the world. I call this harmony 'psychic' to distinguish it from the quasi-harmonic matter it receives from what is different from itself.

1667. We have to speak therefore about the law of spontaneity but without describing its nature, which we have already examined.(356) We shall deal instead with the special characteristics and accidents which it shows in its acts, but which are rather difficult to observe. The most important of these accidents are the two brought about in us as a result of the hidden action of spontaneity: our lack of consciousness about our spontaneity and exclusive interest in the term of our rational attention, a term of which we easily become conscious.

1668. I shall complete here what I said previously about consciousness. We saw that ideal being alone, intuited by our mind, does not provide us with any consciousness of itself. For that, some real stimulus or term is necessary.(357) This is the first, but not the only condition. The other was posited when we noticed that the formation of consciousness requires the human principle to draw rational attention to itself when it experiences some need. The need is 'the instinct requiring us to complete an action already begun.' Nor can we say that we ought to be moved immediately to form some self-awareness because we find self-awareness pleasing. The privation of a natural pleasure is not a need, nor does the pleasure become a need as long as we have not experienced it.

1669. Note:

1. that consciousness does not pertain to the science of intuition, but to that of predication;

2. that rational activity has two levels. First, we rejoice in truth (although we have no consciousness); second, we rejoice in the possession of truth (when we are conscious of possessing it). What we say about enjoyment must also be said about knowledge. At the first level, we know truth; at the second, we know that we know truth (we are conscious of knowing it). And what we say about truth must also be said about all good and all evil. At the first level, we enjoy good and suffer evil; at the second level, we enjoy the enjoyment of our own good and suffer the suffering of our own evil. These two levels constitute two very different human states which are distinguished only with difficulty. The philosopher, a reflective, conscious person, easily captivated by reflection, does not acknowledge what is present in his prior feeling but has not passed into his consciousness.

1670. It follows that there are two principles of action within us. With one, we tend to unite ourselves to our term and enjoy it; with the other, we tend to know and enjoy our union with the term, that is, to be conscious of our own enjoyment.
The first of these two principles of action and levels of activity constitutes our direct life; the second our life of reflection.

1671. The person who lives a life of reflection remains at the second level of activity where he acts with and becomes identified with the second active principle because 'The human being in act is the principle which operates.' When we act with the first principle, we are actually the direct principle; when we act with the second principle, we are actually the reflective principle. We are always the principle which acts.(358) If, then, in the operation of a life of reflection we are the reflective principle, it is not to be wondered that we deny our prior state and believe that everything in us is furnished with consciousness. Certainly, the reflective principle cannot know that human state on which reflection has not yet taken place. It denies, therefore, what does not enter its sphere, what is not reflective.

1672. Only as a reflective principle do we deal with our fellows and speak comprehensively. Social life is, for the most part, a life of reflection. It is clear, therefore, that without such a manner of life in the world, people would never associate; human interrelationship would be impossible. This indicates the excellence of reflective over direct life.

1673. Nevertheless, we must not believe that the good proper to reflective life is better than the good of direct life. The latter is fundamental good, good itself; reflective life is only another way of enjoying the good furnished by direct life. Reflective life is, therefore, at a higher level, more enlightening, more attractive, but not more noble or more precious than direct, primitive life.

1674. On the other hand, we must not imagine that reflective life is constantly on the increase or reaches out to all that is good in the direct life (the same is true, mutatis mutandis, of evil). While living a reflective and social life, we carry out many actions pertaining solely to direct life, actions of which we are unconscious and about which we say nothing. These actions begin in us, pursue their course and are completed in profound silence. Nevertheless, they are of immense importance to human subsistence and happiness. The two active principles operate in each other's presence; we are sometimes one, sometimes another of these principles. But the first principle acts as it were quietly and in the background; the second is loquacious, and disports itself openly, manifestly.

1675. This teaching, and this alone, explains many human facts, one of which is the pleasure we take in sleep. There is no doubt that when we have been awake for a long time, or are tired as a result of activity, we feel the need for sleep, and experience great delight in abandoning ourselves to it. I have come across people for whom the pleasure of sound sleep is amongst the greatest joys of life. But what is sleep except an animal function in which we lose consciousness of ourselves, at least to a great extent, and no longer act with free reflection? Nevertheless, we find pleasure both in the passage from wakefulness to sleep (during which we lose consciousness), and in sleep itself (during which consciousness has been lost). We cannot say in any way that the delight of sleep consists in foreseeing the advantage that we will get from sleep.

