THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers: Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York City

VoL. ill

JANUARY, 1941

No.1

EDITORIAL
With this issue THE THOMIST is two years old. It is too much
for a child of that age to look back over his past and examine
his conscience; but it is not too much to expect of a speculative
philosophical and theological quarterly. Such a magazine starts
with a rich residue of wisdom; it inherits the hard won wisdom
of the men of preceding ages and shares in the divine wisdom
that God has so prodigally spread before men. In a sense, such
a magazine is very old in the first moment of its life, its eyes
are already accustomed to long stretches of road and far
horizons, its judgments are mellowed by ages it has never
known; it can look back.
The obligation to look back arises not from its vicarious age
but from its personal youth. For its enthusiasm, youth too
often pays the penalty of blindness; this thing, immediately
engaging its energies, is so big, so important, worthy of so
whole-hearted an effort that it dwarfs every other consideration.
It is necessary, precisely because THE THOMIST is so young, to
induce a moment of old age as a corrective of that blinding
enthusiasm, to look back that details might be seen in the truer
perspective of the pattern of the years.
Such a glance at the past of THE THOMIST necessarily focuses
1

EDITORIAL
on the statement, in the first number, of goals, hopes, ambitions
and means to the fulfillment of these things. That original statement was a declaration of dedication to hard things; it was a
prophecy that was not written in exclusively glowing words.
By it THE THOMIST asked for judgment; by it, THE THOMIST
shall be judged.
It was to have been completely distinctive: a speculative
magazine for specialists and non-specialists, solidly scientific
yet not stuffily so, with significance for human living in this
age in which we live; and its medium of expression was to be ·
English. This much of the prophecy that was a hope has been
fulfilled to a fairly satisfactory degree. At least it would be hard
to deny the pertinence to modern life of the objectives upon
which THE THOMIST has trained its guns. Social unity, peace,
social justice, the theology of marriage, and representative government are topics that cannot be ignored by an age in which
both political and domestic society are in danger. Where hope
for the individual man has been almost abandoned there is need
indeed to talk of human and divine friendship. Here there is
desperate need to know more about the means and the impediments to full human achievement: about grace, the Church,
devotion, obligation, venial sin, faith and humility. In an age
that challenges the intellect, the problems of epistemology need
not apologize for intruding themselves; where the threat is to
brutalize men it is fitting that man's capacities for the delicate
beauty of art and poetry be emphasized. The complexity of
the world, the domain of physics, the products of psychology
are matters of prime importance to an age bowing down under
the precious weight of the achievements of science.
Certainly the subject matter of THE THOMIST has been vital.
Perhaps the effort to bring a scientific treatment of this material
within the grasp of the non-specialist had best be described,
moderately, as earnest. Undoubtedly the attempt has, in some
instances, failed; in others it has just as certainly succeeded.
Complete success might well have raised the question as to the
worth of doing a thing so easily accomplished; partial failure
is not an invitation to surrender but a challenge to labor. In

EDITORIAL
this matter, the labor can never be wholly on the side of the
author for here the reader is served with solid food; the chewing
and digesting cannot be done by proxy with any avpreciable
effect of nourishment. Yes, the steak could have been more
tenderf Here and there, but only here and there, an editor
saturated with scholasticism has missed a word or phrase that
no other man in the world would mistake for English or would
suppose did not need translating. But in two years, even such
an editor learns to turn his back on the allure of the trim beauty
of the Latin termmol<>gy.
All of this, however, was as child's play compared to THE
THOMIST's fixed determination to walk paths that had yet to
be marked, to dig deeper than the deepest well, to look higher
than the highest star and to stride towards horizons as yet
dimly seen. It was recognized that to strike " sharp, clear blows
oB. the solid rock from which truth is carved " would be dangerous, laborious, halting work, but work relieved by the freshness
of the courage thought demands and the mysterious reward
that truth reserves to those who value it above all else.
From the beginning the object of THE THOMIST was to attack
problems that needed solving, to attempt answers to questions
that had been unanswered, to put its shoulder to difficulties
that still blocked the path toward deeper truth. The men who
would do such work were prophetically described in that first
number of THE THOMIS'I'. "They will be fighters who have
often been beaten but haven.'t as yet quit; men who have gone
up many a blind alley, pleased to have its blindness uncovered
that they might start over again. Many no doubt should have
been worn out years ago by the unremitting pace their minds
have set, men who have seen nights slip away while their dogged
chase went on. They wiD be driven men, men who cannot stop,
men aflame with an inner me that consumes but does not
destroy, men of unquenchable thirst drinking of an unfailing
fountain. They will be a courageous lot, pioneers who go a step
before their fellows testing the unknown. And they will be a
humble lot, for love must ever be humble, and these are the
lovers of truth; not anxious about their name, their reputation,

4

EDITORIAL

a burst of applause-but terribly, desperately anxious about the
truth that waits to be uncovered."
To the glory of our age be it said that such men have been
found for THE THOMIST. Inevitably their work has proved
dangerous, for the way they walk is unmarked; naturally their
results give ground for disagreements, for the problems they
attack have not remained unsolved through the years because
of sheer neglect. Indeed, it might safely be said, that it is only
by such disagreements that the work they have attempted will
ever be completed; it is only by testing their swords against
worthy steel that sparks will be struck, a smouldering fire
started and finally the roaring flames called forth to consume
error.
It is only by disagreements which strike sparks that the
cause of truth is advanced; only when reason is met by reason,
argument by argument, will the fight be worth the breathless
interest of the lovers of truth. For only in such a fight will truth
have much to win, though it always have nothing to lose; in
any other type of battle truth stands to lose its obvious dignity
and beauty, while it can win no more than an empty victory.
A sword is not a potent weapon against mud; but then neither
is mud ever a lethal weapon against the sword.
It is THE THoMrsT's hope that the future will bring a constant increase in reasoned disagreements; it is THE THOMIST's
misfortune that the present has brought a disagreement that is
of another type. Some defense is necssary; and such defense has
been given in M. Maritain's comment in this number of THE
THOMIST. The immediate pertinence of this matter demands
that it be given a few words here.
The disagreement was by Dr. Muller- Thym and was levelled
against Mortimer Adler's" Problem of Species." This work of
Doctor Adler ran through a good half of the short life-span of
THE THOMIST. In the judgment of the editors it attacked a
real problem and the position of the author was well argued.
That judgment still stands. More than this THE THOMIST does
not ask; less than this it will not have. The acceptance of an
article by THE THOMIST is not a decree of canonization nor an

EDITORIAL

5

infallible approval of doctrine; it is rather a tribute of admiration to the courage and thinking of the contributor. In the
judgment of the editors, Mortimer Adler measured up to the
prophetic description of its contributors quoted earlier in this
editorial; that judgment still stands. It is the hope of the
editors that the future will bring many more of Dr. Adler's
works to the pages of THE THOMIST.
That one such disagreement found its way into print is a
matter of regret. That this disagreement should have come
from Dr. Muller-Thym is a matter for very profound regret.
But it is not grounds for a campaign of extermination or a
process of philosophical excommunication. Dr. Muller-Thym is
also listed among the contributors to THE THOMIST during these
past very full two years. In the judgment of the editors he
attacked a real problem and argued it well; that judgment still
stands. In the judgment of the editors, he too has shown himself not adverse to the hard, dangerous work of pursuing the
truth. It is the hope of the editors that the future will bring
many more of the works of Dr. Muller-Thym to the pages of
THE THOMIST.
Because we are so very young we must look back; because
we are so very old, with the vicarious age of perennial wisdom,
we can look back. Perhaps the most valuable result of the corrected perspective of that backward glance is its solemn warnings and inspiring goads relative to the vitality of Thomism.
These past two years were not a time when vital philosophical
and theological thinking could enjoy the ease, assurance and
approval of a customary thing. The American scene was not
marked out distinctively by activity of this sort. In fact, if it
were a matter of holding to the comfort of a crowd, philosophy
and theology might well have followed one of two roads almost
equally disastrous in that they both lead to oblivion.
One such road, crowded with refugees from thinking, is
marked by roadside stands which offer to quench the thirst for
intellectual death; and offer no other drink to the traveller.
Vitality, intellectual or otherwise, is marked by a thirst for life.
It cannot be conceived as inspiring the strange ecstasy of the

6

EDITORIAL

strangler as he draws the noose tighter and tighter around his
own neck. Vitality then has had no part in the activity of the
modern positivism which philosophizes on the basis that philosophizing is impossible, which exercises intellect in a denial of
intelligence, which investigates man by denying his humanity
and explains life by denying it significance. The very intellectual suicide of this type of philosophizing has an effeminate
softness about it repellent to the vigor of life. It has shifted its
burden to the stalwart shoulders of science; the contemptuous
shrug by which science deposits that burden in the trash heap
is well deserved. There is no vitality in a philosophy which
sinks idly into the soft embrace of distorted dreams and finds
its joy only in the company of a life as meaningless, as hopeless,
as futile as itself. The vitality of a human thing must find its
source in the vitality of the human individual and the vital
human life his very nature demands that he live.
The other road to oblivion is less clearly marked. It looks
good because it is good as far as it goes; its danger lies in lulling
the traveller into the belief that the end of this road is the end
of philosophizing. This is the course laid out by the lethargic
apostles (strange contradiction of terms!) of truth. This view
would place a premium on intellectual flabbiness, give the
crown to memory and draw its sustenance from the deposit
accumulated by hard working ancestors.
Vitality does not flourish under such conditions; it languishes.
Languor has never been attractive to men; still less has it
played a part in the hopes, the struggles, the problems, the lives
of men. No matter how royal its blood, how perfect the features
handed down to it, how rich its potentialities, philosophy cannot spend its time before a mirror· admiring its perfection; not
and live.
Philosophical suicide and philosophical lethargy are modem
answers to philosophical vitality; and both carry their own
refutation. Yet both are understandable, for the vitality of
vital Thomism is to be had only at a high price. In its nourishment a man must spend his energy to the point of exhaustion,
his time to the edge of eternity, his mind to the boundaries of

EDITORIAL

7

mystery. It demands that hopes be high enough to crash resoundingly, that ambitions be high enough to fail, that roads be
long enough to be endless, and courage great enough to be
inexhaustible. This men can understand; this they can and will
respect; this they can follow. For all these qualities go into the
living of human life; and only on these conditions can human
life be lived successfully.
No cost is too high to pay that men might live that human
life fully; nor is any cost too high to pay that men might have
the truth by which that life may be so lived. To this goal of
vital Thomism THE THOMIST renews its dedication of two
years ago.

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY AND MAN*

T

HE psychology of Aquinas is essentially a philosophic
interpretation of human nature. The psychology of
the moderns, on the other hand, is a scientific construction. The former is chiefly concerned with what man is;
the latter centers its analysis on what man does. The two
disciplines should be complementary in the same sense that the
study of substance and the study of accidents are complementary. What I should like to suggest, in this paper, is that
the philosophic analysis of man provides a basic set of tools for
working over and measuring the value of the data of experimentation and scientific observation.
To accomplish this end, it is necessary to point out, at least
in a general way, the different lines of research that have been
developed in
schools of modern psychology. By this
method I believe it can be shown that the fundamental philosophic outlook has a real bearing on the problems investigated
by the experimenter and the clinician. This bearing or relationship is established at t:wo points in the programmes of scientific
psychology: :first, at the beginning, where the philosophic
approach furnishes certain directive principles as to how
investigative work shall be prosecuted; second, at the end,
where the same outlook supplies further criteria as to how the
results of investigation shall be interpreted.
To illustrate: it should be clear to the scientist pre-investigatively, that man is an essential composition of soul and body.
By this we mean that the relation which obtains between the
psychic and somatic parts of human nature, or, more simply,
between mind and its material substrate, is substantial in
character. Acceptance of this principle will give the true per*Editor's Note: This article is to form part of Dr. Brennan's new book entitled
" Thomistic Psychology " to be published by Macmillan in the late Spring.

8

PSYCHOLOGY AND

9

spective not only on the scope and content of scientific analysis,
but also on the proper methods of attacking the phenomenal
area of human nature. Similarly, it should be obvious to the
scientist, post-investigatively, that human thinking and human
willing are irreducible to purely sensitive acts. Acceptance of
this principle will save him from the error of identifying the
abstract insights and volitional impulses of man with the sensations and passions of the animal.
n

In his monumental work on the Origins of Contemporary
Psychology, Desire Mercier indicated, once and for all, the position which philosophy must occupy in reference to contemporary psychology. This book is indispensable to one who
would understand the philosophic milieu in which the science
of psychology was born. Mercier was admirably equipped to
write such a book. He was thoroughly familiar, through long
years of study, with all the fields of the traditional philosophy.
He was also equally at home in the experimental laboratory and
the intricate techniques of psychological investigation. No one
could better discern, therefore, the various philosophic tendencies that manifested themselves in the systems which divided
scientific psychology from the beginning. 1
The pioneer work of Wilhelm Wundt and Gustav Fechner,
some three quarters of a century ago, laid down the general
lines along which psychological investigation was to advance.
These men not only applied the method'S proper to physiology,
but invented other methods more adequate to the analysis of
1 Cf. The Origins of Contemporary Psychology.
Translated by W. H. Mitchell,
M.A. London: Washbourne, 1918. Every serious student of psychology should
read this book. It is unique as a critical study, from Thomistic principles, of the
progressive development of the science of mind. Unfortunately the text has no
index. A new edition, supplying the defect, and adding a critique of the research
that has been done since 1918, would greatly enhance the value of Mercier's classic
work. At this point I should also like to call the reader's attention to Agostino
Gemelli's important paper: " ll Punto di Vista della Neoscolastica di Fronte alia
Moderna Psicologia," appearing in the Rivista di Filosofia N eo-Scholastica, August,
1984, which I have found particularly helpful in writing the present article.

10

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

conscious phenomena; They constructed a new discipline to
which the somewhat equivocal name of " psychophysiology "
was attached. How significant the title was of clashing philosophic tendencies, Wundt himself perhaps did not realize. But
in it, Mercier saw the ancient conflict of two irreconcilable
points of view: first, extreme positivism, which sought to make
a god of matter; second, extreme idealism, which apotheosized
spirit, and was bound to put in its appearance in answer to the
claims of pure natural science. With a genius tempered by the
common-sense philosophy of Aquinas, Mercier could clearly
distinguish between the fruits of objective analysis, and the
subjective interpretation which Wundt put on his own experimental findings. Thus, the great Louvain scholar could accept
the data of the laboratory and at the same time proclaim a
definition of psychology that was strictly in accord with his
Thomistic training.
The very philosophic nature of the perennial psychology
furnishes a framework of synthesis and an ultimate point of
reference for the factual offerings of the scientist. Its balanced
dualistic view of man, deriving from the principle of substantial
relationship between body and soul, is the only satisfactory
norm by which to investigate, set in order, and pass final judgment upon the results of scientific research. How, except on a
basis of such intimate union, are we to account for the demonstrable connections between mind and matter? Despite its
factual value, the work of Wundt was vitiated by false philosophic prejudices. The strange wedding of incompatible tendencies, manifest in his writings, was possible only to a period
that had been heavily impregnated with a long tradition of idealism, but which was pulled just as strongly in a positivistic
direction by the enormous development and successes of the
experimental sciences. Such was the background against which
Wundt projected his vast programmes of research in psychophysiology. H, as Mercier points out, he could have disengaged
his mind from the grip of false metaphysical premisses, inherited
from his Cartesian forebears; if he could have rid himself of his

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

.AND M.AN

11

Kantian notions of substance, and freely followed the implications which his own researches imposed upon him, he would
have been led logically to the hylomorphic position of the Aristotelians. Certainly, he never could have limited the subject
matter of psychology to the investigation of the facts of consciousness. Moreover, there is little doubt that he would have
accepted, in all its richness and exuberance of meaning, the
traditional notion of soul as the first actuality of living matter,
the ultimate source of all man's vegetative, sensitive, and
rational operations. This is the only empirically-evolved concept which caii give shape and substance to the phenomena of
human life. But Wundt was never quite able to master the
idea. In spite of its unsound metaphysical bias, however, the
psychology of the eminent Leipzig investigator represents a
definite counter attack on the position that one must commit
oneself either to a philosophy of pure matter or to a philosophy
of pure mind-as though no other interpretation of human
nature were admissible; Indeed, the Wundtian psychology may
be said to have inaugurated a movement which, consciously or
unconsciously, is decidedly sympathetic towards a revival of
Aristotelianism. 2

m
Perhaps it will not be out of place at this juncture to make
an observation on the significance of the important philosophic
trends in psychology since the beginning. These are, maiiJly,
three: idealism, positivism, and a critically moderate realism.
The first represents the spirit of Plato; the second, that of
Democritus; the third, that of Aristotle. In their final analysis,
all three positions are epistemological attitudes. According to
the idealist, only mind is real. According to the positivist, only
matter is real. Only mind, therefore, or only matter, are valid
objects of knowledge. In terms of the philosophy of nature,
and more
the philosophy of human nature, man is
nothing but mind, or man is nothing but matter. In the first
case, we have extreme formalism, which is the position of the
• Cf. op. cit., pp. 158-59.

12

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

idealist. In the second case, we have extreme materialism,
which is the position of the positivist. Now, there are two ways
in which the elements of idealism and positivism can be combined, so far as the philosophy of human nature is concerned:
first, by the Platonic doctrine of accidental union between mind
and matter; second, by the Aristotelian doctrine of substantial
union between mind and matter. The modern Cartesian, with
his insoluble problem of the body-soul relationship, is a sample
of our Platonic heritage. His psychology is grounded on the
principles of psychophysical parallelism. The modern Thomist,
on the other hand, represents the Aristotelian tradition. His
psychology is founded on the principles of hylomorphism. Both
Fechner and Wundt, it should be noted, were psychophysical
parallelists.
IV

Far from being invalidated by the work of the scientist, the
basic principles on which Aristotle and Aquinas framed their
analysis of man, are emerging with new depth and vigor when
confronted with the data of phenomenal investigation. More
than ever before, we realize today that the observed facts of
consciousness must be correlated with the physiology of human
life if they are to be correctly understood. Furthermore, from
serious reflection on the content and meaning of these same
experimental data, it is obvious that the mechanistic concept
of the soul as a property of cortical substance, or the Cartesian
notion of it as an immaterial entity whose whole nature is to
think, must be ruled out. Ideas of this sort simply will not fit
the facts. If there is to be any solid advance made in the field
of psychophysical analysis, it must proceed on the principle
that the soul of man, like the first actuality of all other cosmic
creatures, is a form immersed in matter. This being the case,
psychology cannot limit itself to the phenomena of consciousness, but must extend its technical observation to the whole
man: his acts, his powers, his habits, and his entire personality.
It must be a science of human nature if it is to be a science at
all. It must be a science of man as man, if it is to contribute

PSYCHOLOGY AND

18

to the advance of knowledge by its investigation of a special
area of reality. Assured against both excess and defect by the
correctness of its methodological principles, it need set no
boundaries to the daring of its plans for research. With its
subject matter accurately fixed upon, it can proceed with assurance to the construction of proper techniqpes for the attacking
of its special problems. More than this, it can· so divide the
labor of research as to secure, from all sides, a real cooperative
analysis, and thus a balanced development, of all its particular
problems. 3

v
Even before Wundt's long
industrious career was closed,
a movement was noted among certain of his followers which
foreshadowed a new way of envisaging the field of psychology.
The secret ambition of the Leipzig experimentalist was to construct a science of mind which would have as exact a pattern
of measurement and classification as any other natural science.
He left no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored, to accomplish
his end; and, in collaboration with his pupils, was able, finally,
to arrange the results of his enormous researches into something
like a systematic whole. The goal of the Wundtians was twofold: first, to determine the laws of all the complex phenomena
that either condition or accompany mental life; second, to
investigate the structural contents of consciousness itself. The
first part of the programme was really nothing more than
applied physiology. Here, as might he expected, the effects of
scientific inquiry were extremely gratifying. The second part
of the programme, on the other hand, proved unusually barren
and inadequate. Here the data seemed peculiarly rebellious to
methodic treatment. Wundt concluded that it was not possible to know, directly and by positive technique, the higher
processes of conscious life.,.. Thus, the meaning of intellect and
will and their non-quantitative acts, remained for him a closed
hook. It was the classical work of Hermann Ebbinghaus on
memorial functions, that paved the way for new researches,
• Cf. Mercier, op. cit., pp 349-50.

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

showing how the immediate introspective analysis of the operations of consciousness provides us with a wider range of data,
and more complete information about man's rational nature,
than the indirect study of physiological correlates. From this
strategic point of departure, the road was short to a scientifically
controlled method of self-analysis. Hence, when Oswald Kiilpe
and his Wiirzburg school developed a systematic way of recording the facts of introspection, and demonstrated its empirical
use within the area of conceptual and volitional processes, psychQlogy had made a distinct advance in its claims for scientific
recognition. One thing Kiilpe made abundantly clear: that
the investigation of the subject matter of psychology could not
continue along the same lines on which sciences like physics and
chemistry had been built. It must occupy its own special positiQn in the world of knowledge. This position it can share with
no other branch of natural science, first, because of the uniqueness of its method, which allows for the employment of an introspective technique; second, because of the character of its subject matter which falls partly in the field of science, and partly
in the field of philosophy. Of course, the use of self observation
must be exact and experimentally governed, if its records are
to have a universal value. To deny, however, the validity of
these records and of the conclusions drawn from them, is to
make psychology simply a histQry of individuals. Indeed, if
introspection is illegitimate as an investigative method, then
psychology cannot possibly be anything more than an offshoot
of physiology. It can hope. for little or no enlightenment, for
example, on the problems of human thinking and human willing-problems of capital importance for the analysis of human
nature. Moreover, if the subject matter of psychology is simultaneously scientific and philosophic in kind, then the science of
mind must be more closely related tQ philosophy than is any
other natural science.
Wundt was a naturalist in psychology. Deeply immersed
in his physiological studies, he was prone to undervalue the
significance of mental functions for the life of man. He was

]40DERN PSYCHOLOGY AND

15

more interested in somatic correlates than in the conscious acts
with which such correlation takes place. In fact, he was willing
to abandon altogether the idea that psychic processes, such as
volition, can be causally connected with bodily acts, rather
than disturb the order and rigidly determined economy of
physical operations. Kiilpe, on the contrary, exhibited a
decided preference for the psychic features of man's life. For
him, thinking was a purely psychological phenomenon, something to be studied in and for itself and described, if possible,
in purely psychological terms. To secure this end, the naive
Selbstbeobachtung of Wundt -simply having an experience
and later recording it-was not sufficient. In the hands of
Kiilpe and his pupils, self observation became controlled observation. The fertility of the method has been proved over and
over again by the work of the Wiirzburgers. It is sufficient to
mention here the splendid researches of Karl Biihler on ideational processes, and of N arziss Ach on the determining
tendencies of the will-act.
VI

The third dominant strain to be noted in the development of
modern psychology, is phenomenological. It appears very
strongly in the work of Carl Stumpf. Now the attention of the
investigator is directed towards an analysis of conscious experiences, precisely as these experiences occur to the subject in
their virginal immediacy and without implications.
This
method, it may be said, is a propredeutic to all the natural
sciences, but especially to the science of mind. Because of its
demands on pure consciousness, phenomenology is closely
related to introspectionism. It owes a great deal to the intentional psychology of Franz Brentano who was the first to bring
out forcibly the importance of the distinction between the
contents of consciousness and its functions. Edmund Husserl,
whose name is intimately linked with this phase in the evolution
of the science of mind, describes phenomenological psychology
as a study of the types and forms of intentional psychology.

16

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

VII

Significantly enough, most of the story of modem psychology
thus far related, has been confined to the ranks of German
scholars. In France and America, the Wundtian concept of
psychology as a pure science, on a par with any other· positive
science, continued to have its vigorous supporters.
But,
whereas the naturalistic phase encountered no serious obstacles
from the early American investigators, it was destined to meet
the sternest sort of opposition from the French. Thus, Henri
Bergson and Alfred Binet were its avowed enemies from the
start. The work of Binet, in particular, was noteworthy
because of its basic resemblance, both in content and in spirit,
to the labors of Kiilpe in Germany. With the exception of
Charles Spearman's efforts in England, no outstanding contributions were made by the British psychologists to the researches
of Wundt and Kiilpe. The accomplishments of Spearman in the
field of factorial analysis, like those of Binet on intelligence, are
more in the temper and tradition of the Wiirzburg school than
in the Wundtian manner. Spearman is significant especially
for his recognition of the need of building up a science of mind
on a basis of sound philosophic principles, a feeling shared by
the American, Thomas Verner Moore, who has done much to
promote the ideas of Spearman in the United States. The factorialist, whether he admits it or not, is really a faculty psychologist. This is true of every investigator in the field of
psychometrics. He is working in the best Aristotelian and
Thomistic tradition, since the ground that he covers is concerned with the acts and powers, or the performances and
abilities, of man.
The early history of scientific psychology in Italy reveals no
marked originality of views. Federico Kiesow followed the
methods of his teacher Wundt with marked fidelity and with no
better results. Sante de Sanctis likewise organized huge
amounts of research
on the principle that psychology is as
objectively scientific as any other natural discipline. Vittoris
Benussi was a student of the Austrian school of Graz, and his

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

AND MAN

17

experimental programmes were designed to clarify the different classes of elementary mental experiences, according to the
groundplan drawn up by Alexius Meinong, founder of the
school. Most important of all, Agostino Gemelli defended the
legitimacy and value of the experimental method in psychology,
recognized introspection as an indispensable tool in the analysis
of mental phenomena, and insisted on the need of rehabilitating
the Aristotelian concept of soul if one is to arrive at a
complete doctrine of psychological life.
VIII

What we have said up to this point is a fairly comprehensive
summary of the trends in scientific psychology before 1914.
After the war (during which research was directed, in the main,
towards practical ends) we witness a lively resumption of
interest in psychological studies. The outlines of three distinct
systems now make their appearance: the gestalt school, whose
principal exponents were Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler,
and Kurt Koffka; the eidetic school, represented by Erich
Jaensch; and the behavioristic school, with John B. Watson at
its head. Aligned historically with the behaviorists is the
Russian school of reflexology, with which the names of Vladimir
Bechterev and Ivan Pavlov are prominently associated. A
great deal of experimental research has been done under the
aegis of these three systems, but the systems themselves, as
theoretic constructions, have shown innumerable weaknesses
and partialities. Other schools, voicing their dissatisfaction
with the present modes and areas of investigation, and particularly with the restricted character of such investigation, have
begun to put forward claims for admittance into the circle of
psychology's official family. The personalistic doctrines of
William Stern, for instance, seem to be gaining ground in
several quarters. They are significant for the reason, already
alluded to, that they would orientate the researcher once more
towards a whole-making concept of the subject matter of
psychology. The same observation may be made on the total2

18

ROBERT. EDWARD BRENNAN

ity school of Felix Kruger and Otto Klem, and on the V erstandnispsychologie or understanding psychology of Eduard Spranger
and his teacher Wilhelm Dilthey. Such views, however, may
turn out to be holistic in name rather than in fact.
IX

If there is one psychological system in the contemporary
milieu which may be said to occupy a position of preeminence
over other systems, it is the gestalt school.
long this
superiority will endure is difficult to predict; yet, its birth could
have been foretold as a logical reaction to the excessive associationalistic tendencies in the theories of Wundt and his followers.
In outlook, gestaltism is squarely set against two false attitudes
in psychology: first, the presumption that a science of mind
can be founded simply on the analysis of conscious states;
second, the pretense that conscious life can be conceived of as
a mosaic of elementary sensations, images, and feelings. The
first position is defended in the content psychology of Wundt;
the second, in the structural psychology of his pupil, Edward B.
Titchener. The present successes of the gestalt theory can be
understood only if we remember that before the beginning of the
present century, psychological phenomena were theorized about
and interpreted mainly in terms of physiology. Quite naturally,
much was said and written about the quantities and types of
sensations, since it is within this fertile area that psychology
makes its closest observable contact with physiology. The
experimental work of the gestaltists changed all this, by shifting the axis of analysis from sensations to perceptions. Out of
the bosom of long and tedious inquiries, especially on the processes of vision, was born the idea that the very first datum of
psychological experience is that of Gestalt or form. Conscious
life is primitively patterned into wholes, each whole having its
own degree of configuration. This awareness of form or of
patterned experience is an immediate datum, and nothing antedates it in the psychological order. Accordingly, sensations
do not exist. Neither is there any need for postulating an

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

AND MAN

19

active attention whereby the discrete units of sense experience
are brought together, selected, and organized. This is all
accomplished by the Gestalt which is fitted upon experience
natively. One thinks, at once, in such an explication, of the a
priori forms of Kant; but the promulgation of another complementary principle eliminates, theoretically at any rate, the
prospect of making the form-school an offshoot of Kant's idealism. This second principle states that psychological processes
are isomorphic with physiological processes,
means that
they have the same construction as the processes in the central
nervous system. Going a step further, it is likely, according to
Kohler, that neurological processes are patterned on a similar
configuration of events in physical nature. If this is so, it is
hard to see how the gestalt theory escapes the charge of outand-out materialism since perceptual functions are reduced, in
their final analysis, to a schema of purely cosmic fprces.4
X

In spite of the vigorous efforts of its founder, the eidetic psychology of Erich Jaensch and his Marburg school has very much
declined in general appreciation.
Eidetic imagery is an
undoubted phenomenon of youthful experience. The fact that
it is of such wide incidence to childhood makes it of great
interest, of course, to the psychologist. .Anschauungsbilder are
both spontaneous in origin and rich in the delineation of detail.
An eidetic
Their reproduction is always easy and
individual is one who possesses the ability to project unusually
lifelike images of the eidetic sort. Such an ability represents
an excessive form of phantasmal function. Its unusualness
becomes more prm:iounced as the individual grows into adulthood. On a basis of observed facts, in the eidetic field, Jaensch
has constructed a whole system of psychology. He is concerned, especially, with the determination of personality types
which he has arranged in two categories, to correspond with the
'Vide J. Lindworsky, "Zu Grondfragen der Gestaltpsychologie," Sti'TfiiiiUm der
Zeit, 19H, vol. li7, no. 8.

