Chapter 2

The idea of being as the supreme rule
for judging about good in general

20. After this long but necessary digression, we must return to our main topic. I have already shown how the notion of being can serve as the moral law or notion enabling us to determine what is right and what is wayward.
But how is the idea of being the supreme moral law; in what way is it the supreme rule or criterion with which we judge the morality of human actions? Working methodically, I shall begin by showing how the notion of being can be used for judging about good in general. Then we shall see how it can be used for judging about moral good. But to do this, I must first investigate the nature of good.

Article 1. The nature of good

21. Let us start from the definition of good provided by common sense. It forms part of ordinary speech, and is doubted by no one. After the analysis and separation of its components, their systematic reunion will give us the philosophical definition of good we are seeking.

Everybody speaks of good as 'that which is desired'. It is impossible to call good what is detested. Good, therefore, is anything that moves enjoyably the faculty of desire which draws us to enjoy good. Everyone agrees about this. There is no need to demonstrate the absurdity of the contrary. For people in general, good means a relationship between things and the faculty of desire. But what are the things we call good because they can move our desire? Answering this question will lead us to a fuller, more precise notion of good.

22. A thing is good in so far as it is desired. But this implies the existence of a being capable of desire. There could be no notion of good without such a being, because a relationshipand good, as we have said, is a relationship between things and that which desires themcannot be thought without the two terms of the relationship. Such a being, however, must first desire its own existence and preservation and everything else that can make it more perfect and complete. A being with a faculty of desire employed solely in hating itself, that is, desiring nothing except self-destruction, is meaningless. No being can be in perpetual conflict with itself.

23. Careful examination of the faculty of desire reveals it as that by which a being strives to enjoy the perfection or enhancement the being receives or has received. This is the sole concept people have of it. In it there is also understood, and taken for granted, the tendency to delight in oneself, and to love oneself with all that is good and perfect in one's nature. Even the enjoyment itself is something good for the person experiencing it.

24. But let us consider more carefully the expression 'enjoying the perfections of one's own nature'. We distinguish between the perfection enjoyed and the enjoyment itself. There are two elements, therefore, contained in the common definition 'Good is that which is desired': first, the enjoyment, and second, the perfection enjoyed. We cannot doubt the real distinction between these two parts of good.

Common sense, when it says 'Good is that which is desired', raises a question about the two elements of good: are both necessary or is one sufficient for constituting the concept of good? When I speak of what is perfect in a nature, do I not include and posit all that is good prior to any faculty of desire? Are not grades of perfection and good assigned even to inanimate and insensitive natures? Do we not usually say that all things are good, considered in their nature? It would seem that common sense normally gives the same meaning to perfection and to good, and mentally conceives the perfections in different natures as good independently of the subject that feels them or desires them with its feeling.

Before answering this question, however, I must prepare the ground by answering another: would we have the idea of perfection if we had no faculty of desire?

25. First of all, let me point out that it is not my intention to confuse the faculty of desire and fruition with the faculty of knowing. I accept these two faculties as essentially different. I am aware that it is possible to know what is good without enjoying or even desiring it. I realise we can know the existence of things which are good but not good for us, although good for other beings. Thus, we can form the concept of some good things without ever having experienced them. But I am asking whether we could ever have the notion of good if we had never felt or desired any good. And to avoid any misunderstanding of the word desire, I repeat that I take it to mean the faculty of tending to certain things in order to enjoy them, a faculty presupposing and intimately united with the faculty of feeling pleasure in the perfections in different natures.

Those acquainted with my theory on the origin of human knowledge will realise immediately that I must answer negatively. If we had never experienced the pleasure of the perfections of our own or another nature, we could not form the idea of a perfection in any nature. It is obvious that there is no other way for a feeling being to perceive the perfections of its own nature except by feeling them. Nor can the intellect think something as good, unless feeling first presents it.(16) Let us now return to the first question.

26. It is impossible, therefore, to perceive or know what is good and perfect in different natures, without feeling and desiring it, but are feeling and desire necessary for the existence of what is good and perfect? In other words, can what is perfect and good exist without its being feelable and therefore desirable?

