Chapter 1

The First Moral Law.

8. This follows from what has been said. If the idea of being is innate and functions as supreme law, it follows that by nature we bear within our soul the seed of all morality. We have within us the first law as the principle and source of all other laws and the guide to what is right and just.
We could never acquire the principle of morality if it were not innate. But the consensus of the human race is that we do possess it even though we can obtain cognitions only from nature as felt by us, which simply presents facts, not the reasons and laws upholding the facts.

These reasons and laws cannot be received in any way in the bodily senses. Essentially unknown to the senses, they are evident only to intelligent natures. Thus we must either deny morality or acknowledge that its principle is innate. I firmly believe that those who reject the theory of being I have set out, are forced (even against their will) to make moral actions impossible.

9. This theory, which recognises a light impressed in human nature teaching it to discern good from evil, is not new nor my own discovery. It is traditional teaching, particularly in christianity but it was obscured by intellectuals of the last century who tried to free themselves from tradition. They denied the philosophical faith of their forebears, just as they sought to free themselves from the society of their own time in order to attain total independence. Teachings were rejected simply because they were ancient or popular, which are the very reasons that give them dignity and honour.

10. Before christianity, the tradition we are discussing was defended by Cicero, among many others, in the following passage: 'Wise men taught that the moral law does not originate with the learned, nor with a decree of the peoples. It is something eternal, a wisdom with authority to command and forbid, governing the whole world'(1). If, then, the law cannot be acquired, we have to say, as wise men did even before Christ, that we possess it by nature.

11. In christian times the tradition is found on nearly every page of the ecclesiastical writers. The following two passages illustrate my point. St. Jerome says, 'There is a natural holiness impressed on our souls by God. It resides in the highest part of the spirit, where it judges between what is right and what is wayward'(2). We note that natural holiness, innate to us, is situated in our highest part; the Latin text says in the citadel of the soul. This expression is fully reflected in my teaching, which indicates the sublime idea of being as the first and only innate moral law. All ideas and all human thought originate from it and are informed by it. There can be no higher or stronger part of the spirit than the dwelling of the light of being, the source of intellective life, the most simple principle of all judgments, the light of reason. This is the seat of the first norm of thoughts and actions; here error is impossible. For this reason Bonaventure and other christian teachers called it appropriately the apex of the soul.

12. The second passage is from St. Ivo: 'We have already seen that the idea of what is right is placed in our minds by God, the first truth. Through this idea each of us, having only our synderesis, differentiates between what is just and unjust without any teacher, written law or judge. With this light God enlightens everyone coming into the world'(3).

It is clear that this passage harmonises with what I am saying. St. Ivo affirms the presence in the human being of an innate idea through which God enlightens everyone born into the world. It is an idea of what is right in such a way that with it we distinguish, without being taught, what is just from what is unjust. This is precisely my theory. The light of reason by which God enlightens everyone coming into the world, is simply a first idea; it does not come from our senses but is breathed into human beings by their creator; forming the light of reason in human beings, it also gauges what is right and what is wayward. All I have added is the analysis of human thoughts in order to discover the first, sublime idea from which all other ideas come. This is the human being's true light in all his cognitions. It is none other than the idea of being, an idea present in all other ideas as necessary for their existence; it is their formal element, unmixed with other ideas; it is the only truly simple idea, yet wonderfully fruitful in its simplicity(4).

Notes

(1) Hanc video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam, nec scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed aeternum quiddam, quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi, prohibendique sapientia. De Legibus, II.

(2) Est in animis nostris quaedam sanctitas naturalis a Deo impressa, quae veluti in ARCE ANIMI residens, pravi et recti judicium exercet. Ep. ad Demetriad. 8.

(3) Praefati sumus a Deo prima veritate insitam esse mentibus humanis lDEAM recti, qua justum ab injusto quilibet sine praeceptore, sine lege scripta, sine magistratu, sola sua synderesi discernit. Hac LUCE Deus illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum.

(4) I had been doubtful for some time whether the earlier thinkers had seen how the idea of being precedes all other ideas and is in fact the source of all the principles of thought. The first principle for Aristotle was the principle of contradiction, which however is posterior both to the idea of being and to the principle of cognition, as I call it (cf. The Origin of Thought 559 ss) formed directly from the idea of being. But a passage of Alexander of Hales in his exposition of Aristotle's metaphysics removed my difficulties. He gives the idea of being first place in human intellections because he saw that the idea must precede the principle of contradiction.

Aristotle investigates the characteristics of the first principle of all human reasonings and finds they are three: 1. it is more stable and more extensively known than anything else; 2. it is absolute and unconditional; 3. it is undemonstrable and given by nature. He then shows how the principle of contradiction has precisely these characteristics.

But Alexander was not satisfied; he doubted the master's opinion. 'The intellect', he wrote, 'has two activities, one with which it perceives, the other with which it analyses and divides what is perceived. In both activities there is some first thing, that is, something encountered as the first term of each activity. In the first activity the first object is being, because we cannot conceive anything by this activity without having previously conceived being; being permeates and supports all concepts' (that is, being is presupposed in all concepts as their foundation). 'In the second activity the first object is the principle of contradiction' and he explains why: 'because the principle is founded in being'. He concludes: 'Hence, just as being is first in the intellect's first activity' (earlier thinkers called it 'understanding simple concepts'), 'the principle of contradiction is first in the second activity. Just as all simple concepts find their explanation in being, so all complex concepts find their explanation in the principle of contradiction'.

This passage clearly indicates how, absolutely speaking, the idea of being is the mind's first intellection, and I confess my surprise at finding being's place within ideas so clearly noted and defined. Because of its importance and the noble truth it adds to Aristotle's teaching (possibly unnoticed by Alexander), I quote the passage in full in the Latin original. Quaeret quis: utrum sit verum quod dicit Philosophus, quod hoc principium (of contradiction) sit radix omnium principiorum, et omnium propositionum. He answers the question and immediately adds this explanation: notandum est, quod duplex est operatio intellectus. Prima est qua intelligit ipsum quod quid est (the expression quod quid est means the essence and idea of a thing) et haec operatio vocatur simplicium intelligentia. Alia est operatio intellectus qua componit et dividit (synthesis and analysis). Et in utraque operatione est aliquod primum, quod scilicet cadit sub prima apprehensione intellectus. Illud quod est primum in prima operatione, est ENS; nihil enim potest concipi simplici intelligentia, nisi concipiatur ens; et hoc quia entitas se profundat infra omnes conceptus. Primum autem in secunda operatione intellectus est hoc principium: de quolibet affirmatio vel negatio (that is, the principle of contradiction), et hoc quia hoc principium est fundatum super ens. Unde sicut ENS est primum in prima operatione; ita hoc principium in secunda. In secunda enim operatione intellectus nihil potest intelligi, nisi intellecto hoc principio. Sicut enim totum et pars non potest intelligi nisi intellecto ente; ita hoc principium: omne totum est majus sua parte, non potest intelligi nisi intellecto hoc principio firmissimo. Et sic, sicut omnes conceptus simplices resolvuntur ad ENS: ita omnes conceptus compositi resolvuntur ad hoc principium (Alex. of Hales, In XII Aristotel. metaph. libros dilucidissima explanatio, lib. IV, text.. 9).