20

ROBERT EDWARD :BRENNAN

types of eidetic image manifested by the subject in his perception of the external world. These are: basedowoid or B type,
related to Basedow's disease, which is a toxic condition of the
thyroid gland; and, tetanoid or T type, related to tetany, which
is a dysfunction of the parathyroid gland. In the first grouping, the eidetic image is amenable to '!ontrol, behaving like the
ordinary products of imagination and memory; in the second,
the eidetic image has more permanent features, since its form
cannot be changed at the command of will. There is a rough
resemblance, in these two classifications, to Jung's introverts
and extroverts. It is, perhaps, too early to predict what may
be the final value of such distinctions. In any event, the Jaenschian typology has gained no very wide recognition among
students of mind. Even the author himself does not appear to
have overmuch faith in its ultimate survival. Its wholesale
reduction of psychological phenomena to terms of imagery is
a weakness that is bound to prove fatal. From a philosophic
aspect, it is nothing more than a refined form of materialism
on a par with the deterministic concepts of the gestaltists and
the positivistic notions of the Wundtians.
XI

As its name indicates, the behavioristic school makes external
conduct the object of psychological investigation. It is founded
on the principle that, for a complete analysis of human nature,
one need simply know how man responds to the presentation of
stimuli. Accordingly, the less stock set on consciousness, and
all its works and pomps, the more possibility there is of a completely objective and scientific record of human behavior. The
best material for research, therefore, is not the activity of the
human adult, but that of the child or the animal. Here the
subject is not conscious of being conscious, and the pattern of
behavior is not so liable to be twisted and distorted out of
normal shape. In practise, behaviorism is simply a physiological discipline. It is closely related, in its origins, to the
functionalism of John Dewey, who was the first American to

PSYCHOLOGY AND ]4AN

21

insist on the role of reflex arcs in the adjustment of the organism to its surroundings. Man himself, according to Dewey, is
just a function or a process. Concepts of this sort are at once
suggestive of the phenomenalism of Hume. Also linked up
with the behavioristic position is the response psychology of
Edward T. Thorndike and his associates, for whom the operations of human learning are explained in terms of stimulusresponse bonds. WalterS. Hunter, KarlS. Lashley, Edward C.
Tolman, and Albert P. Weiss are some of the better-known
experimentalists who have carried on the work of Watson.
Animal studies, pursued by Kohler, Lashley, Robert M. Yerkes,
and Joseph A. Gengerelli, have contributed to the development
of comparative psychology. The fundamental outlook of all
the behavioristic schools, so far as the analysis of human nature
is concerned, is simply a masked materialism, resulting in either
the rationalization of the animal or de-rationalization of man.
We might add, here, that the field of research for the gestaltists is also largely given over to animal psychology. In this
respect, they are very much like the behaviorists. The two
groups are further alike in their mutual rebellion against the
over-technical kind of introspection which was practised by
Titchener and the structuralists. But, most important of all,
both schools find a kinship in their mutual assumption, either
explicit or implicit, of a mere difference of degree between the
achievements of man and beast. Thus, the behaviorist applies
his concept of conditioned reflexes to the explication of human
and animal conduct without distinction. Similarly, the gestaltist employs his theory of perceptual wholes to resolve the
intricacies of human and animal learning alike. The two
systems differ to this extent: that the behaviorist appears to
be primarily interested in the sensorimotor foundations of
human behavior and in the biological role of the emotions;
whereas the gestaltist is mainly concerned with configurations
in the visual field and with problem solving. The latter is more
ingenious in devising his experiments, more sophisticated in
constructing his neurological hypotheses, than the former. Yet

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

the physiological bases of the two schools would seem to be the
same. Kohler, for example, recognizes the studies of Lashley
on neural mechanisms as basic to his own theories.
XII

These, in the main, are the leading systems of psychological
research. Even so brief a survey as we have made is sufficient
to indicate the distressiB.g difficulties under which the science of
psychology, as a whole, is laboring. The root of the trouble,
as I think, lies in the failure of the investigators to appreciate
the proper scope of their discipline. They cannot agree on the
subject matter of psychology. Apparently, they have overlooked or forgotteB. the fact that, in order to build up a true
science of mind, one must study, not this or that particular
function of consciousness to the exclusion of other data, not
somatic processes as a substitute for psychic processes, not the
evolutionary tendencies of the organism or its motor responses
to stimuli, but man, in all his various manifestations. I would
go a step further and say that the failure of the investigators
is also due to their inability to appreciate the true nature of the
subject· matter of research. On what grounds, for example,
does the behaviorist proceed as if man were merely an animal?
Or by what antecedent evide:ace does the structuralist or
the gestaltist proceed as if all man's conscious activities were
reducible to a complexus of sensations or perceptions? Such
methodological principles may be quite legitimate for the
physiologist, or even for the animal psychologist, hut for the
studelllt of human nature, they are wholly false· a:ad unwarranted. If it is admitted, as I think we can admit, that psychology has the potentialities of becoming a well-establish.ed
· science, this does not mean that it can do so without the aid of
philosophy, or in spite of such aid. Aristotle could have foretold the confusion and polemic of modern psychology had he
known the false metaphysical premisses with which the majority of investigators begin their studies, or the equally false
metaphysical conclusions with which many end their labors.

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

AND MAN

Mere acquaintance with the facts of the laboratory does not
warrant the making· of philosophic pronouncements on the
nature of man; yet, acquaintance with . the nature of man is
required if the observer of the facts is properly to understand
them, even in their scientific aspects, and if he is to exercise the
correct perspective upon them in their relation to the whole of
psychological knowledge.
XIII

The leading criticism of the official systems of psychology
has come from the psychoanalytic schooL Now we step from
the laboratory into the clinic; and while the method of gathering data is no longer experimental in character, yet it is
employed over a: field of observation that is wider and better
calculated to give us the synolistic or whole-making approach
which psychology needs today. The great merit of Sigmund
Freud and his school is that of having shown the real importance of unconscious mental processes and their influence on
conscious activities, particularly in the orientation of the individual towards a normal goal of life. Of course, other psychologists had made investigative studies of these unconscious phenomena. Jean Charcot, for example, and his disciples, Pierre
Janet and Theodule Ribot, contributed several valuable analyses on obsessions and hysterias. But Freud was the first to show
the intrinsic meaning of unconscious processes for the psychological pattern of individual life. In order to clarify the associations between the manifest and latent contents of the mind,
it was necessary to study a wide expanse of pathological data.
The abnormal, in mental phenomena, had been decidedly neglected by the official psychologists. Freud found it a fertile
region for exploration. On a basis of certain observed facts,
he built a psychological system which, in its roots, is simply a
revival of the old associationalistic doctrine, with instincts or
instinctive urges supplying the role once played by sensations
and images. Freudianism, however, is not merely a theory of
instincts, or a branch of psychiatric science, or· a method of
probing the depths of the unconscious. More seriously, it is

24

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

proposed as a philosophy of life, and a philosophy of the grossest materialism. In fact, towards the end of his career, the
writings of Freud show little or no concern with psychological
data, as such, Psychoanalysis has had its ardent defenders,
but it has also given rise to dissident schools. The foremost of
these latter are the systems of Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.
Jung's name is linked up with the beginnings of type psychology; just as Adler's name is prominent in the development of
character psychology. The very existence of· psychoanalysis
and its derivative djsciplines is proof that the official psychologists have been too narrow in setting the boundaries of investigation, either within the area of consciousness exclusively, or
within the dimensions of objective behavior exclusively.
Obviously allied to the theories of Freud, Jung, and Adler is
the rising science of individual differences, which some investigators, like Emil Utitz and Ernst Kretschmer, regard as a completely established and autonomous discipline. It is sometimes
referred to as the psychology of individual criteria, or, more
simply, as criteriology. The study of such criteria has been
given great impulse in the writings of Ludwig Klages and
Eduard Spranger, both of whom have attempted to set up a
philosophic superstructure on their scientific work. The results
represent a rather unsuccessful adventuring into the realms of
idealism. They are interesting, nevertheless, as symptomatic
of a basic need which investigators generally are showing, of
an ultimate interpretation for the phenomena of human nature.
The point about the whole matter is not that a science of psychology cannot be integrated with a philosophy of psychology'
but that the science of psychology is one sort of discipline, and
the philosophy of psychology is something entirely different.
To neglect this distinction is to fall either into a materialistic
position, like that of the behaviorist or the Freudian; or into an
idealistic point of view, like that of the criteriologists, Dilthey
and Spranger; or into an exaggerated dualism, like the phenomenalistic attitude of Husser!, Meinong, and their followers. On
the other hand, to say that scientific psychology has no organic
connection with the philosophy of psychology is to picture the

MODERN

PSYCHOLOGY

AND MAN

former as a mere summary of facts, or an enumeTation of accidental relationships. But man, who is the proper object of
psychological investigation, simply cannot be studied in this
unreal manner.
XIV

So multiple and changing are the manifestations of human
life that it is impossible to trust to a single method or a single
system for an analysis of these manifestations. The techniques
of psychophysiology can still be employed to advantage and
yield new results, especially in determining more explicitly the
profound intercommunications between psychic and somatic
activities. The methods of direct experimentation, wherein
the introspective tool is cautiously used, also will yield further
insights, particularly in the field of purely psychic processes,
such as thought and volition. Again, phenomenal observation
of the type practised by the gestaltist, can, if properly developed, widen our knowledge of perceptual functions, as a point
of departure for the investigation of conceptual functions. The
objective methods of the behaviorist, too, will extend our
grasp of the mechanisms of external reaction, reflex movements, and locomotive patterns of conduct. :Finally, the exploration of the unconscious by the clinical techniques of the psychoanalyst will clarify more and more the import of man's carefully concealed mental abnormalities. The thing to remember,
always, is that no single group of experiments, no analysis of
individual operations, no exclusive use of one method, will give
us a complete picture of human nature. Moreover, it must be
remembered that no amount of factual information which is
not properly ordered and integrated with a true philosophic
concept of man, can ever serve its final purpose of being built
up into a permanent science of psychology.
XV

As we examine, in retrospect, the work of the investigators,
one significant point strikes us immediately. It is the fewness
of the generalizations that have emerged from inductive studies.

26

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

We have no theoretic psychology, in the sense that we have a
theoretic physics or a theoretic chemistry. Perhaps the situation can be best expressed by asking: where are the universally recognized laws to cover such processes as sensation, perception, imagination, memory, learning, intellection, attention,
association, emotional response, volition, in the same way that
universally recognized laws cover the phenomena of matter?
Of course, there is an abundance of specialized information
about the acts and powers of man. Indeed, on some problems,
investigators have accumulated enormous quantities of data;
but we are speaking here of laws that have been established on
a purely objective basis, and are commonly recognized in all
quarters. Johannes Lindworsky, for example, has made a very
commendable attempt to formulate a theoretic psychology
without appealing directly to philosophic concepts.
The
attempt, however, does not satisfy the demands of strict
theory, and the conclusions are too abstract to be of value to a
humanistic science like psychology. Indeed, the most significant generalizations that have been achieved thus far, are
nothing more than common-sense records of matters of public
experience, to attain which no expert knowledge or instrumental
technique is required. We have learned a great deal about the
structure and functioning of the sense organs. The role of the
nervous system in the activation of conscious processes is better
known. The significance of the cortex in the conditioning of
reflexes is better understood. The part played by body resonances in the operations of the animal appetites has been clarified. The effects of fatigue, glandular secretions, and drugs of
different sorts, on mental acuity, have been carefully studied.
But, in the last analysis, these are all topics of physiological
investigation. Few, if any purely psychological descriptions
have been contributed by the investigator to the content of
scientific psychology; just as few, if any, successful attempts
have been made to formulate a system of theoretic principles
as a working basis for future psychological research.

PSYCHOLOGY AND

27

XVI

Where the schools have erred, of course, is in extending to
the whole of man's psychological life" what is demonstrably true
of only a part of it. We have already noted how, for the
behaviorist, reflex action. explains everything; for the gestaltist,
perceptual patterns, with isomorphic structures in the nervous
system, tell the whole story of man's conscious life; for the disciples of the Marburg school, the eidetic image is the supreme
fact in the development of human personality; for the Freudian,
the interpiay of instincts is the final principle of all human
achievement. But, reflexes, percepts, images, and instincts are
only particular problems in the whole of man's psychological
life. What we need today, as Aquinas would indicate, is really
less of psychology and more of anthropology, using the term
" anthropology " in its traditional meaning to signify the study
of man. For, that is what psychology should be: the study of
man, as man, not as a concatenation of reflexes, or a sum of perceptual configurations, or a series of imaginal processes, or a
complexus of instinctive responses. Such things are simply
isolated events in the history of human nature, and they have
no meaning except in relation to the whole nature. Further, the
study of man, as man, means the study of man as a besoJiled
organism, or as a creature composed of matter and spirit, whose
operations fall within the dimension of scientific analysis, but
whose fundamental nature is the proper study of philosophy.
Just as there is no on.e idea deep enough to exhaust the contents of reality, no one term or proposition which completely
describes it, so there is no single formula to express, in all its
richness of meaning, the notion of human nature. One representation of it is, however, more full and more exact than
another. If we are looking for an idea that expresses the
central aspect of philosophic psychology, then the concept of
man as a creature composed of body aRd soul, is as faultless
as any. Of course, such a concept is really very complex.
Accordingly, it is allowable, for the sake of clearer understanding, to consider its different facets as though they were sepa-

28

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

rate realities. In this way, we are justified in studying the acts
and powers and habits of man, one by one, as though they were
discrete properties or accidents of human nature; but all such
peripheral entities derive their significance from the fact that
they are rooted in the substance of man. All, therefore, must
be analyzed and interpreted, eventually, in terms of this central
substance which is, itself, a composition of matter and form.
From the principle of a substantial union between body and
soul, therefore, as from a fountainhead, spring all the peripheral truths that complete our phenomenal analysis of man.
These truths, from their position of dependency on the central
principle, can touch only the accidents of man. We may designate them truths of the structural order, in the sense that
powers are accidental parts of a nature; or we may call them
truths of the operational order, in the sense that the movements
of powers are accidental manifestations of a nature. The point
is that structures and operations do not constitute a nature but
presuppose it. This being the case, it is of capital importance
that we understand the fundamental constituency of man's
nature before we theorize about the meaning of his attributes.
Understanding his essence, we can understand the arrangement
and distinction of the acts and powers that flow from his essence
and exhibit it, phenomenally, to scientist and philosopher alike.
Thus, it becomes as wrong for the scientist as for the philosopher, to say or imply that man does not share some of his acts
and powers with the plant and animal kingdoms, or that he
is not essentially distinct, by other acts and powers, from both
these orders of being. Putting the matter more concretely, I
should say that it shows greater conformity with the demands
of scientific evidence to regard man as the proper subject of
rational, sensitive, and vegetative functions, and to look upon
his soul as the basic operational principle by which he lives,
feels, and thinks, than to attempt a monistic or falsely dualistic
solution of the problems of human psychology. The investigator who recognizes the human person as a substance compounded of mind and matter, will find no difficulty in grasping
the significance of the data which he studies in the laboratory

]dODERN PSYCHOLOGY AND ]dAN

29

or the clinical chambers. For one who shares, with Aquinas,
the view that man is a synolon, made up of contrasted psychic
and somatic elements, there can be no idealistic fear that psychology will end by materializing the spirit of man, just as there
can be no positivistic fear that psychology will vanish into the
realm of the unknowable by dematerializing the body of man.
XVII

Despite the fact that it was born in an atmosphere of positivism, scientific psychology has profited by its separation from
the field of philosophy, just as philosophic psychology has found
it to its advantage to have its phenomenal area studied by the
investigator. Thus, science is kept within proper bounds, at
the same time that it .is supplied with principles by which to
interpret its data and formulate its laws. Similarly, philosophy is restricted to the goals and methods that are appropriate
to its speculative nature, at the same time that it is compelled
to reexamine its doctrines in the light of experimental evidence,
to extend the application of its principles, and to explore the
possibilities of clarifying its doctrines by modern instance and
example. Every perennial philosophy has a twofold life: the
eternal life of its spirit; and the temporal life of its body. Its
eternal life is, of course, unchangeable, because it is the very
essence or truth of it, the thing that-sets it apart, at once, from
all false interpretations of reality. Its temporal life, on the
· other hand, is changeable. It grows with the growth of time,
with the slow grandeur of centuries, with the discovery of new
information. This is the life which enriches itself with the
achievements of science, with the creations of art, with the
history of nations. Psychology, as a philosopbic discipline,
has such a dual life. It faces time and eternity. It looks to the
metaphysician in order to see the supreme ontological meaning
of the truths which it proclaims; but it also looks to the work
of the investigator in order to clarify its knowledge of the
principles on which it is grounded.
Nor need the philosopher have any fear of the results of
scientific inquiry. It is true that the positivists in psychology

30

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

have laid their trust in the methods of empirical investigation
to free their science from the incubus of the soul; but positivism
is simply a mental attitude which cannot change the intrinsic
character of the findings which the investigative organ brings
to light. There is really no substance to the shadows that
cling to the atmosphere of the materialist's laboratory or
clinic. The diffidence which some philosophers have exhibited
toward the experimental method in psychology is due, not to
their alarm at its being applied to immaterial phenomena like
thoughts and volitions, but rather to the fact that the experimental tool is manipulated only too often by those who have
no philosophic training or insight, and who therefore, are unqualified to recognize the existence and meaning of the immaterial accomplishments of man.
XVIII

In concluding, let us summarize the results of our examination of the modern systems in psychology. And since we are
interested primarily in correcting false attitudes let us indicate
once more, briefly, just where things have gone awry.
The first mistake is in the point of view that the sole subject
matter of scientific psychology is either consciousness and its
phenomena, or behavior and its phenomena. Obviously, the
Cartesian wedge is still doing its work effectively when it can
divide investigators into such widely opposed camps. A
dichotomy of this sort not only fails to recognize the difference
between the psychological, as such, and the physiological, but
it also fails to see that man reconciles both within the depths
of his human nature. And even in the field of consciousness
alone, or of behavior alone, there is the further failure to distinguish between phenomena that are rational in kind, and
phenomena that are simply sensitive or vegetative in character.
The second mistake is in the investigator's complete abandonment of philosophic criteria for his work. Out of this abandonment comes the loss of the precious concept of the soul, and
its ensuing loss of the concept of human nature. Of course, I
do not mean to say that it is the scientist's business to investi-

]d0DERN PSYCHOLOGY AND

81

gate the soul or the nature of man, for these are philosophic
problems. But surely, if the scientist cannot successfully prosecute his work and build up his science without a truthful
knowledge about human nature, then such knowledge must be
presupposed to his investigations. At any rate, he must not
theorize in a way that would negate the correct philosophic
analysis of man. This, however, is just what he has too often
done. We are forced to conclude, therefore, that the sad state
of affairs in the science of psychology today must be due, in no
small measure, to bad philosophic influences. Such can be
shown to be the case, historically, I believe. Thus, under the
influence of Kant, on the one hand, and of Comte, on the other,
the scientists have been completely overcome by their special
preferences, either for the informations of subjective consciousness alone, or for the data of objective behavior alone. And
so we witness a convergence, frqm idealistic and positivistic
streams, of concepts that mark the investigator as a false dualist, if he is not already an out-and-out materialistic monist.
With the disappearance of the notion of substance, the notion
of soul vanished out of reality. This made it relatively easy to
discard the idea of consciousness in favor of the idea of behavior. Without a soul, psychology is like a temple without a
deity, or a home without a family spirit. Of course, phenomena
constitute the proper area of investigation for the scientist, in
psychology as in any other discipline. But concentration on
phenomena alone, as events have shown, tends to reduce psychology to the level of pure physiology. This is true in the case
of the Wundtian as well as the behaviorist, of the gestaltist as
well as the response psychologist. Moreover, the prejudice created by the extraordinary progress of the experimental sciences,
as contrasted with the sterility of philosophic discussion at its
worst, has filled the minds of scholars with a distrust of speculation. This attitude has been strengthened by the fact that nonpsychological sciences depend on a method that is strictly
objective, whereas psychology must fall back on the data of
introspection in order to resolve its major problems. The latter
circumstance has led men gradually to think that the temper of

32

ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN

psychological investigation is at basic loggerheads with any
kind of external observation, with the result that they either
have concentrated too much on the phenomenally conscious
aspects of their subject matter, or else have given themselves
up exclusively to the study of objective behavior.
Finally, let us urge once more the point that not every philosophy is useful to the science of psychology, but only that
analysis which expounds the truth of human nature. Such, I
bike it, is the analysis which was formulated over two thousand
years ago by Aristotle, which was subsequently taken over,
refined, and developed by Aquinas, and which presently is
known as the traditional psychology. This is the position
which denies the idealistic creed that psychology is nothing but
a philosophy of spirit, and, with equal vigor, denies the positivistic position that psychology is simply a physiological
discipline. Every investigator, at some time or other, is confronted with the task of passing judgment on his work. His
research programmes can be marred and distorted, and his
conclusions invalidated by wrong philosophic premisses which,
wittingly or unwittingly, he has accepted as a basis of his
inductive procedures. Now, the psychologist is a student of
human nature; and human nature fairly bristles with problems
that require the combined efforts of the scientist and philosopher, if adequate solutions are to be reached. It is difficult to
see, then, how the investigator can avoid assuming some definite
philosophic attitude towards the subject matter which he is
studying. In this case, the subject matter is man, regarding
whom there can be but one satisfactory attitude. It is the
position which recognizes in every human being, regardless of
race or age, a creature possessed of soul and body; a cosmic
entity made out of spirit and matter; an organism quickened
with a principle of rational life; a corporeal substance that not
only vegetates with the plants and senses with the animals, but
also, and more importantly, thinks with the angels and reflects
on its ultimate destiny.
RoBERT

The Thomistic Institute,
Providence College,
Providence, Rhode Island

EnwARD

BRENNAN,

O.P.

THE REJECTION AND PROTECTION OF FAITH

S

OMETIMES, a man who withdraws his allegiance to the
Catholic Church on the plea of " lost faith " is viewed
with sympathy by his former co-religionists, much as a
mechanic whose hand has been cut off is commiserated by his
fellows. More than frequent, this occurrence is common; it is
the outgrowth of an attitude which is widespread. The boy
who goes to a state university well grounded in the principles of
his religion, and returns unprincipled because that ground has
been replaced with the shifting sands of chronic doubt, is generally pitied, rather than blamed. How often it is said, " Poor
chap! He has no faith; his studies took it away from him."
One pities the habitually vicious youth who " loses his liberty "
because he has killed a man in cold blood. Yet such regret
recognizes that the murderer is responsible for his own plight;
the loss he suffers is self inflicted. The point of view toward
" loss of faith " bears a different stamp; the loser is thought of
as more sinned against than sinning. Something has been taken
from him-as if faith were carried around in the head as a
purse is carried in the pocket, an easy prey to the wily mind of
an intellectual light-fingers.
This consideration of defection from the faith as a sort of
unavoidable, albeit tragic, plight into which a man is pushed,
or as a sort of loss inflicted on a man from the outside misses,
almost completely, the true role that man himself plays in faith.
If we speak precisely, we cannot say that a man loses his faith.
Actually, a man cannot lose his faith; it is an impossibility.
Many things man has he can lose, things which belong to him
more properly than faith does. Arms, legs, life itself, may be
lost. A man can even lose his mind; circumstances of which he
has no mastery whatsoever can enter in and unseat his reason,
but while that reason rules no book, no school, no teacher, no
education has power to make a man lose his faith. These are
circumstances in which a man places himself, and which, all
3

88

34

PHILIP F. MULHERN

too easily, may occasion the rejection of faith; they cannot take
it from him. A man may be deprived of his faith, but the
deprivation is self-imposed; a man does not lose his faith; he
throws it away.
When a fine roadster has been hustled away from a man's
door at midnight to have its engine number changed by a gang
of auto thieves, the owner has been imposed upon. He has
suffered the loss of his car. There is no parity between this and
loss of faith. Even though a Catholic leaves his faith in a
road where it might be said to tempt every faith-stealer in the
world, it just cannot be sneaked off while its owner is busy with
other matters. Pry and push as the world will, only the possessor of faith has the key which can release it. " Loss " of
faith is not a mere privation imposed on a man; it is not only
a withdrawal of assent to doctrines which were once firmly
adhered to, for giving up the faith involves a positive act of the
will moving the intellect to deny doctrines it once affirmed.
This downright pertinacity of the will present in every
departure from the faith is commonly overlooked. Very often
it is thought that God, somehow, is responsible for a man's
defection, as if He suddenly put out the light of faith in a
man's mind, for some reason of His own and without any action
on the man's part. This sort of explanation is far from rare.
Who has not heard the would-be pious remark, " Well, the
Lord, for some reason He understands took his faith away from
him." If such an explanation is far from rare, it as far from
being correct. Because in all things God is eternal, His love
for man too, is eternal, immutable. Faith, by which man comes
to dwell in God, is an effect of that love; it is through faith that
man rises to the high estate which is the very culmination of
God's love for him. 1 Truly, faith is a gift given only by God,
but He never takes it away. Faith He bestows by moving the
will with His grace; grace sufficient to protect that faith He
1 H. Denziger et J. B. Urnberg, S. J., Enchiridion Symbolorum
(18th-!Wth ed.;
Freiburg in Br., 1932), 801. Per fidem ideo justificari dicamur, quia "fides est
humanae salutis initium," fundamentum et radix omnis justificationis.

THE REJECTION AND PROTECTION

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85

always gives it; 2 it is a perennial gift. To maintain that He would
recall the gift, by causing the will to move against His truth is
to conceive of God as changeable and capricious. Faith is the
foundation of the spiritual life; it is the rock on which all else
is built. 8 When the foundation is removed the superstructure
tumbles in ruin. How could it ever be that He Who rears an
everlasting dwelling for man in the realms of Heaven would
dig from a man's soul that home's foundation which He Himself has laid? When the effect of divine love leaves a man's
soul, it is because man has rooted it out. 4 If faith is pried from
under the edifice of the spiritual life, only its owner is to blame.
If faith is not lifted out of the soul, neither does it roll out,
as a diamond rolls from its setting. Long years away from
church, repeated and enduring excursions in sin, might encrust
the mind with indifference, even with forgetfulness. Still, until
a man has ceased to believe, by disbelieving, his faith is intact.
All signs of a Christian life may depart, but the foundation
remains until it is wilfully dug up. In this sense, faith is a
strong, a tenacious thing. Nothing can dislodge, nothing can
break its hold except the will of the man who has once accepted
it.
Were faith what Protestantism has made of it, a feeling of
God in the conscience and heart, or " an instinctive personal
communion with the Infinite," then truly it would be something
we could grow out of. Indeed, we could grow out of it, into it,
and out of it again, as one can grow in and out of a grouch,
depending on the antics of the barometer or the whimsy of the
stock market. Such a " faith " lies on the very surface of a
man's life; it cannot touch him closely, intimately, for it
depends on his feeling of confidence in God, his awareness of the
poetry of existence, and these, in turn, often depend on the
state of one's liver. The rather odd results of such a "faith"
2 Summa Theol., I-11, q. 112, a. 8, ad 2um.
Delectus gratiae prima causa est ex
nobis; sed collationis gratiae prima causa est a Deo.
8 Ibid., 11-11, q. 16, a. 1, ad 1um.
Fides est necessaria tamquam principium
spiritualis vitae.
'Ibid., q. 2, a. 9. lpsum credere est actus intellectus assentientis veritati divinae
ex imperio voluntatis a Deo motae per gratiam.

36

PHILIP F. MULHERN

are a bit disconcerting. On a glorious October morning, a fine
clear head, inspired and lifted up by a blaze of foliage aflame
with death, could bow in adoration of the God it feels must be.
In the dull greyness of the slushy March, an aching brow jumping to the beat of diseased sinuses would bow only to a pillow,
feeling the world but a swirling hodge-podge in the midst of a
void. But, this is not faith; this is the reaction of nerves and
organs to the irritants of life.
Faith bites deep into a man's nature, bites deep with a grip of
iron that is not shaken by all the hammerings of the world.
In all the allegiances which fill a man's life, there is none more
complete, more absolute, more absorbing than the act of faith.
No doubt, no question weakens its adherence to the truths
which God has revealed. In everyday life, assent is given to a
multitude of truths. Reason tells a man that if all his money
is gone he has no more to spend, and he assents. It is certain;
the evidence of empty pockets forces the mind to say so. In
faith, because God has said so, these truths, these doctrines,
are accepted as true; it is certain, not on the word of ·human
reason, but on the awful testimony of God. Under the direct
aegis of divine grace, acceptance of the truths of faith is presented to the human will as a most desirable good. The good is
presented, assent to these doctrines on the word of Divine
Wisdom is commanded, and the intellect under the influence
of the will, backed up by the drive of Omnipotence, fills itself
with the truths, embraces them-believes.
The peculiar tenacity of faith is traceable to this complete
commitment of the will, under the action of grace, to the good,
assent to divinely revealed truth. In the assent thus commanded the intellect is fastened, locked, much as the gears of a
car are secured in high speed by the operation of the hand shift.
Only through a new movement of the shift can the gears be
changed to another speed, and only through a positive act of
the will can the assent of the will be moved. Assent once
commanded is withdrawn only by dissent. 5
5 Ibid., q. 10, a. !!.
Dissentire, qui est proprius actus infidelitatis, est actus
intellectus sed moti a voluntate, sicut et assentire.

THE REJECTION

AND PROTECTION

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87

Rejection of faith, or dissent to revealed truths, is generally
conceived to be a purely intellectual affair, as if the mind which
once saw and understood the Church's doctrines suddenly
ceases to see and understand them. It is this popular misconception which would trace " loss of faith " to something wrong
in a man's head, whereas it must always be traceable to something very wrong in a man's will. Protestantism, of course,
roots faith in the emotional needs, and so, since a man cannot
be held responsible for not feeling the need, he is not to be
blamed for lacking a faith those needs would engender. Catholics, on the other hand, seem too liable to think that what a
man's mind sees or does not see in the doctrines of the Church
will spell the difference between acceptance or rejection of those
same doctrines. If assent to the Church's teachings depended
on what we see of them, then no one could possibly be a Catholic. The unshakeable certitude with which the mind affirms
the truth of Christian doctrine is not based on the hold man's
intellect can make on those truths; rather, that certitude is
founded on the truth of God. With his own mind, man cannot
see that all these truths have to be true as he can see that a
mathematical formula has to be true. 6 All he can hope to see
with his own mind is that they have to be true, because the
divine mind has revealed them as true. 7 The white light of faith
does not fall in luminous splendor on such truths as the Trinity,
so that the believing mind can see It as an inescapable truth
like the multiplication table. A human mind, swinging the
searchlight of faith back and forth over the mysteries of God
can see only an outline, as of a shrouded figure on a pedestal.
One thing, however, which bears no shroud is the pedestal itself.
So sharply does that stand out that the intellect, in most things
insistent on seeing before accepting, bows down to what it cannot see because it sees so clearly that the unseen stands on the
shining rock of God's word.
6 Ibid., q. 1, a. 4. Nee fides nee opinio potest esse de ipsis visis aut secundum
sensum aut secundum intellectum.
"Ibid., q. 2, a. 2. Actus fidei ponitur credere Deo, quia ... formale objectum
fidei est veritas prima, cui inhaeret homo ut propter earn creditis assentiatur.

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PHILIP F. MULHERN

When the intellect never accepts the mysteries of the Church
because it understands their truth, it is obvious nonsense to
maintain that it suddenly refuses to accept them because it
has ceased to understand their truth. All the pondering and
study in the world cannot show how the mysteries of faith are
true; neither can all the study and pondering in the world produce a how or a why they are not true. They are beyond the
penetration of the mind.
In the ordinary processes of intellectual operation, the mind
has, or at least can have, a complete view of the proposition
known. Not only can it know, but it has a natural desire, an
appetite to slip behind the appearances of things and penetrate
to their heart until it knows them completely. This eternal
curiosity of the human mind is like a fire which endeavors to
devour all it meets. So deep rooted is its urge to burn that it
licks angrily even at an asbestos barrier, and continues to dart
at it until dead. Natural desire knows no repose. The restless
flame of the human mind, which turns into itself all it encounters, naturally hurls itself at the impenetrable truths of divine
faith in an endeavor to penetrate them. It is inevitable that
the intellect be restive in the presence of faith's obscurity, restive, not because it sees falsehood in what it accepts, but simply
because it cannot see enough. Faith's object is God Himself,
but God seen obscurely, as in a dark
the mind whose
habitual occupation is making the obscure clear wants to get
behind that dark glass.
The intellectual unrest, which often stirs in the consciousness
in the form of questions, is what good people anxiously consider,
H temptations
against faith." Actually, it is only the sign of a
healthy faculty endeavoring to exercise its normal mode of
action. The very concern such activity occasions is a fair indication that it offers no threat to faith. Such mental squirmings cannot be a direct threat to the mind's acceptance of
revealed truth, no matter how often they rise, nor how long
they last. Indeed, the simple expedient of an " I believe,"
imperated by the will which represses the mind's fidgeting, is
another cord binding the intellect to its assent.