The pleasure we have in sleep consists rather in losing all foresight which is proper to wakefulness. Nor can we say that our delight springs from feeling our animal forces strengthened after sleep. The delightful state that follows on sleep is a pleasure pertaining to wakefulness; it is not the pleasure of sleep, which has already ceased. When we desire to lose consciousness of self by passing from a state of wakefulness to sleep, the pleasure of our direct life prevails over the pleasure of our reflective life. We want this second life to cease for a moment so that we may enjoy the first more fully. In other words, there is a kind of balance between the two lives. The pleasure and need of one is balanced with the pleasure and need of the other. Sometimes one prevails, sometimes the other. The two lives alternate unceasingly; wakefulness and sleep alternate unceasingly.

1676. One immediate question comes to the fore. Who desires the passage from wakefulness to sleep, and the state itself of sleep: the one who actually consists in the reflective principle, or the other who actually consists in the direct principle? — A simple experiment will show us that the one desirous of sleep is the direct, not the reflective principle. Let us imagine that as we go to sleep we think about what is going to happen, about the cessation of our reflective principle, about the sensation of the very thought with which we observe our increasing drowsiness. We will feel a certain sense of revulsion. I have carried out this experiment several times, and it appeared to me that I feared the approach of sleep as a kind of death. The revulsion was felt by the reflective principle which foresaw the annihilation of its activity. The pleasure of sleep, therefore, does not pertain to the reflective but the direct principle. The former re-acts against sleep; the latter enjoys it. This proves that those who live a reflective life do not totally abandon the direct life. They enjoy one life in part, and the other in part, although in different ways, one unknown to the other.

1677. Direct and reflective life are actualities arising from the essence of the rational soul. They pertain to the order of second acts. They do not constitute the first act, the essence, the radical power of the soul, which is a limited ens with a resultant limited radical power.
The soul is limited not because it cannot increase indefinitely as a result of increase in its terms (in this respect its receptivity is unlimited), but because it is limited to the degree of intensity with which it can adhere to and bind itself to the terms given it. If its virtue is totally employed in one actuality, it diminishes relative to another. In our present case, the radical activity of the soul could be totally used up in the actuality of direct life and leave nothing for reflective life. Here consciousness would cease precisely because the act of reflection would cease.

1678. Indeed, reflection could remain impeded and suppressed not only by the overpowering actuality of direct life, but even by a single act of this life, as Dante said:

Our philosopher-poet notices that when the activity of the soul is absorbed by some term proper to it, the possibility of reflection and consciousness ceases. This is true, he sees, not only when the soul acts, but even afterwards. So, although no longer absorbed, it has no memory of what has happened; actual memory is itself an act of reflection on what has occurred. If there is no reflection when the act took place, there can be no reflection later, except some obscure reflection on the vestiges of the act which remain habitually in the soul. So, Dante says:

1679. But in the present life the radical, total virtue of the soul, limited as it is, does not pour itself out in some actuality for any great length of time. It tires of the intensity of its act, despite the great pleasure it finds there, and assisted by corporeal stimuli spontaneously returns to reflective life. Here, too, there is a certain alternating between direct and reflective life.

1680. Moreover, this radical power does not pour itself out totally in a single act, but in two, three or even more acts, in a complex of acts. But the acts in which it does pour itself out, whether many or few, leave it incapable of further acts of reflection if its power has been truly poured out. Reflection is thus restricted to the sphere left free by the actuality of direct life.

1681. Again, I want to emphasise that it is the spontaneous action of the soul which, more than anything else, takes charge of the proportion between the dominion of direct life and that of reflective life in us. We have to admit, therefore, that we enjoy both lives, as I said before, and that we sometimes prefer the delight we have in the direct life to our delight in the life of reflection. We even want the reflective life to give way to direct life because spontaneity always follows the greatest delight.

We have shown this with our example of desire for sleep, a phenomenon pertaining to animal life and fundamental rational perception. It is clear, however, that we could say the same about examples drawn from purely rational activity. Take ecstasy, for instance. Everyone knows that there is nothing more delightful for human beings than this degree of intense contemplation and fulfilled love. Indeed, it is delight at its highest peak, although it necessarily brings with it the suppression of reflective acts and consciousness. Despite our lack of awareness, we can desire nothing more satisfying than this kind of sleep in which intellect and spirit are absorbed in the object of ecstatic contemplation. Here we are transported into quasi-oblivion, into a most delightful death formed of extremely full, vital life. Yes! The delight proper to a life of reflection is not the greatest, and even in this present life we can enjoy the object-good much, much more than our consciousness of such enjoyment. We can give priority to the enjoyment of a greater share in the object even at the cost of sacrificing consciousness of our enjoyment.

