Chapter 4

The idea of being as the principle of ethics

69. In the last chapter I digressed from my subject in order to indicate the nature of the branch of science dealing with human subjective good, and showed how it is essentially different from ethics. It will help us now if we first sum up what has been said before returning to the principles which are our first concern. We concluded that:

1, the idea of being is the supreme rule of all the judgments made by the human mind;
2, the idea of being is consequently the supreme rule of moral judgments and as such the first and most universal of all laws;
3, this law can be expressed in the dictate: 'Follow the light of reason', the most all-embracing of the declarations found in ethics;
4, because the idea of being is the rule of all judgments, including moral judgments, it is a principle common to many branches of knowledge;
5, because being and good are the same thing, the notion of being is also the notion of good and in a special way the principle of all branches of knowledge concerned with what is good;
6, finally, it is not sufficient to indicate a common principle of science without assigning to every branch of knowledge its own proper principle. And this, in the case of eudaimonology, is the notion of human subjective good, that is, happiness.

70. In the present chapter, we shall begin to investigate the principle proper to ethics. It is clear that if we succeed in discovering and describing such a principle, we shall also be able to throw light on the first, supreme moral law, which consists in the most sublime application of being. We shall see that this uniquely important use of the light of reason can be summed up in a single word, and we shall have answered the question we set ourselves: how can being be used in a practical way to enable us to differentiate what is just from what is unjust, and what is right from what is wrong?

71. If we are to understand how the notion of being can serve as moral law, we have to clarify our notion of the essence of morality and moral good.

72. Moral good is certainly good of some kind. This is sufficient for us to understand that judgments about it require first of all the notion of good in general. We cannot know what a particular good is unless we first know what good is. In our definition of moral good, therefore, we are simply restricting the universal notion of good so that it becomes the notion proper to ethics and the special kind of good with which ethics is concerned. But if we succeed in determining and restricting the notion of good with the characteristics which render it moral, we shall have taken certain steps in acknowledging it as the principle proper to ethics. We shall have shown how the idea of being gradually approaches, as it were, moral good and evil, while awakening and enlightening us so that we may know, distinguish and measure them. The universality of the first principles prevents their being applied immediately without the mediation of other restricted principles descending from them and forming a link between the universal principles on the one hand and particulars on the other. What is moral good, therefore?

73. To clarify the notion we must first say something about objective good, that is, every good in so far as it is perceived objectively or becomes an object of knowledge. As we have seen, the absolute notion of good consists in that which befits the intrinsic order of being in every nature and to which all the forces of a given nature tend. The relative notion of good, on the other hand, consists in something desirable to another and as such the term and aim of the forces natural to this other nature, which move towards and tend to unite possessively with what is desirable. These notions provide us with knowledge of two kinds of good, the good of things in themselves, and the good of things relative to other things. Both kinds of good become objects of our intelligence, and thus objective.

74. Our act of understanding is of itself universal. That is, our faculty of knowledge, instead of knowing good itself, knows how to conceive mentally the reason or concept of good. Consequently we can know, through possession of such a faculty, everything to which the notion of good extends - such an extension of knowledge demonstrates the universality itself of the intellectual act. Because our understanding conceives every species of good, every good can be considered by us objectively.

The opposite is true of bodily feeling, which perceives good itself without conceiving the reason for what is good. Moreover, bodily feeling perceives and enjoys only the particular good it finds proportioned to itself.

75. The intellectual subject, therefore, in some way unites to himself and enjoys the good in every nature. It is true that knowledge alone cannot entail perfect possession and enjoyment of what is good because knowledge provides only the notion of good as a basis of reason, not the good itself. Nevertheless, a sublime, although imperfect, joy pervades the human being at the mental conception of even the abstract reason of good. This enables us to conclude that the intellectual spirit is possessed, even in this life, of a certain intellectual sense(36) with which it enjoys the essences and concepts of good. This sense, unlike corporeal sense, is not limited to a particular good, but expands to take in all the objects of the intelligence so that the satisfaction it achieves depends not on itself, but on things in themselves, that is, considered objectively. We shall understand this better after comparing this objective good with good considered subjectively.

76. Sense and intellect comprise the two fundamental human faculties. They perceive things in different ways and thus provide the explanation of the distinction between subjective and objective good. Sense is the source of subjective good; the intellect of objective good.