THE REJECTION .AND PROTECTION

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89

Confronted with knowledge nullifying previously known evidence, which had caused the intellect to accept one side in a
given question, the mind reverses its decision. One bit of testimony setting at naught preceding testimonies will cause a jury
to change its verdict. But, the mind can never be a juryman
sitting in judgment on the doctrines of the church through an
appraisal of what it sees in those doctrines. It is not an estimation of what the truths say that inspires the intellect's
adherence to them; it is the veracity of Him Who says them.
The mind assents to the doctrines, but not because of the doctrines. The intellect cannot withdraw its assent, because in the
matter of faith it does not control its asseri.t.8 Only the conformity of man's will to the divine will can command the assent
of faith, and only man's rejection of the divine will can retract
it. Hence, so long as the will is firmly fixed in its adherence to
the good it sees in the acceptance of God's word on God's
authority, all the strainings of the intellect can be only on
occasion for making firmer the will's determination.
A strong knight is the will which, girt with the armor of divine
grace, defends the fortress of faith against all comers. Unfortunately, though, this defender, unconquerable in battle, can
and often does abandon his post. It is the will, under the direction of God's aid, which causes the assent to faith; 9 it is the will,
with that same aid, which maintains and defends the assent to
faith; and, it is the will, of its own power, which demolishes the
assent of faith. 10 Because the will is the guardian of faith, it is
against the will that all frontal attacks on the faith are directed.
One of the most devastating attacks the will has to meet, in
this regard, is the advance of pride. It is devastating because
insidious; its greatest attack is in seeming not to attack, for it
8 Denziger-Umberg, op. cit., 1794. Illi qui fidem sub Ecclesiae magisterio susceperunt, nullam unquam habere possunt justam causam mutandi aut in dubium fidem
eandem revocandi.
• Summa Theol., 11-11, q. !l, a. I, ad Sum. Intellectus credentis determinatur ad
unum, non per rationem sed per voluntatem.
10 Ibid., q. 10, a. !l, ad 2um. Contemptus voluntatis causat dissensum intellectus,
in quo perficitur ratio infidelitatis.

40

PHILIP F. MULHERN

offers the victory of self-sufficiency. God endowed man with
a certain measure of self-sufficiency, that he might obtain an
eternal crown by ordaining the gift to its giver, but man sometimes suffers under the illusion that his self-sufficiency is perfect
enough to justify him in putting a crown on himself. Faith is
definitely a subjection; it is an admission that God knows so
much more about Himself than man does, that man can accept
His word for it. Once the will has accepted this subjection as
a good, it is not thereby invulnerable to the attacks of pride.
Few men, perhaps, become so intent on their own general excellence that, recognizing a subjection in the assent of faith, they
recall that assent merely to express their distaste for all
restraint. Pride is a great master at camouflage and make-up.
In itself, it has no beauty, and so it must assume pleasant
shapes before it can slink into a man's will.
" Enlightenment " might be the reason a rapidly advancing scientist would give for rejecting the teachings he learned
in the nursery and came to revere as a college boy. Courageous
analysis, on the other hand, would probably assure him that he
who had come to see so many of the world's mysteries, could
not possibly admit mysteries which were unseeable. It affronts
the powers of his mind. So, curiously, while it is the will which
alone can demolish faith, often enough the will is hammered at
through the mind. The difference is, of course, that the will,
always given sufficient aid by Almighty God, can resistindeed, can turn aside-all the hammering in the world. It
is in this sense, and this sense alone, that a man can "read
himself out of the Church." His reading is not marshalling
arguments to nullify the evidence on which he first believed;
there never was such evidence. All his learning, unaccompanied
by an objective realization of his dependency on Almighty
God, is but storing up in his rational appetite motives for
demanding that his intellect be allowed to see for itself. This is
not to say that an increase in knowledge lays a temptation
against faith. It is to say that a growing confidence in the
powers of one's mind to achieve truth, without the realization
that there are great unchartered realms on which man's mind

THE REJECTION AND PROTECTION

OF FAITH

41

cannot so much as cast the light of a spark-this is to court
intellectual pride.
Many young people who have snuffed their lamp of faith with
the darkness of agnostic ignorance would never admit giving up
their heritage because of intellectual pride. Yet the endeavor
to measure truths of faith with the implements of the physics
laboratory, or the symbols of the slide-rule, demonstrate the
great heights of intellectual greatness to which a man thinks
he has attained. These things never were measurable, but the
mere endeavor to measure them shows, undeniably, that the will
has ceased to adhere to the word of their unmeasurable Maker.
Of course, the more habitually the mind becomes accustomed
to seeing what lies at the bottom of things, so much stronger
grows its appetite to penetrate even divine things. Habit adds
to a tendency which is natural; it builds a second nature. The
ordinary restiveness of the intellect before the obscurity of
faith's truths will probably be increased in a man whose pursuits are scholarly. It will never be increased beyond control,
but the strength of the will needs constant increase to insure
control, for human nature is prone to evil.
Here is apparent the necessity, the crying necessity, for insistence on the need of strengthening the will in its adherence to the
faith. In our time, there is a laudable movement, ever growing,
to educate our people in the truths of their faith. This is a
great and a good thing, but if it is only adding to the extension
of knowledge, with no intensification of assent it is a positive
danger. Truly enough, if what can be taught about the
Church's doctrines is well taught, there should be a voluntary
acceptance corresponding to the knowledge gained. However,
it is quite possible for examination of the most sublime articles
of faith to become a mere academic discussion. In such cases,
the intellect is being led, directly, to exercise its desire to penetrate, on the impenetrable, and if the will is not strong the
frustrated intellect can well furnish an apparent motive for
apostacy.
Aside from this, failure to emphasize the fact that every
teaching of the Church is destined to live in the faithful,

PHILIP F. MULHERN

deprives them, not alone of grace, but also of the resultant fortification of will which they so gravely need in the world of
today. A doctrine studied can lie in the mind like the multiplication table. It lives in a man only when what he has learned of
it is the occasion of another act of assent to God's revelation.
Pride attacks the main body of faith's defense, the will itself.
There is another enemy, which might be said to work through
diplomacy, winning over the allies of the will, and so weakening its resistance. This arch-intriguer against the stronghold
of faith is fear, and it employs a host of agents which corrupt
man's lower appetites causing them to fight against the will's
adherence to the good of faith's assent. Fear, like pride, can
impede the will's first acceptance of faith; too, like pride, it can
attack that acceptance once given. 11
Many men have come to the threshold of the Church, and
have refused to cross it because of an attachment to the delights
which they must part with at the door. This is fear, the recoil
of the sense appetite before the sad prospect of being denied
an illicit love to which it has become accustomed. What has
happened? Two goods are presented to the will, adherence to
unseen truths on the authority of God, and these particular
sensible goods which gratify the lower appetite. The will is
free; God's grace inclines it to one side, the clamor of the appetite's fear inclines it to the other. If one is chosen, the other
must be rejected; the will flees the privation of the good,
rejecting assent to God's truths.
It is quite possible for a Catholic, without ever withdrawing his
acceptance of the Church's doctrines, to submit his affections
to some forbidden object. A man can sin away his life in
slavery to lust, or insobriety, or c1,1pidity, and never have his
pet weakness affect his will to belief. But, any man who chains
11 In Summa Theol., II-II, q. 4, a. 7, St. ThomllS speaks of pride and fear M
impediments to faith; later, (op. cit., q. 11, a. 1) he considers pride and cupidity
the remote causes of rejecting the faith. Cupidity, which places a man's end in
creatures, (cf. Summa Theol., II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2um) while it rises in the
concupiscible appetite, will generate fear in the irllScible appetite, when loss of the
creature-end threatens.

THE REJECTION AND PROTECTION

OF FAITH

48

his sense appetite to evil ways is taking at least remote liberty
with his faith, for if the day dawns when adhering to that faith
comes into conflict With indulging his appetite he will find a
strongly armed enemy within the walls. Every illicit humoring of the sense appetite, nourishes a monster whose appetite
but increases with feeding. The will grows flabby through lack
of exercise, and falls into a poor state for withstanding the
clamors of the beast it has nursed. If a drawn battle is waged
between faith and some pleasure, a softened will easily gives in
to the inordinate activity of the passions, and faith is betrayed
by its appointed defender.
When the two forces of pride and fear join ranks against the
will, although still the master and always the potential conqueror, the will has a real battle to wage. This happens far
from rarely, where. Catholics put themselves into occasions,
circumstances, where man's intellect and lower faculties are
unduly flattered. It is in this connection that young Catholics
court the tragedy of apostacy in the agnostic and pagan atmosphere of some educational institutions. When a youth is listening to lectures which claim to show that man is a victim of his
environment, at the same time living in an environment which
makes him desire to be its victim, who will say that he is not
putting the root of his spiritual life in jeopardy? Indeed, given
the tendency of human nature to evil, only the repeated and
conscious subjection of will to divine grace can save the faith
of one so placed.
.
All the lectures and all the bad example in the world cannot
directly affect the intellect's assent to the truths of faith.
Nothing can directly affect it except the will, but the will can
be cajoled into exchanging the good of divine truth for the
pottage of deceived self-sufficiency in intellectual matters and
unrestrained indulgence in sense pleasure. Only humility,
which sees man's mind in its essential dependence on the
wisdom of God, can counteract the multiform temptations to
pride offered by the modern world, and in particular by modern
education. Only a wise and guarded temperance in the use of
sensible goods can nullify the temptations to sensual unrestraint

44

PHILIP

F. MULHERN

which abound on every side. The white diamond of faith
shines steadily in the inner sanctuary of the mind. It cannot
be lost, nor mislaid, nor stolen. Only its guardian, the will,
can barter it for something less than itself. Pride and sensuality ever lie in wait to corrupt the fidelity of that guard. The
will they can never reach while his trusted escort-humility and
temperance-swords unsheathed, stand at the gate.
PHILIP

Dominican HouseJ of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

F. MuLHERN, 0. P

CONCERNING A "CRITICAL REVIEW" 1
" It must be presupposed that every good Christian should be
readier to excuse than to condemn a proposition advanced by his
neighbour; and i:f he cannot justify it, let him enquire into the
meaning of the author: if thEllatter be in error,
him lovingly; should that not suffice, then let him employ every suitable
means, so that his neighbour, rightly understanding it, may be
saved from error."-8t. Ignatius Loyola.

W

HEN I wrote the Foreword to The Problem of
Species, by Mortimer J. Adler, and when I noted
in that foreword, along with my esteem and admiration for the author, the divergences which separate usand to which I do not have to return here-concerning the
problems studied in his book, I thought that everyone would
see, in this dialogue between two philosophers who are attached
to the same principles but take different stands on certain
conclusions, an example of what a discussion at once free and
respectful on things of the mind could be.
I was too much of an optimist. Certain critics, apparently
little desirous of thus understanding philosophical discussion,
have misused the foreword to decry the value of the work.
Since Mr. Muller- Thym does me the honor of quoting me, he
might also have done me the honor of thinking that I do not
intend my introductions to torpedo the books of my friends,
and that if The Problem of Species had as little merit as he
says, I should not have cared to recommend its being read.
It is left for me to apologize to Mortimer Adler for the abuse
thus made of the liberality with which he permitted a discussion of his views to take place in his own book.
The central question of Mr. Adler's book concerns the philosophy of nature. It is to determine whether real species are
reducible to a small number of large classes or if they form a
vast multiplicity, and also to determine the order or hierarchy
1 Bernard
J. Muller-Thym, "Dr. Adler's 'Problem
Review," TkeJ Modern Sckoolman, November, 1940.

45

of Species':

A Critical

46

JACQUES

of real species. 2 The fact that the taxonomic species of the
positive sciences do not necessarily coincide with real species
is ground for asking this question-without denying, for this
reason, that there exist many sciences of nature, which correspond in a sense to the Aristotelian notion of science. (Even
if Mr. Adler had denied this last point, he would not have
committed heresy against principles. In the eyes of Aristotle
and St. Thomas, the philosophy of nature embraced in its unity
aU the sciences of nature: and it is precisely this conception
which, in my opinion, the developments of empiriological
science oblige us to revise.) But the problem of the number
of species presupposes, as a necessary preamble, a more profound question, that of the relation between the " species " of
the logician and the " species " of the philosopher of nature.
On this preliminary question I think that Mr. Adler subscribed
in advance to many of the views expounded by Mr. MullerThym in order to destroy, not so much Mr. Adler's book (the
argumentation of which he does not discuss), as Mr. Adler
himself, whose competence he claims to deny. Misled by Mr.
Adler's terminology, Mr. Muller-Thym has not accomplished
the very duty of a critic, which is, in such a case, to elucidate
the obscurities due to the vocabulary and to try to see whether
and at what precise point these obscurities have brought about
some confusion in the doctrinal elaboration of the work.
Mr. Adler said "ontological species" and "logical species"
instead of saying" species understood in the ontological sense"
or "species understood in the logical sense." It is regrettable
that Mr. Muller-Thym did not follow the rules of interpretation outlined by St. Ignatius, who advises us in such cases to
have regard to the thought rather than the words; and that
he did not try to surmount the obstacles created by the words
in the present discussion. 3 In any event, the distinction be• This question is too complicated to be discussed here. I should like only to
note that what is true in the remarks of Dr. Adler concerning this is that real
species are hierarchically disposed and no two of them have the same degree of
perfection.
• Mr. Adler himself has given explicit cautions to his use of the word species (cf.
p. xiii; p. 12; fn. l63a on p. 139). Incidentally I should like to note that the

CONCERNING

A " CRITICAL REVIEW "

47

tween species understood in the logical sense and species
understood in the ontological sense 4 is a necessary one. Those
who hold, as I do, that the real species of the material world
are very great in number, will say that the three or four large
classes of substances-inanimate
corporeal being (whether
elemental or mixed) , vegetative being, animal being (abstracting from human being, which is a real species)-can be called
"species" only in a logical sense. Those who think, with Mr.
Adler, that these three or four large classes are, along with
human being, the only' real species, will say that the multitude
of more particularized species are species taken only in the
logical sense. Neither of the two sides will deny for this reason
that when it is a question of real species the species logically
taken correspond to the species ontologically taken and to the
essences. But in the case of the first group they intend that
the word species applied to the major classes has only a
logical value, because these major classes are in reality genera.
In the case of the second they intend that the word species
applied to the multitude of minor classes has only a logical
value, because these minor classes do not represent real species.5
Not all those who seek to be inspired by Aristotle and St.
Thomas in their thought upon modern problems have the
privilege of being pupils of Mr. Muller-Thym. H Thomi-sm is
called to live outside schools and to animate more or less widely
contemporary researches, it is natural that the new data contributed by sciences, on the one hand, and on the other, the
difficulties intrinsic to the doctrine, lead many minds to question-rightly or wrongly-many points considered established
by those who follow the tradition of the great commentators.
I am attached to this tradition with all my heart, but I am
aware that it will live in the present only if it accepts this
" species ontologically considered " is not exactly the " specific nature,'' but rather
an application of the logical notion of species to designate the specific nature.
4 ln this case species remains still a logical entity, but this second intention
is
then related to the ontological order of essences or of primae intentiones.
• Mr. Adler has emphasized (p. 138 of his book) the divergent significations of
the words " species " and " genus " according as these words are used in the exposition of the first or the second theory concerning the number and order of
species.

48

JACQUES MARITAIN

questioning with good grace: either in order better to explain
the points in question, or to revise the interpretation of them.
If, under such circumstances, Mr. Muller-Thym feels obliged
from time to time, in order to " discipline " his contemporaries,
to wrjte a book wherein he will bring to light the treasures of
the philosophia perennis, this will be a benefit for everyone:
for all of us, who will profit from his learning, and for him as
well, who would then be acting as a disciple of Thomas Aquinas
in the spirit of Thomas Aquinas, and with the intellectual
kindness of Thomas Aquinas. This was the course followed by
Father Gerard Smith, S. J., in his recent review of Mr. Adler's
. In reality,
work in Thought (December, 1940, pp.
we should rejoice in controversies with such qualified philosophers as Mr. Adler on those abstract and abstruse problems
which concern human wisdom, that is to say, what is of major
interest to man. These controversies offer us a profitable
stimulation of the intellect, and a precious opportunity for
deeper insight in perdurable truths.
As a matter of fact, I doubt that Mr. Muller- Thym understood the real aim of Mr. Adler's book. Mr. Adler did not
intend to reform Scholasticism, but rather to explain certain
points concerning which critical elucidations are desirable, and
those which seem to him to remain open to discussion. Moreover, it is not conclusively, but only tentatively, and as
hypotheses, that he offers the solutions he proposes. Here is
nothing to arouse anyone's indignation.
A careful reading of Mr. Muller-Thym's article makes it
clear that he has without doubt established that he and Mr.
Adler differ on important points of doctrine; but he has
nowhere established the accusations of incompetence he levels
against Mr. Adler. 6 For my own part, I had indicated in my
• Mr. Muller-Thym charges Mr. Adler with misusing the text of Summa theologica
I, 88, ad 4, and on the other hand with not using the text of the same work I, 66,
ad
It is to be remarked that Mr. Adler's reference to the first of these
texts occurs only in a brief footnote (5 a), and it is obvious that the only intention
here is to point out that St. Thomas does make a distinction between natural and
logical genera; the intention is plainly not to say that St. Thomas's distinction is
the same as the au:thor's distinction between ontological and logical species. On

CONCERNING

A " CRITICAL REVIEW "

49

foreword the points on which I also am in disagreement with
Mortimer Adler-the idea of attributing this disagreement to
the incompetence of the person with whom I was carrying on
the discussion would have seemed to me as absurd as it is
incongruous. The criticism of Mr. Adler upon which Mr.
Muller-Thym repeatedly insists concerns the identification
(erroneous indeed) of species and substantial form-a point
which is very important in itself, but which is touched upon
only incidentally (and tentatively) in· The Problem of Species,
and which, according to Mr. Adler himself, plays no part in
the argumentation of his book. 7 And it is clear that if Mr.
Adler is mistaken on this, it is not through incompetence nor
through ignorance of the question. Moreover, if we may judge
by the few indications which he gives on this point, it is possible that when elaborating the problem more completely,, he
will be led to rectify the thesis-certainly and in principle contrary to Thomas Aquinas-which he now favors (even though
he does not affirm it conclusively) and which results from his
following Averroes on this point. For Mr. Adler is evidently
expecting the objection: in the species (as second intention)
of a material being, such as human being, matter is contained;
but the substantial form is immaterial as such; so that if species
and substantial form are identified, it is necessary to say either
that the human species does not contain matter, or that the
human soul is material, both of which are impossible. I suppose
that Mr. Adler would reply that, in his view, man contains
matter but that human species does not. In truth, however,
to hold that the species of a material being does not include
matter, is the very error of Plato. That which troubles Mr.
Adler here, is the fact that it seems impossible to him to say
that the species (as second intention) contains matter. Butthe .othe: hand, the text of I, 66, 2, ad 2 does not modify, as Mr. Muller-Thym
seems to suggest, that of I, 88, 2, ad 4. Is it necessary to add, in order to answer a ·
particularly unkind insinuation, that works of St. Thomas which have not been
translated have been used by Mr. Adler as well as those which do exist in
translation?
7 Mr. Adler was careful to point out that, in his eyes, this matter plays no part
at all in the argumentation of his book. (Cf. Chapter II, p. 16.)

4

50

JACQUES M.ARITAIN

precisely because species remains always in itself a logical
entity, even when taken in the ontological sense-species does
not contain real matter any more than it does real form; species
contains represented or signified matter as well as represented
or signified form: and the word " matter " is not at all rendered equivocal by such a doctrine. This amounts to saying
that, carried along by his desire to find a more rigid vocabulary,
Mortimer Adler has himself picked a quarrel with St. Thomas
over words, and a most unfortunate one. For his manner of
emphasizing the immateriality of species is calculated not only
to cause in persons like Mr. Muller-Thym an irritation which
would be legitimate if it were moderate (irascimini, e.t nolite
peccare), but also to create the most serious doctrinal misunderstandings. I hope that Mortimer Adler will not continue
to insist on this point in his future writings. He can certainly
do so without therefore having to accuse himself of having
been ignorant of the question.
One of the objectives which Mr. Adler is rightly seeking is
that of making a place, in the Thomist philosophy of nature, for
the evolutionary dynamism and the reality of historical becoming which the developments of modern science force us to
recognize in material nature. Mr. Muller- Thym also holds this
to be necessary, while at the same time he makes a great show
of disdain for the method followed by Mr. Adler. But what
does he himself tell us on the subject? I am afraid that the
discussion may have carried him beyond his own real thought
as well as beyond Aristotelian orthodgxy. For he tells usrightly, in my view-that the more one descends toward matter,
the more (real) species are multiplied; 8 but he adds that the
more one descends toward matter, the more do species lose
their determination and fixity. On the other hand, he rightly
admits that real species correspond to essences. Now it is quite
true that a material essence can be transformed into another
by the movement of generation and corruption, and that
8 Is this assertion absolutely true? It is likely that species are more numerous in
the biological sphere than in the chemical one. Many questions too complicated to
be discussed here arise with regard to the degrees of emergence of material forms
from matter.

CONCERNING

A " CRITICAL

REVIEW "

51

material species are, consequently, existentially unstable. But
that an essence is determined in a more or less uncertain or
more or less vague way by its specific form, and that, as a consequence, species are less and less determined and less and less
fixed in the order of essence according as one descends toward
matter-! can scarcely believe this to be Mr. Muller-Thym's
view. This, however, is what he seems to be saying when he
invokes this progressive indetermination against Mr. Adler, all
of whose discussion bears on the notion of species considered
from the point of view of essence and intelligible constituent.
But, after all, the most important question raised by Mr.
Muller-Thym's article is not of the same kind as the above
discussions. The question is, whether it is permissible to use
against another the polemical procedures used in his article.
To treat a philosopher of the worth and quality of Mortimer
Adler with such a show of contempt, and like an ignorant
person to be sent back to school-this is a sign of disrespect for
another's thought which cannot be regarded lightly. To strive
to discredit before the public, with the arrogance and intent to
annihilate shown throughout the article in The Modern Schoolman, a man who has entered into combat for philosophical
truth with the vigor and generosity of Mortimer Adler-this is
a moral fault against the common good of philosophy. I do not
say this to grieve Mr. Muller-Thym. I believe that when he
has more experience, he will perceive that the worst way of
being an idealist in actu exercito, and the most unfitting for a
Thomist, is to count subjective causality for nothing. That is
to say, the reality of the human persons who think, who seek,
and who struggle, and of the concrete conflicts in which the
culture of an epoch is engaged, cannot be disregarded. We
must not make of the concepts which should communicate the
truth to our neighbors, a dehumanized world in which we entrench ourselves in order to shoot arrows at those who do
combat for the common cause in the open. I believe that, when
he has the benefit of wider experience, Mr. Muller-Thym will
regret the injustice he has done today.
It seems to me an urgent matter to be on guard against
those practices of controversy which, if they are allowed to

52

JACQUES

become established, would ruin and render sterile the Thomist
renaissance of today just as once they ruined and rendered
sterile Scholasticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
H Mr. Adler should wish to answer Mr. Muller- Thym in the
same tone as the latter's article, it certainly would not be difficult to do so. And how would the truth profit thereby? St.
Thomas is the private property of no school. He belongs only
to God, and to those souls called to drink from his springs and
to whom he gave himself, laboring in prayer ·and in tears to
increase the light in them. The Thomist renaissance of our day
has a chance of bearing fruit only if all those who take part in
the work with good will, whether they belong to one school or
another, put forth their efforts in a spirit of brotherly cooperation, and thus make useful and fruitful for one another their
inevitable divergences and oppositions. It is a privilege for
America that interest in Thomism has risen here both from
Catholic initiative and from the spontaneous initiative of men
who are most conscious of the needs and problems of American
culture. It is a privilege for Thomism to be able to develop in
the spirit of free cooperation which characterizes this country,
and, at a moment when darkness is being spread over Europe,
to be able to continue here taking root in the life of the world
and of civilization. It would not take many badly conducted
quarrels and misunderstandings caused by the ferment of
rivalry natural to scholars to endanger these benefits of Providence. I hope that Mr. Muller-Thym will understand what I
have tried to explain here, the more so in that in speculative
matters and in the general interpretation of the Thomist synthesis, I believe our positions .to be in agreement. I trust that
he will also understand that the friendship which binds me to
the masters under whose guidance he has studied Saint Thomas
(but who are not accustomed to use such procedures in controversy) and the friendship which binds me to Mortimer
Adler are my authority for writing as I have.
As to Mortimer Adler, his work and what he has accomplished are great enough for him not to be distressed by any
obstacles he may meet on the path. He has done much to
awaken minds to the truths of the philosophia perennis. All

CONCERNING

A " CRITICAL REVIEW "

53

those who try to be attentive to the ways and paradoxes of
Providence admire the highly significant fact that one of the
most active workers for the Thomist renaissance is a man who,
without belonging to the Catholic Church, has become with
magnificent fervor a disciple of the Angelic Doctor.
All those who know him are aware that, having discovered
by himself the value of the philosophy of Saint Thomas, at this
privileged moment of decisive intellectual encounters, he has
not ceased since making his discovery to study and to examine
that philosophy; they know that his intellectual enthusiasm is
allied to that constant care, without which one is not a philosopher, of correcting oneself and of advancing in the truth loved
more than self. He is attacked today from many different
quarters- this is the sign that his work is bearing fruit.
JACQUES MARITAIN

Columbia University,
New York City

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND
DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

I

T is a defined dogma of faith that between God and a man
in. the state of
grace, there exists
ship. The Council of Trent declares that by Justification
man is changed from an enemy into a friend of God. 1 Undoubtedly, the Council is here using the word "friend" in its
literal sense, not simply as a figure of speech, a mere poetic
metaphor. True, the term "friend" applied to God and to
man is of necessity an analogous one, as is every term that
is applied to both God and man. It must be remembered, however, that even an analogous predication is a true predication.
Between friendship as it exists among men and friendship as it
exists between man and God, there must be, therefore, a similarity sufficient to guarantee the literal truth of the statement
that by justification man is changed from an enemy to a friend
of God. Christ Himself did not hesitate to use the word
" friend " according to its true and literal sense referring to the
relationship of the Apostles to Himself: "Greater love than
this no man hath that a man lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do the things that I command you.
I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doth. But I have called you friends because all
things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made
known to you." 2 It is evident that Christ is here using the term
" friends " in the commonly accepted sense of the word, the
only sense in which it would have been understood by the
Apostles, and the only sense in which it would have conveyed
to them the idea which Christ was attempting to impress upon
them. It is also evident that in calling His Apostles " friends,"
Christ is referring to a relationship between them and Himself,
not only according to His human nature, but according to His
1

• John xv, 18-15.

Session 6, Chapter 7 (Dtmz., 799) .

54

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

55

divine nature as well, because He uses the term in reference to
His work of Redemption, which He accomplished principally
by reason of His divine nature, and in referenel to His right to
command them in all things and to make known to them the
Will of His Father, both of which prerogatives belong to Christ
as God.
In spite of the words of Christ and in spite of the declaration
of the Council of Trent, there is still a strong tendency, on man's
part, to think of friendship with God as some sort of vague,
imaginative relationship having little foundation in reality.
No doubt this is due chiefly to the apparently enormous difficulties which immediately present themselves when man
to conceive of himself as a friend of God or of God as
a friend of his in the literal sense of the word, since by " friend "
he ordinarily understands an equal whom he can see with corporal eyes, whom he can know intimately, someone with whom
he can converse familiarly, whose hand he can shake occasionally. Perhaps it is humility which prompts him to say," How
could two extremes so infinitely distant as are God and man
possibly have enough in common to be truly friends of each
other?" Much that has been written on the subject, by ignoring the difficulties and failing to give the basic foundation for
the postulation of such a friendship, has tended only to foster
the impression that the predication of friendship between man
and God is simply a pleasant bit of sentimental hyperbole,
instead of the profound and ineffable reality that it is. It would
seem to be to good advantage, then, to face squarely some of
these difficulties and to consider the reasonable foundation upon
which rests the declaration of Trent that by grace man truly
becomes a friend of God.
There is, moreover, a practical advantage to be derived from
emphasizing the fact that a true, personal friendship exists
between God and the just man. Owing to the material element
of man's nature, sensible things are constantly clamoring for
man's recognition and striving to distract him from God. Too
often he succumbs, little by little, to their importuning, with the
result that for him God gradually becomes farther and farther

56

LEO M. BOND

removed, receding at last into a vague, far-off place, called
heaven, where He presumably amuses Himself rearranging the
stars and plotting how to get even with man for ignoring Him.
It is a difficult thing for man to love with all his heart and soul,
mind and strength, something purely spiritual; yet, that is the
way in which he has been commanded to love God. In the first
place, he is not always sure just what it means to love God.
Love is a broad term and, according to its present-day use or
abuse, might connote anything from the most heroic charity to
the lowest biological passion. The more man appreciates the
fact that between himself and God there exists a true friendship,
the better he understands the nature of the love God has for
him and the nature of the love he should have for God. He thus
acquires a more concrete conception upon which to model his
love for God, and this, in turn, is conducive to an intensification
of that love. Since it is in accordance with the nature of the
human intellect to arrive at a knowledge of things less known
through the medium of things better known, it appears that
the best means of acquiring a greater appreciation of man's
friendship with God would be to examine it in the light of the
friendship which he has with his fellowman. A comparison of
this kind must not be considered as an attempt to humanize
God by reducing Him to the level of a human friend, but rather
as an attempt to divinize man by a consideration of the great
dignity to which friendship with God elevates him.
The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to show that between
a just man and God there exists a true friendship, friendship
according to the commolllY accepted and literal sense of the
word, friendship as it is understood to exist between man and
man, always allowing for the necessarily analogous nature of
the predication of friendship between man and God. This purpose we shall attempt to accomplish by considering the foundations upon which the predication of friendship with God rests,
foundations which are rooted, ultimately, in the very nature of
God and in the nature of man, more proximately, in the community of life established between God and man by sanctifying
grace.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

57

I. SIMILITUDE
Before discussing the essence of true friendship, which,
according to Aristotle, consists in mutual benevolence, mutually
known, and based on an honest good, 8 we shall consider two
basic prerequisites, or dispositive causes, of any friendship,
namely, similarity and communication between the friends. In
this section we shall treat of the first of these, similitude, showing in what way this prerequisite is realized between man and
God, as a basis for a possible friendship.
At the outset, it must be noted that any relationship which is
spoken of as existing between man and God is understood to
exist, really and formally, only in man, since real non-subsistent
relation is something which pertains to the created order only.
It is in God only insofar as we place it there by an act of the intellect. With regard to the relationship of similarity, therefore,
though we can truly say that man is similar to God in some
way, we cannot say that God is similar to man, except by a
similitude conceived in our own minds. However, it is not
necessary to say that God is similar to man in order to establish
a basis for friendship between them, since friendship, as well as
anything else which is predicated of God and man, is predicated
only analogously.
According to Aristotle, similitude signifies a unity, or agreement, in quality, of many things. 4 Similitude is distinguished
from the things which are similar as the foundation of a relationship is distinguished from the subjects of the relation.
Similitude, therefore, is itself a quality, by reason of which many
subjects are referred to each other by the relation of similarity.
Quality is sometimes taken, in a broader sense, to designate
also the substantial form itself, by reason of which many things
are said to be similar in species, o:r in genus, or according to
analogy. In this sense similitude might be said to signify a
unity or communication in form.
3 St. Thomas.
In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum Expositio,
VIII, ft, nn. 1551, fl'. (Ed. Pirrota).
• In X Metaph, l. 4, n. 199 (ed. Cathala).

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LEO M. BOND

What sort of similitude is required for human friendship?
First, and fundamentally, a similitude of species is demanded,
for, as Aristotle says, the love which a man is said to have for
inanimate things, like wine or gold, cannot be called friendship.
St. Thomas extends the application to animate, but irrational,
things noting that it is ridiculous to say one has friendship for
wine or for a horse. 5 He assigns similarity of form as the primary cause of the love of friendship: " By reason of the fact
that two things are similar, as having one form, they are, in a
sense, one in that form; thus two men are one in the species of
humanity, and, therefore, the affection of one tends toward the
other as to that which is one with himself and he wishes good to
the other as to himself." 6 Immediately this raises the question: how, then, can there be between God and man a similarity sufficient to serve as a basis for friendship? Far from
being of the same species, the human nature and the divine
nature are infinitely farther apart than any two species possibly
could be, for species is a created thing and in no way even comparable to Divinity. The difficulty cannot be dismissed by
saying that the requirement of similarity of species pertains
only to the natural order, whereas the love by which man loves
God is the infused virtue of Charity, which belongs to the
supernatural order. Grace perfects nature, rather than destroys
it, and if it is natural for man to love with a love of friendship
only that which is similar to himself, the infusion of grace does
not destroy that natural propensity but only elevates and
perfects it.
Similitude, even of species, is a very fundamental, but remote,
basis of friendship. Real friendship, in the ordinary sense of
the word, requires more than mere specific similarity. It
demands some sort of proportion in the accidental qualities pertaining to the species, some equality of intellectual endowment,
some similarity of appetites, some parity of temperament, of
character, even of social status. The examples which Aristotle
gives of persons too unequal to be capable of real friendship are:
a king and a pauper, a very good man and a very bad one, a
6

In VIII Eth., I. it, nn. 1557.

