Chapter 3

The idea of being
as the principle of eudaimonology

46. Eudaimonology teaches the way to one's own happiness and differs from ethics, although the two are easily confused or at least not sufficiently separated. One modern school has in fact made the confusion systematic to the detriment of ethics and human dignity. But only ethics draws human nature away from self, and leads us to forget our own interest in the search for what is just and upright.

Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge that Kant and his school have liberated ethics from the stimulus of happiness. Unfortunately, however, they concentrated their attention on finding a final (28) stimulus to moral good, and did not succeed in establishing the true nature of morality itself. Lacking the necessary characteristics to be moral, their stimulus was unreasonable and unjustified, and imposed itself upon human nature cruelly and fatalistically. It prevented the progress which would have resulted in a scientific view of ethics and the discovery of a firm foundation for moral science.

47. We have seen that the idea of being is the principle by which we judge good in general, and consequently the principle enabling us to know what is good or evil, fitting or unfitting, for us. It is, therefore, the supreme principle of the science of our own happiness and as such the rule according to which we measure our own good and degrees of happiness.

It is clear, however, that as a principle the idea of being is common to many branches of knowledge; it is not confined to eudaimonology in which only my own subjective good, not all good, is the object of reference. In a word, the idea of being, as the idea of good in general, is too extensive to be the proper, exclusive principle of eudaimonology. Knowledge of happiness has as its object the more restricted notion of human, subjective good. It will be helpful if we outline the subjective good proper to human beings so as to avoid confusing it with what is good in itself.

48. Subjective good is good considered relatively to a subject enjoying it. Good in itself, absolute good, is never considered relatively to any subject whatsoever.

49. If something good in itself is to be good for a certain subject there must be some kind of harmony between the good and the subject, or rather between the subject and what is good. The nature of the subject has to be such that it can fittingly adjust and adhere to that good, forming almost a single entity with it and thus enjoying it. But it happens very often that a subject is incapable of enjoyable union with things which, although good in themselves, are either neutral or evil relative to itself. This explains why a feelable good means nothing to natures which, lacking feeling, cannot condition themselves to the enjoyment of feelable good. In the same way, virtue, wisdom and other supra-sensible good is meaningless relative to animals. Such good can be perceived and enjoyed only with the intellect and reason that animals lack. Wisdom and virtue are the highest good for beings which possess intellect and will, for whom alone, as we shall see, absolute good exists.

Each thing is good in itself, but not good for any subject whatsoever. Certain things do not even exist for some subjects; others are bad and harmful for some subjects, but good for others. Normally, however, we look upon good subjectively and relatively to ourselves, rather than objectively and in itself. As a result we often lose sight completely of good in its objective concept, which we tend to deny totally; and we go on to characterise as a paradox (despising perhaps those who hold it) any statement affirming all things as good, or declaring good to be any thing that is in so far as it is. Realising that not all beings are good for us, or good for people in general, we conclude that not all beings are good. This would be correct if it were applied to subjective or relative good alone; it is false when applied to good in general.

Many people can neither rise above relative good nor step outside themselves, although careful consideration would show them that there is no being or perfection of being which is not good for some subject, or not good for itself. It would then be easy for them to see that every being contains the necessary conditions for good, which are simply that it be good towards itself, complete and tending with the forces proper to its nature towards its own preservation and perfection (29).

Hence the ancient definition of good as that which all things desire (quod omnia appetunt), where desire is understood in its broadest sense as any tendency whatsoever of the forces proper to a nature. As I said, every being shows in this sense that it desires itself, that is, possesses an energy through which it exists, remains in existence, and reaches perfection. The definition shows that good considered in its very own concept is found to consist in the appetite or tendency that things have towards themselves, not towards being desired, loved or attracted by other things. ''Being desired' only shows that one thing is good for another, not that it is a good to itself; it expresses the concept of relative good, not of good as such.