77. In fact, every feelable good is subjective, that is, good to the subject uniting it to itself and feeling it. But good intuited by the mind as the object of thought, that is, intelligible good, is objective because it is considered as it is in itself, in the way in which it is, and not as belonging to the thinking subject. The good enjoyed by a particular subject, if it is indeed subjective good, cannot be other than feelable because only sense, whether corporeal or intellectual, can enjoy it. The opposite is true of the way in which the understanding sees good as objective. Here the intelligent subject comes to know a wider range of good things than those which affect him. He knows that many things are good, although they may not be good for him. But if he had no reasoning faculty, he would have no means of knowing any good which he did not experience through his senses. It would not exist for him.

78. Objective good, therefore, extends far beyond subjective good which, as subjective, is good proper to the subject. Objective good is any good whatsoever, whether proper to the subject contemplating it (and hence subjective) or not, provided it is contemplated as it is by the intelligence.

79. But there is another way of explaining the relationship between subjective and objective good. I have already shown that the human subject ('myself') is not only essentially sentient, but a substantial feeling(37). Sensations are only modifications of 'myself' - modifications of a substantial feeling which is partly unchangeable and partly changeable. The identity of this subjective feeling depends upon what is unchangeable; the diversity of the sensations it experiences depends upon what is changeable. The human subject always feels himself, or rather his mode of being. Feeling is inseparable from the subject; it begins and ends in the subject, with which it identifies itself. Hence subjective good has its origin in sense.

80. Intelligence is characterised in a totally different way. With intelligence, we conceive mentally and come to know objectively; the act of understanding begins in the subject, but terminates in an object conceived as independent of the subject conceiving it. In fact, the subject is excluded altogether because it never conceives itself, but only the term of its mental conception. Only intelligence therefore can conceive what is good in itself. It is clear that objective good depends for its origin on the understanding.

81. Nevertheless, although the act of understanding terminates outside the subject, the intellective subject obtains a unique enjoyment from the objects of its understanding considered in themselves. Everyone has experienced the joy that knowledge brings, and appreciates the truth expressed by Marcus Aurelius: Natura inest mentibus nostris insatiabilis quaedam cupiditas veri vivendi ['Nature provides our minds with an insatiable longing to live the truth'] (38).

We have, therefore, a mental sense enabling us to savour all the objects we know. Through this sense, the objective good known by an intelligent being inevitably becomes subjective because of the enjoyment it engenders in the intelligent subject (39).

Above all, we have to note the extraordinary purity of enjoyment engendered in us by a cause totally different from that which prompts the pleasure found in purely subjective good. The purely sensitive subject enjoys subjective good because this good terminates totally in the subject. The intellective subject enjoys objective good because by going outside himself through the thought of objective good, he mentally expands his existence in other objects; he enjoys contemplating them impartially and fully in themselves, not simply in the particular relationship they have with himself; and finally he rejoices in his consciousness of justice towards these objects by his acknowledgement of what is good in them regardless of self. Justice, disinterestedness and reverence towards truth are contained essentially in the act of knowledge, and consummated by acceptance on the part of the will. The result is a sublime delight accompanying the intellective subject along the path of knowledge.

82. A further step in clarifying the nature of objective good is taken by comparing objective with absolute good. We have seen that absolute good and absolute being are the same. We have also seen that in our present condition our mind, although it sees and uses being to know all that it knows, sees being only initially, in potency. Finally, we noted that if this potential being were to be realised in act, being as seen by the mind would pass from the ideal to the subsistent state and would, in this case, be absolute being. The mind would then see God. Absolute being, therefore, is essentially objective being and cannot be possessed by the human subject except through an act of intelligence. Nevertheless, we rightly affirm the existence of an intellective sense in so far as the intelligence attains absolute being as its proper good. Sense is the power that perceives subsistent things, in contradistinction to the intellect as the faculty of knowledge that intuits possible things.

83. But what is moral good? Is it good considered subjectively or objectively?

Moral good is undoubtedly an objective, not a subjective good. A subject searching only for his own satisfaction does nothing moral. He obeys the instinct(1) for pleasure or happiness, but pays no attention to other beings which have the same or greater rights than himself. As long as he thinks only of himself he remains at the level of self-love, egotistically rejecting the good he knows but cannot possess. In a word, this subject is formed by sense whose nature and laws become part of himself.