8

Summa Theol., 1-11, q. il7, a. 8.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

69

wise man and a foolish one. 7 Even supposhtg, then, that we are
a.ble to establish between the Divine and human nature some
link to serve as a remote basis for friendship, how could we
possibly set up between God and man an equilibrium sufficient
for the intimacy required of friendship? It could be answered
that the predication of friendship between God and man is only
an analogy and therefore, the requirements of human friendship
do not hold with regard to Divine friendship. An analogous
predication, however, is a true predication, although it applies
in different ways to the different analogates, and it requires,
therefore, a true basis of similarity between the analogates.
In what consists the similarity, necessary as a fundamental
basis of friendship between man and God, which corresponds,
analogically, to the similarity of species, necessary as a fundamental basis for friendship between man and man? One answer
to the question is found in the first chapter of Genesis: " And
He (God) said: Let us make man to our image and likeness.
And God created man to his own image; to the image of God, he
created him." 8 Since man was created to the image of God,
he must in some way be similar to God, since similarity to that
which it represents is one of the essential notes of an image.
St. Thomas defines an image as " that which proceeds from
another, similar to that other in species or, at least, in representation of species (in signo speciei) "; 9 or again, as "that
which proceeds from another in similitude of species, either in
the same nature or in another nature." 111 The first thing
required, therefore, is that the image proceed in some way from
the thing imaged. In the case of creatures, it is evident that
this requirement is fulfilled by the very fact that they are
creatures, i. e., that they proceed from God by creation. The
thing proceeding must be either of the same specific nature as
that from which it proceeds, or, if it is of another nature, it
must in some way signify, or represent the nature of the thing
from which it proceeds. 11
7 Cf. In VIII Etk., I. 8, n_l65!J.
• Gen., i, 26, 27.
• Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. I.

10 Ibid., a. 2, ad Sum.
11Jbid.

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LEO M. BOND

In a broad sense, all creatures are similar to God through
representation, inasmuch as they are effects of God and represent, or imitate, in a finite way the nature of God by reason of
their created participation of His absolute Being, Goodness,
Truth, etc. Intellectual creatures are similar to God in a
much more perfect way even in the physical order, since intellectuality is a greater perfection in the metaphysical grades
than are being and life, and therefore the intellectual nature
more closely imitates and more vividly represents the allperfect nature of God, which is essentially an intellectual
nature. It is almost the unanimous teaching of the Fathers of
the Church that in the physical order man was " created to the
image of God " precisely because he was created as an
intellectual being. 12
All the examples given thus far are of representation and
similitude pertaining to the physical order only. There is a
much more perfect type of image, that, namely, which is
achieved in the intentional order, by the act of the intellect
itself. In the order of knowledge, a similitude of the thing
known is found in the intellect, inasmuch as the species of the
thing known is in the intellect. This species or concept is the
object itself intentionally present in the intellect in such a way
that the intellect in act is the thing known in act. The object
of human knowledge is the essence of material things, which is
arrived at by a process of abstraction ultimately from the
material things themselves as they are presented to the sense.
This abstraction is necessary in order that the object itself may
be proportioned to the intellect, which is immaterial in nature
and must, therefore, operate in an immaterial manner and
immediately upon an immaterial object. Through the operation of the intellect, an intentional identity is established
between the form of the intellect in act and the form of the
object known. Thus the intellect becomes the object known
through an image drawn from the object itself by abstraction.
With regard to the knowledge of God, man by his natural
10

St. Thomas. Prologue to 1-11, Summa Theologica.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

61

powers cannot know God as He is in Himself, since God as He
is in Himself completely exceeds every created mode of being
and immateriality and therefore can in no way be an object
proportioned to a created intellect, in its natural state. Man
can, however, by his natural powers achieve a natural knowledge of God by abstracting from all finite being and ascending
to the notion of an Infinite Being, a First Cause and Prime
Mover; by a process of reasoning he can even arrive at some
notion of God's attributes and perfections. Though in so
doing he knows God only in a way proportionate to his own
intellect, he is, nevertheless, achieving the ultimate in natural
human knowledge, for the least knowledge of the greatest
things is more perfect than the greatest knowledge of the
least things. The form of God with which man thus becomes
intentionally identified, though it does not represent the intrinsic nature of God, is, nevertheless, a true form, representing God as perfectly as He can be represented in the merely
natural order, and the assimilation or conformity to God which
man thus achieves is the closest assimilation to God which is
attainable by the purely natural powers of the human intellect.
This is, moreover, the basis for a more perfect assimilation to
God which is achieved through grace, for it is by reason of
man's natural ability to become assimilated to God through
knowledge and love, that he is capable of being elevated to a
state of supernatural knowledge, love, and similarity by grace.
This natural capability is, therefore, , also the basis for true
friendship with God, which is formally achieved by grace.
With regard to divine friendship, then, we may say that the
natural ability of man to become intentionally assimilated to
God corresponds analogically but truly to the similarity of
species which is the fundamental basis of friendship between
man and man. Just as the possibility of friendship between
man and man rests fundamentally upon the fact that one is
similar to the other in species, so the possibility of friendship
between man and God rests fundamentally upon the fact that
man is capable of bearing within himself, by the natural act of
his intellect, an intentional similitude to God.

LEO M. BOND

Immediately an objection proposes itself. If we give as a
remote basis of friendship between man and God, the ability of
man's intellect to become intentionally identified with God as
an Infinite Being, First Cause, etc., why would not the same
thing hold with regard to his knowledge of any other being?
His intellect also becomes intentionally identified with a horse,
for instance, when he knows the horse. It would seem, therefore, that this ability to be assimilated through knowledge
would establish as much of a basis for friendship between himself and the horse as between himself and God. The point is
that in knowing the horse, he also knows that the horse is by
nature incapable of knowing him with intellectual knowledge,
or of having benevolence toward him, nor does he love the horse
for the horse's sake-all of which are required for friendship.
His ability to know the horse, then, can in no way establish a
basis of friendship between himself and the horse, since the
horse is of a different species. In knowing God, however, even
with natural knowledge, he knows that God is capable of intellectual knowledge and of benevolence toward him, and therefore that friendship between himself and God is in some way
possible. This applies also to man's knowledge of another man,
for when we say that similarity of species is the foundation for
human friendship, we do not mean species merely as such, but
this particular human species which is capable of the knowledge
and love required for friendship.
As we have said, similarity of species is only a very remote
basis of friendship between man and man. Real friendship, in
the ordinary sense of the word, because of the intimacy and
community of interests which it implies, requires, over and
above similarity of species, a similarity in many of the accidental qualities pertaining to the species. In divine friendship, where is there to be found the accidental similarity
between man and God which corresponds analogically to the
similarity of accidental qualities necessary as a proximate basis
of human friendship? It is found in the mysterious and ineffable participation in and conformity to the divine nature,
effected in man by sanctifying grace, which is a supernatural

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68

gift infused into the soul by God, whereby man is elevated to
the supernatural order, becoming, in a sense, a sharer of the
divine nature, an adopted son of God, and an heir of eternal
glory. 18 The participation in the divine nature effected by
sanctifying grace is not a mere moral participation; it is a
whereby the soul
physical, formal, and objective
is intrinsically assimilated to the Deity, not as to all things,
but in such a way that man becomes a sharer of God's own
proper life, and possesses God as an object known and loved as
God knows and loves Himself. Sanctifying grace is not a sub. stance or a substantial form by which the soul is changed into
some other being; it is a supernatural accident after the mode of
a quality, laying the proximate foundation for the friendship of
justified man to God. Grace is, moreover, an entitative habit,
intrinsically inhering in the essence of the soul and operating
through the habits subjected in the potencies of the soul, especially through charity, which, though really distinguished from
san,ctifying grace strictly so called, is indissolubly connected
with it. 14
By the theological virtue of faith, a much more perfect image
of God is achieved in the intellect of man than is attained by the
merely natural knowledge of God. While by natural knowledge
the intellect knows God under the limitations of an object proportioned to its own mode of being and knowing, in supernatural
knowledge through faith, the intellect is elevated to know God
as He is in Himself, not clearly and perfectly as in the beatific
vision, but in an obscure and veiled manner, by adhering to the
divine truth on the authority of God Himself revealing, which
divine truth, as it is in God, is not really distinct from the
Divine Essence Itself. Thus the intellect, enlightened by faith,
has as its object that which is also the proper object of the
divine intellect, though it knows that object in a mode different
and far inferior to the mode in which God Himself and even the
angels and the blessed know it, i. e., the human intellect does
Cf. Cone. Trid., Sess. 6, ch. 11; II Pt>t., i, 4; Rom., v, 5, sq.
"Cf. Cone. Vienn., 1811 (Dens. 488); Cone. 'Trid., loc. cit.; Summa Theol.,
I-ll, q. 110, aa. 2, 8, 4, etc.
18

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LEO M. BOND

not see its object as it is in itself but believes it with certitude
on the authority of God revealing. By faith, then, man has
God present to his intellect, not as a form which he is able
fully to understand, but he has Him present as the First
Truth, representing the divine essence in a more perfect way
than is possible by natural knowledge of God. There is, therefore, through faith, a much more perfect assimilation to God
than is had in the natural order, inasmuch as the intellect
becomes conformed to God, as He is in Himself, as to an object
known but not perfectly seen, which is the beginp.ing of the
perfect conformity of the beatific vision, wherein God is
attained as an object clearly seen.
There is a further type of assimilation which is higher (in
this life) than the assimilation of the intentional order,
namely, that assimilation which is achieved to the appetitive
order by the act of the will, presupposing and following
upon the assimilation attained in the intellectual order. When
the intellect becomes intentionally identified with a good object,
it perceives the goodness in that object and there immediately
follows a motion of the will toward that good, not precisely as
the good exists in the intellect, but as it exists in the object
itself. Thus, whereas the intellect is assimilated to an object
by drawing it, as it were, into itself, the will becomes assimilated to an object by going out to that object as it is in itself.
The intellect is assimilated to its object only as it is represented within itself, while the will, though it depends upon and
presupposes the representation of the object in the intellect, is
not limited to that representation, but its act terminates
directly at the object itself. 15 The inclination toward the object,
however, effects a certain impression of the object loved in the
affection of the lover.
Just as from the fact that someone understands something there
proceeds in the one understanding a certain intellectual conception
of the thing understood, which is called a word, so from the fact
that one loves something there proceeds in the affection of the
15

Summa Theol., II-II, q. fl7, a. 4; I, q. Sfl, a. 8, etc.

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65

lover a certain impression of the thing loved, according to which
the thing loved is said to be in the lover as the thing understood is
in the one understanding. 16
We say that appetition effects a more perfect conformity
with the object in this life, because the will, through love, is
more intimately united with the object as it is in itself than is
the intellect by knowing the object; in the life to come the
essential union o£ the beatific vision is effected by the glorified
intellect seeing the essence of God, upon which follows the
union o£ the will to the Divine Goodness thus possessed.
By hope the will is moved toward assimilation to God and
not actually assimilated to Him, £or though the act o£ this
virtue is directed toward God Himself, it is concerned with
Him more as a Rewarder and a Helper than as an all-perfect
Being, infinitely good in Himself and to be loved £or His own
sake. Consequently, hope begets a love o£ concupiscence rather
than a love o£ benevolence, which latter is the love that principally effects assimilation. Hope is, however, a direct step
toward the love o£ benevolence, for to love God on account o£
the benefits He bestows easily leads to a love o£ God on account
o£ His own intrinsic goodness and perfections. It is, moreover,
a direct tendency toward the soul's ultimate end, since it is an
expectation of the attainment o£ the most perfect conformity
to God, i.e., the conformity o£ glory.
Especially is the soul conformed and assimilated to God
through charity because it thus becomes of one will and spirit
with Him. Here we seemed to be involved in .a vicious circle,
£or charity is friendship £or God, and yet we are endeavoring to
show that charity effects the similarity which is required as
a basis £or that friendship. It would appear that we are presupposing the very thing we are attempting to prove .. The
viciousness is only apparent, for while it is true that similitude
causes love, it is equally true that love causes similitude, though
in different lines o£ causality, since similitude is a dispositive
cause o£ love and, in the order o£ grace, love is the efficient
16

Ibid., I, q.

5

a. l.

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LEO M. BOND

cause of similarity. It is not until the soul is vivified by supernatural life through the infusion of charity that it becomes sufficiently assimilated to God to make a supernatural love of Him
possible. Though, in point of time, this infusion and assimilation are simultaneous, in the order of dispositive causality
charity presupposes the assimilation which charity itself effects.
The same thing is true, in a sense, in human friendship, for
though a certain objective similarity is presupposed to friendship, the friendship itself begets a subjective similarity which,
in turn, intensifies the friendship.
The assimilation effected by charity is the result of the intimate union with God that charity sets up. The intellect having
regarded God as the perfect good, infinitely lovable in Himself and on account of Himself, the will, through charity, which
is founded on a communication of the divine good, rests in
Him as conjoined to Him by its participation of the divine
nature. " (Charity) rests in God, not in order that something
might come to itself." 17 The will loves God, the divine good,
because He is the Divine Good, as God loves Himself, thus becoming, in a sense, one with God; being one with Him, it loves
whatever He loves as He Himself loves it. Through charity the
soul thus dwells in God, and God in the soul, as the lover is in
the one loved and the one loved is in the lover .18
The infused moral and intellectual virtues might be said to
assimilate man to God only mediately, through the theological
virtues, since they perfect man in the use of means necessary
for the attainment of the object and end of the theological
virtues themselves. As St. Thomas expresses it, the theological
virtues " sufficiently order us to our supernatural end, inchoatively, that is, to God Himself immediately, but the soul needs
to be further perfected by infused virtues in regard to other
things, yet in relation to God." 19 These virtues are ordered to
the theological virtues, especially to charity, in which they are
radicated and by which they are informed. They are, therefore,
perfections derived from the theological virtues and at the
11

18

Ibid., II-II, q. 28, a. 6.
Ibid.

11

Ibid., I-II, q. 68, a. 8, ad l!um.

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67

same time are dispositions for a more perfect practice of the
theological virtues. Thus, for example, a man who lives
chastely is rendered more apt to believe in, hope in, and love
God and thus, by reason of his more perfect practice of the
theological virtues, he becomes more and more conformed to
God. The theological virtues in turn increase and strengthen
the moral and intellectual virtues. In still another sense these
virtues assimilate man to God since through the practice of
them man participates in the perfection of God to Whom can be
attributed the intellectual and moral virtues in their most
perfect degree, not properly or according to their whole essence,
but inasmuch as they do not include imperfection in their
notion.
The gifts of the Holy Ghost add no essential perfection to
the conformity wrought by the theological virtues, especially
charity; they are ordered to the more perfect operation of these
virtues, making their operation more in conformity with the
divine manner of operation. The theological virtues are, to
some extent, subject to the rule of human reason, not according
to their own proper essence but on the part of the mmd in
which they are subjected, for man is able to elicit acts of faith,
hope and charity at the instigation of reason moving him
according to its own mode, presupposing, of course, the divine
motion which is required both in the order of nature and in the
order of grace. However, man is not able to arrive at his ultimate supernatural end, which exceeds the measure of human
reason, unless he be led to it according to the proper essence of
the theological virtues, for human reason is not able to move
him sufficiently to that end, especially in view of the fact that
it has been darkened by sin and the will has been so weakened
as to be unable to compel reason to obey. The
virtues are not in the faculties according to their proper essence,
that is, as perfect forms, but only as participated forms. Hence,
while man is able to act according to reason, he is not able to
act according to the proper forms of the theological virtues
unless he is specially helped by the motion of the Holy Ghost.
In order that man operate according to his own motion-not

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LEO M. BOND

as a mere instrument but as a man, i. e., as the principle of his
own actions, although in a manner exceeding nature-he must
be perfected by some habitual disposition in order that he may
be enabled to follow easily the movements and inspirations of
the Holy Spirit. That dispositidn is the gift of the Holy
Ghost. To operate according to the gifts of the Holy Ghost
is to operate according to the proper form of the theological
virtues or according to the divine measure. Hence the gifts are
said to be measured according to the theological virtues in
which they are radicated, in that they are ordered to the end
of the theological virtues. 20
Among the gifts themselves, the greatest assimilation to God
is through wisdom, which corresponds to charity, for by wisdom
man is rendered easily movable by the Holy Ghost to judge
rightly about divine things and human things in relation to
God. Wisdom corresponds to charity, for while judgment is
essentially in the intellect, the rectitude of the judgment is in
the will since the will, united to the Holy Spirit by charity,
moves the intellect to judge according to the divine ideas and
thus in a sublime manner man in his thoughts and affections is
assimilated to God. It is also wisdom which leads man to infused contemplation, which is the greatest assimilation to God
this side of the beatific vision.
Man, then, is assimilated to God by sanctifying grace which
operates through the infused theological, mtellectual, and moral
virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, in such a way that
from all these taken together, through their interconnection
and interordination, there is constituted in man one representation of the divinity. According to that whole assimilation of
grace, the intellect and will are proportioned to God so that
they are conformed to Him. By the theological virtues, especially charity, man is immediately joined to God; through the
intellectual and moral virtues, he is perfected in those things
which are able to lead him to the ultimate end; by the gifts of
the·Holy Ghost, he is disposed to obey promptly the divine
•• Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 68, aa. 2, 4, 5, 8, etc.

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69

inspirations moving him in a divine manner according to the
exigencies of his supernatural end, which exceed all human
power, and thus man truly participates in the divine life itself
and becomes truly God-like.
Thus the natural image of God impressed upon man's nature,
which is in the order of substances, is elevated, and perfected,
and completed by an accidental similitude to God effected by
grace.
Hence, in divine friendship there is a counterpart of both
the similarity in species, and the accidental similarity which are,
respectively, the remote and the proximate bases of human
friendship. To the similarity in species of human friendship
corresponds, in divine friendship, the natural aptitude of man
to be conformed to God by reason of his intellectual nature,
while the accidental similitude to God, brought about by sanctifying grace, is a parallel of the accidental similarities which
are necessary to friendship between men. This provides the
answer to the question, " How could two beings so infinitely
distant as God and man possibly have enough in common to
be friends?"
II. COMMUNICATION
There is another fundamental prerequisite of human friendship, a requirement less basic than that of similitude, but one
demanding fulfillment before a real friendship is possible. That
requirement is a communication of some kind between the prospective friends. Two people might have all the equality in accidentals required for friendship; they might have a natural affinity for each other; they might be intimate friends potentially,
but unless there is some sort of exchange of thought between
them, some outward manifestation of their mutual love, that
potentiality cannot be actualized. No doubt we pass people on
the street every day with whom we might become intimate
friends, if the opportunity of communication were ever given.
As a matter 'of fact, practically the only friends we do make are
those with whom we are thrown together in some common
capacity; they are fellow-workers, fellow-members of some

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LEO M. BOND

civil, religious, or social society, and this by reason of the fact
that mutual compatibility has had an opportunity of being
manifested, usually through the medium of conversation. This
is all reducible to an elementary principle always insisted upon
by Aristotle and St. Thomas: " Nothing is loved unless it is
first known."
Aristotle often states that friendship is founded in Kotvowla
(Latin, communicatione). The English word "communication," used in the sense which we have described above, is not
an adequate translation of Kotvowla, in the sense in which Aristotle uses it, nor indeed, of the Latin equivalent "communicatio." " Community " would be a better translation, community
in the sense of common interests, common life, the participation
of common goods, etc.; for the examples Aristotle gives of
Kotvwv{a are " fellOW-SailorsWhO COmmunicate in navigation and
fellow-soldiers who communicate in military activity." 21 We
have already considered in the preceding chapter how the
requirement of " community " in this sense is fu:filled with
regard to man and God, since by sanctifying grace man participates in the supernatural life of God, becomes a sharer of God's
knowledge and love, an adopted son of God and an heir to
eternal beatitude. Using communicatio in this same sense, St.
Thomas says: " Since there is some communication of man to
God, according to which he communicates His beatitude to us,
upon this communication it is fitting that friendship be
founded." 22 St. Thomas does not mean to limit the communication of man in the divine beatitude to the beatitude which
man will enjoy in heaven, for the communication begins in this
life through grace, which is the beginning and seed of glory.
It is patent that in Kowwvla, Aristotle also includes communication in the ordinary sense of the English word, i. e., an
exchange of knowledge, a mutual expression of thought, particularly through the medium of the spoken word, for though
sailors do communicate in navigation and soldiers in military
activity, that communication itself could hardly be considered
11

Cf. In IX Etk., l. 8.

,. Summa T-'keol., 11-ll, q. 2S,

a. 1.

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71

as a basis for friendship unless there be verbal communication
between the fellow-sailors or fellow-soldiers. Aristotle brings
out this necessity of verbal contact by saying: "These especially appear to be the works of friendship and that which creates it, namely concord and conversation (colloquium) among
the friends." 28
Even supposing then that a state of community does exist
between man and God, by what actual communication is the
reciprocity required for friendship to be mutually expressed?
In other words, if man and God are going to be friends, they
must in some way communicate with each other in order to
know what kind. of being each other is. There must be a " conversation " of some kind between them, not only to establish,
but also to foster and perpetuate a friendship, for as Aristotle
says:
Because the friendship of virtuous people requires a long time and
mutual accustoming (mutua assuefactione) to each other, in order
that they might be able to know that they are virtuous and friends,
it does not happen that they come to know each other before they
have eaten a peck of salt (mensura salis) together. 24
Again, he says:
If the absence of friends from each other is long, it appears to
bring about forgetfulness of the former friendship. . . . And therefore it is said in the proverb that many friendships are dissolved by
reason of the fact that one does not seek the other and does not
converse with him or live with him. 25

How then, are God and man to know one another? With
regard to God's knowledge of man, the answer is evident. God
is the creator of man and is present in man " by essence, by
presence, and by power " 26 and therefore God knows man
far more intimately than man knows himself. He knows man's
every thought, his every desire, his every motion, to all of
•• Cf. In VIII Eth., I. 8.
•• Cf. Ibid., I. 7.

•• Ibid.
•• Summa Theol-., I, q. 8, a. 8.

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LEO M. BOND

which actions God physically premoves man. The question
therefore, resolves itself to this-how can man know enough
about God to consider Him a friend-how does God impart a
knowledge of Himself to man?
There are many ways open to man in this life whereby he can
arrive at a knowledge of God, not indeed a perfect knowledge of
Him as He is in Himself, but a knowledge sufficiently full to
serve as a basis .for true friendship between himself and God.
By the use of his natural reason, man can arrive at a true,
though imperfect, knowledge of God as the author of nature,
the infinitely powerful creator, infinitely good rewarder, and
infinitely just punisher. He ascends to this knowledge of God
through knowledge of himself and of other creatures. "For,"
as St. Paul says, " the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made." 27 Man may, moreover, by his natural
powers acquire at least an indirect knowledge of the nature of
God by reason of the natural law which was impressed upon
him in creation. This natural law is a created participation
of the eternal law of God, which eternal law, according to St.
Thomas, "is nothing else but the reason (ratio) of the divine
wisdom, according as it is directive of all actions and movement." 28 According to his perception of the natural law, therefore, man arrives at a knowledge of the eternal law, not, indeed,
as it is in itself, but according to an irradiation of it as
manifested in the natural law and, in fact, in all knowledge of
the truth; for "every rational creature knows it (the eternal
law) according to some irradiation of it, either greater or less.
For all knowledge of truth is a certain irradiation and participation of the eternal law." 29 By this participated knowledge
of the eternal law, then, man can arrive at some understanding
of the essence of divine wisdom according as it is a Divine
exemplar of creation, not really distinct from the essence of
God Himself, and thus through his knowledge of the natural
27 Rom., i. 20.
Cf. Summa Theol ..• I, q. 2, a. 2, and q. 88, a. 3.
•• Ibid., I-II, q. 93, a. I.
•• Ibid., a. 2.

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73

law, man can indirectly arrive at some notion of God's nature
and attributes.
This type of knowledge, however, though it begets a certain
natural love of God, is only a very remote and 'potential basis
for friendship with God which belongs to the supernatural
order. Moreover, the perfection of this knowledge of God
through reason is attainable only" by a few, after a long time,
and with an admixture of many errors," so due to the darkening
of man's reason by sin and passion as well as to his necessary
preoccupation with his physical needs. In order, therefore,
to give a man a better opportunity to acquire the knowledge
of Himself which is necessary for man's salvation and for the
establishment of a friendship with Himself, God, in His infinite
goodness, has condescended to reveal Himself to man, to give to
man at least a veiled glimpse of the unspeakable beauty and
attractiveness of the divine nature. This He has done by Revelation in general: in the Old Law, chiefly through the Prophets;
in the New Law, in a most sublime manner through the Word
of God made flesh. All the knowledge that it was necessary for
man to have about God in order to make friendship with God
possible in this life was communicated by Christ to His Apostles
and through them to all mankind. Although through the centuries, under the guidance of the Church, there has been a
gradual unfolding of the content of Revelation, all the essentials
were radically present in the teachings of Christ and His
Apostles.
Communication, however, must be at least two-sided. God
has made Himself known objectively through Revelation. Faith
is the subjective basis for all our knowledge of God in the supernatural order. The content of Revelation has been preserved
for us by the Church which Christ founded and commissioned
to guard and propagate His doctrines until the end of time.
The Church proposes the truths we must know about God; by
the supernatural infused virtue of faith, we believe those truths
with complete certitude, not on intrinsic evidence nor even on
80

Ibid., I, q. I, a. I.

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LEO M. BOND

the authority of the Church, but we believe them on the authority of God Himself revealing. The knowledge of God which we
have through faith is not a perfect knowledge of Him as He is in
Himself-man is not able to attain such knowledge in this life.
It is only a veiled and partial knowledge, but one amply sufficient to serve as a basis for true friendship with God in this
life. After all, how much do we really know of the more intimate inner life of even our best friends? We can only judge
from external manifestations, and experience teaches us how
fallible that judgment can be. Even though our friends freely
express to us their thoughts and emotions, are their words
capable of fully representing the reality of their inner lives?
Faith is, then, a communication with God. By faith we learn,
at least imperfectly, what sort of being God is, what perfections
He has, what He is interested in, what pleases Him and what
displeases Him, what we have in common with Him and what
He thinks and wills in our regard. Certainly no communication between two prospective friends could reveal more than
that. Faith is, in a sense, a conversation with God, for though
we do not actually hear God speaking to us, we can know with
the certitude of faith what He would say to us in some given
circumstance if He were to speak to us personally. For instance,
when we perform some genuinely good work, supposing that
we are in the state of grace, we can by faith be as sure that God
is pleased and that He will reward us as if He appeared to us
personally and said, " This is very pleasing to Me and I will
reward you." In fact we can be surer because the apparition
might be a delusion.
There is another form of communication between man and
God, one resting fundamentally upon faith, but more specifically a communication than is faith, and one superbly adapted
to the establishment and fostering of friendship with God,
namely the communication of prayer-using prayer in its wide
theological sense to include any pious ascent of the mind to
God. The conception of prayer as a mental communication or
conversation with God is admirably brought out by various
Fathers of the Church in their definitions of prayer: e. g., St.

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75

Gregory N azianzus, " Prayer is a conversation and a dialogue
with God"; 81 St. John Chrysostom, "Prayer is a speaking to
God "; 32 St. Augustine, " Prayer is a turning of the mind to
God through pious and humble affection"; 38 St. John
Damascene, " Prayer is the ascent of the mind to God." 84
Under this broad aspect, prayer includes not only prayers
of petition, adoration, thanksgiving, but indeed, any form of
meditation or contemplation of divine truths. Speaking of the
prayer of petition, to which he reduces the prayer of thanksgiving, 35 St. Thomas says: " Three things are required for
prayer, the first of which is that the one praying approach God
Whom he beseeches, which is signified by the name of prayer,
because prayer is an ascent of the intellect to God." 36 And
speaking of contemplation he says: " The contemplative life,
as to the essence of its action, pertains to the intellect." 37
Prayer is, then, in a very special sense, a mental communication with God, the purpose of which is usually to manifest to
Him something about ourselves, some need, some desire, some
affection; we pray to express to Him our gratitude, our admiration, our profound veneration. Not that He needs to be told
what is in our heart, for that He already knows, but He
demands at least a mental expression of it for our own benefit
rather than for His. With regard to the prayer of petition,
again St. Thomas says: " It is not necessary for us to direct our
prayers to God in order that we might manifest to Him our
needs and desires, but in order that we ourselves might consider our need of recurring to the divine aid in these things." 38
With regard to prayers of adoration, admiration, love, etc., the
expression of these affections whether it be mental or external,
as by voice or bodily gesture, serves to intensify the affection
itsel£.89 Prayer, therefore, though it does not really inform God
of something and is primarily for our own benefit, does fulfill a
81 Migne, PG. XLIV, c. 1125.
•• Migne, PG. LID, c. 280.
11 Migne, PL. XXXIX, c. 1887.
u Migne, PG. XCIV, c. 1019.
•• Summa Theol., ll-ll, q. 88, a. 17.

•• Ibid.
•• Ibid., q. 180, a. 1.
•• Ibid., q. 88, a. 2, ad lum.
•• Ibid., a. I!!.

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LEO M. BOND

requirement of friendship, i.e., some form of self-expression
whereby we can project ourselves, as it were, into the intellect
of another, not always simply to give information but also to
benefit ourselves.
Communication must be at least two-sided. Though it is not
difficult to see how in prayer we communicate with God, how
does He in prayer communicate with us, over and above the
fundamental communication of Revelation, of which we partake by the infused virtue of faith? Through the gifts of the
Holy Ghost which are subjected in the intellect, i.e., the gifts
of intellect, counsel, wisdom, and science, God may be said
to project into our intellects, in a special way, the truth which
is in His intellect. This projection is accomplished especially
in prayer, since prayer is essentially an act of the intellect
ascending and uniting itself to God, and it is precisely when the
intellect is united to God that the four above-mentioned. gifts
are operating most effectively. Let us see how this projection
takes place. The gifts in general are dispositions impressed
upon our intellect and will whereby they are rendered easily
movable by the inspirations of the Holy Ghost.
It is fitting, therefore, that there be in man higher perfections
according to which he may be disposed to be moved by God and
these perfections are called gifts, not only because they are infused
by God, but because according to them man is disposed to become
promptly movable by the divine inspirations. 40

The four gifts which perfect the intellect, render it easily movable by the divine inspirations; in other words; they render the
intellect more capable of grasping the divine truth which is
offered to it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. With regard
to the precise function of these gifts within the intellect St.
Thomas says:
On the part of the things proposed to faith for belief, two things
are requisite on our part: first, that they be penetrated or grasped
by the intellect, and this belongs to the gift of understanding.
Secondly, it is necessary that man should judge these things aright,
•• Ibid., I-II, q. 68, a. 1.

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that he should esteem that he ought to adhere to these things, and
withdraw from their opposites: and this judgment, with regard
to Divine things belongs to the gift of wisdom, but with regard to
created things, belongs to the gift of knowledge, and as to its
application to individual actions, belongs to the gift of counseJ.41

It is evident then that through the operation of these four
gifts the human intellect receives participations of the divine
truth from the intellect of God and that, therefore, God can
truly be said to communicate with man through the gifts, which
operate especially during prayer.
We have seen how the mutual communication required as a
basis of friendship between man and man is realized with regard
to God and man; first, the communication established by
natural knowledge of God and knowledge of the natural law
impressed upon man in creation; secondly, the more perfect
communication established by the supernatural knowledge of
God through faith and lastly, by the most perfect communication possible in this life, which is that of prayer, especially the
prayer of infused contemplation. Thus is answered the question:
" How can there be between man and God a communication
suffl_cientfor the realization of a mutual friendship?"
Ill. THE ESSENCE OF FRIENDSHIP
Having considered the two principle prerequisites for friendship, namely, similitude and communication, and having seen
how they are adequately fulfilled in the relationship of man to
God, we shall now consider the essence of friendship itself, first
as it is actualized between man and man and then as between
man and God, attempting to point out how the essential notes
of friendship between man and man are verified in the supernatural relationship established between man and God by grace
and the infused virtue of charity.
The essence of friendship, according to Aristotle, consists in
mutual benevolence, mutually known and based on an honest
41

II-II, q. 8, a. 6.