50. Taken simply and purely, the concept of good as a basis for reason is common to all beings and all degrees of beings; each being is aptly said to be good in so far as it is. The notion of good in itself is not to be confused therefore with the notion of relative good. It is one thing for a being to be good for itself, and thus good in itself, and another for it to be good for some other being. Being good for itself is what constitutes the simple notion of good; being good for some other being constitutes the notion of relative good. If a thing is good for something other than itself we can conclude only that it possesses a relationship of goodness, and consequently is good in that particular respect without being good in its entirety, in its being. We cannot conclude simply that it is good. It is good in the effect it produces in something different from itself, but if that were its totality of good it could not be called true, actual good in itself. At most it would be potentially good, or have the power to do some good.

51. The object of eudaimonology is human happiness, a subjective good we have already described. But knowledge of subjective good in general is not sufficient for understanding the notion that serves as the proper principle of the branch of science we are studying.

Human happiness, as a subjective good proper to intelligent beings, is a specific subjective good whose notion forms the special principle of eudaimonology.

The aim of this book is to explain the principles of ethics, not those of eudaimonology, although it has been necessary to mention the latter in order to avoid the modern danger of confusing it with the former. But happiness does have a very close connection with justice, and it will be helpful, and perhaps needful, to add a few words about the notion of happiness as the supreme and perfect good of mankind.

52. When we think of any subject whatsoever we first mentally conceive its existence and then its perfection. In every subject there is something without which the subject cannot exist. This is usually called its substance or specific essence (30). There is also something without which the subject can exist, but only imperfectly. These are its accidental perfections. When these accidental perfections are added to its specific essence, the subject reaches fulfilment because these perfections as developments of its act of being are consequently acquired degrees of being.

53. Being, however, is divided into substantial and accidental, and these divisions have to be predicated of good also. It is a fundamental truth, as we have seen, that being and good are distinguished from one another only because viewed in different ways.

It is impossible for a subject to desire or tend towards existence before it possesses existence. Nothing can act before it begins to exist. But when a subject has already begun to exist, it can demonstrate its tendency to develop and perfect itself, and to preserve itself if its existence is attacked. This twofold tendency towards its preservation and perfect development is the double good - existential good and perfect good - that we have distinguished in the title of this article.

54. But the final term towards which all the forces of any subject whatsoever tend and are ceaselessly directed is its perfect development. It is this ultimate term of desire (or more universally, of the tendencies in every nature) which is commonly called 'good', as St. Thomas observes: 'Good indicates something relative to perfection, which is the object of desire. Consequently good has in itself some concept of finality' (that is, it is the final term of 'desire', or the final completion of the thing). 'Hence, what we normally call "good" simply and purely is that which is finally perfect. But if something has not reached the final perfection of which it is capable, although it does possess the good of existence, we call it perfect or good in a restricted sense; as good, it is such under some particular aspect. Relative to its first or substantial being, therefore, the thing is called simply being, and is good only in so far as it is; relative to its final act of being, that is, its perfection, the thing is good simply, and being relatively (in so far as it is good)' (31).
This distinction between the good of existence and the good of perfection is equally applicable to the evils of destruction and deterioration.

55. Nothingness, as we have seen, is not evil; nevertheless, we can distinguish between the evil of destruction and that of deterioration. We mentally conceive these two species of evil in the following way.

56. Whenever a cause of any kind acts in a subject in such a way as to lessen the subject's degree of being, that cause is harmful to the subject. But we have to distinguish the time in which the cause acts from the time in which it has already produced its effect. While the cause acts, the subject suffers. The subject experiences the action of the cause and reacts with the forces available to it in order to protect itself. This struggle is already an evil, provoking pain in the subject because its perfection, or even its existence, is lessened.

57. If the effect has been to destroy and annihilate the subject, we have to say that no evil remains because there is no longer any subject capable of experiencing good or evil. Nevertheless, while the action tending to destroy the subject was taking place, the subject was suffering an actual evil which continued to increase until the subject was finally eliminated. It is the experience of this continual violence of gradual deterioration through to annihilation that is called the evil of destruction. If the effect of the cause's action resulted only in a lessening of the perfection of the subject, but not its total destruction, the evil remains after the cessation of action because the subject, the seat of the evil, is still in existence.

It is clear, therefore, that the evil of destruction exists only as long as destruction is not complete. But with the destruction of the subject, no evil is left. The evil of deterioration, however, has two modes, one in the transitory act in which it is produced, and the other in a state of habitual and permanent evil after it has been produced.