In order to know that something is a perfection, we must know it is acceptable to the nature which possesses it or to which it is referred. But it cannot be acceptable unless it is feelable in some way; perfections do not exist for a being that does not feel. A being without sensation does not exist to itself but only to that which feels it.(17) Only the one who feels himself exists to himself. The annihilation of feeling is the annihilation of the relationship between the individual's nature and the individual. In short, where there is no feeling, there is no 'myself', and certainly no subject.

This observation seems to me to be very important. It is the starting point for understanding correctly my train of thought. I affirm that natures without any sensitivity whatsoever are entirely neutral and indifferent to their own grade of perfection, from existence upwards. Thus, their existence and other properties called perfections are such only relatively to the being (whatever it may be) that feels and desires them, or contemplates them as desired or desirable by other beings. We must conclude that if the existence of insensitive matter, with its nature and perfections, could not be felt or mentally conceived by some other being, these qualities could never be called perfections, and would never be known as such. Indeed, deprived of the ability to be felt, they would not even be, because they could not be mentally conceived if their capacity for being the matter of feeling were removed. The perfections of inanimate things exist and are known only because of their connection with some faculty of feeling and desire, although these faculties of feeling and desire are outside them, located in another being.

The perfection of a flower, for example, or of a fruit, is in the flower and the fruit. But it is 'myself', a being different from the flower and the fruit, who desires and experiences the scent of the flower and the taste of the fruit. It is I who form the idea of the fruit and the flower, of their nature, their perfections, that is, of what belongs or does not belong to their nature. This connection, then, which the flower and fruit have with me, and generally with beings capable of receiving sensations from them, is so essential that their existence presupposes the connection. If we imagine the annihilation of this connection with a desiring subject, we have removed and annihilated the beings themselves, along with their possibility.

27. This analysis I have made of perfections in natures without feeling indicates that sense, either in the being possessing the perfection or in some entirely different being, is required for the idea of a perfection of any nature. A perfection is called 'perfection' and is such precisely because of its relationship with sense; if we reject its ability to be felt, its concept no longer remains. When I say ability to be felt, I mean the ability the perfection has to be felt and desired by anyone at all.

There is therefore a strict, essential relationship and connection between the perfection of a nature and the desire for the same. Sentient desire is a necessary condition for the existence of this perfection. Good cannot be formed from one element alone; perfection and sense are relative terms. This fact, extraordinary as it may seem, is irrefutable because given by the analysis of the concept of perfection. A perfection which gives no enjoyment cannot be conceived as a perfection; it is something indifferent, perfecting nothing because it is nothing.

Nevertheless, despite the essential relationship and connection between perfection and feeling in natures, we must recognise and establish their difference, which is also essential. Although the two elements are truly and inseparably united, so that one embraces the other, and the idea of one includes the idea of the other, they are not the same. Their relationship is that of opposites, in such a way that they cannot be intermingled or identified with each other.

28. Sense, desire, enjoyment cannot be mentally conceived without matter that is felt, desired and enjoyed. But the concept is not so bound to the actual feeling of matter that we cannot think of matter as existing even outside the act in which it is felt and enjoyed. However, if it is outside the act, it must be conceived as potentially feelable and enjoyable: if not, its concept disappears together with any thought of it. The concept, therefore, of the matter of enjoyment (called 'perfection') does not contain any actual desire for it. It remains something distinct from our act of enjoyment, and from the actual pleasing sensation we have of it.(18)

29. On the one hand perfection in natures presupposes some sense-faculty and can only be understood to exist as feelable; on the other, its concept indicates an independent subsistence that can produce enjoyment without receiving existence from it. Thus, whenever we attempt to consider perfections in different natures by themselves and not as felt, they cannot be thought and no longer exist; considered as united with the enjoyment they produce they not only exist but exist in an absolute way, independently of any sensation referred to them. This extraordinary union and difference between perfection in a nature and feeling of the nature originate simultaneously and inseparably in an unchangeable order, the first as generating, the second as generated.(19)

After this discussion on perfections in natures and their enjoyment, I can now ask whether these perfections are something good in themselves, independently of being felt, and whether common sense is correct in seeing good in non-sensitive, inanimate natures.