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good, a delectable good or a useful good. St. Thomas sums up
Aristotle's definition of friendship thus:
From these premises, (Aristotle) concludes the definition of
friendship. He says that it is of the essenee of friendship that by it
persons wish good to each other and that this be not unknown to
them and that it be on account of an {honest) good, a delectable
or a useful good.42

The first point in this definition is, therefore, benevolencethe wishing of good to another. As it pertains to friendship,
benevolence connotes the wishing of good to another primarily
for the other's sake. "[Aristotle] says that by friendship men
wish good things to their friends for the sake of the friends
themselves. If they wished the good of a friend for their own
sake, this would be rather to love themselves than others." 43
Simple benevolence is not love itself, for it does not necessarily
presuppose the union required of love. 44 As it pertains to friendship, it is rather a mode of love, and thus the benevolence of
friendship implies love because it.is precisely benevolence which
distinguishes the love of friendship from other kinds of love.
Benevolence is not, however, completely disjoined from self,
since it is based on the similarity which another bears to
oneself. We wish good to another precisely because we regard
him as another self and for this reason we wish for him the good
which we would wish for ourselves. However, the good we
desire for another by benevolence, we desire primarily for his
own welfare, not for our own advantage. But the secondary
consideration of some particular advantage which might accrue
to us by reason of our friend's possession of some good, would
not necessarily destroy benevolence as long as that consideration remained only secondary. Benevolence would still exist
as long as the principal reason for desiring our friend's good
would be the friend's own welfare. If the principal motive is
the advantage of oneself, there is no longer benevolence but
•• In VIII Etk., 1. 2, n. 15til .
.. Ibid., l. 5, n. 1604 ..
•• Summa Tkeol.,
q. 27, a. !!.

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79

concupiscence, which is the basis of only a very inferior kind of
friendship.
One-sided benevolence is not sufficient for friendship, for
while one may truly desire the welfare of another for the other's
sake, if the other does not reciprocate the benevolence, there is
no friendship. Moreover, merely occasional and inefficacious
acts of good-will toward another, even though they be mutual,
do not constitute the benevolence required of friendship. The
good-will must be habitual and efficacious, i. e., one must be
always prepared actually to do what is in his power to promote
the welfare of the other. Only remotely and improperly can a
mere inefficacious benevolence be considered friendship. As
St. Thomas says in commenting on Aristotle:
It is not possible for people to be friends unless they are :first
benevolent. This does not mean that all mutually benevolent people can be called friends. Benevolent people, as they are benevolent, only wish good to the objects of their benevolence; they are
not moved to do good for them nor are they perturbed by their
misfortunes. In a wide sense (translative loquendo) benevolence
may be called a lazy friendship (amicitia otiosa,) because it does
not have friendly operation joined to it. However, when a man
perseveres in benevolence, and becomes accustomed to wishing
another well, his soul is strengthened to wish good in such a way
that his will is not lazy, but efficacious. In this way friendship is
born. 45
The second point in Aristotle's definition, namely," that this
(efficacious well-wishing) be not unknown to them," is selfevident. Though two people might have mutual, habitual and
efficacious benevolence toward each other, in that they might
be continually prepared to promote each other's welfare should
occasion arise, if this regard for each other is not mutually
known, they cannot be considered as friends, except, perhaps,
in preparation of soul.
We now come to the third and most important point in
Aristotle's definition, that is, the object of friendship, for friendship, being a habit, is specified by its act, which act is in turn
•• In IX Etk .• l. 6, n. 1825.

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specified by its object. Friendship is a particular kind of lovethe love of benevolence. Hence, in common with all love, it
must have as its object a good either true or apparent.
The particular aspect under which the good is attained is that
which determines the various species of friendship. Good, as
the object of love, has a three-fold aspect under which it is
desirable, namely, as an honest good, a delectable good, or a
useful good. Since good is that which terminates the motion
of the appetite, these three aspects of good can best be understood by comparing them to the various terminations in the
motion of natural bodies. 46 The motion of a natural body terminates absolutely only at its ultimate term. Each part of the
motion, however, terminates relatively at various intermediate
terms, through which the motion progresses successively until
it reaches its ultimate term. The good which terminates the
motion of the appetite can likewise be considered under this
two-fold aspect of termination-it can be either the ultimate
term of the motion or it can be an intermediate term, which is
ordered to some further good as ultimate. The good which
terminates the motion of the appetite relatively as an intermediate term is called the useful good, i. e., it is a good only
insofar as it is useful as a means for the attainment of some
further good. The good which ultimately terminates the
motion can also be considered in two ways. Just as in the
motion of a natural body the ultimate term can be considered
either as the thing itself to which the motion tends or as rest
in the thing. In the appetitive motion the good which is
desired as it is in itself, and as that to which the appetite tends
absolutely, is called the honest good. The good which terminates the motion of the appetite under the aspect of rest in the
thing desired is called the delectable good, that is, it is not a
good desired for what it is in itself, but only with a view to the
delectation or pleasure which follows the attainment of it.
Applying all this to the object of friendship, the honest good
is the good which is in the friend himself and which renders him
•• Cf. Summa Theol.-, I, q. !!5, a. 6.

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lovable for his own sake. The useful good is the good which is
in the friend, not considered as lovable in itself but only as a
means useful to promote the welfare of the one loving. The
delectable good is the good which is in the friend, but considered only from the aspect of the pleasure which it affords to
the one loving. In the case of the useful good and the delectable good, the motion of the appetite terminates ultimately
with the lover himself and, consequently, love based on these
goods is not a truly benevolent love of another, but only a form
of self-love. It is, therefore, not true friendship but only a
superficial friendship, inasmuch as the good which is in the one
loved and the good which is desired for him are not loved or
desired for his sake but for the sake of the one loving.
[Aristotle] says, therefore, that since there are three things which
are lovable, namely, the good which is honest in every respect, the
delectable good, and the useful good, these differ specifically from
each other, not indeed, as three species equally dividing some
genus, but according to a relation of primary and secondary. Because acts are diversified according to the difference of objects, it
follows that the loves directed toward these three objects differ
specifically; that is, the love by which something is loved on
account of its goodness is one species of love, and that by which
something is loved on account of its utility is another species. Because the act of friendship is to love, it follows that there are also
three species of friendship, equaling in number the lovable thing.
One of these species is friendship based on an honest good, i. e.,
good which is good in every respect; another that which is based
on delectability; and the third, that based on utility. In each of
these, the essential notion of friendship is saved because according
to each one of these three, persons are able to wish each other the
good according to which they love. For instance, if they love each
other on account of virtue, they wish to each other the good of
virtue, but if on account of utility, they wish to each other useful
good (i. e., useful to the one loving) ; and if on account of pleasure,
delectable goods. . . . He says, therefore, first that when persons
love each other on account of utility, one does not love the other
for the other's sake, but according as he receives from the other
something for himself. So it is with those who love each other on
account of delectation. Thus it is evident that both those who
love on account of a useful good, love on account of the useful good
6

LEO M. BOND

that comes to them and those who love on account of delectation,
love on account of the delectable good which they receive. In this
way, they do not love a friend for what he is in himself but according to that which is accidental to him, namely, according to that
which is useful or delectable [to themselves]. Hence it is evident
that friendships of this kind are not true friendships (amicitiae
per se), but only quasi-friendships (amicitiae per accidens), for
by them a man is not loved for what he is in himself but only for
some utility or delectation which he o:ffers.47
It is evident, then, that for Aristotle, the ol}ly true friendship is that which is based on an honest good, since on account
of this good alone is a friend loved for his own sake and all the
good that is desired for him is desired for his own sake, not
primarily for the advantage of the one who loves him. For
Aristotle, the honest good upon which true friendship is based
is the good of virtue. Friendship based on virtue is the perfect
friendship because it alone completely fulfills all the essential
requirements of friendship.
[Aristotle] treats of the principal friendship, which is that based on
the good of virtue. . . . He says that that friendship which is
among good men and those similar to each other in virtue is the
perfect friendship ... showing that friendship of this kind is true
friendship (per se) and not a quasi-friendship (per accidens) , . . .
for those who are similar to each other in virtue wish to each other
goods which are in accord with each other's goodness. Both are
good in themselves because virtue is a certain perfection which
makes a man good and makes his works good, and they wish good
to each other as each other is in himself. Hence their friendship is
true friendship. 48
The meaning of the latter part seems to be that one wishes the
good of virtue to the other because the other is good in himself
with the goodness of virtue; hence the good which each wishes
to the other is wished for him on account of what he is in
himself and for his own sake, which is true friendship.
Having considered, then, the three essential notes of friendship as they are realized in the relationship of man to man,
we shall now considered those same essential notes as they are
•• In VIII Eth .• I. 8, nn. 1568, 64. 66.

•• In VIII Eth., 1. 8, nn. 1574-75.

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verified in that relationship of man to God which is established,
in general by sanctifying grace, and in particular by the infused
virtue of charity. In this consideration we shall treat the third
point first, i. e., the object of charity as corresponding to the
object of friendship, since that is the most radical of the essential notes and that upon which the other two notes more or less
depend, because habits are specified ultimately by their objects.
Charity is commonly defined as a theological virtue, divinely
infused, by which we love God on account of Himself, and ourselves and our neighbor as ourselves on account of God. We
shall consider charity only with regard to its primary and
formal object, i.e., God Himself, for though self and neighbor
are also objects of charity, they are only the secondary material
object of charity and in this paper we are concerned with
charity only from the aspect of the friendship with God which
it establishes. St. Thomas defines charity through a definition
of friendship, for he says: " Charity signifies not only the love
of God, but also a certain friendship for Him, which indeed,
over and above love, adds a mutual return of affection with
some mutual communication." 49
The object of true and perfect friendship is the honest good
of virtue in a friend, which renders him lovable in himself and
for his own sake. The formal object of charity is also an
honest good-not a mere participated good such as is virtue,
whether natural or supernatural, but the very essence of goodness itself, the infinite and essential goodness of God, which
renders Him infinitely lovable in Himself and for His Own
sake. The good of virtue which we love in a human friend, we
do not love as an abstract good having no reference to ourselves,
for that would be contrary to the very nature of love, which of
itself implies a reference, a convenience, an accommodation to
the appetite of the one loving. Likewise by charity we do not
love the goodness of God as something completely abstract and
disjoined from ourselves; we love the goodness of God precisely
as He communicates that goodness to us inasmuch as He is
•• Summuz. Theol., 1-11, q.

a. 5.

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LEO M. BOND

our ultimate end, capable of perfectly satisfying every tendency
and desire of our appetites. We love that goodness precisely
as it is the object of the divine beatitude, which God communicates to us completely and perfectly in the beatific vision and
partially and inchoatively in this life through grace. Thus it
is that St. Thomas says, time and time again, that the friendship of charity is founded upon a communication of the divine
beatitude. This is the particular aspect of the divine goodness
towards which charity tends as to its proper object.
This does not mean that we love the goodness of God only
because it makes us happy, for that would be to love the goodness of God not in itself, but only with relation to ourselves;
it would be to love God not ·for His Own sake, but primarily for
our sakes. The meaning is that, while the principal and proximate motive of our charity is always the goodness of God as it
is in itself, we do not love that goodness as something in no
way participated by ourselves or in no way communicated to us
by God, but we love it precisely because it is the ultimate end
to which our whole being is ordered and because in itself it is
the absolutely final term of the motion of our appetites; it is
lovable in itself above all things, according to the very notion
of lovable.
Certainly the goodness of God is a good for us, for otherwise
it would not come within the sphere of the will, but to consider
it primarily from the viewpoint of its being a good for us is to
consider it only under the universal aspect of love, not under
the special aspect of the love of charity, by which we love the
goodness of God, not primarily because it is a good for us, but
because it is the divine goodness, infinitely lovable in itself.
This does not mean that we are to love God without any view
to our own happiness-eternal or temporal; this would be quite
impossible because man naturally seeks happiness in every one
of his human acts. It simply means that our own happiness is
not to be the principal motive for loving God, but in loving
God we seek our own happiness in that we wish to refer ourselves to God and to refer our happiness to Him. Hence just as
the principal and proximate object of true human friendship is

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85

the participated honest good of virtue, so the principal and
proximate object of the divine friendship of charity is the
essential goodness of God as it is in itself, but viewed under the
aspect of its being our ultimate end.
According to Aristotle friendship based on virtue is the only
one in which the perfection of friendship is fully realized, precisely because it is based on the good of virtue. The first reason
he gives for the perfection of the friendship of virtue is the fact
that only in this type of friendship is the essence of true friendship achieved, since in this one alone the friend is loved as he is
in himself and for his own sake. All other so-called friendships
are only forms of self love. In the supernatural order, the
divine friendship of charity is also the perfect friendship for the
same reason, namely that by charity alone is God loved as He
is in Himself according to His Own essential and proper Goodness and for His own sake. The friendship of charity has no
inferior species because charity is one virtue with only one
formal object, the infinite Goodness of God.
Diverse species of friendship are regarded in one way according
to the diversity of the end, and according to this there are said to
be three species of friendship, namely, the useful friendship, the
pleasurable friendship and the honest friendship: and in another
way according to the diversity of the communications in which the
friendships are founded. . . . In neither of these ways can charity
be divided into many, for the end of charity is one, namely the
divine goodness; and also there is [only] one communication of
eternal beatitude upon which this friendship is founded. 50

The friendship of charity can never be primarily a friendship of
utility or of pleasure, for if one loves God primarily for the
utility or pleasure he derives from loving, he is not loving God
with the love of charity. Hence, properly speaking, charity
does not admit of perfection and imperfection as to species,
though it might be said to do so as to degree of intensity.
Therefore, the friendship of charity is the perfect friendship in
the supernatural order, precisely because its primary object is
always the goodness of God, loved for God's own sake.
50

Summa Theol., II-II, q. 9l3, a. 5.

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Another reason Aristotle gives for the perfection of friendship being achieved only in a friendship based on virtue is the
fact that in this type alone does friendship attain permanence
of form, which is a property closely allied to its very nature.
The friendship of virtue has this permanence of form because
its object, virtue, is a habit, of its very nature difficult to
remove. This type of friendship also has permanence from the
viewpoint of the subjects themselves, since it includes everything that friendship requires in the line of pleasure, and for this
reason is not apt to be set aside lightly. While pleasure is not
the primary motive of such friendship, nevertheless some pleasure is required in all love and the purest pleasure is derived from
a love based on virtue.
[Aristotle] further concludes that since (the virtuous) love each
other for this reason, namely that they are good, it follows that
their friendship will endure as long as they remain virtuous. Virtue is a permanent habit and one not easily lost. . . . Therefore
such a friendship is of lasting duration and not easily terminable
because in it are conjoined all things which are required for friends.
Every friendship is on account of good or on account of pleasme
and this either absolutely, for instance when that which is loved is
good and delectable in itself (simpliciter) or because it is good
or delectable to the one loving (per accidens) ; and this is to be
good or delectable not truly and properly but according to a certain similitude to that which is truly and properly good and delectable. In the friendship of virtue all these things are present, not
accidentally (per accidens) but in themselves (per se) , for they
who are similar according to this friendship of virtue, also have the
other goods, because what is good in itself is also delectable. Thus,
because friendship of this kind has all things which are required to
friendship, it is not easily dissolved, since (only) that is wont to
be set aside in which some defect is found. 51

All this is doubly true of the friendship of charity. Charity, on
the part of its object, has the greatest permanence since it is
based on the immutable goodness of God. Nor is there anything in charity itself which would make it easily removable
from its subject. The only way in which charity can be lost
61

In VIII Eth., l. s. nn. 1577, 79.

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87

is by the commission of mortal sin, and this is attributable not
to charity but to the instability of the human will. Moreover,
of itself, the least charity is sufficient to enable man to resist all
temptations.
In another way, charity can be considered according to its proper

nature and, so considered, it is not capable of anything that does
not pertain to its proper nature. Hence charity is in no way able
to sin, just as heat cannot grow cold.52
Charity which can fall short of the very nature of charity, is not
true charity; for this would be the case if love should love for a
time and afterwards cease loving, which is not the nature of true
love. If charity is lost on account of the mutability of the subject,
contrary to the determination (propositum) of charity, which is
included in its very act, this would not be opposed to the truth of
charity. 53
.
Also, on the part of the subject, charity has a certain permanence inasmuch as in it is contained all that is required for the
greatest and truest delight of the subject, and hence one is not
reasonably inclined to destroy in himself by sin that which is
capable of causing him his greatest joy. The joy connected
with charity is the greatest joy of which man is capable because
it is derived from the union with his ultimate end, the supreme
and absolute good itself. This joy is, of course, only incomplete in this life due to the incompleteness of the union with the
supreme good; nevertheless it is still the greatest joy attainable
in life. Joy is not included in the essence of charity but is
contained in charity as an effect in its cause.
Charity is the love of God, Whose goodness is immutable, because
He Himself is His Own goodness, and when He is loved, He is in
the one loving Him, through the most noble effect of Himself,
according to I John iv, 16, 'who abideth in charity abideth in God
and God in him.' Therefore spiritual joy, which is derived from
God, is caused by charity. 54
Hence it is that while joy is not the primary object of charity,
man's greatest joy is necessarily connected with charity and this
02 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 24, a. 11.
•• Ibid., ad ium.

•• Ibid., q. 28, a. 1.

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LEO M. BOND

furnishes him with a strong, though only secondary, motive for
remaining in charity. From this aspect, charity can be said to
have permanence on the part of the subject.
So much for the object of the divine friendship of charity on
the part of man considered as the one loving. Friendship
includes a return of love by the one loved. What then, is the
object of God's love of friendship for man? God's own infinite
goodness is the only proper and adequate object of the Divine
love and this goodness God loves by absolute. necessity. All
creatures are participations of the divine goodness in that their
being is a participation of His being, and the divine being, as it
is in God, is identical with the divine goodness. Since the
existence of creatures dep·ends on the free will of God, the
actual goodness which they have by reason of their existence
also depends on the divine will and hence divine love, unlike
all other love, causes the goodness which it loves in creatures.
"The love of God infuses and creates the goodness in things." 55
Among creatures, those natures which bear a greater similarity
to God, more perfectly participate the goodness of God, and
hence are loved more by God. In the supernatural order, grace,
as we have seen, is a very special participation of the goodness
of God since it is a participation of the divine nature itself and
a sharing of the intimate life of God. Hence in the supernatural order, grace is that which God loves most in man. St.
Thomas succinctly expresses all this as follows:
Since the creature's good springs from the divine will, some good
in the creature flows from God's love, whereby He wishes the good
of the creature. On the other hand, the will of man is moved by
the good pre-existing in things, and hence man's love does not
wholly cause the good of the thing, but presupposes it either in
whole or in part. Therefore, it is clear that every love of God is
followed at some time by a good caused in the creature; but not
co-eternal with the eternal love. According to this difference of
good the love of God to the creature is looked at differently. One
is common whereby He loves all things that are, and thereby gives
things their natural being. The second is a special love whereby
•• Ibid., I, q. 20, a. 2.

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89

He draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature to
a participation of Divine Good, and through this love He is said
to love anyone simply, since it is by this love that God simply
wishes the eternal good, which is Himself, for the creature. 56
Grace is, therefore, the principal object of God's love for man
and that which constitutes the communication upon which
God's friendship for man is based, since grace is the beginning
of the communication of eternal happiness, the" seed of glory."
The love which God has for man, by reason of the grace which
is in him, adequately fulfills the essential requirement of true
friendship as to its object, for in loving that grace, God is loving
man as man is in himself and for his own sake. Though that
grace comes from God and is a participation of God's own goodness, nevertheless it is an entitative habit intrinsically inhering
in the soul of man, making him what he is in the supernatural
order and, once. received, truly belonging to man in the proper
sense of the word, though it is a purely gratuitous gift and in
no way strictly due to man. Once it is possessed by man,
however, grace is man's goodness just as is any other goodness
which he participates from God.
Everything is said to be good by the divine goodness as the first
effective exemplar, principle, and end of all goodness. Nevertheless
each thing is said to be good by a similitude of the divine goodness
inhering in itself, which is formally its own goodness, denominating
it (as good) .57
This is equally true of the supernatural good of grace, though
it inheres in the soul of man only as an accident. The man
possessed of grace, therefore, God loves as He is in himself. It
is also true that God loves that man for the man's own sake, for
though in loving the grace in man He is only loving Himself,
nevertheless that grace is a perfectly free gift given to man
entirely for man's own advantage and in no way promoting
God's own intrinsic welfare. God's love for man, though it is of
necessity self-love, is nevertheless, the most unselfish love conceivable, for the good which it loves, He Himself has given. It
•• Ibid., 1-11, q. 110, a. 1.

•• Ibid., I, q. 6, a. 4.

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is in every sense, therefore, a love of man for man's own sake.
Hence, as to its object, the love of God for man is the love of
friendship in the highest possible form, completely free from any
notion of utility or self-delectation arising from the creature as
from a cause.
Having considered, therefore, the object of the supernatural
friendship of charity and having seen how that object adequately fulfills the essential requirement of friendship as to its
object, which was the third point in Aristotle's definition of
friendship, we now pass to a consideration of how the benevolence required in friendship, which was the first point in Aristotle's definition, is verified in the relationship established
between man and God by charity .. The benevolence required
of friendship is the mutual, habitual, efficacious wishing of good
to each other for each other's sake. As has been said, benevolence, considered in itself, is not the love of friendship in its
entirety, for benevolence in itself is a simple act of the will 5 8
and does not necessarily imply the union of affection required
of love.
Moreover, benevolence, as the distinguishing mode of the
love of friendship, 59 implies the wishing of good to another for
the other's sake; hence it is opposed to concupiscence, which
desires good for another not for his sake but for the sake of the
one desiring it. Under this aspect, benevolence is closely connected with the object of friendship, which ultimately specifies
the love of friendship and distinguishes it from other kinds of
love. It is the nature of the object of friendship, i.e., the goodness of the person as he is in himself, which demands that the
love of that object be a benevolent love, for to love a person as
he is in himself is to love him for his own sake and to wish him
well for his own sake, which is to love him benevolently. In
treating of the object of the friendship of charity, therefore,
we have already considered the benevolent aspect under which
charity attains its object, inasmuch as by charity we love God
for His own sake and not primarily for our sake, and He loves us
•• Cf. ibid., 1-11, q. '1.7, a. '1..

•• Cf. ibid., 11-11, q. 28, a. 1.

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with a completely unselfish love. We will now consider how
benevolence is verified in the friendship of charity with regard
to the mutual wishing of good between man and God.
How, in the first place, can man possibly wish any good to
God, since He already includes in Himself the first effective
principle of all good, that is, His own substantial goodness?
True, there is no good which can be intrinsically added to Him
or desired for Him. Man can, however, in a broad sense, exercise efficacious benevolence toward God as He is in Himself by
taking complacency in Him, that is, by rejoicing in the infinite
goodness and perfections of God precisely because they are His
goodness and perfections. Complacency in God as He· is in
Himself can be considered as efficacious benevolence in the
sense that one would do anything he could to promote God's·
intrinsic welfare if such a thing were possible. This disposition
of soul is thus beautifully expressed by St. Francis de Sales:
I have said to God: Thou art my God, full of immense goodness,
Who hast no need of my good or that of any others; if, however, it
were possible for Thee to need some good, I would never cease to
desire that good for Thee and to procure it for Thee, I would gladly
surrender my life and everything most dear to me.60
There is, however, a way in which man can exercise efficacious
benevolence toward God in a more strict sense, namely, by
desiring and striving to promote the external glory of God,
which, though it does not pertain to His Own intrinsic welfare,
pertains, nevertheless, to the welfare of God considered exteriorily on the part of creatures inasmuch as it is a manifestation
by creatures of their appreciation and love of the intrinsic goodness of God. By striving to promote the appreciation and love
of God both in themselves and others, creatures are in a sense
giving to God things which He Himself does not possess, for
the appreciation and love of His goodness by creatures is something which only creatures can give. Once God has created
man, His greatest desire in man's regard is that man appreciate
and love His goodness and that man thus move toward the end
80

Treatise on the Love of God, Book V, chapter 6.

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LEO M. BOND

for which he is destined, namely union with God Himself. To
desire and to strive to promote the eternal glory of God is,
therefore, to exercise efficacious benevolence toward God, since
it is to wish for Him a good which He desires, even though that
good be,. strictly speaking, not God's good but man's.
How does God exercise benevolence toward man?' The
answer is too obvious to require discussion. If benevolence is
the willing of good to another for the other's sake, every act of
God's will that in any way pertains to man is an act of supreme
and infinite benevolence, for it is impossible for God to will
anything in man's regard except good and the good which He
wills to man He wills solely for man's own welfare, without any
view to His own advantage or felicity. God's benevolence
toward man is, moreover, a supremely efficacious benevolence,
for the good which He wills for man, He infallibly effects, unless
man himself places an obstacle in the way. Every good which is
in man or which comes to man is a direct effect of God's efficacious well-wishing. Man's very existence is the effect of divine
benevolence; his elevation to the supernatural order completely
exhausts all the possibilities of benevolence, for by it God not
only willed for man the Supreme Good which is Himself, but He
made it possible for man to attain that Good. Divine providence, predestination, all the gifts of nature and grace are the
effects of divine benevolence, coming to man as perfect gratuities, the results of the self-diffusiveness of God's own goodness.
Even the so-called evils which befall man are the results of
God's benevolence, permitted by God for the ultimate welfare
of the one who suffers them, or for the welfare of other men.
Sin, the only real evil, is not the effect of God's will; it is the
effect of man's will, though God's permissive will allows it
because He has endowed man with free-will. Even out of sin,
however, God often brings good to the sinner. The remedies
which God gives for sin are outstanding examples of His benevolence. What need be said to prove the supreme benevolence
of man's redemption by the Son of God, Christ's institution of
the Church, the sacraments, all the means for the attainment of
man's ultimate end? God's benevolence might be said to

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

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extend even into hell, for terrible as it is, it is a far more lenient
punishment than the sins of man deserve.
There remains but one of the essential notes of friendship
to discuss, namely, the mutual knowledge of reciprocal benevolence, which was the second point in Aristotle's definition of
friendship. How this applies to the friendship of charity on the
part of God is also self-evident, because God knows exactly how
much love and benevolence toward Him there is in the heart of
every just man. Man knows by faith of God's love and benevolence toward him. The Sacred Scriptures abound with God's
protestations of love and benevolence toward man, of His
friendship and tender solicitude for the images of Himself He
has fashioned, for the sons He has adopted by grace. Man can,
moreover, have a sufficient knowledge of his own love for God,
at least by the conjectural knowledge of signs. Though without
a divine revelation he cannot know with certainty that he is
in the state of grace and in the friendship of God, he can at
least know the great probability of it-his own heart will tell
him so.61
Thus we bring to a close our comparison of human and
divine friendship. We have considered how all the dispositive
and essential requirements of true and perfect friendship are
adequately fulfilled in the relationship between man and God,
which is established by grace and the infused virtue of charity.
We have considered: first, how the radical requirement of similarity is realized between man and God inasmuch as the natural
likeness which man bears to God by reason of his intellectual
nature is perfected and supernaturalized by the special assimilation effected by grace operating through the theological
virtues of faith, hope and charity, the moral virtues and the
gifts of the Holy Ghost. We have considered, secondly, how
the requirement of inte:rcommunication between friends is
realized between man and God by grace inasmuch as by faith
man comes to an adequate though only imperfect knowledge of
God as He has revealed Himself to man, and inasmuch as, by
prayer, man communicates with God in a most intimate manner
61

Summa Theol., q. 112, a. 5.

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LEO M. BOND

and God with man through the operation of the gifts of the
Holy Ghost. We have considered, thirdly, how the three essential notes of friendship, mutual benevolence, mutually known
and based on an honest good, are fully realized in the relationship established between man and God by charity, inasmuch
as by charity man loves God as He is in Himself and wishes
Him well for His own sake, hence he loves God with a love of
benevolence; and God loves man as he is in himself inasmuch
as the good which is in man is a participation of God's Own
goodness, hence God's love is benevolent in the most absolute
sense. This love of benevolence is mutually known by God and
man insofar as God can read man's heart, and man, by faith,
knows of God's benevolent love for him. By the testimony of
his own conscience and the dictates of his heart man knows at
least conjecturally that he truly loves God and is in the state of
friendship with God.
We conclude, therefore, that the friendship between man and
God, though it is of necessity analogical, as is any relationship
predicated of man and God, is, nevertheless, a true friendship
in the literal sense of the word and, indeed, one vastly more
sublime than the friendship which exists between man and
man, both by reason of its object, which is God's own goodness
and by reason of the superior manner in which it attains its
object.
Our consciousness of the fact that between ourselves and God
there exists a true friendsip, can be for us an inexhaustible
source of consolation and encouragement, opening up to us as
it does, vast realms of possibility as to the intimacy of union
with God which we are capable of attaining. When applied to
the Divine Friend, how profoundly significant become the words
of the Holy Spirit, " A faithful friend is a strong
and
he that hath found him hath found a treasure. . . . A faithful
friend is the medicine of life and immortality." 62
LEO' M. BOND,

Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.
•• Eccles., vi, 14-16.

O.P.

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PARTICULARS

E

VERY philosophical system has problems which belong
only to itself and which are either non-existent or quite
peripheral in othel" systems. Absolute Idealism, for
instance, does not have to explain the" affinity" that thecategories have for transcendent reality, a question of central importance in the Kantian critique of knowledge. Similarly, the
problem of individuation does not exist within a nomalistic
philosophy as the latter considers individuals the only reality
and universals pure products of the mind or even as " operational" indications. In like manner, Thomism has some problems which are meaningful only within the totality of Thomistic
conceptions. One of these prob1ems regards the manner in
which the human intellect becomes cognizant of material
particulars.
This problem is of pivotal importance. Though, at first sight,
it may seem that the intellectual cognition of particulars represents but a minor detail-one meriting attention only for the
sake of completing Thomistic psychology-it is in fact a problem that must be analyzed and solved if it is not to become
a serious stumbling-block for Thomistic philosophy. This
danger becomes apparent when one considers the principles
involved: the principle of individuation by matter, the immateriality of the intellect, and the origin of knowledge in sensecognition. Nobody can deny that these principles are
fundamental to Thomistic philosophy. If we are to retain
them, it behooves us to explain more clearly how intellectual
cognition of particulars takes place. To that elucidation the
following pages aspire to contribute.
During the last thirty years experimental psychology has
accumulated a number of facts apparently irreconcilable with
the Thomistic principles of intellectual cognition. There are,

95

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RUDOLF ALLERS

of course, facts of which St. Thomas was absolutely ignorantthey were discovered only many centuries after his time-and
some of them present certain problems to Thomistic philosophy. One may try to apply the principles of his philosophy
and to devise a theory of the facts based on his principles, but
one cannot expect to find a ready-made solution in the writings
of Aquinas. There are other problems, however, of which St.
Thomas was perfectly aware, but which have taken on another
aspect since his time by reason of more recent discoveries. In
these cases one has to ask whether the ideas of St. Thomas can
be preserved without modification, or whether they have to be
adapted-without however abandoning basic principles-to
the new facts. Finally there are problems which arise within
the system of Thomism itself. Some of these problems result
from certain obscurities in the texts, or their problematic character may be due to some incompleteness and indecision of the
author. The problem of how the intellect comes to know the
material particular seems to be one of these problems for which
St. Thomas himself did not discover a thoroughly satisfactory
solution. That this may be the case seems to be indicated by a
noteworthy mode of expression: when speaking of the intellect
gaining knowledge of singulars through what he calls " reflexion
on or upon the phantasm" (reflexio in vel super phantasma),
St. Thomas never omits to qualify his term by calling it a "kind
of" (quaedam) reflexion, while he mentions other ideas closely
related to this one without any such restriction; thus, he speaks
of the " complete " return (reditio completa) of the intellect to
itself. It seems as if Aquinas himself was not quite satisfied
with the solution he proposed and by adding the qualification,
" a kind of," he meant to indicate the necessity of a further
elucidation.
The problem and the solution proposed by St. Thomas are
well known. A brief recapitulation will be enough. The intellect evidently has a knowledge of material particulars. This is
evident, since judging is an achievement of the intellect and
since among judgments there are some whose subject is a particular and whose predicate is a universal: Socrates is a man.

