Chapter 10

How to apply the principle of psychology to deduce
the special information that forms the science of the soul

115. The substance of the soul, therefore, is perceptible to the soul itself, but could not be perceptible unless it consisted in a first, fundamental feeling. That which does not feel itself in any way does not perceive itself in any way. This explains how St. Augustine was able to write, with equal truth and acuteness: 'Rightly, nothing is said to be known if there is no knowledge of its substance. When the mind knows itself, therefore, IT KNOWS ITS SUBSTANCE; and when it is certain of itself, it is certain of its substance.'(58)

116. However, several things have to be kept in mind if we are to apply this principle suitably in deducing the special information making up the science of the soul.

1. Sciences are not composed of direct, but of reflective cognitions acquired only when the mind turns back on its direct cognitions. Note that it is direct, perceptive cognition which affirms substances directly, not reflective cognition. But in seeking to know the substance of the soul and make this teaching scientific, we have to make use of reflection. After this, our next step is to make use of one or more acts of reflection to separate the elements posited by reflection, as we said. These elements do not belong to the naked substance of the soul, but to the reflective concept we have formed of it. If we omit this step, we shall take things pertaining to reflection for those pertaining to substance.

2. It is far easier to reflect on the acts of the soul than on the soul itself as it is given in perception. And our acts are necessary as stimuli to reflection. But it would be a mistake to conclude that every cognition, including the primal cognition of the soul, is drawn from its acts in such a way that we know it only from its effects (as though we were dealing with something foreign to ourselves, and our soul were not ourselves). At one and the same time, we reflect on the soul and on its acts. In fact, we would never be able to know that our perceived acts belonged to ourselves rather than some other subject if we did not perceive, together with our acts, ourselves as cause and subject of such acts. To have pure information about the soul, we have to employ a new reflection and separate the soul's acts from the soul itself, even though with prior reflection we have simultaneously turned our attention to both the acts of the soul and the soul itself.

117. 3. Finally, we need to notice that in objectivising the feeling of our soul which lies within the perception of ourselves, and thus universalising the information we have about it, we have formed a specific concept which we can now analyse with further reflections. This enables us to compare the soul with other things known by us, such as bodies, and see their similarities and dissimilarities. The guiding rule we have to use in this analysis and comparison to avoid errors is this: 'Without the arbitrary addition of anything whatsoever, we must retain the concept of soul as given by the perception of itself and of the acts accompanying it.' This rule is a consequence of what we have said: perception is the principle of the science of the soul. No science can have more than that which is contained in its principle; no universal, objective concept of the soul can contain more than is present in the perception of the soul itself from which we have separated the concept. Any arbitrary addition is a mistake. Nevertheless, we easily make arbitrary additions to the concepts of things. This arbitrary faculty of affirmation is precisely the faculty of error. Normally, it is imagination which, intervening in place of reason, moves our faculty of affirmation or persuasion to state that our concept of something contains that which is not actually present and thus to define the thing badly by attributing to it a nature which is not its own. This is the source of false systems about the human soul, all of which are excluded and rejected at their very beginning by the logical rule we have explained which relates the concept of the soul to perception, and notes carefully whether what we have posited in that concept is found in perception. 'If it is found there, it is a legitimate element of the concept; if it is not, it is illegitimate and to be removed from the concept.' This extremely simple and beautiful rule was provided for me by St. Augustine, one of my two great masters in philosophical as well as theological speculation. I have only translated what he said into modern language.

118. St. Augustine distinguishes between the soul's knowing itself and its thinking of itself. To know itself, the soul needs only to perceive itself; but to think about itself, it must reflect.(59) Through perception, the soul knows itself as present; through reflection it seeks itself as absent because the scientific reflection of which we are speaking deals with the universal, objective concept of the soul. However, says St. Augustine, mistakes do not arise in perception, but through the work of reflection; they do not come about through simple self-knowledge, but as a result of thought about oneself. He warns that the soul should think of itself as present if it is to avoid errors; it should not seek itself as though it were absent. In other words, pay attention to what perception of self provides, and do not abandon this for what reflection affirms about the soul,(60) as if the soul were an object alien to itself: non igitur velut absentem se quaerat cernere, sed PRESENTEM se curet discernere.(61) We should not reason about our own soul as though it were some third, unknown thing; we should not presuppose ignorance of ourselves. On the contrary, we should realise that knowing ourselves already, all we have to do is distinguish the SELF that knows from other things: Nec SE quasi non novit, cognoscat, sed ab eo quod alterum novit, dignoscat.(62)

119. The characteristic of perception according to St. Augustine is certainty; we cannot doubt about that which perception tells us of the soul. Perception, therefore, becomes a kind of spy, telling us what we know of the soul through perception and what we ourselves have added arbitrarily through reflection, about which we normally doubt. So, for example, no one has any doubt that the soul is the principle of feeling and understanding. This shows that the information is found in perception. But that the soul is air, fire or some other body is doubtful and not accepted by all. We can conclude, therefore, that it is an arbitrary addition and an error of reflection which has no validity. If it were present truly in perception, no one would doubt it.(63) This argument annihilates materialism.