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58. To avoid all ambiguity we have to distinguish the absolute notion of good from absolute good.
Being and good do not differ in reality. Everything which has some degree of existence is also good to that degree.

The being which things possess, making them good in themselves, enables us to affirm that they fall within the absolute notion of good. This absolute notion is in contradistinction to the relative notion of good whereby one thing is considered good relatively to another, not to itself. If absolute good is understood therefore as that which falls within the absolute notion of good, it can be said that everything possesses its own absolute good. Here, absolute good is distinguished from relative good which is founded on the relative notion of good, that is, on something considered as the cause of good in others.

59. However, the two statements, 'Every subject has an absolute good in itself' and 'Every subject falls within the absolute notion of good', may be considered at a deeper level where the latter is altogether correct, and the former less so. This depends upon the difference between good and the notion of good, between real good itself and the idea or concept of good.

60. The notion of good does not involve the degrees of good because this notion is universal and common to any degree of good however small it may be. The notion is realised and verified in the slightest as well as the greatest good. But real, subsistent good is found in various degrees. In this sense the notion of good is absolute and perfect in every degree of good although good itself cannot be absolute and perfect unless it is present in its highest and final degree. In a word, there is an absolute and a relative notion of good.
The absolute notion of good consists in that towards which the forces of each being tend; the relative notion consists in the aptitude a being has for causing good for others. Strictly speaking, therefore, each thing in so far as it is good to itself lies within the absolute notion of good; but we cannot say that each thing is an absolute good (32).

Absolute good is only that which has all good in itself, just as absolute being is only that which has all being in itself. And in saying this, we really mean not that which has all being in itself, but that which is all being. Complete being is complete good.

61. The nature of our intelligence is formed by being, but only by initial, potential being. If we were to behold this being in its fullness, in its act, in the term of its act, we would see absolute being. This follows necessarily from our premises. If it is true that good is being and that we see being naturally but imperfectly, it must also be true that if this being were to reveal itself more perfectly to our minds, already created by its imperfect presence, we would see good itself, essential good, and therefore entire, absolute good. Because nothing is lacking to this being, and hence to this good, it must be absolute.

Moreover, because nothing is, except through being, being is at the origin of all things as the original act of every nature. As such it is also the source of all that is good and, as St. Augustine says, 'It is the good of every good'. This explains why perfect being is not only the highest good in itself and for itself, but the highest good relative to everything else. And this complete, absolute being, which is also the highest and absolute good, is called God.

62. Having explained what we mean by absolute good, we can now form an idea of the happiness to which human beings tend. This notion is the object of eudaimonology, which must be distinguished from ethics. To confuse the two branches of knowledge would lead to the irreparable destruction of ethics.

What is good for human beings?
Their good relative to existence is human existence, that is, human nature.

The good upon which human perfection depends is determined by the two substances, corporeal and spiritual, which compose our human nature and subsist in a single subject ('myself'), the 'human being'. We must therefore discover the good proper to each of the two substances, and to the human being as a whole.
In so far as human beings are animal subjects furnished with bodily sense, they are capable of adapting for themselves, and enjoying, only particular, corporeal good.

63. As intellective subjects, however, they perceive all species of good, and enjoy all the good they have perceived. The human(33) intellect can even attain to absolute good, which alone therefore can satisfy it entirely and fully(34) .Absolute good is the highest good of intelligences, and when enjoyed provides bliss or happiness, terms never used of the blind, momentary movements of animal life or of any perfection connected with non-sensitive things. It is indeed reasonable to reserve such words as bliss and happiness to describe the full, perpetual, final and, in some ways, infinite enjoyment that contrasts so vividly with limited, instantaneous pleasure(35).

Outside the highest good there is nothing capable of filling the human heart and rendering it fully satisfied and content. The intimate nature of every intellective being is formed, as we have said so often, by the idea of universal being which enables us to know every being and every good. When, therefore, the will of an intelligent being has as its end a good less than the absolute good, it can always go further without having to limit its desires. The will can want as much as the intellect knows. But the intellect can know ever greater good until it arrives at the complete, highest good that is good itself, being itself, the absolute. It can go no further because this is the final, ultimate good. Only here can and must the will be at rest because its desire cannot be satisfied until it reaches and embraces essential good. In this good alone lies true bliss for the intellective nature, and the supreme dignity and beauty which distances it immeasurably from other natures. Its capacity for intimate union with the absolute good makes it one with this good. Herein lies the final excellence of all creation. Other perfections of created nature can be considered as means, but the bliss we have spoken of must be thought and considered as an end.