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Furthermore there are syllogisms in which the minor concerns a
particular, as in the classical example for the mode barbara:
All men are mortal, Caius is a man, Caius is mortal. To these
frequently cited examples one may add another case. The
mere recognition of a thing as this ()111£ implies an intellectual
knowledge of the particular. True, the mere recognition, that
is, the mere knowledge that I have already seen this thing
before, does not necessarily entail the cooperation of the intellect; but the very moment I give the thing a name, calling it a
man, a dog, a table, I connect a universal concept with the sensual evidence of the thing, and therefore bring together somehow the intellect and the particular.
Another group of facts which makes an intellectual knowledge of the particular necessary has to do with action. All
action ultimately regards particular material things and situations. We behave toward these according to our principles and
the decision of our will. The will, however, is an intellectual
faculty.
Again, there is the fact that the intellect knows the sensory
faculties which are themselves material. Furthermore, the
intellect knows that its universal notion applies to material
particulars-it is natural to the universal to be predicated
of the many (universale natum est de pluribus praedicari) .1
The intellect knows, too, from what kind of particulars the
notion has been abstracted by means of the phantasm.
Finally, we are told that the intellect needs to return to the
phantasm in order to make clear to itself concepts it has formed.
When we have in mind some general notion and want to give an
illustration of it, we turn to the phantasm. This can be done
only if the intellect knows somehow the phantasm it needs, else
it could not well command imagination to produce the right
phantasm. The phantasm itself, however, is material.
The answer given by St. Thomas is well known. The intellect, he tells us, is incapable of any direct knowledge of the
material particular because the intellect is immaterial. Any
1 Or it has

"/

habitudinem ad multa; Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 3. ad Ium.

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knowledge the intellect has of the particular is indirect or accidental. This knowledge is obtained by a certain turning back
to the phantasm (quaedam reflexio ad phantasma), that is,
by the intellect retracing the steps which led it from the phantasm to the intelligible species (species intelligibilis) and to the
concept (verbum mentis) itself.
It cannot be denied that this explanation is far from being
satisfactory or, at least, from being complete. Many questions
arise and have to be answered before this theory can become
truly acceptable. These questions are sometimes alluded to by
Aquinas; they are not discussed in detail and they are not
answered.
The problem of the intellectual cognition of material particulars 2 is closely related to the general idea Aquinas has formed
of the role played by sense cognition in the formation of concepts. A discussion of the special problem can be carried
through only if the general thesis is somewhat recapitulated.
It is the more advisable to consider the relation between image
or phantasm and concept, since there is an apparent contradiction between the Thomistic view and the statement of
experimental psychology regarding " imageless thought."
Before reporting on the ideas of St. Thomas and summarizing
the main passages which deal with the problem of the imageconcept relation and the intellectual cognition of particulars,
a methodological remark seems indicated. Many authors quote
the various works of Aquinas as if these writings all belonged
to the same time. But one does well to consider the possibility
of a change of opinion or a· development of ideas even in St.
Thomas. It is true that there is, in his philosophy, no such
division as that found between the pre-critical and the critical
phase in Kant's ideas, nor is there any sign of such a development as that which Aristotle's ideas underwent from the Protreptikos to the De Anima. Nevertheless it is inadvisable to
put, for example, the Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum or
• For brevity's sake, the term "particular" will be used in the special sense of
" material particular," and when there is a reference to immaterial particulars, this
will be expressly mentioned. The same applies to the term "singular."

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the Quaestiones Disputatae de V eritate on the same level with
the Summa Theologica or the Commentaries on the CCYrpus

Aristotelicum.
The first part of the present article will summarize briefly
the views of St. Thomas on the relation between image and
concept, or between the imagination and intellect. Having thus
gained a comprehensive idea of the Thomistic viewpoint on the
question still to be answered, we shall then proceed to survey
in a summary manner the data of experimental psychology
insofar as they have an immediate bearing on our problem.
The next part will deal with the views proposed by some older
and some recent Thomistic treatises. Finally, we shall attempt
to answer the question and to develop a consistent theory of
intellectual knowledge.

I
The classical Thomistic passage on image and thought is, of
course, that found in the Summa Theologica, Part I, Question
84, Article 7. The main thesis is contained in the first sentence
of the body of the article:
I answer that, it is impossible for our intellect, in the present
state of life in which the soul is united to a passible body to understand anything actually, except by turning to the phantasm. 3
This is proved by two arguments, or indicia, taken from
observation: whenever the sensitive powers, imagination and
memory, are impaired, intellectual operation suffers. The intellect, therefore, needs the sensory powers for achieving its own
operation.
Wherefore it is clear that for the intellect to understand actually,
not only when it acquires fresh knowledge, but also when it applies
knowledge already acquired, there is need for the act of the
imagination and of the other powers.•
• " Respondeo dicendum, quod impossibile est intellectum nostrum, secundum
praesentis vitae statum quo passibili corpori conjungitur, aliquid intelligere in actu,
nisi convertendo se ad phantasma.
• " Unde manifestum est, quod ad hoc quod intellectus actu intelligat, non solum
accipiendo scientiam de novo, sed etiam utendo scientia iam acqnisita, requiritur
actus imaginationis et ceterarum virtutum (loc. cit.) .

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ALLERS

Secondly, anyone can experience this of himself, that when he
tries to understand something, he forms certain phantasms to serve
him by way of examples, in which as it were, he examines what he is
desirous of understanding. It is for this reason that when we wish
to help someone to understand something, we lay examples before
him, from which he forms phantasms, for the purpose of understanding."
The universal nature exists only in the particular thing. But
this nature is the object of the intellect. Particulars, however,
are apprehended by sense cognition and represented by the
phantasm. The intellect, therefore, in order actually to understand its proper object, must " convert itself " to the phantasm.
Thus only can it envision the universal nature existing in the
particular.
Not even incorporeal things-of which there can be no image
-are conceived without phantasms:
Incorporeal things, of which there are no phantasms, are known
to us by comparison with sensible bodies of which there are phantasms .... And, therefore, when we understand something about
these things, we need to turn to phantasms of bodies, although
there are no phantasms of the things themselves. •
Thus it seems that according to St. Thomas there is neither
intellectual knowledge nor any intellectual operation without
imagination taking part in the process. Even concepts already
formed cannot be actually understood without reproduction of
the phantasm and without the intellect turning anew to the phantasm. The question, however, arises whether this phantasm
has necessarily to be the one from which the concept was originally abstracted or whether another phantasm may not take
• " Secundo, quia hoc quilibet in seipso experiri potest, quod quando aliquis
conatur aliquid intelligere, format aliqua phantasmata p;r modum exemplorum, in
quibus quasi inspiciat quod intelligere studet. Et inde est etiam quod quando
aliquem volumus facere aliquid intelligere, proponimus ei exempla, ex quibus sibi
phantasmata formare possit ad intelligendum (loc. cit.) .
• " ... quorum non sunt phantasmata, cognoscuntur a nobis per comparationem
ad corpora sensibilia, quorum sunt phantasmata ... Et ideo cum de huiusmodi
aliquid intelligimus, necesse habemus converti ad phantasmata, licet ipsorum non
sint phantasmata (ibid., ad Sum.).

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the place of the former. Furthermore, it seems doubtful
whether the phantasm used by the intellect in considering
incorporeal things is of such a kind as to allow for a sufficient
understanding of the thing considered.
Conversion to the phantasm has, it becomes cleaJ,", a double
meaning. It signifies the turning of the intellect towards a
phantasm for the sake of abstracting the universal notion for
the first time; and it signifies the " returning " to the phantasm
for the sake of thinking anew or making clear-to oneself or
to another-the notion already abstracted and preserved in
the possible intellect (intellectus possibilis) .7 The acquisition
of knowledge is achieved by such a conversion to the phantasm
in the sensitive faculties, namely, the imagination, the particular reason (vis cogitativa), and the memory. 8
There is a particular problem implied in this passage, which
can be only mentioned incidentally. What is the precise meaning of the statement that the phantasm is in all three sensitive
powers? It is of course in the imagination; it is also, though
in a different mode, in memory from whose storehouse, so to
speak, imagination draws its materials. But it is difficult to see
how the phantasm can be in the vis cogitativa.
The same passage contains another interesting statement. The
achievement of intellectual operation in returning to the phantasm involves not only the intellect, but also the inferior powers. These powers thus acquire a certain aptitude (quaedam
habilitas) for assisting the intellect to envision the intelligible
nature with greater ease in the phantasms. This remark is
important. By it is indicated that the operation of the intellect is associated with an accompanying operation of the sensitive faculties.' 9 We have therefore to suppose that there exists
a certain coordination between the intellectual and the sensory
part of the soul.
• For the conservation of the species intelligibles in the intellect itself, cf. Summa
Theol., I, q. 89, a. 5, c. This passage refers to the anima separata. In this article
however all questions regarding the separated soul are discarded; we deal exclusively
with the psychology of cognition.
8 Ibid.
9 Summa Theol., I, q. 89, a. 5, c.

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The twofold meaning of conversion implies a twofold
" movement " between the two terms of the sensitive and the
intellective powers. In the original formation of a concept by
abstraction there is a "movement " from the senses to the intellect; in the " return " of the intellect to the phantasm there
is a movement from the mind to the sense (motus ab anima
ad sensum) .10
It did not escape St. Thomas that the phantasm sometimes
is not the one from which the notion had been abstracted.
There is a passage in the Q. D. ileJ Veritate which reads:
Thus in intellectual vision, one may see the very essence of a
thing without looking at the representation itself of the thing,
although sometimes one sees that essence through another representation, as we know from experience. 11

One and the same phantasm may, on the other hand, serve
as material for abstracting several universals and, accordingly,
be used in the " return " of the intellect as an example for
several different concepts. 12
St. Thomas seems even to admit that there are certain concepts to which no phantasm corresponds as a representation
strictly speaking. The concept of genus, for instance, "is not
a representation of anything existing outside the mind." 18 He
also repeatedly points out that certain things cannot be represented directly by images. These things we know either by the
relation of cause and effect, or by another relation. The latter
is the case with the concept of prime matter: " . . . it (the
intellect) does not know primary matter except as proportionate to form." 14
One ought to distinguish the thinking of a mere and isolated
concept from other contents of the intellect. When speaking
II Sent., d. XX, q. ad Sum.
Q. D. de VBT., q. 10, a. 8, ad
contra.
12 Ibid., q. 8, a. IS, ad 4um.: In eisdem phantasmatibus ratio nostra in diversa
tendit cogitatione.
18 I Sent., d. II, q. I, a. 8, sol.; also III Sent., d. XXill, q. I, a.
sol.
"Swmma Theol., I, q. 87, a. I, c.; In VII Metaph., lect.
In VIII Metaph.,
lect. I.
10

11

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of the conversion to the phantasm, St. Thomas seems to refer
always to single notions which have to be " inspected " in the
phantasm in order to be actually understood. But it is apparently otherwise with propositions. Propositions are units,
because they have one single meaning. The intellectual operation which finds its expression in a proposition is not a series of
isolated steps. Such a series could never result in one meaning
unless there be another synthesizing power. The intellect
conceives by its capacity of " combining and dividing " the
" object" of a sentence as one. (This one object is what Bolzano called the proposition per se-Satz an sich-or what
Meinong means by his term Das Objectic.) St. Thomas compares the understanding or the conceiving of a sentence with the
awareness of a continuum .
. . . for we understand a continuous whole simultaneously, and
not part by part: and in like manner we understand a proposition,
and not the subject first and the predicate afterwards; because we
know all the parts by one species of the whole.'"
In this way our intellect understands together both the subject
and the predicate, as forming parts of one proposition; and also
two things compared together, according as they agree in one
point of comparison. From this it is evident that many things
insofar as they are distinct, cannot be understood as one; but insofar as they are comprised under one intelligible concept, they can
be understood together. Now everything is actually intelligible
according as its image is in the intellect. All things, then, which
can be known by one intelligible species, are known as one intelligible object, and therefore are understood simultaneously .1 "

A proposition, therefore, is understood without a correspond15 " Simul enim intelligit totum continuum, non partem post partem; et similiter
simul intelligit propositionem, non prius subjectum et postea praedicatum; quia
secundum unam totius speciem omnes partes cognoscit" (I Ccmt. Gent., 55) .
18 " Et sic etiam intellectus noster simul intelligit subjectum
et praedicatum,
prout sunt partes unius propositionis; et duo comparata, secundum quod conveniunt
in una comparatione. Ex quo patet quod multa, secundum quod sunt distincta; non
possunt simul intelligi; sed secundum quod uniuntur in uno intelligibili, sic simul
intelliguntur. Unumquodque autem est intelligibile in actu, secundum quod eius
similitudo est in intellectu. Quaecumque igitur per unam speciem intelligibilem
cognosci possunt, cognoscuntur ut unum intelligibile; et ideo simul cognoscuntur "
(Summa Theol., I, q. 58, a. !l, c.) .

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ing phantasm. Such a phantasm is indeed impossible. Phantasms are either images of particulars, or they are particulars
illustrating or symbolizing a general notion. There are also
phantasms which symbolize relations, sometimes even rather
complicated ones. But there are doubtlessly many relations
and many propositions expressing these relations which, by their
nature, cannot be symbolized by any phantasm. The great
importance of this remark of St. Thomas will become clear in
connection with the question of "imageless thought."
There are, apparently, two meanings of the term to understand (intelligere) . On the one hand, this term signifies the
intellectual awareness of a universal nature; here the original
sense of intus
seems to be the appropriate one. On the
other hand, intelligere signifies all kinds of intellectual operation outside of abstraction and the formation of the ,concept.
lntelligere in the first sense demands the conversion to the
phantasm. But St. Thomas evidently considered the possibility
of there being degrees in this operation. He at least twice 17
points out that the phantasms are particularly necessary to
people of a lesser intellectual capacity; these latter must be
given particular examples to enable them to understand universal ideas.
In reporting the views of St. Thomas on the intellectual
knowledge of particulars a more or less chronological procedure
seems advisable since there is a certain modification to be
observed in his teaching-if not in the essentials, at least in the
mode of its formulation.
1. In his Commentary on the Four Books of the Sentences,
St. Thomas, after summarizing the problem, gives this solution:
In that cognition which is acquired through forms that are the
causes of things, or through the representation of such forms, one
arrives at singulars although the forms themselves are entirely
immaterial; the reason for this is that the primary cause of a thing
is that which pours being (esse) into things, but being (esse)
regards both matter and form in common. Hence forms of this
kind lead directly to a knowledge of both, that is to say, of matter
"'II Cont. Gent., 98; Summa Theol., I, q. 98, a. 1, c.

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and form; and for this reason things are known both in universal
and in singular through such cognition.
The soul, therefore, when conjoined with the body, does not know
except through forms received from things, and hence does not
directly know singulars through that cognoscitive faculty in which
forms are received from things in an entirely immaterial way,
but only through powers affixed to the organs.
Indirectly, however, and through a certain reflexion it knows
singulars even through the intellect-which does not employ an
organ-as happens when from its proper object it returns to the
knowing of its act, and from the act returns to the species, which
is the principle of knowing, and thence proceeds to consider the
phantasm from which the species was abstracted, and in this way
knows the singular through the phantasm. 1 "
The intellect is capable of making use of singulars in propositions and syllogisms insofar as it is bent toward the sensitive
functions (in quantum reflectitur ad potentias sensitivas) and
is somehow in touch with them (quodammodo continuatur cum
eis) . The intellect knows by means of an immaterial form
which may be the origin of knowledge both of universals and
of singulars (forma ... quae potest esse principium cognoscendi

universale et singularB) .19
In regard to the interesting and important notion of a
" continuity " between intellect and sensory faculties, St.
18 " In ilia cognitione quae est per formas, quae sunt rerum causae, vel earum
impressiones, pervenitur ad singnlaria, quamvis huiusmodi formae sint omnino
i=ateriales, eo quod causa rei prima est quae rehQs esse influit: esse autem communiter materiam et formam respicit. Unde huiusmodi formae ducunt directe in
cognitionem utriusque, sc., materiae et formae; et propter hoc per talem cognitionem
cognoscuntur res et in universali et in singnlari. Anima ergo cum corpori coniuncta
est non cognoscit nisi per formas a rebus acceptas; et ideo per potentiam illam
cognoscitivam in qua formae a rebus omnino immaterialiter recipiuntur, directe
singnlaria non cognoscit, sed solummodo per potentias organis affixas; sed indirecte
et per quandam reflexionem etiam per intellectum quo organo non utitur cognoscit
singnlaria; prout, sc., ex objecto proprio redit ad cognoscendum suum actum ex
quo actu redit in speciem quae est intelligendi principium; et ex ea procedit ad
considerandum phantasmata, ex quo species huiusmodi est abstracta; et sic per
phantasmata singnlare cognoscit" (IV Sent., d. L, q. l, a. S, sol. Cf. Q. D. de Ver.,
q. 2, a. 6, c, where the intellectual knowledge of the particular is stated to be
secundum continuationem quandam intellectus ad imaginationem).
19 Ibid., ad 2um et Sum contra.

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Thomas appeals to the particular reason, or the vis cogitativa,
as a medium between these two levels of mental operation:
The practical intellect, as said in Book III De Anima, in order
to make disposition concerning singulars needs the particular reason
through the mediumship of which universal opinion may be applied
to a particular work, as happens in a syllogism in which the major
is a universal-an opinion of the practical intellect-while the minor
is a singular-the estimate of the particular reason, which by
another name is called the vis cogitativa--and where the conclusion
consists of the choice of the work.""

The vis cogitativa is said to be within the confines of the
sensitive and intellective parts where the sensitive part attains
the intellect. 21
Anyone considering these statements will become aware of
a certain obscurity, or at least, incompleteness. The notion of
continuation and the exact nature of the vis cogitativa need
further determination. Moreover, it is not easy to understand
how the intellect arrives at the knowledge of the intelligible
species (species intelligibilis impressa), since what it knows is
the verbum mw.tis or the species expressa, the species impressa
being more of the nature of a process than of a content. Finally
there is the problem of the precise signification of the " kind of "
conversion or re:flexion.
St. Thomas then has the following in the Quaestiones
Disputatae de V eritate: The intellect is capable of knowing
truth. But true judgments may refer to universals or to singulars. The truth of a judgment of the latter kind, too, has to
be corroborated by intellectual re:flexion. This then is a
further reason for crediting the intellect with a knowledge of
singulars, since truth is known by a re:flexionof the intellect on
its own act and on the relation this act bears to the thing
itself.
(Truth) is known by the intellect due to the fact that the intellect reflects upon its act; not only that it knows its act, but that it
knows its proportion to the thing.••
•• Ibid., ad Sum contra.
III Sent., d. XXlll, q.

11

a.

ad Sum.

•• Q. D. de Ver., q. I, a. 9, c.

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But there is no direct intellectual knowledge of material
particulars.
The intellect gets in touch with the particulars
only accidentally:
insofar as it is continued by the sensitive powers which deal with
particulars. This continuation, however, is twofold. In one way
it occurs by the termination of the movement of the sensitive part
in the mind, as happens in movement that is from things to the
soul; thus the mind knows the singular through a certain refl.exion,
just as the mind in knowing its proper object-which is some universal nature-goes back again to the knowledge of its act, and
back further to the species, which is the principle of its act, and
then even further back to the phantasm from which the species
was abstracted, and in this way it receives some knowledge of the
singular. ·
In another way, (the continuation occurs) by the movement
from the soul to the thing, starting from the mind and proceeding to
the sensitive part; thus the mind rules the lower powers, and
involves itself with singulars through the mediation of the particular reason-a certain individual faculty that is also known as the
cogitative power (vis cogitativa) .
It is impossible to apply the universal proposition in the mind
concerp.ing operables to the particular act except through some
intermediate power capable of apprehending the singular. 23
The formation of a proposition about singulars is explained
again through a kind of reflexion (per quandam reflectionem) .24
One gets the impression, however, that St. Thomas himself did
not consider this solution as quite sufficient or as definitive.
18 " • • • per accidens singularibus se immiscet inquantum continuatur
viribus
sensitivis quae circa particularia versantur. Quae quidem continuatio est dupliciter.
Uno modo inquantum motus sensitivae partis terminatur ad mentem, sicut accidit in
motu qui est a rebus 1Ul animam, et sic mens singulare cognoscit per quandam
reflexionem, prout mens cognoscendo objectum suum, quod est aliqua natura
universalis, redit in cognitionem sui actus, et ulterius in speciem quae est actus
sui principium, et ulterius in phantasmata a quo species est abstracta; et sic aliquam
cognitionem de singulari accipit. Alio modo secundum quod motus, qui est ab
anima ad res, incipit a mente et procedit in partem sensitivam, prout mens regit
inferiores vires, et sic singularibus se immiscet, mediante ratione particulari quae
est potentia quaedam individualis quae alio nomine dicitur cogitativa . . . Universalem sententiam quam habet mens de operabilibus non est possibile applicari ad
particularem nisi per aliquam potentiam mediam apprehendentem singularem "
(ibid., q. 10, a. 5, c.).
1 'lbid., q. 10, a. 5, ad Sum.

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He remarks that the intellect, being altogether free of matter,
can be the origin of universal knowledge only, except perhaps
by a sort of turning back to the phantasm from which the
intelligible species were abstracted. 25
It may be noteworthy that there is a slight change of expression in these passages. While the Commentary on the Sentences speaks of the intellect considering the phantasm and
being reflected on itself, the term refl.exion on or upon the phantasm (reflexio ad-or supra---phantasma), occurs first in De
V eritate and is retained continuously afterwards.
3. In the fifty-ninth chapter of Book II of the Summa Contra
Gentiles, there is a remark intended to make clear the nature of
the continuation (continuatio):
Therefore by the intelligble form the possible intellect is in touch
with the phantasm which is in us, in the same way as the visual
power is in touch with color, which is in the stone. But this contact does not make the stone to see but to be seen.
The meaning is that the relation between the cognitive power
and the object this power becomes cognizant of is unilateral.
The properties of the stone are not altered by its being seen or
by the power of vision being continued to the stone. In a
similar manner, the phantasm does not become intelligible as
such by the intellect being continued to it. There is, however,
a great difference between these two cases. The medium
between the stone and the eye or the faculty of vision is of the
same nature as both these terms; both stone and sense belong to
the material order, even though the sense is" ennobled" as an
organ of the human composite, " in touch" with the spiritual
order. But the intellect is immaterial and the phantasm is
material. It is true that the phantasm does not contain the
individual matter of the singular thing it represents; but it is
material by its very nature, depending on an organ for its
existence. The reference to vision and the object seen is therefore not very helpful. One might refer, especially in regard to
the role played by the vis cogitativa, to the principle that the
•• Ibid., q. 19, a.

c.

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supreme of one order touches, or eventually is even the same
as, the lowest of the next higher order. 26 But in applying this
principle to the problem of the relation between intellect and
phantasm the difficulty remains as before. This is more so the
case, since anything is known only insofar as it is actual, never
insofar as it is potentiaJ.2 7 But the phantasm can never become
actually intelligible; it is so only potentially insofar as it makes
possible the disengaging of the universal and abstract form. 28
It has been pointed out that the problem of the relation
between the intellectual and sensitive powers arises not only in
regard to knowledge but also in regard to will and action. The
imperrium exercised by the intellectual part of the soul over the
sensitive powers is not less a problem: how can the immaterial
dominate the material without being " mixed up " with it in a
more than accidental manner? Aquinas repeatedly states this
domination of the power by the higher faculties. Thus, for
example, in the eighty-first chapter of Book III of the Summa
Contra Gentiws: " ... the sensitive power is subject to the
intellective, and is controlled by its rule."
There is still another fact which shows that the intellect is
concerned with the material order. Judgments are of the
intellect; but in expressing our judgments we make use of the
temporal determinations; present, past, and future are characteristic notes of all propositions. The intellect is beyond
time. Time measures only motion in regard to space and can be
applied only to what is somehow in space. The intellect in
forming its propositions by composition or, division applies the
intelligibles it previously abstracted to the things. 29 But to
apply notions to things, the intellect, it seeins, must have got
hold in some manner of the things. Again one is confronted by
the difficulty of explaining how the intellect ever succeeds in
getting hold of material contents.
4. In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas deals with the prob' One and in
lem mainly in Part I, Question Eighty-six, Article
•• III Sent., d. XXVI, q. 1, a. 2; Q. D. de Ver., q. 15, a. 1, c.; II Cont. Gent., 91.
28 Ibid., and III Cont. Gent., 46.
•• II Cont. Gent., 98.
•• II Cont. Gent., 96; Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 5, ad 2um.

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Question Eighty-nine, Article Four. But the argument of the
Summa is taken up at greater length in Quaestio Di:rputata
De Anima, and will be reported together with other passages
taken from the latter.
The relation of the intellectual faculties to material things is
discussed chiefly in connection with action and, especially, with
the habit of prudence. Actions are about singulars and have to
proceed from rea::;ons regarding these singulars. Reason or
intellect
. . . first and chiefly is concerned with universals. . . .; the conclusions of syllogisms are not only universal, but also particular
because the intellect by a kind of reflexion extends to matter." ao
Prudence does not reside in the external senses . . . but in the
interior sense, which is perfected by memory and experience so as
to judge promptly of particular experience ... it (prudence) is
chiefly. in the reason, yet by a kind of application it extends to the
sense."'

And:
... the understanding which is a part of prudence is a right estimate
of some particular end."'

One encounters here again the " sort of " reflexion (quaedam reflexio) by which the intellect " extends " 88 itself towards
matter. But there is something more. We are told of a sort of
applicatien (quaedam applicatio) which enables the intellect
to reach an interior sense. There can be no doubt, though the
term is not mentioned, that it is the via cogitativa to which
allusion is made. This passage is noteworthy because it indi80 " primo et principaliter universalium ... ; syllogismorum conclusiones non sunt
solum universales sed etiam particulares quia intellectus per quandam reflexionem
ad materiam se extendit" (Summa Tkeol., ll-11, q. 47, a. 8, ad lum).
81 " Prudentia
consistit . . . in sensu interiori qui perficitur . . . ad prompte
judicandum de particularibus expertis ... principaliter quidem est (prudentia) in
ratione; per quandam applicationem pertingit usque ad huiusmodi sensum " (ibid.,
ad Sum).
•• " . . . intellectus qui pouitur pars prudentiae est quaedam recta aestimatio de
aliquo particulari fine" (ibid., q. ;49, a. 2, ad lum).
""-Ibid., I-IT. q. 60, a. 6, c.

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cates a certain difficulty regarding the relation of the intellect
and the interior senses; as the latter are material one may justly
question what kind of an application this might be.
While we are told on the one hand that the intellect comes
to know the singular only accidentally, we hear on the other
hand that this knowledge is essential to the perfection of the
intellect. A full knowledge of reality is possible only by means
of a knowledge about particulars; only particular things are
complete. 34 Knowledge of the universal alone is an indistinct
knowledge; 35 The achievement of intellect is to know truth;
but truth only about universals is incomplete and but half of
truth. The intellectual knowledge of particulars, be it accidentally on what regards its mode of origin, is necessary for the
perfection of the intellect.
The knowledge of singulars pertains to the perfection of the
intellective soul not in speculative knowledge, but in practical
knowledge, which is imperfect without the knowledge of singulars,
wherein operations exist.... ••
In one remarkable passage, St. Thomas states that the intellective soul is potentially disposed for receiving species. By
" species " is meant images of particular things, for St. Thomas
says: " The intellectual soul is indeed actually immaterial, but
it is in potentiality to determinate species." 87 Obviously, no
other interpretation of " species " will stand; the opposition of
immateriality and species can have no other meaning.
5. Quaestio Disputata De Anima. The idea that no knowledge of universals can lead to a knowledge of the singular is
emphasized in this question. No combination of universals is
absolutely individual so as to constitute any given particular
thing, for it is always possible that the same combination of
•• Ibid., I, q. 13, a. 1.
•• Ibid., q. 85, a. 3, c., 11 Cont. Gent., 98.
36 " Cognitio singularium
non pertinet ad perfectionem animae intellectivae secundum cognitionem speculativam; pertinet tamen ad perfectionem eius secundum
cognitionem practicam, quae non perficitur absque cognitione singularium in quibus
operatur" (ibid., Ill, q. 11, a. 1, ad 3um).
37 Ibid., I, q. 79, a. 4, ad 4um.

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"Universals be found in another singular. 38 The knowledge of
reality, therefore, depends on the knowledge of singulars, but
the immaterial cannot become the principle of a knowledge of
material singulars. 89 This remark refers to the separated soul
which is said to know singulars only in universale. 40 The same
is asserted of the intellect of the soul united to the body, for
" a soul while joined to the body cannot know singulars through
the intellect" 41 but this means, evidently, only through the
intellect and does not exclude intellectual cognition of particulars through the cooperation of intellectual and sensory faculties. This is expressly stated in the answer to the first
objection:
The soul while joined to the body knows singular things through
the intellect, although this knowledge is obtained, not directly, but
through a kind of reflexion. Thus, when the intellect has understood or grasped the universal, it returns to a consideration of its
own act, the intelligible species, which is the principle of its act,
and the origin of the species. In this way, it arrives at a consideration of the phantasm and the singular things with which the
phantasm are concerned. This process of reflexion can be accomplished only through the assistance of the cogitative power, or the
imagination! 9
The cooperation of the imagination is taken for granted, since
this power has to supply the phantasm to the intellect, and the
cooperation of the vis cogitativa is also necessary. This however, does not solve the difficulty. Even if the intellect is
capable of " extending " itself to the sensory faculties, the mode,
or the nature, of this" extension" is not apparent. Moreover,
the nature of the " action " of the senses on the intellect is not
clear. St. Thomas refers to this action in a discussion on the
38 Cf. Q. D. de An., a. !!0, c.
•o Cf. ibid., a. 12.
•• Cf. ibid., a. 7.
"Ibid., a. 15.
•• " Anima conjuncta corpori per intellectum cognoscit singularia, non quidem
directe sed per quandam reflexionem; inquantum, sc., ex hoc quod apprehendit suum
intelligibile, revertitur ad considerandum suum actum et speciem intelligibilem quae
est principium suae operationis; et eius speciei originem; et sic venit in consideraSed haec reflexio
tionelp. phantasmatum et singularium quorum sunt phantasmata.
compleri non potest nisi per adjunctionem virtutis cogitativae vel imaginativae "
(ibid., a. !!0, ad lum contra).