30. First, the word 'perfection' expresses an essential relationship with possible enjoyment of the perfection. Common sense is correct when it sees all perfections as good, even perfections of non-sensitive, inanimate things, because these perfections have all the conditions necessary for good. Their good is an endowment of the natures possessing it and pleases its perceiver, whether the latter is the same or some other nature.

31. There is an important consequence regarding the different kinds of good we have indicated. We have dealt with what is good and is felt as desirable by the one who possesses the good; we have also spoken about what is good and is felt as good by others but not by its own non-sentient possessor. Now such kinds of good differ according to the different existence of the beings themselves. In a word, beings are good in so far as they are.

Beings lacking sense-activity certainly differ from those that feel. Non-sensitive beings, as we have said, do not exist to themselves nor feel themselves, nor do they understand. Thus they are not a good to themselves. Relative to themselves, all their perfections are nothing because what is not felt or understood is nothing. Here we must be careful to avoid arbitrary suppositions. For example, to attribute some kind of feeling to material beings is to put them in the class of feeling beings, which is contrary to our supposition about the category of beings we are considering. We must not forget that words, like 'body' for example, are given to things in so far as we know them, and signify the (known) essence of a thing (essence is precisely what is understood in the idea of the thing). According to the hypothesis and definition, therefore, inanimate bodies are non-sensitive. Furthermore, even if everything we knew possessed feeling, the distinction between perfection in a nature and sensation would still exist. The bond intimately uniting the two essences, which are seen by reason as both united and distinct at one and the same time and mutually conditioning one another, would also exist. We must conclude that non-sensitive nature (whether united individually or not to feeling) is ordered to sense, whose matter it supplies. In and through sensation, non-sensitive nature provides the object of intelligence,(20) and depends for its definition on being both this object and the matter of feeling. Perfections in a feeling nature, therefore, are good in so far as that nature exists. They are good considered relatively (to the feeling) on the one hand, and independently (in themselves) on the other. Let us clarify and develop this truth.

32. Immaterial beings, and more generally, natures with their perfections, do not exist unless they are felt, whether feeling is intimately and individually united with them or not. This means they depend on feeling for their existence; without this relationship they are neither possible nor thinkable. If they do in fact exist, they can do so only on condition they are independent and productive of feeling through which they act as authors of knowledge. Feeling on the other hand exists only as something produced, as an effect, as something experienced. In other words, for perfections in natures to be possible, they must be related to feeling; to be subsistent, they must be independent of feeling. This contrast will not surprise us if we note how often it is present in other cases. Indeed it is the law and universal form of the relationships between subsistences and possibilities, between things and ideas. In the last analysis it constitutes the essential means enabling our intelligence to pass from one thing to another. For example, we cannot think of the idea of cause without simultaneously thinking of the correlative idea of effect. Cause is here dependent on and conditioned by effect, but only in the order of possibility and ideas. In the order of real things and subsistences the opposite is true: a really subsistent cause subsists independently of its effect, even though the latter is conditioned by and dependent on the cause. The conditions for the ideal order therefore vary from and are even opposed to those of the real order. Thus, although the perfections in things and consequently all good in them are mentally seen as dependent on feeling, they are in their real existence conceived as causes of feeling, not effects, and independent of these effects.

Let us try now to explain further the nature of good, and perfect its definition.

33. To analyse the concept of good means analysing an object of our understanding, because a concept is always an object of understanding. What then does our understanding notice in the concept of good? We have seen that: 1. perfections in things always have a hidden connection with desire; 2. the understanding sees the perfections as independent and devoid of this connection. As independent, these perfections need to be subjected to further analysis which will provide new results. Omission of words like 'feeling' and 'desire' does not mean they are not present and understood. Whenever I say 'perfection', I mean all that is needed to constitute perfection. The word, therefore, implicitly contains perfection's essential but sometimes remote connection with feeling.