84. Intelligence, however, is not limited to subjective good, as we have seen. It conceives every good impartially, considering each good in itself, measuring its degree of goodness disinterestedly. This is possible because intelligence possesses the idea of being, which is the measure of the various degrees of existence and hence of the various grades of good. It considers being and good objectively, and in doing so shows the disinterestedness which forms a natural exercise of justice capable of ennobling the act of intelligence. Moral good, therefore, can be found only in objective good because only in the act of reason can the principle of justice, which gives to each his own (the great formula of moral legislation), be found.

85. Thus we find ourselves brought back to the first moral law which we expressed at the beginning of this work, 'Act according to the light of reason'. What has been said confirms and clarifies this law, and clearly demonstrates the error of those who want to base ethics on pleasure or self-interest, however enlightened. Ethics is concerned with duty and obligation towards an object considered in itself by the intelligence, not with pleasure and self-interest which in the last analysis always regard the subject.

86. Helvetius in France, Bentham in England and Gioja and Romagnosi(40) in Italy confused the subject with the object, and thus annihilated morality, reducing it to the art of looking after one's own self-interest. But, as we have seen, when the subject is carefully distinguished from the object we are presented with two opposite principles of two opposite, non-identifiable branches of knowledge. Ethics begins with the object as its principle, and deals with morality; eudaimonology has the subject as its foundation, and deals with happiness. It would seem that even classical philosophy was not sufficiently clear about this distinction, and amalgamated the two branches of knowledge into one practical science containing indiscriminately whatever could be said about either. However, there are many places in which the authors show they were not unaware of the disparity and opposition between morality and utility.

87. The morally good act, therefore, has objective good as its term, that is, good in so far as it is contemplated and judged as good by the intelligence. On this basis, a being is not morally good in so far as its instinct moves and stimulates it towards its own pleasure and good. In such a case it does not tend towards good because it is good, but because it is its own good. It loves itself, not good as such. This is restrictive love, excluding what is good because it is not the subject's own, and hence terminating in injustice, in non-love, in a kind of depravity. The aim of the morally good subject, who follows lovingly the light of his reason, is more elevated. He loves good for its own sake, in its proper nature as good, as intelligence shows it to him. Hence he loves good wherever it appears to him; he loves every good, and by contemplating good attains willingly the pure, noble joy that naturally results in a good, intelligent subject from good as known. He disregards himself because his guide, the understanding, prescinds of its nature from the subject. The understanding is outside the subject; it is independent, impersonal, absolute; it is truth itself, impartiality itself. It loves all objects, all beings. And because intelligence is formed by the vision of universal being, morality is formed by universal love - the love of all beings, of every good - love which extends as far as knowledge, infinitely.

88. 'Follow the light of reason' is therefore equivalent to 'Love all beings'. The light of reason shows us all beings, and presents them so that we may love them; the light of reason shows us what is good in every being and reveals the interior order arising from the very constitution of being.

89. Objective good, therefore, is moral good, but becomes such only when desired by a will. As long as good is only an object of the mind, standing before the intelligence to be contemplated but not yet desired by a will that knows it, it has not attained the nature and title of moral good.

Knowledge of good has no moral connotations as long as it remains speculative and sterile in the subject possessing it. Only when the subject wills the good which he knows does good as willed begin to be moral good.

90. The will is the power with which the intelligent subject (41) works to become author of his own actions. Without the subject's will, a long series of phenomena, of which he is not the cause, can take place in him, as though he were a spectator of what occurs; not everything that happens in us is done by us. If our will is not engaged in what is happening, other powers and forces work in us but without our active intervention . Only the will provides actions that we characterise as our own, and use to fulfil our human personality. We cannot be morally good if we are not the cause and authors of the moral good attributed to us and predicated of us. The will is the active power of human intelligence; moral good is, in the final analysis, 'the objective good known by the intelligence and desired by the will'. Moral good, therefore, consists in the relationship between objective good and the will. Its notion has been clarified.

91. There should now be no difficulty in understanding moral good as ordered good in such a way that the will, because it loves good, loves the order that is essentially found in good.

92. Moreover, we have seen that being and its order, and through this order the harmony between things, and between the parts of any thing, are the object and delight of intelligence and as such intelligence's good. When desired by the will, and because of its relationship with the will, this good takes on the nature and name of moral good. Human beings become morally good by using their will to become authors of the good they long for; they are pleased with what is good, and neither hate nor oppose it nor turn away from it to evil.