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possible presence of sensory functions in a separated soul. 48
He compares the product of the sensory functions to a ship
which carries people across a river, and which is not needed
once it has brought them to the other side. Thus, the images
which dispose for the reception of the intelligible species are not
needed after these species have been formed. This applies only
to the conservation of the species in the intellect; with regard to
the intellectual operation St. Thomas considers the phantasm
indispensable. In the De M errwria et De Reminiscentia, for
example, he says: " The possible intellect of man has need of
phantasms, not only for acquiring intelligible species, but also
for any re-examination it might wish to make of the acquired
species, in the phantasms." 44
6. In Boethii de Trinitate. the necessity of the cooperation
of the lower powers is stressed again:
Knowledge is principally concerned with universal natures on
which it is built. Secondarily, and by a kind of reflexion, it is
concerned with other things. In this way, knowledge treats of
those things to which the universal natures belong, in that it
applies those natures to particular things that pertain to inferior
powers.••

In this treatise, St. Thomas also speaks of " a connaturality
of our intellect to the phantasm," which expression indicates
that the intellect is, so to speak, helpless without the phantasm.
Another question refers to the particular kind of phantasms
to which the intellect turns when renewing its understanding of
some concepts formed previously:
In this life, our intellect cannot begin to know without a phantasm,
but this does not mean that our knowledge is so bound up with the
phantasm that we consider the things known to be, in all respects,
exactly like the phantasm through which it is known.••
•• Ibid., a. 15, c.
In de Mem. et Rem., lect.
n. 816, (Ed. Pirotta).
•• " Scientia est de aliquo dupliciter . . . Alio modo est de aliquibus secundario
et quasi per reflexionem quandam, et sic de rebus illis est quarum illae rationes sunt,
inquantum rationes illas applicat ad res etiam particulares quarum sunt adminiculo
inferiorum virium" (q. 5,
ad 4um).
•• " Dicendum quod intellectus nostri operatio non est in praesenti statu sine
44

8

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Though this remark deals primarily with our knowledge of
immaterial substances (the body of the article notes that the
likenesses of sensible things, when used to represent immaterial substances, are called by Dionysius " dissimiJar similars "), the psychological fact it reports has a general significance. In acquiring . knowledge, the phantasm is needed,
however spiritual that knowledge may be; that is without
question. 47 The phantasm, however, need not have a true
likeness to the thing or things " meant " by the concept.
Rather, the phantasm from which the intellect starts to get an
idea of an immaterial object may be merely an effect of the
immaterial object, and the idea is arrived at by way of
causality, negation, or excellency.
7. In Libros .Arist. de .Anima, the various passages which
refer to our problem reproduce what has been said before. It
is not necessary to quote them in extenso; only one remark contains a special viewpoint which ought not to be overlooked,
VIZ.,

We would be unable to sense the difference between a sweet thing
and a white thing, unless there were some sensitive power [namely,
the common sense, St. Thomas, In De An., lll, 3, n. 601] which
understood both. So, also, we would be unable to understand the
comparison of the universal to the particular, unless there were
some power which understood both of these. The intellect, therefore, knows both the universal and the particular, but it knows each
in a different fashion!"
In sense cognition, the common sense is beyond the external
senses, of which it is, at the same time, the root and the synthesis. Since, in the intellectual order, there is no higher faculty
phanta.Smate quantum ad principium cognitionis; non tamen oportet ut semper
nostra cognitio ad phantasmata terminetur ut sc.' illud quod apprehendimus judicemus esse tale quale est phantasmata per quod apprehendimus" (q. 6,
ad
•• Q. D. de Malo., q. 16, a. 8, ad 8um.
••" Non possemus sentire difl'erentiam dulcis vel albi nisi esset una potentia
sensitiva (sc. sensus communis, v. In De An., m, 8, nn. 601) communis quae
cognosceret utrumque; ita etiam non possemus cognoscere comparationem universalis
ad particulare, nisi esset una potentia quae nosceret utrumque. Intellectus igitur
utrumque cognoscit, sed alio et alio modo" (In III de An., 8, n. 712).

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than the intellect itself, the knowledge of the universal and the
particular has to be achieved by the intellect. Here a difficulty arises. The " comparison of the universal to the particular " is expressed in a proposition. The proposition is a unity;
it does not consist of separated steps, as if the intellect turned,
first to the phantasm representing the subject, then to the
universal to be applied as predicate. It seems, then, that the
modes by which the intellect knows the two terms should be
of a kind in order to allow their conjunction in the unity of the
proposition, but the universal is known directly, and the particular by " re:Bexion." Of this difference nothing is experienced
in the act of judgment so far as we know. (It is true, however,
that these details of intellectual operation have not been studied
sufficiently by means of experiments. This is one of the many
problems which still await an experimental analysis.)
8. Quodlibet, I, a. I, c., contains two remarks which should
be considered. The first states that for a singular to be known,
it is necessary that there be a likeness of the singular, insofar
as it is a singular, in the cognitive power. Since the intellect
arrives at a knowledge of the particular by reflection, there
ought to be such a likeness in the intellect. It is difficult to
imagine its nature.
The other remark repeats the theory of " re:Bexion,"but there
is a slight difference in expression. The re:Bexionis said to turn,
not on the phantasm which is a product of the power of imagination, but on the sensory powers themselves--refle:vio ad
potentia$ sensitivas.

*

*

*

The passages recorded above do not contribute much to
removing obscurities which we noted in regard to the Thmnistic
It
theory of the intellectual knowledge of particulars.
is not clear what kind of operation this " returning to the
phantasm " is, nor are the reasons which make it possible evident. How the material intellect is capable of " extending "
itself to the sensory powers, which are material, remains unexplained, and it is the same with the problem of how the intellect
can return to the intelligible species, which is apparently not of

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RUDOLF ALLERS

a nature to become an object of intellectual operation. Before
attempting some kind of elucidation of the Thomistic theory
it is well to consider the facts, since St. Thomas himself refers
the reader, more than once, to experience as a proof of his conception of intellectual operation. It is by experience that we
know universals have their origin in the phantasm; experience
tells us that we have to return to the phantasm for clarification
of a notion already acquired.

IT
Notwithstanding the difficulties and obscurities alluded to
above, Thomistic psychology is, in many senses, more modern
than one would suspect at first sight. Although it does not
cope with all the facts, it is more in accord with reality than the
psychology which was accepted and taught throughout nearly
the entire period from the beginning of experimental research
to the twentieth century. Sensistic and associationistic psychology proved incapable of dealing with certain problems,
especially with those regarding the higher operation of the
mind. The change began when 0. Kuelpe started his investigations on thought-processes. Kuelpe was not the only one, but
his school, called the Wuerzburg School, did the greatest
amount of work in this line. It would take too long to detail
here the various factors determining this shifting of viewpoint
in psychology, but one of these factors should be mentioned.
Husserl's philosophy, though not psychological in its intentions,
became very influential in psychology. Husserl was a pupil of
Brentano and was very much impressed by the writings of B.
Bolzano, who had taught philosophy at the University of
Praha in the first half of the nineteenth century. Both Brentano and Bolzano were thoroughly acquainted with Aristotelian
and Thomistic philosophy; Bolzano was a Catholic priest, and
Brentano had been one until he left the Church because he
would not accept the decisions of the Vatican Council. The
philosophy of both contains a good deal of Scholasticism.
Thus, under the influenec of Husserl's philosophy, on the one

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hand, and the logical development of psychology and the
strength of facts, on the other, a
rapprochement may
be seen between modern experimental and medieval speculative
psychology. The latter, however, was not so purely speculative
as many who are but little acquainted with the original works
believe; the repeated references of St. Thomas to experience
alone suffice to show this. With Aquinas" experimental" does
not mean any experiment in the modern sense of the word, but
it does mean taking account of observable facts. He, like many
other Scholastics, was a keen and judicious observer.
The factual statements made by St. Thomas on intellectual
processes are, in the main, the following:
1. The universal notion, or the concept, is derived by the
activity of the intellect which uses a phantasm, or image, as the
material from which to abstract the universal. Of this, St.
Thomas says, we are made aware by experience.
2. We make use of the phantasm, not only for the sake of
attaining the universal for the first time; we have to return to
the phantasm every time we think the abstract notion anew.
We need the phantasm also for making clear to another person
the meaning of the abstract notion.
3. The phantasm to which the intellect returns when thinking anew a concept already existing within the mind need not
be exactly the same image as the one which served as basis for
the process of abstraction.
4. For the work of "realizing " a concept of immaterial
things, a phantasm may be used which has but little, if any,
likeness to the thing intended by the concept. All concepts,
however, demand the intervention of a phantasm if they are to
be thought of with meaning.
5. There are certain intellectual operations which, although
ultimately based on phantasms, have no phantasm which would
exactly correspond to them. All propositions belong to this
class; the meaning of proposition cannot be " contained " in the
phantasms which correspond to the terms of the proposition.
6. The intellect is incapable of getting direct hold on any

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RUDOLF .ALLERS

particular. It does, however, attain a knowledge of the particular indirectly, retracing the steps by which the universal was
originally obtained, and finally arriving at a " reflexion on the
phantasm." 49
In considering the statements of modern psychology on
"imageless thought," one has to distinguish between the consciousness of a single concept and the consciousness of a relation between concepts (or between universal and particular) .
The assertion that propositions may be thought without any
images intervening is not at all opposed to the views of St.
Thomas. The Angelic Doctor probably would have accepted
observations showing the existence of " imageless thought,"
so long as these facts refer to the thinking of propositions. He
knew, as every Scholastic since Augustine has known, that
thought, i.e., the thinking of relations as expressed by a sentence, may exist without the images of words. The principle,
" Every spoken sentence is preceded by a sentence of thoughts
without words," was first enunciated by St. Augustine, in his
De Doctrina Christiana, and is a commonplace in medieval
authors who deal with language. It is quoted by William of
Occam in his Summa Totius Logicae; Thomas uses it as an
authority. There is, therefore, no reason for any Scholastic to
doubt the validity of the experimental evidence regarding
imageless thought, so long as this evidence refers exclusively to
the thinking of propositions, or those mental states from which
formulated propositions emanate.
It is different with the question of imageless thinking of single
concepts. Here Aquinas asserts in a manner which leaves no
room for doubt that no concept can be thought unless there is
in the consciousness a corresponding phantasm. In the discussion of this point, there are two questions: 1) Is it actually
true that we never think a concept unless this intellectual
operation is accompanied by an image? 2) If this be the case,
is the phantasm an indispensable element in the total mental
•• On Tej!ea:io in general see: J. Webert, "Reflexio, Etude sur les operations reflexes
dans la psychologie de St. Thomas." Met. Mandonnet, Vol. I, p.
Paris: 1930.

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achievement, or is it only an accidental feature without which a
concept might be thought, although it is generally required?
There can be no doubt that we are conscious of accompanying images in many instances of concept-thinking, and
that we employ images frequently for our own use, especially
in explaining abstract notions to others. Even concepts which,
as such, have nothing to do With tangible reality may be illustrated by images, e. g., Euler's logical schemata, or the .Arbor
Parphyreana.
It may be questioned, however, whether there are not some
concepts which, by their very nature, do not admit any imagining. In some cases, the images which arise from the thinking of
such concepts are more of a hindrance than a help to true
understanding.
1\![odern mathematics has introduced many
notions which escape all attempts at visualization; a mere
glance at some of the more recent treatises on atomic physics,
or wave mechanics, emphasizes this point. Is there, for example, any image which is really helpful to the understanding of
notions like probability waves, six-dimensional space, the curvature of space? The mathematician or the physicist may have
an image or some formula which expresses or implies one of
these notions, but they can also be understood by someone
incapable of handling any of these mathematical symbols.
Even if it is granted that some kind of image arises when we
think of these notions, it still may be questioned whether these
images are essential to our understanding. They might be mere
accidents due to certain habits of the mind which are actualized
even in those cases where the images themselves are not only
superfluous, but even disturbing. Certain authors think they
have found evidence for the constant presence of images, but
their findings are opposed to those of the majority of experimental psychologists who have studied these questions.
Authors who claim that they have shown the necessity of
images have, in fact, but shown their ubiquity, provided, of
course, that their findings be correct. They have neglected to
inquire into the role played by the images in intellectual understanding.

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The opposition of some authors to the existence of " imageless thought " is based more on prejudice than on experimental
evidence. This is true, not only of certain Neo-Scholastics who
believe this notion contradicts the statements of Aquinas, but
also of certain psychologists who feel that their sensistic or
associationistic position becomes untenable the moment the
existence of thought without images is acknowledged. When,
in 1906, R. S. Woodworth referred to "imageless thought," 60
Angell rejected this statement in the name of "injured
orthodoxy." 51
The demonstration of imageless thought possibly depends
on the mental type of the observers. There may be people who
are incapable of abandoning images altogether, or of distinguishing the images essential to thought processes from those
which arise only accidentally and have nothing in common with
the notion considered. This danger of being deceived by the
particular type of mental make-up is the greater, the smaller
the number of observers. Thus, the critical remarks ofT. D.
Cutsforth 52 are based on experiments with one observer and,
therefore, have no weight at all.
One has to beware, moreover, of confusing certain mental
facts with images, because the former sometimes lend themselves to symbolization by tangible images. What G. E.
Mueller or 0. Selz would call "complexes," or what G. C.
Myers refers to as " patterns " 53 may be symbolized by certain
tangible schemata. (In describing the efficacy of the complexes,
Selz speaks of " schematic anticipation." This term is not meant
to signify any concrete image, but its choice indicates the aforesaid possibility.) This does not prove, however, that these
patterns or schemata are, as such, of a palpable nature.
The objections raised against the assertion that there is
50 " lmageless Thought," Jour. of Phil., 1906, 3, 70; also Studies in Philosophy and
Psychology. A Commemorative Volume by Former Students of Ch. E. Garman,
1906, p. 351.
51 Journ. of Phil., 1906, 3, 641.
5 " Am. Journ. Psychol., 1924, 35, 88; also R. H. Wheeler, ibid., 1922, 33, 361.
58 " An Experimental
Study of Patterns of Thought," Ped. Sem., 1924, 31, 352.
Also C. C. Pratt, "Thought and Reasoning," Psychol. Bull. 1928, 25, 558.

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imageless thought may be considered invalid and based on
insufficient evidence. We may, then, proceed to report on the
observations demonstrating imageless thought.
Among the results of :r:n,odernexperimental investigation, one
ought to list first the renewed recognition of an essential difference between image or perception, on one hand, and concept,
on the other. Older psychologists, who were dominated by the
sensistic philo8ophy stemming from Hume and the other empiricists, accepted the concept as nothing n;wre than a generalized
image from which the individual features have been deleted so
that the image may fit every individual of a class; others, influenced by nominalistic prejudices, considered the concept a mere
sign or symbol, useful in classification and reasoning as a classname, but not distinct in its nature as a mental phenomenon,
from the representation or image of the word. Long before the
existence of imageless thought was experimentally demonstrated, however, it had become evident that words and their
images are not indispensable for thinking; " preverbal "
thought had been described by some psychologists and philosophers, e. g., B. Erdman, and also by psychopathologists, as for
instance A. Pick. Thus, it became clear that thinking of a concept and thinking of it together with or by means of the word
signifying this concept are two different mental acts.
The first to note the existence of imageless thought was A.
Binet, 54 who records some very interesting remarks made by
his two small daughters. He found that while images are
absent the understanding of the concept may be as perfect as
one could desire; even words signifying tangible experiences are
sometimes understood without any accompanying image.
Hearing the word " tempest," Armande remarks: " Oh, I
haven't any picture of that. It really isn't a ' thing,' so I don't
see it." Binet emphasizes the accidental role of images: " An
image contains only a small part of the object it represents,
and often a mental picture does not penetrate beyond the surface of things." The experimental study of these problems
•• " La pensee sans images," Rev. Philos., 1908,

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RUDOLF .ALLERS

starts with the work of K. Buehler. 55 His extensive and careful
experiments demonstrated definitely the existence of true
thoughts with a complete understanding of their meaning, without any intervening image. The images which sometimes arise
are often quite insufficient: they are variable, whereas the
meaning of the thought remains unaltered. From this, he
concludes:
The variable rags of images are insufficient to explain the constancy
and firmness of our thinking. Something which appears in consciousness as fragmentarily, as sporadically, as so utterly accidentally as images do in thought-experience can not be the bearer
of firmly strl}.ctured and continuous thought-experiences.56
The " thoughts " of which Buehler speaks are complexes, that
is, awareness of relations which sometimes are of a quite complicated structure.
One observer, for example, reports the
thought, " that the idea of future is not to be confused with the
future itself; such confusions are a common trick in philosophy. There was no trace of words or images." 57 That
" thoughts " of this kind may exist or even do exist regularly
without any accompanying image, or without any image forming an essential part of the total phenomenon is, as has been
pointed out, not at all in contradiction to the Thomistic viewpoint; rather, the fact may be considered as in perfect accord
with the ideas of Aquinas.
None of the modern psychologists denies that images of perception or of imagination are the necessary, the indispensable
The Scholastic theory. of abstraction
basis for abstraction.
has been confirmed by the experiments of J. Lindworsky; 58 and
more recently by A. Willwoll. 59 Many of the later publications
but confirm and complete the statements of Buehler, without
adding anything of basic importance.
"Ueber Gedanken," Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., 1907, 9, 857.
57 Loc. cit., p. 818.
•• "Das schlussfolgernde Denken," Erg. Bd. Stimmen aus Maria Laack, 1916.
Also: Michotte et Ransy, Contribution a l'etude de la memoire logique, Louvain:
191!!.
08 " Ueber Begriflsbildung," Leipzig: 1922.
65

•• Loc. cit., p. 817.

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l!l8

Several experiences show that the images, if there are any,
are posterior to the thought and its understanding. The images
illustrate the meaning after it has been grasped by the mtellect. 60 In thinking and reasoning, subject and predicate are
never given as images. Contrary to the opinion of Sigwart,
Wundt, or James Mill, the actual meaning of a--Sentenceis not
constituted by the images.n In syllogistic thinking the meaning of the premises is apprehended conceptually; this is a definitely intellectual, and not a sensory, experience.
Many important observations are to be found in 0. Selz's'
studies on well ordered and productive-thinking. 62 The general
results of these experiments may be summarized by stating that
the solving of problems, the developing of a consistent chain of
ideas, the producing of new and creative combinations of ideas,
depend on the actualization of certain intellectual dispositions;
the actualization is anticipated in a general and schematic
manner. Images play, if any, but a very subordinate role in
this process.
The cognitional dispositions (Wissendispositionen) are not foundations for the reproduction of_ images which could be linked together
by associations of contiguity; they are dispositi9ns of a uniform
consciousness of objective relations, (Sachverhaltsbewusstsein, a
knowledge of how things are related to one another,) which consciousness cannot be resolved into a number of associated images
put side by side. ••

One fact is brought out very clearly by several of Selz' observations; images are, in many instances, not symbols of the
intellectual contents of concepts, but of the intellectual operations. We may, for example, search for some solution of a
problem and be dimly aware that this solution lies in a definite
"direction"; then, a symbolic representation of "direction"
•• A. Flach, "Ueber symbolische Schemata im produktiven Denkprozess," Arch.
f. d. !J88. P8'!JckOl., 1925, 878.
81 M. F. Dunn," The PsyChology of Reasoning," Studies in Psyckol. and P8'!Jckiat.,
1926, 1, no. 1.
••" Ueber die Geaetze aes geordneten Denkverlaufs I. StuttgaJ:"t: 1918; Zwr
P8'!Jckologie des vroduktiven Denkens und des lrrtums. Ueber die Gesetze des
geordneten Denkverlaufes, II. Bonn: 1922.
•• Loc. cit., p. 811.

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RUDOLF ALLERS

inay arise. This is not an image of the idea or complex of ideas
from which our search starts, nor does it symbolize or anticipate the yet unknown result; it symbolizes the activity of the
intellect. 64 Images sometimes serve as means of emphasis, or of
underscoring some notional element of a conceptional whole. 65
In Selz' experiments, there are, of course, many instances in
which the observers recorded the presence and the activity of
images. To make clear to themselves, for example, the task
and the particular solution in experiments demanding the name
of the whole of a part presented as stimulus word, or vice versa,
images were frequently used. "The image," remarks Selz,66
" may serve as a fundamentum for the abstraction of new relations of things, just as a perception allows the gaining of new
knowledge, because by means of the abstractive process, some
objective sides are noticed in the perceptual object which had
passed unrecognized before." It is well to remember, however,
that the term " abstraction" is used by Selz, and by many other
psychologists, in a rather wide sense. It signifies for these
authors, not only the disengagement of the universal from the
particular, but also any way by which we become aware of a
feature common to several things. From this difference in
terminology some avoidable misunderstandings have originated.
The disparity of image. and concept had been noticed before
Selz, and even before the Wuerzburg studies became generally
known. Thus, W. M. Urban points out that "even ... in the
instrumental use of the concept, the particular images called
up are not adequate equivalents for the consciousness of meaning. They are often irrelevant; ... the intrinsic meaning
of the term ... has no image equivalent." 67 With this observation we pass on to the understanding of single concepts, whereas
the previously reported studies deal mostly with the understanding of relations which may be expressed in sentences. 68
6'

67

65 Lac. cit., II, p. UO.
66 Lac. cit., II, p. 146.
Lac. cit., I, p.
Valuation, its Nature and Laws, New York: 1909, p. 106.

68 The following experimental
contributions to our 'problem:

studies may be mentioned as containing valuable
H. E. Hengstemberg, '' Erwaegungen ueber den

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125

There is also some indirect evidence for the fact that the role
of images is not as essential in thought-processes as many
believe. H. Bowers 69 found that problems more easily visualized are not, for this reason, more easily solved. Persons with
vivid mental imagery are in no way better in solving problems
than those lacking this capacity, even if the problems apparently make use of the images necessary. The fact of a transfer
of insight [Alpert/ 0 Paton, 71 ] indicates that there is a principle
at work which stays, so to speak, outside of the concrete, and,
accordingly, imaginable situations within which problems have
to be solved. W. Blumenfeld confirmed an observation reported
by Buehler regarding the temporal relations of association of
thought, on one hand, and of single words or their images, on the
other; the former takes less time than the latter. If the
thoughts and the establishment of relations between them
depended on the images and their relation, just the opposite
result would be expected. 72
Several authors point out that the images appearing in the
course of experiments on thought-processes, or those dealing with
understanding of notions and words, often are either but
slightly related to the meaning of the term presented, or are
Denkvorgang," Arch. f. d. gea. Psychol., 1929, 67, 131; M. Simoneit, "Beitraege zur
Psychologie des Denkens," ibid., 1926,
198; E. Jacob, "Ueber Entstehung und
Verwendung von Begriffen," ibid., 1925, 51, 533; S. Fischer, "Ueber das Entstehen
und Verstehen von Namen," ibid., 1922, 43, 43; C. J. Taylor," Ueber das Verstehen
von Worten und Saetzen," Zschr. f. Psychol., 1906, 40, 225; Lindworsky, "Zur
Psychologie der Begriffe," Phil. Jahrb., 1919, 32, 15;' A. Wenzel, "Erinnerungsarbeit
bei erschwerter Wortfindung," Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., 1936, 97, 294; E. Peillaube,
"L'etude experimentale de la pensee," Rev. de Philos., 1928, 28, 397; Fr. Aveling,
" The Relevance of Visual Imagery in the Process of Thinking," Brit. Journ. of
Psychol., 1927, 18, 15; L. Rangette, " Untersuchungen ueber die Psychologie des
wissenschaftlichen Denkens auf experimenteller Grundlage," Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol.,
1917, 36, 169; A. Burloud, La pensee conceptuelle, Paris: 1927.
•• "The Role of Visual Imagery in Reasoning," Brit. Journ. of Psychol., 1935,
25, 436.
•• "The
of Problem Situations by Preschool Children," Teach. Ooll. Oontr.
to Educ., 1928, No. 323, p. 69.
71 "The Problem of Insightful Behavior," Psychol. Mon., 1933, 44, No. 197. Also:
Matheson, "A Study of Problem Solving," Child Devel., 1931, 2,
•• "Urteil und Beurteilung," Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., Erg. Bd. ill, 1931.

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limited to mere verbal symbols (eventually to symbols of a
similar nature) . The fact of substitution of one type of cognitive phenomenon by another, perhaps, has not been given
the attention it deserves. Words, especially, are capable of
acting as substitutes for images. One will have to distinguish
two cases: the word may either replace directly the image, or it
may symbolize the abstract notion. In a pathological case of
optic agnosia analyzed by Hochheimer, the first case seems to
have been realized. 78
The second case is the one studied by T. V. Moore in his
experiments on understanding of words. 74 He presented to his
observers simple words and asked them to react either on the
consciousness of meaning or of the image. The words chosen
named things of common life, the images of which are supposed to be easily produced. These experiments showed that
meaning is apprehended before any image appears. Thus it
seems that the understanding of a word's meaning is independent of imagery. The results obtained by T.V. Moore were confirmed by E. C. Tolman. 75 One might object, however, that in
such experiments the subject is supplied with an image from the
very beginning, since the meaning is presented to him in a
word he reads or hears. Since verbal symbols may substitute
for images, and since according to the Thomistic theory the
phantasm need not be the true representation of the thing from
which meaning or the concept has been abstracted, the contradiction between the experimental data and the Thomistic
interpretation is not as great as it seems at first sight.
There are, however, other facts. Patients suffering from
aphasia were observed by H. Head 76 to be capable of expressing
their ideas, even of reporting on their whole history by means of
.. "Analyse eines Seelenblinden von der Sprache aus," PIIYchol. Forsch., 19ftft, 16, 1.
74 "The Temporal Relations of Meaning and Imagery," P11Ychol. Rev., 1915, tii2,
189; "Meaning and Imagery," ibid.., 1919,
114; " Image and Meaning in Memory
and Perception," Psychol. Mon., 1919, til7, No. 119.
•• " More Concerning the Temporal Relation of Meaning and Imagery," P11Ychol.
Reu., 1917,
114. For details see; T.V. Moore, Cognitive Psychology, Chicago:
1989, pp. 884 ff.
•• Aphasia and Kindred Disorders of Speech, London: 1926.

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expressive gestures, though they did not have at their disposal
any remnant of verbal imagery. The conclusion drawn by Sir
Henry Head is irrefutable: verbal images do not play as great
a role in thinking as older psychologists believed, but words
may be replaced by images, just as images may be replaced by
words. Stories may be told in pictures, and a whole system of
signs may be devised independently of words. The fact that
verbal images can be dispensed with in thinking does not prove
that there were no images involved; nor does it disprove the
notion that verbal images usually play a great role in thoughtprocesses. What is proved is that thought may proceed without relying on verbal images.
In understanding highly abstract ideas, linguistic schemata
which need not develop into clear verbal images play a great
role.77 But, here, as everywhere else, no absolute necessity is
demonstrable; images may be present, but they are not necessary. They are not an indispensable element of the operation
of understanding. If they are present, they often contain or
indicate but iittle of the whole meaning which is understood.
It is not true that understanding does not go beyond what is
expressly symbolized by the image/ 8 but the images are surely
a great help in many cases. Verbal images may be handled
much as mathematical symbols are, that is, they may be combined according to certain rules (which need not be clearly
given in consciousness) without more than a rather vague
apprehension of their sense, just as the mathematician or the
physicist does not care for the precise signification of the symbols he uses while he is developing the equation [Bourdon].
All these experiments deal more with the question of the
presence and necessity of images than with their exact function
St. Thomas
within the totality of meaning-apprehension.
holds, as has been reported above, that the intellect envisions,
as it were, the abstract notion in the image. (J.P. Sartre, how•• Selz, loc. cit., TI, p. 845.
•• This seems to be tbe opinion of H. Schroeder, " Experimentelle Untersuchungen
ueber die Bedeutungserfassung," Arch. f. d. ges. Psychol., 1984, 90, 108.

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ever, is not of this opinion.) 79 The object or the meaning is
not deciphered from the image, but is immediately apprehended
by an act which presents to consciousness the object in its
Image.
By way of a preliminary summary we may say that the existence of imageless thought is definitely established, but that
" thought " in the terminology of the psychologists means the
result of an intellectual operation by which relations between
terms are apprehended, relations which when formulated take
on the form of a sentence. Also, the rise of images in the apprehension of meaning contained in single words or pictures is not
a constant phenomenon. This however, refers to images other
than those presented to the observer. There is indeed no way
of conveying meaning but by sensible data. It is therefore
impossible to exclude the cooperation of tangible factors. It
must also be borne in mind that Aquinas himself acknowledged
the fact that the image need not be the one from which the
notion, the universal, or-to use the modern term-the
meaning has been abstracted.

III
The alleged contradictions between Thomistic and experimental psychology are due largely to misinterpretations of the
Thomistic texts and of the statements of experimental psychology. St. Thomas has never pretended that the consciousness of propositions-or the pre-verbal stages preceding the
proposition-is necessarily dependent on phantasms; experimental psychology has not shown that the understanding of
meanmg is altogether free from the cooperation of tangible
factors.
••" Structure intentionelle de l'image," Rev. deJ Mdaphys. et Mor., 1938, 4-5, 543.
The experimental evidence does not allow us to maintain any longer that " without
sensations either actual or revived no thought ever 'occurs " (H. Gruender, Experimental Psychology, Milwaukee: 1932, p. 387) . This opinion is called by C. Spearman (The Nature of Intelligence and the Principle of Cognition, London: 1927, p.
179) the" iconic doctrine." It rests, says the author, partly on the" action by contact principle," and partly on the idea that thought not based on a real experience
such as imagery must be a nonentity, " a eat's grin without the cat."

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But the difficulties of the Thomistic position remain. The
grasp of the intellect on the particulars is as problematical as
ever. We do not see how the intellect manages to get hold of
the phantasm; nor how it becomes aware of the intelligible
species; nor how it is capable of influencing the sensitive powers
in so determined a manner as to evoke the right phantasm, that
is, the one which corresponds to this particular concept. The
same problem arises in regard to the particular determination
of action. The reference to the particular reason (vis cogitativa) is no explanation. This power, notwithstanding its peculiar dignity, is material, and its relations to the immaterial
faculties is not easy to understand.
There is, of course, the famous text in De V eritate, Question
Ten, where St. Thomas says that, after all, the activities do not
belong to this faculty or to that one, but are essentially of the
one soul. But this is not of a great help. It is still not clear
how these faculties cooperate; how, for example, the phantasm
comes to be " in " the particular reason (vis cogitativa) , and
a fortiori, how the particularity (ratio particularitatis) is
apprehended by the intellect.
Nor is the literature on this matter decisive. A complete
survey of the older Tho mists or the N eo-Tho mists cannot be
attempted. The opinions of non-Thomistic authors need not
be considered because the problem exists in fact only within
Thomistic philosophy. Any philosophy which either denies the
by matter, or the role of the active intellect
and the genesis of universal ideas by abstraction, does not
encounter this particular problem.
One of the difficulties was singled out by William de la Mare,
the author of the Correctorium Fratris Thomae. His argument
is called by Simonin hardly intelligible (a vrai dire peu intelligible) ; it is, however, neither unintelligible nor as negligible as
the opponents would have it. The argument reads, in the
edition of P. Glorieux: 80 If the particular were not known
intellectually, the refl.exion on the phantasm would be useless.
The meaning is, I think, quite clear. If the particular and
80 "

Le Correctorium Corruptorii Quare," Bibl. Thom., IX, 1927.

9

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RUDOLF ALLERS

material phantasm remain outside the intellect and is only
" illuminated " by the active intellect so that the immaterial
universal is disengaged and passes, as an intelligible species
(species intelligibilis) , into the possible intellect (intellectus possibilis) , there is no possiblity of the intellect ever getting hold
of the particular. The answer of the Thomists, as contained in
the Correctorium Corruptorii Quare, refers, in its responsio ad
cavillationes articuli secundi, to St. Thomas, Summa Theol.,
I, q. 86, a. 1, in which the adversaries might have found all the
answers they desired provided they had read and understood
this passage. It then proceeds to state the reasons why the
intellect has to be credited with a knowledge of particulars.
The remark on the indirect cognition of particulars reads:
Hence our intellect is not made cognizant of the phantasm
directly from the species which it receives; rather it proceeds to a
knowledge of the phantasm through a kind of reflexion. . ..
Inasmuch, therefore, as our intellect, through the similitude which
it accepts from the phantasm, reflects on the very phantasm from
which the particular likeness was abstracted it has a certain knowledge of the particular singular thing according to the kind of
continuity of the intellect through the image.
True to the text of Aquinas though this answer is, and though
it may be considered as a somewhat satisfactory reply to the
objections of William de la Mare or of Mathaeus de Aquasparta, it does not enlighten the reader on the true meaning of
St. Thomas. Indeed the question becomes still more obscure
by the introduction of two further qualifications: St. Thomas
spoke of only some kind of reflexion (quaedam reflexio) , but
here we come across a " kind " of knowledge (quaedam cognitio) and a" kind" of continuation (quaedam continuatio).
The impression is inescapable that our problem has been a
crux to most of the commentators of St. Thomas and that they
felt a certain embarrassment when dealing with it. This is even
true of Capreolus when he has to answer the arguments of
Petrus Aureoli and of Durandus a S. Porciano. 81 The latter
81

De:fenai(} Tke(}l(}giaeS. Tkcnnae, I, d. III, q.

a. S.