34. It is a law of the intellect that it 'forgets or at least no longer adverts to what it posited in its concepts at the moment of forming them'. Concepts are retained in a synthetic state, rather like a formula or code for what was originally seen but is now referred to generally without specific attention. Algebraic calculations are a very good example of this process. The conditions of the problem determine the symbols and first equation. The conditions are then ignored and each step carried out according to particular rules without advertence to the reasoning behind them. But the result is true because the signs of the reasoning are always retained and, when desired, allow the reasoning to be clearly and distinctly recalled.(21)

In the same way, investigation of the origin of our ideas of perfections in things reveals that: 1. we first associated pleasant feelings with these perfections, because, for us, perfection means pleasant impressions taking place or being anticipated either in us or in some other sensitive being; 2. we then attributed the concept of perfection to the things we experienced pleasantly, but now without paying attention to their capacity to modify us or any other being. In this case the word 'perfection' comes to mean something in itself, independent of the feeling to which it was ordered at the beginning.

35. But the intellect does not stop there. It notices that the pleasant or painful state of the human body corresponds to a certain disposition of parts and to an order in the shape, form, number, union and mutual action of these parts.(22) This order, to which the actually or habitually pleasant sensation corresponds, is considered as perfection in the human body. 'Perfection' is the state of the body co-existent with the pleasant feeling. Next, similar observations are made of all other animate, sensitive beings, and these are seen as perfect when all their parts and every thing in them maintains this order, which seems to produce for them the most pleasant existence. Finally the intellect sees that even external, inanimate objects are in varying ways suitable for serving its needs or those of other sensitive beings, provided the objects have a certain state, form and composition, which it accepts as their perfection.

36. In all these cases the word 'perfection' means an order intrinsic to things, corresponding to their most desired state. But how do we come to know this order? Strictly speaking,order does not exist to itself or relative to feeling, because pleasant or painful feeling is a simple fact, no matter how mysteriously produced and irrelevant to the number of elements producing it. Order exists only to the understanding, although it is something more than the act of the understanding intuiting it. What I said earlier about feeling and the matter of feeling can also be said here: one cannot exist without the other; they are correlatives, and although different, have a simultaneous existence in the mental concept.

When we first form our concepts, therefore, the intrinsic order we give to the perfection of beings is deduced from their capacity to produce a constant, pleasant feeling for themselves or for us or any other thing in such a way that this capacity is the foundation, beginning and rule of that order. Later, however, we form more special concepts about the perfections in things because of the difficulty we have of returning to the first principle every time we want to measure the perfections. Hence, we form the concept of the intrinsic order of each thing, taking this order as a type or proximate criterion for judging its degrees of goodness. In other words, we often take the order as the essence and species of the thing.(23)

Once we have formed this species or essence, which presupposes an order beginning with action or the effect of action on our sensitivity, our understanding pays no further attention to the relationship with sensitive beings but concentrates on enjoying the order as something beautiful and good in itself. It does not consider the purpose of the order but the energy that makes the order exist, that preserves, increases and develops the order until the complete essence is realised. This way of considering being concerns the intrinsic mode and order of being, in which the understanding grows accustomed to recognising a good.(24) Common sense is aware of this truth when it believes that the intelligence approves as good what belongs to the nature of a thing and harmonises with the nature's principle of existence. Clearly, anything opposing that principle is rejected as an evil, the sight of which causes a real disturbance in the being contemplating it. In short, everything tending to destroy a nature is considered opposed to it and harmful and evil. Reason disapproves of this opposition caused by disharmony and disorder because it is aware that something in a being is contradicting the being's essence. The essence therefore becomes the rule of the being's good and evil: anything required for the development and completion of the essence, far from destroying it, is good. Anything hostile and preventing its full development, is evil. Although in the beginning the essence had a relationship with sensitivity, that relationship is now forgotten.

37. This explanation of good and evil seems beyond doubt and is well within the grasp of the educated. In fact it does not exceed the level of reflection most human beings use for analysing or understanding their own ideas.

We have said:

1. There are real beings, each of which can be found in a series of different states;
2. Human intelligence, using the relationship with sensitivity, chooses one of these states as perfect, and the type of perfection;
3. In this state as type, the intellect sees an order in which it finds good;
4. The order begins with existence and essence, to which are added the other elements, thus placing the thing in a state of perfection.