64. So far we have examined the good of perfection of the two substances forming the mixed subject we call 'a human being'. But what is the relationship between the two substances, which forms the good of the entire human being?

The principal relationship between the two elements forming human beings depends upon the dignity of the intellective over the animal element, and upon the dignity of the good of the intellective element over the good of the animal element. We are dealing with a relationship between end and means. If the sole, absolute good is the end, everything else is a means to be ordered and subjected to absolute good. It is true that in this life we do not know the absolute good positively and entirely, and cannot therefore behold the connection, revealed through intimate meditation, by which all good, including corporeal good, has its source in the supreme Being who uses it as a way of communicating himself. Nevertheless, we see that this must be the case, and realise that there can be no intrinsic opposition and contradiction between corporeal good and the essential good, just as there can be no opposition between a spring of water and the stream flowing from it. In the same way, human beings, if they possess essential, intellective good, cannot lack any happiness of which their corporeal element is capable although this happiness will be granted in such a way as not to impose limits or impediments to the satisfaction of their intellective element. The bodily part of the human being will share the joy of the intellective source.

65. A final observation to this article. In our present existence, the animal good of human nature shares in human dignity because in our present existence it is ordered to intellectual good. The human subject is undivided: I experience corporeal sensations, and I reason about them. If anyone harms my body, therefore, he harms ME. And because I possess the dignity proper to an intellective being, he injures the intellective principle that constitutes my personality. All good belonging to an intelligent subject is immediately or mediately an object appertaining to intelligence, the principal element characterising and specifying such a subject.

66. The dignity of the intelligent subject arises, as I have observed, from the dignity of the idea of being, the source of the subject's understanding. Being, the first object of knowledge and the source of all our other knowledge, is universal, unlimited and infinite, and alone renders the mind capable of knowing all the genera and species of good, and enjoying such knowledge. The nature of this knowledge and enjoyment is characterised by a truly supreme and infinite dignity. It enables the intelligent subject to forget self by considering things as they are in themselves; to look at things impartially and justly; and in so doing, to render homage to being itself, without thought of self, in all the degrees in which it knows being.

The objectivity found in intellective contemplation is in a certain sense infinite, as I said, because it has no limits. It is capable of making known all things, even infinite things, as they are and whatever they are. And infinity is the fundamental principle of dignity. Wherever we are engaged with something infinite, we are dealing with something so great and awesome that finite things give way before it. In its presence, they experience a sublime sense of their own nothingness in thinking of this being which, transcending them, calls forth unlimited reverence for its own veiled, obscure grandeur. The primary dignity of the intelligent subject, therefore, lies in the contemplation of truth.

67. Secondly, the vision in which the intelligent subject sees universal being is that in which it would see the absolute, subsistent being if it were to reveal itself in its act of subsistence rather than as an idea. The intelligence, furnished with its intellective sense, is constituted to perceive absolute being and absolute good, and so to perceive once more the infinite. Only in this perception can its forces be fully consumed. This direction towards absolute, infinite being is the second cause of the dignity possessed by the intellective being. There is no greater good to which it could be related.

Finally, the perception of absolute being implies union with and possession of absolute being, the source of bliss and of infinite enjoyment. The capacity for enjoying this bliss is the third and last cause of dignity in human beings and every other intelligent nature.

68. This happiness, towards which human nature tends unceasingly, and the means for attaining it, are the subject of eudaimonology.

We can now return to ethics and try to penetrate its nature at a deeper level.