1682. Finally, we must note that even the adult, who cannot entirely live a direct life (unlike the child who has not come to the age of reflection), is also unable to live an exclusively reflective life for either a long or short period.

1683. This becomes clear if we consider that the act of reflection is reflective relative to its object. In other words, the act is reflective if its object is something not only felt, but already thought. This act is not called 'reflective' relative to itself, therefore, as though it were such relative to itself. The reflective act is not its own object; it requires another, further act of reflection if it is to become an object. But granted that any series of reflections must be limited, the final reflection has no further reflection by which it is known. Thus, remaining as it were unknown and without consciousness, it pertains to direct life. The actuality of human life can never be totally poured out in reflection alone. Something remains in us on which we have not reflected, something therefore still unknown.

1684. We now have to note a fact of the greatest importance in explaining the various phenomena of reflective life: this faculty usually attends only to the last link in any rational activity. This link is the term of attention; it is the end which the reflective life seeks and longs to attain, the object of its accumulated psychological virtue. Consequently, preceding links, over which mental activity passes lightly without pausing, neither attract nor hold reflective attention. These links, which we make, lie hidden from us; free attention is needed if we are to become aware of them. This free attention, with which we desire to know the progress of all the steps relevant to the activity of our spirit, enables every step to become a final term of our attention. Generally speaking, however, people ignore this and press on like travellers totally occupied with their destination and unmindful of the way they take to it.

1685. This fact first explains the hidden reasoning often carried out by us mentally, but unconsciously. Thus, although people come to extremely lucid conclusions which presuppose lengthy reasoning, and do this with extreme rapidity, they cannot explain the fact to themselves or others. Indeed, they do not even know that they have done it; they are totally unaware of it. All their attention rests in their conclusion, which alone has some weight with them. They would think a joke, something stupid, a laughable waste of time, to retrace their steps over their intellectual operations. There is no doubt whatsoever that philosophical attention to familiar, social conversation of ordinary people shows how little they express what passes contemporaneously through their minds. All conversation is made up of thought-out conclusions; every word expresses a thought dependent on many preceding thoughts. Nevertheless, no attention is paid to these thoughts; they are not even remembered.

Take a taxi driver, for example. As soon as he sees you, he offers his services and addresses you as 'Bishop' or 'Monsignor', although he has never met you. Yet that title, which came so easily to him, was undoubtedly the result of the following lengthy reasoning, carried out in a flash but totally without awareness:

'By showing respect and making someone think I esteem him, I gain his favour;
'This makes it easier for him to accept my offer of service;
'If he employs me, I gain a day's work and pay, which is what I need;
'"Bishop" or "Monsignor" flatters him; I can use it to show my esteem for him and gain his favour;
'This kind of address is therefore a good way of obtaining the money I am looking for;
'I shall use it, therefore, to this person, whom I see for the first time. It's no skin off my nose.'

1686. Nevertheless, we need to note that the reasoning with which we swiftly reach conclusions which we need to know and communicate in our ordinary social life does not always proceed in such a way that all its propositions and mediate links remain distinct. Often the mind finds shortcuts and abbreviations of its own. Arithmeticians, for example, invent summary rules to enable them to complete a calculation. One step, or a few, brings them to a point which would otherwise require considerable work. I have noticed this often in peasants who count on their fingers with considerable ingenuity. Such a summary way of reasoning can be called synthetical reasoning; we use it every day in the ordinary affairs of life.

1687. I have already mentioned the mediate rules used to guide our ordinary judgments.(361) These rules shorten and facilitate our reasoning. Once formed and established, they are constantly applied without any further thought about their proof. We never turn back to examine the series of reasoning which produced them. Faith takes the place of reasoning.

1688. A few common examples will be helpful. Experts calculate at a glance how many sacks of mulberry leaves a tree will provide. Their mistakes, if any, are minimal. But how can they calculate so quickly and securely, at a glance, the quantity of leaves? They would never finish if they took some unit as their rule, even if they were clear in their minds about the volume corresponding to a unit of weight or a sack of leaves. A unit, therefore, does not serve as their rule. Other volumes have been assigned mentally as their standard. They note the volume corresponding to ten or twenty, fifty or a hundred weights or sacks and immediately apply to the tree whatever imaginary measure is necessary. One or other of such equations determines the quantity for them.