38. All the constitutives of a nature, therefore, have a single end (a perfect, typical state) to which all its forces unfailingly tend. This is the complete essence of the nature.(25) This simple end, by reason of its nature alone, is either in contradiction or harmony with certain modifications the thing receives. But our thought can penetrate more deeply and fix itself on the essential, necessary order of being. This order, which is intrinsic to being, excludes and admits certain things in natures, according to an intrinsic necessity, deduced and contemplated intuitively in the first fact, that is, in being, the primitive object of all thought. Every essence in fact is simply being, but more determined, limited, and actual than being as such. These determinations, limitations and acts have their origin and sole reason (and therefore their necessity) in being itself, which is determined, limited and actuated in those modes and not otherwise.
Having made these observations, we can finally give a definition of good sufficiently determined for our purposes.

39. Perfections or endowments of things are synonyms for 'good'. We think of them as causes of a pleasant feeling but we are able to contemplate them, independently of their effect, as something real, objective and active. Good therefore is more general than sensations and, although their cause and relative to them, precedes them. Things possess their perfections and what is good in the same way as they possess being. Thus, things with only a material existence, for example those lacking feeling, also have perfections relative to the beings perceiving them.

These endowments, and all that is good in a thing, are everything that harmonises with the thing's perfect existence, everything that tends to give the thing its fullness of being, whilst its (abstract) essence is, as it were, its theme; everything to which the forces of the thing are directed as term of their movement. The name 'evil', on the other hand, is given to everything opposed to the thing, everything that negates it, stripping it of what necessarily belongs to it and of what it strives to possess with its interior activity.

40.Abstract essence is the principle of order; complete essence is its end. Between these two there is a gradation of perfection and good. The typical and complete essence is deduced from the relationship of the thing with feeling. But this relationship, and consequent order, exists for an intellective being by means of the intellect only, and provides therefore the notion of good. The consequences we can draw from this notion of good and evil are, first, that gradations of what is good can be present in every thing, beginning from its first, imperfect existence and continuing till its last development and completion. Secondly, anything that has been added to the thing to render it complete is only an act of its being, a level of its existence. A fitting conclusion for us, therefore, is the opinion of the ancient world that everything is good in so far as it is, and evil in so far as it is not.

41. Good then is identical with being and is being. If being is realised, actuated and developed, it has an intrinsic, necessary order of actuation and development whose explanation is found only in itself. This order is such that one thing requires or excludes another, just as the roots of a tree require the trunk, the branches and finally the fruit if the tree is to be complete. When the intrinsic order of a thing's actuation and development requires some addition, the addition is good; when it excludes something, what is excluded is evil. Sensitiveness is concerned with good but only because feeling itself belongs to being, of which it is an act. The nature of being requires a relationship between matter and sensitiveness for good to exist. The same is true for the understanding, which is also an act of being.
Being and good therefore are the same. 'Good' is 'being considered in its order', and the order, when known, is enjoyed by the intelligence. 'Good' is 'being as felt, in relationship with the intelligence', in so far as the latter sees what every nature requires and that to which it tends with its forces in the way described.

42. I conclude with a quotation from the Summa of St. Thomas, who is generally considered the best witness to christian tradition: 'Good and being are really the same but differ conceptually. The concept of good comprises the thing as desirable. It is clear that everything is desirable in so far as it is perfect because all things desire their own perfection. But anything is perfect, in so far as it has the act of being. Hence a thing is good in so far as it is a being, because being is the actuality of everything.'(26)

Notes

(16) The explanation of the way sense presents to the understanding the things to be perceived has been treated at length by me in 'The Origin of Thought' [630-1019]. Cf. also Opuscoli Filosofici, vol. 1 [Milan, 1828].

(17) In my opinion this observation is of great importance but difficult to explain. Because we are endowed with feeling, we tend to posit feeling in inanimate things. Generally we base the ideas of things on the idea we have of ourselves. Even when we do not expressly and directly attribute feeling to things, we tend to conceive them mentally as something in themselves. But their existence is only relative to the person feeling it or contemplating it as felt. It is very difficult to form the idea of inanimate things relative to themselves. It is even more difficult to dismiss the vague, false idea formed by our imagination that they are something. But we must rid ourselves of such imaginary ideas. For instance, let us imagine that all thought and feeling have ceased in us. We would have no idea of ourselves; we would cease to exist to ourselves. The nothingness of insensitive things is a fact, but even in this respect they must be excluded from our imagination so that no illusory idea remains to become a source of innumerable errors. We will be left therefore with an objective existence of inanimate things, that is, relative solely to being to which they become object or at least term of action.