93. The philosophers who indicated order as the principle of ethics drew attention to a sublime principle. They failed, however, to discover the original source of order itself and, lacking the final explanation, were unable to justify order or sustain its necessity and authority. They had no self-evident principle to oppose to arguments against it; they were unable to discover a principle superior to order, or its source and authority, or the force of reasoning behind it. We think we have remedied this lack of an evident principle in the moral systems, and indicated in being, the admirable, original source of order.

94. This seems to us the sole, legitimate way of deducing and explaining the idea of justice and uprightness. It shows the noble origin of this idea, with its roots in the first pure, evident light known to the intellect. No one can ignore this light in himself, nor exstinguish it, because it is a divine word, creating where it is uttered. We see being with our intelligence and, in being, which is all that is good, the order of being. When humans love being and love it in its order, their will is good because it loves what is good, and, loving it, renders moral what is good.

In this way, the ethical formula, 'Follow the light of reason', loses some of its vagueness. What we have said enables us to state it more precisely: 'Desire or love being, wherever you know it, in the order or degree in which it presents itself to your intelligence'.

95. There is no need to prove that the understanding knows the order of being with the act by which it knows being. This order is indistinct from being. Order constitutes the mode of being, if I may be permitted the word. The order of being is being as it is, neither more nor less, and hence as it is conceived by the intelligence which conceives all that is, as it is. This order, conceived by the intelligence along with being, the object of the act of intelligence, is first discovered and manifested in each contemplated object (although reflection soon analyses and distinguishes elements within the object without destroying its lasting, indivisible unity). The harmony, qualities, and accidents of being are seen in the object, together with the object's essence or foundation, as it were, and with everything else that, resting upon the foundation, develops from the essence. And order is also beheld in many objects conceived simultaneously and placed in relationship to one another.

96. There is no doubt that the intelligence weighs and measures the different degrees of being (wherever being is) in the act by which it perceives being. In the same way, the intelligence weighs and measures different degrees of good and consequently orders all good for itself according to merit, distinguishing the greater from the lesser and giving the former priority. This is the meaning of 'to determine the order of being'.

97. For example, it is evident to the intelligence that a being without feeling is inferior to a being which feels. The intelligence sees that the non-sensitive being does not exist to itself, and hence lacks the mode of being possessed by any being that feels. It judges that a being which feels has a nobler degree of existence, and that non-sensitive being, deprived as it is of sensitive activity, is minimal in comparison. In the same way, the intelligence has only to perceive on the one hand a being which feels, and on the other an intellective being, to compare them in an immediate, easy judgment, and discover that the latter is far superior to the former. The sentient being is unknown to itself, and consequently nothing in the order of knowledge; the intellective being knows that it exists and feels, and in doing so possesses a third activity or mode additional to the other two. Another and better way of making the comparison is to consider the excellence of understanding. In virtue of his intelligence, the subject has an act of being that reaches out, it would seem, to the infinite, uniting itself with being in general. By this union, the subject is informed by and shares in an infinite capacity, that is, the capacity for the infinite. All these judgments are made easily by the mind through the notion of being, with which it perceives and measures, as we said, the various degrees and modes of being, and understands the different relationships that subsistent natures have with this first notion.

98. The intelligence soon develops its judgments. After having perceived different subsistent beings and compared them through judgments which assign to each its own degree of dignity and excellence, it can easily measure and know the various degrees of moral goodness or depravity in a will that loves or hates these beings. The goodness of the will depends upon the dignity of being as loved and the intensity with which the will loves it; its depravity depends on the dignity of being as hated, and on the intensity of the will's hate. The quantity of being as loved or hated, and the quantity of the intensity of the love or hatred are the two elements necessary for judging the morality of the will. The intellect in possession of these general norms can judge the moral actions springing from love or hatred of the different beings to which they refer.

99. In making these judgments, however, the intelligence is soon forced to take into account particular cases requiring particular norms dependent upon the general norms. The dependent rules are seen explicitly when different applications of the general norms are needed. For example, a case may arise presenting a collision between the good of two beings, and therefore between two goods in direct contradiction with one another. In such a case, what is favourable to one being is unfavourable to the other. When the collision takes place, it is already clear from the general principle, 'moral good resides in love of objective being', that 'being' must be loved as far as possible. Consequently, greater being must be loved in preference to lesser being, and greater good in preference to lesser good. We have to conclude, therefore, that lesser good must be abandoned for greater if the greater quantity of being is to be loved as far as possible. We must also conclude that love of lesser good in preference to greater, which necessarily includes rejection of what is greater, is not true love of being and good, but an illusion of love. In reality, it is effective hatred and immorality. Finally, we must conclude that desiring and reaching out for lesser good to the disregard of greater good is not desire and attainment of moral good, but desire and attainment of moral evil.

