Chapter 2

The union of rational soul with body comes about by means of an immanent perception of animal feeling

254. It is easy enough to understand how the animal is an indivisible feeling in which the feeling principle, or soul, constitutes a single thing with the felt term or body and is thus the form of the body. It is not so easy to explain how the rational human soul is the form of the human body. How does a rational soul communicate with and inform a body?

255. The question is largely answered by what has been said. We showed that the rational soul is a principle which virtually includes corporeal-sensitive activity.
St. Thomas had already written that 'the intellective soul virtually contains within itself all that is in the sensitive soul of brute animals and in the vegetative soul of plants.' He explained his concept by a fitting image:

In another place, he re-affirms that

This is undeniably difficult to understand. To explain it better, I will add some observations to what has already been said.

256. At the outset we must rid ourselves of the prejudice that things are absolutely and exactly as they appear to our senses, and that generally speaking things perceived through sense have no other entity than that perceived in a given feeling.

257. It is true that if there is a stable way of feeling, and especially only one way, or only one way to which we give our exclusive attention, the thing perceived in our feeling becomes the foundation of our idea of the thing. We understand that its substance is precisely the entity we have perceived in our feeling; the name we give it indicates the substance.(125)
We can however feel a thing in two or more ways. If we consider these ways, we see immediately that the appearance of the thing differs according to the different ways of feeling. Thus, the same object, perceived with our eyes, is something coloured; perceived with the palate, it is something that has taste; perceived with the nose, it is something odorous, etc. But the difference is much greater when we consider our body perceived as something extrasubjective by our external organs, and perceived by our internal feeling as the term of our fundamental feeling. I have discussed all this at length in Anthropology.

258. Similarly, the terms of our sense-perception appear as different things if, besides considering them in relationship to ourselves as perceivers, we consider them relative to each other, in the way, for example, that we consider an external body relative to another external body. If we compare one external body with another we find relationships of extension, size, etc. However, if we compare an external body with our feeling principle, we no longer find these relationships but a totally different relationship which I have called relationship of sensility.(126) The term of the perception changes therefore according to the nature of the perceiving subject and the way in which it perceives. The character of the felt as felt is determined by the nature of both the term-entity and the sentient principle, and by the manner of feeling, etc. All these things have already been thoroughly explained.(127)

259. An entity relative to one feeling is therefore different relative to another feeling, that is, the entity manifests its activity differently according to the feelings whose term it is. Sense-perception takes perceived things according to their different activities relative to feeling. Consequently, that which a thing contributes to feeling contains a great deal that is relative.

260. On the other hand, all that is perceived by the understanding is perceived absolutely, not relatively. To perceive absolutely is to perceive the very entity of things; it is not the direct perception of their sensility, extension and other relative activities. Note however, that sensility, extension and other activities relative to different feelings are all understood in the entity, because relative activities have their source in the entity. Indeed, extension is an entity sui generis, as also is sensility. etc. But the understanding perceives these activities in so far as they are all reduced to entity; it perceives them, not precisely as such but because they share in entity. This is what is meant by understanding absolutely. Whether it is true or not that the thing is extended, coloured, etc., it is always true that it is an entity and that extension and the feelable qualities are also entities. The proper object of understanding therefore is always true because the understanding does not stop at anything relative but considers it in relationship to what is absolute in the understanding itself. Hence, while bodies have on the one hand a mutual relationship of extension, size, etc., and on the other a relationship of sensility with respect to the feeling principle, they also have a relationship of entity with respect to the understanding, a relationship which is absolute and necessary in contrast to other partial and variable relationships.

261. Nevertheless, although the understanding perceives everything given to it to perceive relative to absolute entity, it perceives only what feeling gives it. Indeed it cannot perceive what is not in any way felt. On the one hand, of itself understanding perceives things without altering, diminishing or modifying them; on the other, it is given things to perceive which are already modified or rather put together by the limited feeling which presents them to it. It is this which explains why knowledge of things is limited, not the fact that the understanding breaks them down, or composes or limits them.