Some thinkers, like Plato, noticed this purely relative existence of material things and consequently denied their true existence. Others, like the idealists, especially in Germany, tried to make them part of the spirit. In my system I keep solely to observation, limiting myself to the fact that 'a force exists modifying us and producing sensations. And in so far as it modifies us we affirm its existence'. This force is a body. A body is also a substance in so far as the first idea that we have of a body stands by itself, that is, a body is conceived without the need of another being to which it adheres. It is this characteristic which marks subordinate, created substances. Cf. Origin of Thought, 630 ss.

(18) I do not need to discuss how, in the phenomenon of sensation, we conceive some matter different from and independent of sensation itself. Anyone acquainted with my teaching about sensations in 'The Origin of Thought' [722 ss] will be able to follow this important investigation and understand how the concept of some matter of sensation remains in our mind and differs from sensation itself by means of the subjective and extra-subjective forms of feeling. In extra-subjective feeling, sensations are reproduced identically according to determined laws, which presuppose an agent of which we know only its power to modify our feeling.

(19) This order of opposition, that is, of simultaneous union and distinction, is found in all beings mentally conceived. Possible things (ideas) do not exist outside the mind; they cannot be conceived unrelated to an intelligence, just as it is impossible to conceive an intelligent being without them. However, although these two essences originate immediately and simultaneously when they unite in one individual, they nevertheless originate with an order between them. Thus possible things emerge as independent, absolute, necessary, eternal, active; the mind originates passively and as an effect of possible thingswe are speaking of course of a mind belonging to a contingent, changeable, fallible being. Cf. Certainty, 1457-1460.

(20) The difference between the matter of feeling and the object of intelligence is explained in the Origin of Thought, 1005-1019.

(21) This observation gave rise to nominalism (all errors begin with some truth incorrectly used). Nominalists fail to notice that the intellect could not use numbers without giving them some general value. It is only the specific, determined value that the intellect forgets when using numbers. When we reason using numbers, we always retain those relationships and data which allow us to indicate their determined value. These data and relationships constitute the general value of numbers. Clearly, this fact, far from favouring nominalism, cuts the ground from under it. The general value determining numbers is precisely a universal concept. Hence a number is not simply a sign signifying nothing. On the contrary it is a sign or figure only when actually referring to a universal thought. Thus, it presupposes universals without explaining them.

(22) We perceive this order mainly with the extra-subjective mode of feeling. The relationship between feeling and perfection is the same as that between the subjective and extra-subjective modes of feeling. Unfortunately the very important difference between these two modes of feeling has not been grasped by many who have studied my philosophy. But my teaching cannot be understood without it.

(23) The following observation will help to demonstrate how we initially form this model of the intrinsic order of things from the connection they have with our pleasant sensations. Any natural being subject to the law of development passes through successive states, in each of which it is perfect because it necessarily is what it is. If, from all these possible states, we choose that in which the being has reached its final perfection, our choice is guided, as I have said, by our needs and pleasure; we say a being is perfect when it has reached the state of being most useful to us. For instance, it is the mature fruit, not the blossom which we consider as the final and perfect state of a fruit tree. But if we have no use for the fruit, we consider the blossom as the ultimate, perfect state. 'Flowering plants', as we call them, are a good example: the very name shows that we place their essence in producing flowers, not in producing seeds, because flowers give us a pleasant scent, while seeds give no pleasant sensations. This question merits further investigation, and those interested will be able to pursue it for themselves.

(24) There is a wonderful and very close harmony between the order of being considered in itself and the order of being relative to sensibility. An important but difficult investigation into this relationship needs to be made in agathology. The final result of such an investigation would be the inseparability of being and wisdom, the one unable to be thought without the other. I can only indicate it here. However I must point out that because our understanding is accustomed to positing the perfection of things in the order of being, it sometimes creates arbitrary, hypothetical beings and orders, which of course can only offer arbitrary and hypothetical perfection. Such creations of the human mind do not weaken the teaching we affirm, namely, that good is always referred to some faculty of feeling and desire.

(25) For complete essence, see The Origin of Thought, 646 ss.

(26) S.T. I, q. 5, art. 1.