The same occurs whenever a person professes to measure a quantity visually. An architect will measure by eye the front of a house and perhaps come within a foot of its length; the wine expert will tell you how many gallons there are in a cask as soon as he sees it. The same is true of many other things.

1689. But it is certain that people who can measure quantities visually cannot explain even to themselves how they do it. Nor will they be able to explain their conclusions, or say what rules or measures they use. In fact, the different measures impressed on their imagination are not what they are seeking. These standards are simply means to an end, that is, to the final link where their attention comes to rest. This is what they want to know reflectively and consciously. The rest is unimportant.

1690. We should also note that these mediate rules summarising reasoning have to be drawn from experience, or from preceding reasoning, unless they come from some authority.

1691. The level of aptitude for forming a great number of these secure mediate rules which are then ready for various needs makes some people wiser than others.

1692. Here we must note how often certain people seem to reason better in theory without always finding in practice what is more expedient for their end. The advice they give, for example, is well thought-out, but fails when put to the test. Others, who have no idea how to support their opinions in the same reasoned way, hit the target so well that they seem to possess a sixth sense enabling them to do exactly what circumstances require.
A learned doctor does not always provide the best cure for his patients; an eloquent, subtle lawyer often loses a case for his client with his display of learning; a theologian, who has perhaps spent his life in teaching moral science, may well fail to cure spiritual illness in souls. Experts in economy have often lost everything through imprudent speculation; others, who did not seem particularly intelligent, have become extremely rich. But the exquisite sense of prudence of which we are speaking is particularly obvious where we least expect it, that is, in managers, business people and those concerned with social governance.

1693. Thought proper to theoreticians and splendid thinkers is characterised by analytical reasoning; thought in prudent, sagacious workers is characterised by synthetical reasoning.

1694. The effort to omit nothing, to desire to be conscious of every step in one's reasoning, to want to be persuaded that nothing is omitted from the analysis of the object in view: all this is proper to analytical reasoning. But many of the parts which have been scrutinised and analysed with such attention are totally useless for concluding business, for a choice of counsel, for discovering some necessary expedient. They are out of place, because we are looking for what has to be done here and now. We do not want to know what parts make up an object present to the mind. The person who reasons analytically often strays into matters which are alien to his aim; the great number of things he has in mind weigh him down and make a solution more difficult. His rag-bag of considerations even makes him lose sight of factual circumstances necessary for drawing some useful conclusion. He may well be capable of providing a splendid account of the whole series of his thought, but his conclusions, based on the causes we have mentioned, are either imperfect or insufficient; they are either deficient or superfluous.

1695. A prudent person, on the contrary, is much more direct. Using synthetical reasoning, he measures and compares whole with whole, not parts with parts. The secret of his efficient prudence lies in separating the whole about which he has to decide from all irrelevancies, and applying to it the exact, appropriate mediate rule.
Consequently, the prudent, operative wisdom of which we are speaking consists in two talents: 1. that of forming many mediate rules applicable to contingencies in life and governance; 2. in penetrating intellectually and unhesitatingly to the heart of the matter, to the precise group of contingent circumstances. Once this group of connected circumstances is known, it is easy enough to find — in the arsenal of an experienced, wise mind — the formula or rule with which to measure immediately appropriate action and proffer right judgment and prudent deliberation about it.

1696. This explains why prudence always appears greater in the old than in the young, other things being equal. Analytical reasoning appears less vigorous in older people who have either found it less useful or necessary, or have abbreviated it little by little into synthetical rules. Older people have also had more time to accumulate mediate rules and to train their attention to concentrate on the whole of a question by separating it from accessory and useless circumstances that sometimes muddy it. This whole can then be easily subjected to suitable rules.

1697. It is true, therefore, that hidden, shortened and unconscious reasoning is responsible for a great deal of what goes on in the minds of prudent, practical people. In fact, we commonly say that their deliberations depend on a practical sense rather than thought. Synthetical reasoning does indeed resemble sense as it moves readily, surely and obscurely to its final conclusions.

Notes

(356) AMS , 439-483.

(357) St. Thomas says more or less the same when he affirms that 'the intellect understands itself and other things' (S . T ., I, q. 77, art. 1). In other words, the intellective principle is not known per se , but needs to acquire cognition of itself (that is, consciousness), just as it needs to acquire awareness of other things.

(358) Cf. AMS , 419-425.

(359) Par 18: 22-24.

(360) Par 18: 10-15.

(361) Teodicea , 14.