Notes

(28) Many writers in Germany have at times been inadvertently subject to this error. They have begun their moral works by establishing two stimuli, happiness and rectitude, as a basic fact of human existence. But this is not sufficient for morality, which must not derive from a stimulus or an instinct. If morality were an instinct, it would not be obligatory, because obligation is something opposed to instinct; it directs all instincts, requiring human beings to follow its direction. If morality were only a stimulus, it would not be based on reason. Reasonableness is the characteristic of morality, and it is neither a stimulus nor an instinct. We must therefore look for the principle of the moral law in reason, not in a primitive stimulus.

(29) Inanimate beings resist their destruction with the forces they possess, that is, the forces with which they subsist. This is so intrinsic and necessary to each nature that simply declaring a nature is, means that it continually strives to maintain its existence, while ceaselessly struggling against its annihilation. However, we have said that this necessary characteristic, which gives all things the notion of good in themselves, is imperfect in inanimate natures in exactly the same measure as their being, which they neither feel nor know they possess. They are good, therefore, in a relative sense rather than in a proper sense.

(30) Cf. my teaching on essence in The Origin of Thought, 646 ss.

(31) Bonum dicit rationem perfecti, quod est appetibile; et per consequens dicit rationem ultimi. Unde id, quod est ultimo perfectum dicitur bonum simpliciter: quod autem non habet ultimam perfectionem quam debet habere, quamvis habeat aliquam perfectionem inquantum est actu, non tamen dicitur perfectum simpliciter, nec bonum simpliciter, sed secundum quid. Sic ergo secundum primum esse, quod est substantiale, dicitur aliquid ENS simpliciter, et BONUM secundum quid, id est, inquantum ENS: secundum vero ultimum actum dicitur aliquid ENS secundum quid, et BONUM simpliciter. S.T. I, q. 5, art. 1, ad 1.

(32) The difference between good and the idea or notion of good corresponds to the difference between being and the idea of being. The idea of being is the same as possible being or, as I commonly call it, initial being. This initial or possible being, this idea of being (all these terms signify the same) is the means by which the human spirit knows thingsas I have shown in The Origin of Thought [473-557]. However, in order to perceive beings as subsistent and not simply possible, human beings need feeling, which is the power of perceiving the real subsistence of things. But the perception of the subsistence of things in itself is not knowledge. To become knowledge, it must be joined to thought or the intuition of possibility, which is simply the universal notion of being itself. Thus I showed that the knowledge of a thing consists 'in the vision formed by the spirit of the relationship between the thing's subsistence and its possibility'. I placed the specific characteristic of human knowledge in this vision. For this reason, possible being, the noble medium of human knowledge, specifies human nature, forming the specific characteristic which distinguishes this nature from all others. In the same way, therefore, that being in potency (principle of knowledge) differs fundamentally from beings in act (objects of knowledge), the notion of good or good in potency differs fundamentally from good in act. The same difference is found in everything we know, for example, between the notion of beauty and beauty itself, between the notion of greatness and greatness itself, between the notion of body and the body itself, between the notion of animal and the animal itself, etc.

(33) The intellect is considered as a feeling (and therefore called intellective feeling) when its act is observed solely within the understanding subject. If we analyse the thought of any object whatever, the thought is present under two aspects: as an experience affecting my spirit and caused by the object I am thinking; as an act of the subject terminating in the object. As an experience, I call the thought a sensation; as an act of the subject I call it knowledge. The experience is something affecting the subject and totally in the subject, in which it is terminated and consumed. It is therefore an interior sensation, an act of intellectual feeling. The affection or thought, however, considered as a means of knowing the object and as an act of the spirit allowing the spirit to posit both itself and something different from itself, is an act of the cognitive faculty. In other words, to feel is to unite and make one with oneself. It presupposes various states of a subject, which are identified through the identity of the subject; to know presupposes an absolute difference between the knowing subject and what is known.

(34) In the present life this greatest good is an object of faith and therefore of christian hope; it is not seen but believed. Reasoning itself, however, in its present state of development, leads us to know that the final term of intelligence can only be the absolute being, God.

(35) Sensists err because they inevitably confuse happiness with pleasure, measuring the amount of happiness by the amount of pleasure. Happiness is certainly an enjoyment but not any enjoymentit is the enjoyment of the greatest good. And the difference between enjoying the greatest good and enjoying any other good is not one of degree but of species; it is an infinite difference with no middle term uniting the two extremes. [. . .]