100. Observations of this kind show clearly that a morally good act tends towards being without excluding any of it, and therefore tends necessarily to the order found in being. Destroying or changing the order means putting a limitation to being. It means refusing to love being in its entirety and totality because being, intrinsically and essentially ordered, is the seat and primary source of every order.
We have to conclude that moral good contains order. In fact, moral good is being, desired for its own sake by the will; and when the will seeks being alone, it necessarily finds that order which, as we said, is only the modality of being itself.

101. In order to be good, the will must hate nothing, love everything and love it in its natural order. But what is this order of good and of being?

We have seen that non-intelligent beings have existence relative to intelligent beings only, for whom they serve as means. It is therefore impossible for love in an intelligent being to be directed towards or be fulfilled in non-intelligent beings. Intelligent beings possess a certain infinite dignity raising them above irrational beings, and enabling them alone to be considered as ''ends' for a good will. In fact, the personality of intelligent beings, that is, everything noble in human nature and generally speaking, in intelligent natures, is constituted by this conceptual relationship with ''end' which is proper to intelligent beings(42).

Acts of will, therefore, must have what is good in intelligences as their final aim, and cannot be at rest until they have come to love this good. These acts follow acts posited by the intellect which amongst its objects of knowledge views as ends only beings endowed with the noble character impressed by the light of understanding. All other beings exist relatively to the beings they serve.

102. At this point a series of questions presents itself. What is the source of this dignity possessed by intelligent natures? What is it that enables them to be considered as ends? Why is it that when we think of them, we find ourselves necessarily engaged with something so great and absolute that we can in a certain sense go no further? Why do we rest in them and love them for themselves, or rather for something supreme and final found in them that obliges our love to end in them? What is this divine element that enhances these beings, taking them beyond their own limits and allowing them to reach out towards the infinite?

103. Answers to these questions are contained in what we have already said about human dignity when we spoke of universal being, present to rational natures and enlightening them with its own spark of divine fire. Because intellectual beings understand universal being, they can think, and go on thinking about particular beings until their natural progress reaches the absolute. It is through the idea of universal being that they are ordered towards absolute being.

Because of this perfect universality, the idea has an infinite extension, and bestows an infinite capacity upon its subject. The presence of this idea in human beings produces an extraordinary paradox in nature, causing us to marvel at the obvious limitations and the infinite greatness found in the human subject who is indeed formed of finite and infinite elements that alone explain the essential struggle in which human nature is perpetually involved. Seen from the point of view of man-as-subject, there is nothing weaker or more miserable than human nature; seen from the point of view of being-as-object, there is nothing greater or more noble than human nature whose intellect beholds in being its essential light from which it receives the intellectual vision of the intelligible, essential notion common to all that the subject understands.

104. Moreover, only the absolute itself can be that universal being which activates thoughtnot however in the state of possibility in which it now presents itself to the human mind, but in the state of perfect actuality, as it would be if the mind were to see being no longer in its initial state, as it does now, but in its subsistence as final term. Then the intellect would be perfectly replete, enraptured and enthralled: it would see God.

105. Human dignity, therefore, which exalts us above the entire feelable universe, springs from absolute, infinite being towards which we, as intelligent subjects, are ordered. When we consider ourselves from this point of view, we become cognisant of our divine excellence, and realise where our end and ultimate aim lies. The will can seek nothing better than absolute being because thought cannot pass beyond it.

But it also becomes clear that we are not ends to ourselves, although we can and must say that our end is outlined, or rather initiated in us. We realise that human nature possesses finality only in the sense that it contains in itself the beginning of the supreme end. When we love this better part of human nature, the apex of what is, love is perfectly good, perfectly moral. Then being is loved, and loved completely in its order as we reach out towards the very source of order, and towards the being in which and through which all beings are and remain.

106. What we have said explains the dignity attributed to morality throughout the ages, and the supreme honour and authority attributed to justice and rectitude by all peoples. But this dignity can be considered either from the point of view of moral theory or in practice, that is, in the acts of a person who acts morally.