262. It is clear therefore that if there were a feeling that could apprehend the whole real entity of things and not just a part or a particular activity, the thing would be presented to the understanding's perception without any limit or division whatsoever, and the understanding would have a totally absolute knowledge of it. This happens in the case of the substantial feeling which has an ens of its own. The same must also be the case when essential Being communicates itself in its real form to the human being. This Being, which is entirely simple and unchangeable, cannot communicate itself except as being. The feeling principle that perceives it must be such that it can perceive entity itself, which is the object of the intellect. Hence, this principle must be an intellective sense. The intellect, as intellective sense, feels real entity and, as intellect itself, feels ideal entity; it is a single ideal-real ens, a power that unites within itself two actions which in themselves are divided, namely, sense and intellect. God is perceived in this way.

263. The understanding always perceives absolutely, that is, has absolute notions of all the things it perceives, together with a complete perception of itself. But only in perception of God does it truly perceive the absolute, and have an absolute knowledge.(128) However, we must add that it is possible on the one hand to have an absolute knowledge of contingent things when they are perceived as they are in God in the creating act; on the other hand, it is possible to have an absolute but negative knowledge of things when, through a higher reflection, we remove from relative knowledge that which in it is relative.

264. From all that has been said we can conclude:

1. The rational principle does not communicate directly with things in so far as they are thought to subsist outside feeling, but with felt things, that is, with things given to it to perceive in feelings.

2. This communication takes place with felt things through their relationship of entity with the rational principle, not through their relationship of sensility.

3. The relationship of entity, because absolute, includes all other relative relationships including those of sensility.

4. The rational soul is united to the body in so far as it is united to the animal feeling because what is felt, besides having the relationship of sensility, also possesses the superior, absolute relationship of entity; the latter includes the former, as the greater includes the less. Although every felt thing is a determinate entity, this relationship of entity is manifested solely to the understanding which, having entity (essential being) as its object, extends to every entity.

5. The unity of the soul and of the human being lies in this rational principle which is able to perceive what is felt or corporeal, or any other nature given to the human being.

6. Finally, the unity of the human being consists in a single feeling proper to the rational principle, a feeling which includes both animal feeling and rational feeling in such a way that the latter contains the former, as the greater contains the less. Hence the human being, in his first state, does not have two feelings, that is, an animal and a rational feeling, but a single, extremely simple feeling which has both a principle and a term. He has a principle, the rational principle itself; he has a term, the idea of being. In this being, he sees the animal feeling which he experiences. As I have said, a single ens, object of the single rational principle, is formed, by means of perception, from the subsistent felt thing and from being. This primal, fundamental perception of all that is felt (principle and term) is, so to speak, the marriage-bed where what is real (animal-spiritual feeling) together with the essence intuited in the idea form a single thing. This single thing is the human being.

265. We must note that feeling includes the whole human being and constitutes his unity. Rational perception however extends only to the animal feeling. The perceiving principle can perceive itself only later, through reflection, when the need to distinguish itself from all else in its feeling arises on the occasion of external sensations. In the human being therefore, in his natural state at the first moment of life, there is 1. a single, constant-fundamental animal and spiritual feeling; 2. an immanent, rational perception of the animal feeling.

266. We must grant therefore that, in order to explain the union of soul and body, the rational soul has a primal, natural and continuous perception of the animal-fundamental feeling. Because the soul is rational, it can be joined to this feeling only by a rational act. The first of all rational acts, the act which communicates directly with the reality of an ens, is perception.

Notes

(123) S.T., I, q. 76, art. 3.

(124) Ibid., art. 5, ad 3.

(125) Here, the reader must bear in mind what I said about the knowledge of essences in NE, vol. 3, 1213-1244, and about what is relative and subjective in our perception of bodies in NE, vol. 2, 878-905 and Rinnovamento, 497 ss., as well as in many other places, where I showed that that which feeling presents about things different from us always retains something subjective and relative. Only the intellect gives absolute knowledge.

(126) AMS, 230-233.

(127) Rinnovamento, 325 ss.

(128) PE, 58-61.