120. St. Augustine adds another excellent indication for knowing what does not come from perception, the faithful principle of knowledge of the soul and consequently the criterion for knowing true and false teaching about the soul. He says that when we doubt if a given nature - water, say - is the soul, we should note whether we think about that nature in the same way that we think about another nature which is definitely not the soul. If we think about it in the same way, we can say that it is not our soul. If it were, we would think of that nature in a way totally different from all other natures. In other words, we would think about it as present and as our own; we think about other natures only as foreign to us and absent.(64)

121. St. Thomas, too, distinguishes direct cognition of the soul, obtained by way of perception, from reflective cognition. He says that the former is easy and admits no error; the second is difficult because reflection has to be reined within the limits of things contained in perception itself. Exceeding these limits was the cause of the errors made by philosophers about the nature of the soul.(65)

122. We conclude that scientific research about the substance of the soul must be purged from three heterogeneous adjuncts mixed in with it:

1. From all those substances or qualities not found in the perception of our soul, but added arbitrarily by human beings to its concept. This excludes all errors on the part of those who claimed that the soul was fire, air, a collection of atoms, and in general all materialists.

2. From all actual relationships with our reflection itself; for example, from self-consciousness, which is the work of reflection. This excludes all errors of ideologists who draw ideas from the soul itself (subjectivists), or who suppose that the first cognition needs no explanation because given with the soul, or that the soul is cognition, or knowable through its own essence.

3. From all that is perceived along with the soul, that is, from the acts of its potencies. These are accidents joined to the soul, not the soul itself although, as we said, they are perceived with the soul. In fact, we are moved to turn our attention on ourselves and thus perceive ourselves only through our accidental acts which at first are the sensitive acts determined by the action of external bodies. Although we have to separate the soul's accidental acts from itself in order to have pure information about the substance of the soul, we also have to separate from the soul the act of perception itself. Self-perception is not the soul; it is a mere operation of the soul with which it acquires its first information it has of itself. When we have separated the intellective perception of itself from the concept of the soul, we are left simply with the fundamental feeling, the object of the succeeding perception. It is the fundamental feeling which constitutes the pure substance of the soul. This excludes the error of those who claim that the soul is a totally unknown and unfelt quid, or who suppose that there must be, under the phenomenal myself, another substantial myself. I have refuted this error elsewhere.(66)

123. Finally, this method of philosophising about the soul brings us to know two things, two genera, as it were, to which all other psychological information is reduced. That is, we come to know and determine:

I. What the soul is. It is everything found in the consciousness of ourselves, in myself, but without the three adjuncts of which we have spoken. And

II. What the soul is not. It is not that which falls outside consciousness of ourselves, nor one or other of the three adjuncts that we ourselves have interposed and added with our imagination, or reflection or perception.

We now have to meditate on this substantial feeling as it lies in the depths of myself and distinguish its properties. Finally we shall analyse it more accurately.

Notes

(58) De Trinit, 10: 16.

(59) Ita cum aliud sit non se nosse, aliud non se cogitare, neque enim multarum doctrinarum peritum ignorare grammaticam dicimus, cum eam non cogitat, quia de mediocri arte tunc cogitat, etc. (De Trinit., 10: 7).

(60) I have already shown that direct cognition is the criterion of reflective cognition. Cf. NE, vol. 3, 1112-1157.

(61) De Trinit., 10: 12.

(62) Ibid.

(63) Certa est autem de se (anima) sicut convincunt ea quae supra dicta sunt. Nec omnino certa est utrum aer, an ignis sit, an aliquod corpus, vel aliquid corporis. Non est igitur aliquid eorum (De Trinit., 10: 16).

(64) Si quid autem horum esset (anima) aliter id quam cetera cogitaret, non scilicet per imaginale figmentum, sicut cogitantur absentia, quae sensu corporis tacta sunt, sine omnino ipsa, sine eiusdem generis aliqua; sed QUADAM INTERIORE, NON SIMULATA, SED VERA PRAESENTIA (non enim quidquam illi est se ipsa praesentius for the feeling) sicut cogitat vivere se et meminisse et intelligere et velle. Novit enim haec in se (that is, through intimate perception) nec imaginatur quasi extra se illa sensu tetigerit, sicut corporalia quaeque tanguntur. Ex quorum cogitationibus si nihil sibi attingat, ut tale aliquid esse se putet, QUAEQUE EI DE SE REMANET, HOC SOLUM IPSA EST (De Trinit., 10: 16).

(65) There is a difference between these two cognitions. The presence itself of the mind is sufficient for the first cognition of the mind. This presence is the principle of the act by which THE MIND PERCEIVES ITSELF. This explains why the mind is said to know itself through its own presence. But for the mind's second cognition, presence of the mind is not sufficient. A careful, searching investigation is required, (that is, scientific, reflective cognition). 'For this reason, many people are ignorant of the nature of the soul and many have erred about it.' He adds that the second cognition consists in 'knowing its [the soul's] difference from other things, which means knowing its quality and nature' (S.T., I, q. 87, art. 1).

(66) Rinnovamento, bk. 2, cc. 13-17 [This reference probably refers to 283-285].