107. Moral theory contains a twofold explanation of this dignity, dependent upon the sublime beginning and end of moral legislation which starts in being seen by the mind and ends in absolute being. Mental being is eternal, necessary, universal, inflexible: it stands above everything else. Absolute being is the fulfilment and actuation of mental being, complete, self-subsistent, the first, infinite substance, God himself.

108. In practice, there is also a twofold explanation of the dignity and intrinsic merit of morally good acts: they have their origin in intelligent beings, and terminate in intelligent beings. As we have seen, every moral act, in order truly to be such, must be an act of love having as its term some being endowed with intelligence.

109. The dignity of the author of moral acts and the dignity of their aim and term are the two reasons explaining the honour in which the conscience of all peoples holds these acts.

110. We must now try to improve our formulation of moral legislation. We began with a vague, indetermined expression which we gradually perfected. Initially we said: 'Follow the light of reason'.

We then saw that the light of reason is being as known, and that the will is the moral faculty making human beings authors of their own actions. As a result, we were able to convert the first formula into the following: 'The will must tend towards being', that is, must love being wherever it finds it, must love every being as such.

111. But by nature being has the intrinsic character of order, and we concluded that because loving being entails loving as much being as possible, being must be loved according to its order. On this basis, we re-formulated our expression of moral law to take account of the necessary order in which being is to be loved if our love is to be morally good: 'The will must tend towards being according to the order found in being'.

112. Finally, we investigated the order of being, and found that amongst beings, persons are known as ends, and things as means. The will, we said, must terminate its act of love in persons. If it were content with things, its act would not be completed, nor be perfectly good, because the will would not be perfectly adapted to the nature and order of being. The end and term of its act would not be found in a final, ultimate being . With this in mind, we brought the moral formula to a higher degree of perfection by adding to it the final tendency of the will to love intelligent beings, and to rest in love of persons, not of things.

113. Our last step brought us to see what gives intelligent beings the nature of 'end' relative to the will. We contemplated the divine, unconditioned, infinite element in intelligent beings and saw how it longs to complete itself in them by revealing to them its subsistence, its majesty as God. By separating this truly final, infinite element from every other condition on which the subject depends, we saw that a perfectly good and sound will must have as the final point of desire this wonderful principle underlying intelligence and happiness. The will has to love relatively to this term, beyond which nothing exists, and in this term consummate all its longings. Only in this way does the will truly love being as it is. It loves per se, being which is per se. Relative to this being, it loves all other beings which are not per se, but related to first, essential being.

Notes

(36) This intellective feeling was known to all the early thinkers and is found in ecclesiastical tradition. In his Retractions St. Augustine recalls having written in one of his books 'we must despise what sense perceives' when he should have written 'what bodily feeling perceives' because, as he says, est sensus et mentis [there is also feeling of the mind]. But he excuses himself at once by adding (and this will also serve as an explanation of those places where I might have used the word sense to mean what is simply corporeal): Eorum more tunc loquebar, qui sensum non nisi corporis dicunt, et sensibilia non nisi corporalia. Itaque ubicumque sic locutus sum, parum est ambiguitas evitata, nisi apud eos quorum consuetudo est locutionis hujus [At that time I spoke like those who use the word 'feeling' only for the body and 'feelable' only for bodily things. Consequently there is some ambiguity wherever I have spoken in this way, except for those who use the words with the above meaning]. bk. 1, chap. 1.

(37) Certainty, 1195 ss.

(38) Tusculanae Disputations, bk. 1, chap. 19.

(39) The contrary is not true. Only in the case of absolute good does a subjective good act to make itself objective.

(40) Two active faculties correspond to the two passive faculties of feeling and intelligence that we have distinguished in the human being. Instinct corresponds to feeling, will to intelligence. The instinct inclines to pleasure and happiness, while the will is the principle of morality.

(41) St. Thomas says: 'The object of the will determines the act of the will by acting as a formal principle', that is, it is essentially active, imparting and prescribing the movement. According to St. Thomas, the formal principle moving the will is being, the same being that is the object of the intellect. He then adds: Primum autem principium formale est ENS et verum universale, quod est obiectum intellectus: et ideo, he concludes, isto modo motionis intellectus movet voluntatem, sicut praesentans ei obiectum suum [The first formal principle is universal BEING and truth, which is the object of the intellect. Thus the intellect moves the will with this kind of movement, presenting it with its object]. S.T. I-II, q. 9, art. 1.

(42) It serves no purpose to give a complete, exact definition of personality at this point. I have attempted to do so in my work An Anthropology in aid of Moral Science.