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dismisses the whole problem by denying the existence of an
intelligible species (species intelligibilis) and the function of
the active intellect (intellectus agens).
It must be noted ... that the first thing known by the intellect is
not the universal but the singular . . . its first object; and every
per se condition of the object precedes the act of the faculty. For
a potency does not make its object through its act, but supposes
that object ... but the universal, or a universal condition, does
not precede the act of understanding, indeed it is constituted by
the act of understanding, etc. . . . H our intellect did not understand the singular by the first act of understanding, this would be
either because the singular was not presented to it, or because
it could not or did not wish to understand the singular. The first
cannot be said, because the representation which is made to the
intellect is accomplished through the phantasm which is representative of the singular thing, and without it our intellect can
know nothing new ["new": because Durandus does not consider
re:flexion necessary and maintains that the intellect holds its
notions once and forever]. Nor can the second be said because
it is clear that the power of our intellect extends to a knowledge of
singulars, otherwise we would not be disputing about them, nor
could we do anything through our own free will since. deeds are of
and about singulars. The third cannot be said because willing
follows knowledge ... (the intellect) per se and primarily understands what first and primarily moves the intellect to understanding. . . . But it is the singular and not the universal which per se
and primarily moves the intellect. 82
•• " Advertendum . . . quod primum cognitum ab intellectu non est universale sed
singulare ... primum objectum; et omnis per se conditio objecti praecedit actum
potentiae. Potentia enim per suum actum non facit suum objectum sed supponit
... sed universale vel conditio universalis non praecedit actum intelligendi, immo
fit per actum intelligendi, etc. And later: Si intellectus noster non intelligeret
prima intellectione singulare, hoc esset aut quia non representaretur ei, aut quia non
posset aut quia non vellet. Primum non potest dici quia representatio quae fit
intellectui nostro, fit per phantasma quod est repraesentativum rei singularis et
sine eo intellectus nihil potest de novo intelligere. Nee secundum quia constat quod
potentia intellectus nostri se extendit ad cognitionem singularium, alioquin de eis
non disputaremus nee aliqua faceremus per liberum arbitrium, cum factiones sint
singularium et circa singularia. Nee tertium quia velle sequitur cognitionem . . .
(lntellectus) illud per se et primo intelligit quod per se et primo movet intellectum
ad intelligendum . . . Sed singulare primo et per se movet et non universale "
(Durandus a S. Porciano, In quattuor libros sententiarum, Venet., 1586, f. 140r; I,
d. ill, a. 7; cf. ibid., q. 5 and d. XXVII, q. 1).

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Capreolus is not very happy in answering these difficulties;
nor are his remarks against Aureolus really conclusive. Things
do not become clearer by his stating:
For a knowledge of the individual in his incommunicability it
suffices to have a species representing the individual as to the principle of his individuation; and such a species need not be material,
quantitative, or signate. 88

It is quite true that such a representation as to the principle
of individuation (quoad principium individuationis) would be
sufficient; but how is such a representation possible in the immaterial intellect when the principle of individuation is matter?
Not even the lengthy explanations of Cajetan seem conclusive. His notion is that the phantasm is in both orders, in
the material and sensible on one hand, and the intellectual on
the other.
With the advent of the light of the active intellect, the phantasm
is illuminated ... ; by this illumination there shines forth from the
phantasm, not all that is contained in it, but the quiddity or nature
alone, without the conjoined singularity; and so this illumination is
abstractive, because it makes one thing appear, namely that which
is, while the other, namely, the principle of individuation, does not
appear. . . . The light of the active intellect makes the nature
intelligible in act in the phantasm before it is made intelligible in
the intellect. . . . The actually intelligible shines forth in the phantasm ... and such an intelligible moves the possible intellect. . . .
One thing, namely the phantasm, is in two orders ... according to
different modes of being: according to its real mode of being it is
sensible, according to its relucent mode of being it is intelligible. 84

There is some truth in the assertion of G. H. Mahowald 85
that Cajetan denies the existence of a distinct and clear concept
of the singular objects. Cajetan is said to claim that we know
only universals distinctly; we conclude in an abstract manner
that there must be singular objects, since the universal cannot
exist.
Lac. cit., ad 7um.
•• Oomm. in Summam Theol., I, q. 79, a. 3, no. 9 and .10
••" Suarez, de Anima," New Scholasticism,
IJ, 115.
83

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The author probably alludes to the notion of an argumentative cognition (cognitio arguitiva) .
For when we conceive man and singularity, and realize that man
does not subsist of himself, etc., the intellect argues and concludes
that a singular thing exists in nature. . . . A singular is conceived
by our intellect not by its proper, but by another· concept, which,
however, is in some way, that is, confusedly and argumentatively,
but not representatively, a concept of the singular. 86

There is not the least psychological evidence of such a process of reasoning, nor does this explanation appear satisfactory
for it does not eliminate the real difficulties. It leaves
unanswered the question of how the application of the universal
to the particular is possible. Furthermore, if these singulars
have to be "concluded" in the manner Cajetan suggests, how
does the intellect arrive at the knowledge that universals do
not exist and that there have to be singulars from which the
universals are abstracted?
John of St. Thomas seeks another way out of the intricacies
of this problem. He assumes the existence of a true concept
of the singular, a proper and distinct concept (conceptus proprius and distinctus), which, however, is indirect and inadequate, not conceived directly, but due to a reflexion on the
phantasm. 87 He appeals to a kind of intellectual intuition by
which through the medium of coordination and a continuation
to the senses (mediante coordinatione et continuatione ad
sensus) the intellect achieves an intuitive knowledge ... of a
thing present to it (notitiam intuitivam ... rei praesentis) .88
Perhaps it is not without interest to report the opinion of a less
known, though quite respectable later Scholastic. The Augustinian Thomas of Argentina (Strassbourg) discusses the problem in his Commentary on the Sentences. 89 His work 'deserves

""In I, q. 86, a. 1.
Curs. Phil. Nat., III, q. 10, a. 4. Ed. Vives, Vol. Ill, p. 474.
Ed. Vives, Vol. I, p. 647.
89 IV Sent., d. L, q. 1, a. 8 (Venetiis, 1584, f. 206 fl'.). He states his ideas on the
primary and adequate object of the intellect in the introduction. (Ibid., f. 18, v.)
Quod eius (sc. inteUectus) adaequatum objectum est e718 phantasiabile mediate vel
87
88

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RUDOLF ALLERS

consideration not only because it is a good example of the way
later scholastics dealt with the problem, revealing some of their
methods for evading more than solving difficulties, but also
because it contains several new viewpoints.
One idea which distinguishes his conception from others is
the division of the act of intellect into three stages, two of which
are termed direct and one which is called reflex. Only the act
whereby the intellect becomes aware of its own operation or
knows itself as knowing is considered as a re:flexion; the awareness of the particular in the phantasm is a direct operation.
immediate. Et appello ens phantasiabile immediate quod proprie cadit sub phantasmate. Sed mediate cuius cognitio arguitive vel illative vel quocumque modo
deducibilis est ex phantasmate sive ex notitia eius quod proprie cadit sub phantasmate. This refers to the intellect considered secundum suam capacitatem
naturalem praecisum ab omni dispositione sive inf!uentia supernaturali. But if one
considers the intellect secundum suam potentiam sive capacitatem obedientialem,
then its objectum adaequatum est ens inquantum ens, sive ens universaliter sumptum,
comprehendens creaturam et creatorem, creatum vel creabile.
The main theory is exposed as follows: lntellectu conjuncto pro statu praesentis
vitae res materialis particularis est per se intelligibilis. Whatever is contained by an
object adequate to the intellect is per se intelligibile . . . Ens phantasiabile tam
mediate quam immediate est adaequatum objectum nostri intellectus pro statu.
praesentis vitae . . . secundum suam naturalem capacitatem . . . ens materiale est
per se phantasiabile; ergo. Furthermore: to form a particular judgment the intellect
has to know the particular. Moral acts refer to particulars.
Objections:
(1) Aristotle's well known statement intellectus est universalium.
Boethius: singulare sentitur . . . (2) Absence of proportion between material thing
and immaterial intellect. (3) Intellect related to universals as senses to particulars.
Senses do not know the universal, ergo. (4) Intellectual objects are abstracted from
hie et nunc, the singular is hie et nunc. (5) Quae sunt unita in superioribus sunt
separata in inferioribus; Lib. de causis. Angels know intellectually both universals
and particulars; in man there are two different faculties. (6) The possible intellect
is distinguished from imagination [In Ill, De Anima], the latter deals with singulars.
(7) Arguit specialiter quidam doctor sic (Marginal note: Aureolus, I Sent., d. XXXV,
q. 4, a. 1): lmpossibile est singulare in sua singularitate cognosci nisi designando et
demonstrando ipsum sub certo et determinato situ in vrdine ad potentiam apprehendentem, sivll in ordine ad ipsum qui cognoscit singulare. Sed talem cognitionem
designantem impossibile est esse in intellectu; et notitia singularis signati, inquantum
signatus est, impossibile est esse in intellectu. Aureolus proves this: Omne cognoscens
aliquid propria cognitione virtute illius cognitionis distinguit ipsum ab omni alio.
Sed si ponerentur duo homines similes in colore, figura et quantitate ac universaliter
in omni accidente tam anim.ae quam corporis, constat quod qui illos imaginaretur,
non posset unum distinguere ab alio, nisi cognitione demonstrativa et situitativa,
dicendo, iste non est ille. The only distinguishing feature is the one's being hie

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Something may be said for this view. The phantasm does not
belong to the intellect-it is, as Thomas of Argentina says,
not in the intellect but present to it-and stands therefore not
on the same level as the concept, the intelligible species, and
the act of abstraction. The intellectual movement by which
the self-awareness of the intellect is achieved has an intrinsic
or imminent term, whereas the phantasm is in some way outside of the intellect, though within reach of it. Though he does
not state it expressly, this may have been also the opinion of
Aquinas. The terms " extension," " continuation," seem to
and the other's 2"llic . . . non potest talis apprehensio esse in intellectu qui est
potentia immaterialis et non extensa.
Answers: IUud quod ponit difjerentiam inter aliqna necesse est ut utrumque
extremorum, iUius differentiae cognoscat . . . lntellectus possibilis ponit et cognoscit
difjerentiam inter formam communicabilem sive naturam universalem et naturam
hanc parti()Ularem, individualem et singularem. The intellect knows that the more
abstract universal contains several degrees of abstraction, down to species specialissima and the individual. To deny this implies that the intellect in forming a
judgment on particulars is incapable of understanding its own act.
The first object of the intellect is indeed the universal, presented by the species
inteUigibilis. The adequate object, however, is another; having become cognizant of
the quidditas rei materialis, the intellect proceeds to the knowledge of many other
things which too are known to the intellect though not prima. (Unhappily we are
not told what characterizes an object as an adequate one.) The lack of proportionality neither can be alleged; the intellect is inextended but knows extension,
immaterial and knows matter. The adequate object of the intellect includes not
only the abstract universal as such, but all that is known by the sensitive faculties,
these faculties themselves, their operations, quia omne illud cujus notitia est deducibilis ex phantasmate clauditur infra ambitum objecti adaequati potentiae intellectivae. The answers to the fourth and fifth objections need not be rendered.
To (6) the author remarks that the intellect knows universals and particulars, and
that the first capacity is enough to distinguish the intellect from imagination. The
arguments of Aureolus are qualified as apparentes sophisticationes. There are other
principles of singularity besides location which lead to a knowledge of the singularity.
These principles are intrinsic and the knowledge of them is therefore prior to the one
of the extrinsic respectus ad aliquam creaturam, e. g., location. Singularity does not
depend on site; therefore neither does the knowledge of singularity.
Thomas concludes that the particular cannot be the primary object of the intellect.
The species intelligibilis recepta in intellectu possibili is free from all material and
individualizing conditions and represents immedate only the universal quiddity.
Knowledge of the particular presupposes knowledge of the universal. As soon as the
intellect knows the universal, it reflects on its own activity, knows itself as knowing,
and also the cause of its knowledge, quia naturale est inteUectui quod cognito effectu
immediate cognoscit causam, maxime si sit causa propoTtionata et sit praesens intel-

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infer that the intellect just "touches "-these metaphorical
expressions are unsatisfactory, though unavoidable--the phantasm which, however, remains necessarily and forever outside of
the intellect itself.
Thomas of Argentina describes this position of the phantasm
by the term of" presence"; the phantasm is present to, but not
in the intellect. But this is only a description, not an explanation.
Another notion to be recorded is the one of the phantasiabile.
Everything contained in or to be inferred from the phantasm is
a phantasiabile, and as such an object of the intellect. By
defining the object of the intellect in this manner, the author
probably thought to escape the various difficulties of which he
was evidently very much aware. But this, too, is a formula,
and even a gratuitous assertion, not an explanation of the facts
nor a theory of intellectual cognition.
The very same notion of " presence " appears in some N eoScholastics. L. Noel, for example, attempts the development of
a theory of intellectual knowledge by combining the two notions
of " continuation " and " presence."
. . . but while the organism undergoes this invasion (namely of
the primitive presence of things) the intelligence is not a stranger
to that invasion; it undergoes it tacitly at first, in continuation
lectui. The phantasm is not in intellectu, sed praesens intellectui: ideo intellectus
cognoscit huiusmodi phantasmata et per consequens cognoscit tale particulare cuius
perfecta similitudo relucet in tali phantasmate. Unde hie est rectus ordo cognitionis
intellectivae . . . quod intellectus actu recto prima cognoscat ipsum universale . . .
secunda actu reflexo cognoscit suum intelligere (including evidently all the steps of
intellectual operation and the species intelligibilis among these), et tertia actu directo
cognoscit ipsum particulare ut relucet in phantasmate. (Contrary to Cajetan,
Thomas
the term relucentia for designating the appearance of the particular
in and through the image.)
Thomas then reports the arguments in favor of a direct intellectual knowledge of
the particular. These arguments he holds to be invalid. Of this discussion one point
only deserves mention. The speculation of the phantasm, says our author, occurs not
antecedenter sed concomitanter vel consequenter. Est tamen hie notandum quod
quamvis intellectus intelligat universale et intelligat se intelligere priusquam intelligat
particulare ut relucet in phantasmate, tamen quia in omni intellectione rei materialis
isti tres actus ita velociter se consequuntur quod tempus interpositum non est
percetibile.

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with the sensible conscience; when it extricates itself from this
passivity, it will come to some notion which it will place in the
abstract above the intuitive real of the sensation; between these
two moments there is a continuity which, 'taken in conjunction with
the primitive indistinction of the two aspects of conscience, allows
us to know well that the notion expressed in the mental word has
proceeded from the complexus of the primitively present.
From the time ,that the intellectual conscience awakens, the
sensible is present, not only to the sensible conscience, which is its
term, but to the human conscience ... as the support which carries
the intelligible object, which gives body to, or supports it. 90
These statements do not differ essentially from those of
Thomas of Argentina; here are the same notions of presence and
of continuity with the same lack of satisfactory explanations.
Noel refers to the Commentary of Cajetan 91 which, he says,
does not give a full explanation though it supplies some precision. The words of Cajetan are interpreted as implying an
activity of the active intellect not only in regard to the production of the intelligible species, but also in regard to the
phantasm itself: " By a priority of nature, the phantasm is
illuminated, before it (the active intellect) and the phantasm
actuate the possible intellect."
It seems, however, doubtful
whether the passage referred to allows for such an interpretation.
The statements of many modern Scholastics are not much
clearer. In recent times J. Gredt has dealt with the problem. 92
His views are not in accordance with the facts. Though he
refers to experience, he does not take into account the data
supplied by experimental psychology.
That "thought"
(Denken) is continually accompanied by images is, as we have
seen, not true. Gredt fails to distinguish between thinking as
•• "La presence des choses a !'intelligence," Rev. Neo-Schol., 1980, 32, 145. Cf.
also "La Presence de l'intelligibile a la conscience selon S. Thomas et Cajetan,"
Philoa. Perenn., Regensburg: 1980, Vol. I, p. 161; "La presence immediate des
choses," Rev. Neo-Schol.,
29, 179; M. D. Roland-Gosselin, "Sur la notion de
'presence' en epistemologie," Rev. Scienc. Phil. Theol.,
17, 77.
91 Cajetanus, In Summam Theol., I, q. 79, a. 8, n.
•• " Das Bindeglied zwischen der geistigen und sinnlichen Erkenntnis," Div.
Thomas (Fribourg): 1987, 15,

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consciousness of propositions and as understanding of single
concepts. In regard to reflexion, Gredt's ideas are not more
enlightening than those of the older Scholastics. The universal, we are told, carries within itself the necessary relation to a
definite image; the universal depends intrinsically (innerlich)
on a definite image and this dependence on the image and the
image itself are represented together with the universal in the
intellect.
But how such a representation of the material
image is possible-though it be, as Gredt says, " spiritualized "
-is not explained by these formulations. Nor do we learn how
it is possible for the image to be represented in the intellect by
way of "inclusion and accidentally"
The intellect becomes cognizant of the particular in an unessential
manner. . . . By means of" thinking back" the intellect ·comes to
know the particular thing represented by the image. By more
precise thinking it also comes to know the image, the activity of
imagination and of the other senses, insofar as they are represented
by the image. But in first line the intellect knows the particular
thing.
The notions acquired by the intellect are dispositionally (der
Anlage nach) stored in the intellect; they themselves have a
dispositional relation to a definite image. Human thought is
always a sensible-intellectual activity.
These statements seem to have appeared unsatisfactory to
the author himself since he takes up this matter in a second
article. 93 But he does not achieve greater clarity.
An essential knowledge of corporeal singulars is precluded from the
human intellect. The intellect knows of the singular only by a
detour and by some regression to sensible knowledge.
The dependence on the image and the image itself are
represented together (mitdargesteUt) in the concept. There
is but an imperfect intellectual knowledge of particulars.
The intellect does not know (the singular) according to its essence
as singular (Einzelwesen); it knows the singular only as presented
••" Die Koerperwesen im Einzelding und im menschlichen Verstand."
Tkomaa (Fribourg): 1988, 16, !l57.

Div.

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by the image, by its singular properties (Einzelmerkmale).
These
are aecidental, exterior, palpable features, like shape, location in
space and time, by which the intellect distinguishes one singular
from another; these features, however, do not form the essential
difference of singularity; they may change while the singular thing
remains the same . . . thus there is no real knowledge of the
particular as such. . . . De singularibus non est scientia.
The views of Gredt do not further the solution very much.
One point deserves attention: the statement, namely, that the
first object reflexion attains is not the image but the particular
thing itself, because the latter is supposed to be "unessentially " and implicitly contained in the concept. This idea, however, only creates a new difficulty.
Concepts are usually,
though not necessarily, abstracted from several particulars;
these particulars may be given in imagination by a multitude of
images or by one "generalized" or generic image.
Regarding these generic images and some other points which
are of interest, M. J. Adler remarks:
An experience ... is a sort of universal; the quasi-universality of
the products of imagination has been recognized, in the modern
tradition, under the head of generic or abstract images. Strictly,
of course, these images are not abstract. The word " abstract "
can be said of them only with the signification that they have the
potentiality for abstraction; they are the proximate matter upon
which the intellect operates in the first act of abstraction. The
difference between the perceptual image and the so-called generic
image is that the former has an individual intention whereas the
latter has a particular intention. The mark of determinate individuation can be lost with the loss of the marks of singularity.
The generic images, therefore, provide the transition to the universal intention of the idea which can be abstracted from it. It has
a mean between the extremes of sensitive and intellectual apprehension.94
Dr. Adler seems to imply that abstraction always proceeds
from a generic image and that to attain a concept the mind has
•• What Man Has Made of Man, New York: 1987, p. 162, note 18. Some
pertinent remarks on the role of images in intellectual processes may be found in
R. Lacroze, La fonction de l'imagination, Paris: 1988, pp. 145 :If.

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to have experience of several singulars of one kind. This interpretation of the abstractive process is, however, not in accordance with facts. Even if there were no experimental evidence to
show that we are capable of abstracting a universal notion from
one individual, it would be sufficient to refer to the fact that the
abstract concept " sun " was long known before astronomy
spoke of the fixed stars as so many suns.
It is true that in many cases the image serving as a basis for
abstraction is of a more or less generic nature. It therefore
refers to a multitude of singular images and of singular things
represented by these images. All these singular things have to
be contained " unessentially " in the concept. In " thinking
back," then, the intellect arrives not at one singular thing but
at a multitude of them. It is difficult to understand how the
intellect may arrive, by this process, at a knowledge of an individual particular.
This knowledge is indispensable for the
intellect forming any particular judgment.
J. Maritain seems to be led by similar considerations to
"admit with John of St. Thomas, the existence of a rightful
(indirect) concept of the singular." 95 A non-Thomistic philosophy, one which introduces the notion of a forma haeooeitatis,
has indeed no difficulty in admitting such a concept of the
singular, direct or indirect, but it is still questionable whether
such a concept can be justified on the basis of Thomistic
principles. 96
Marechal's views do not differ very much from those
proposed by Gredt:
The intelligence remains the intelligence, and the imagination the
imagination; but the intelligence subordinating itself to the imagination undergoes an extrinsic constraint thereby. . . . The intelligence, reflecting, encounters then in the species something other
than the pure expression of immaterial spontaneity: it encounters
there a relation of the intelligible to the extrinsic material, impene•• The Degrees of Knowledge, New York: 1988, p. 85, footnote
•• Cf. e.g·., C. Nink, "Die intellectuelle Erkenntnis," Phil. Jahrb.,
41,
" So hat jedes individuelle Ding seine eigene Wesenheit," which is apprehended by
the intellect as " allgemeine Gestalt."

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trable and tyrannical; a relation to something which would be
demanded as a necessary complement of the species, but which
would not be intellectually definable except negatively, as a lacuna
of intelligibility . . . our reflection . . . hurtles itself against the
material and perceives it as a restrictive condition of the autonomous play of the immaterial. 97
P. Marechal's conception deserves the greatest attention.
His is, in fact, a new viewpoint: the particular is reached by
the intellect not as a fully grasped object-such as it is even
when the grasp is termed an unessential or accidental one-but
as a limit, a barrier, against which the intellect collides without
being able to overcome it. We shall not inquire here into the
ancestry of this notion of limit; .without. deeper analysis one is
reminded of Kant's notion of the thing in itself (Ding an sich)
which is not given but somehow attained as a limit.
There are, too, certain notions of recent philosophers. Among
these is the idea of limit (Grenze) in N. Hartman's epistemology: the intellect is aware of its own boundaries; the
"transintelligible"
has to possess "a minimum of intelligibility " to become noticeable even in the mere form of limitation to the intellect. This applies, of course, to the infra-intelligible, the material particular, as well as to the supra-intelligible; Hartmann himself, being far from viewing things in the
Thomistic manner, does not refer to the particular, the intellectual knowledge of which he evidently takes for granted. 98
Another isM. Heidegger's "mode of deficiency"; certain things
with which we deal in ordinary situations pass unnoticed, but
become very noticeable the moment there is something amiss
with them or they themselves are missing. 99
The idea that the particular is known by way of negation
appears as early as some of the writings of the older commentators of Aquinas and of other Scholastics. This idea has been
developed to a greater extent and
been given a deeper
signification by the modern philosophers to whom reference was
97 Le Tkomisme devant la pkilosopkie.critique, p. 168.
•• Metapkysik der Erkenntnis, 2d ed., Leipzig: 1927.
•• Sein und Zeit, Halle a. S.: 1929.

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made above. The problem of limit, limit of knowledge, and
similar formulae, has aroused a greater interest in recent years
than ever before. The " philosophy of existence," or "existential philosophy," has emphasized this problem. It arises in
N eo-Scholasticism, too, as is shown by the quotation from
Marechal.
Another notion which plays a certain role in the writings of
N eo-Scholastics is the notion of " intellectual intuition." This
notion recalls the expression repeatedly used by Aquinas, that
the intellect regards (inspicit) the phantasm and in it the particular. The modern idea seems, however, to go farther than
Aquinas. G. Rabeau has a characteristic passage 100 wherein
he summarizes his ideas:
The knowledge of the singular object is not, properly speaking,
intellectual. By that I mean that it does not consist in the intellect
being reduced to act by a universal form and expressing that form
in a word. There is indeed a universal form there, but its role is
only occasional; it sends the reflection back to the phantasm from
which it was born. Having arrived there, we find a positive element, the " continuation " between the intellect and the phantasm.
Now, since this contact is not a simple bump, but a knowledge, it
is very difficult not to concJude with M. Regis Jolivet/ 01 that the
knowledge of the singular is an intuition.
Here, the intuition credited to the intellect refers to the particular which is intuited through and in the phantasm. There
is another conception of the intellectual intuition. Bl. Romeyer,
after having stated that the senses are incapable of perceiving
the laWS of being through (Ct travers) the sensible phenomena,
continues:
Such a perception of the absolute is an intellectual intuition, of a
very low degree (infime) but true. By this intuition man attains
not only being as such, its transcendental properties truth and
100 "

Species, Verbum, L'activite intellectuelle selon S. Thomas."

Bibl. Tkom.,

XXII, p. 85.
101 "L'intuition
intellectuelle et le probleme de Ia metaphysique." ATck. de Phil.,
1984, 11, n. !!.

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goodness; he attains still other determinations affecting being: its
substantial and accidental characteristics, its causality, efficient,
exemplary, and final, its essential degrees, matter, life, sensibility,
mind.l02

By being credited with the capacity of attaining matter, this
intuition of the intellect evidently becomes capable also of
attaining the particular. On the other hand, Romeyer states
that the concrete reality of material objects is known to the
intellect by means of the extrinsic concurrence of the senses
and in the way of a reflex-grasp (saisie reflexe).
Roland-Gosselin is apparently a little sceptical in regard
to intellectual intuition as a legitimate concept of Thomistic
philosophy. He says, however, that it is the intellect which
ultimately centralizes all data of consciousness, including
of course those of sensibility. 103 And elsewhere he asserts that
the intellect, being ordered by its nature to an essential knowledge of being, is capable of discerning the act of existence which
is presented to its view. 104 But the act of existence is individual
existence.
In the discussion of intellectual knowledge and its relations
to the senses the point which is chiefly stressed is the dependence of the intellect on the senses. But the senses depend, on
the other hand, on the intellect. There is no perception, in
the true sense of the term, in which the intellect does not take
part. As has been remarked above, the simple fact of naming a
thing recognized presupposes the cooperation of the intellect.
Though the common sense (sensus communis) is said to
synthesize the percept of the crude data supplied by the external senses, the percept in truth is more than the product of a
merely sensory activity. Roland.:.Gosselin is, therefore, right
in asserting the role of " judgment " in perception; though it
would be prudent to speak only of intellectual activity, because
101

"St. Thomas et notre connaissance de I' esprit humain." Arch. de Phil.,

6, n. 2.
103 " Pent-on
parler d'intuition intellectuelle dans Ia philosophie Thomiste? "
Philos. pertmnia, Regeusburg: 1980, Vol. II, p.
10 ' " Essai d'une critique de la connaissance," Bibl. Thom., XVII.

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there is no empirical evidence of a judgment being active in
sense perception.
There is another question more directly related to our problem. It has been remarked repeatedly that the phantasm to
which the intellect " converts " itself after having ·formed a
concept need not be, and very often is not, the very phantasm
from which the concept had been originally abstracted. There
are certain concepts to which no phantasm can correspond
exactly, like e. g., the phantasm of a dog corresponding to the
universal notion of "the dog." Concepts like "potency," or
" V -1," or" concept" itself, are not related in the same way
to phantasms as universals abstracted from some sense data are
related to their phantasms. The existence of such concepts is
acknowledged by Aquinas himself. Rabeau 105 calls these concepts constructed concepts (concepts construits) -whether in
conscious recognition of the modern notion of " constructs " or
not, is not clear. In any case, the term is a happy one and
characterizes perfectly the nature of certain concepts which are
not abstracted directly, but which result from a peculiar intellectual operation.
The human mind, however, naturally
attempts concrete illustrations of the most abstract concepts,
even though these illustrations do not really contribute to our
understanding; they are sometimes more of a hindrance than a
help. These illustrations are, moreover, not related in a determined manner to the concepts. A concept of higher mathematics or of theoretical physics, may be illustrated in various
ways; just as one and the same thought may be expressed in
various manners. A proposition of mathematics may be stated
by a symbolic formula, in words, in any language; the " phantasm " of these expressions is another in each instance, but it
serves equally as a support for the abstract idea.
If there are minds that can dispense with diagrams in geometry
and mechanics, why not minds that can dispense with mechanical
models of physical phenomena? Mechanical models certainly have
not as much relevance to physical inquiry as diagrams in geometry
105

Loo. oit.

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since it can be shown, as Poincare has done (Electricite et Optique,
Paris, 1890, preface), that whenever a mechanical model is invented
to explain physical phenomena, an infinity of these models is
possible.106
What is said here of the models for physical phenomena
applies also to every phantasm imagined or invented or constructed for the sake of illustrating any concept whatsoever.
It applies equally to all phantasms of symbolic character.
Words are but one case of these symbols. There are many
others. Logical relations as well as all kinds of mental contents
may be symbolized by images. Some people hive images representing such things as the week, or the seasons of the year.
The use of metaphoric expressions, of similes, allegories, etc.,
goes back to this capacity of the mind, viz., to " see " something in a concrete thing of an altogether different nature. But,
to state this once more, these images are not a conditio sine qua
non for the understanding of certain concepts. Nor are they
necessary for the understanding of propositions. Here too one
and the same idea may be illustrated by different images. As
one may express the same thought in various manners, using
different words, so it may be illustrated by different images. 107
·what may be called the" choice of images" is a problem in
itself. The mere fact that there are good and bad similarities,
appropriate and insufficient illustrations, proves that the choice
of images is a particular function of the mind. This function
has to be under the direction of the intellect, since the concepts
or ideas to be illustrated are primarily in the intellect. But it
is not the image which is of importance; the main thing is the
intellectual concept. The concept is not understood by means
of the image, but the image receives its significance from the
concept it is intended to illustrate. As W. Staehlin rightly says,
no metaphor would be understandable, if the images were the
relevant facts/ 08
M. R. Cohen, Reason and Nature, 6th ed., New York: 1982, p. 215.
R. Allers, "Bild und Gedanke," Zsckr. f. d. ges. Neural. u. Psyckiatr., 1922, 1.
108 "Zur Psychologie und Statistik der Metapher," Arch. f. d. ges. Psyckol., 1914,
31, 279.
100
10 •

10

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The intellect has, therefore, to exercise a selective influence
on the images. It has, so to speak, to reach down in the storage
house of memory or to dictate to imagination which images are
to be fetched forth. Evident though this is, it seems that this
side of the problem
not aroused much interest on the part
either of the experimental psychologist or on the part of the
Scholastic philosophers. There is a remarkable passage in
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, where he speaks of what he
terms the Schema zu einem Begriff. There is, according to this
philosopher, a "general procedure by which to procure its
image for a concept. What underlies our pure sensible concepts
are not images but schemata." 109
Not only concepts are ·"constructs"; images also may be
said to possess this property. It has always been known that
the imagination is not only reproductive but also creative. The
capacity of combining elements of experience into new images
is important in invention and in art. New concepts, however,
do not originate exclusively from new images. The contrary is
even the more frequent occurrence, at least in sciences of a
higher degree of abstraction. The application of new principles
of physics to practical tasks of engineering makes necessary
a translation, as it were, of the newly conceived abstract notions
to particular things and situations. Then the mind has to
" construe " new phantasms, whose origin is in the intellect and
the construction of which has to be directed by the intellect.
This fact did not althogether escape the mind of St. Thomas. 110
It is pointed out expressly by Rabeau. 111
The mind knows evidently, by the nature of the concept
itself, that and how this concept may be illustrated by and
incorporated in a definite phantasm. There is always the possibility of several phantasms among which the intellect chooses.
We reject some phantasms as not serving the purpose of the
intellect, we look around, as it were, for an adequate image, we
know in what direction we have to search for such an appro100 Another relevant
passage may be found in Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft,
§ 69, "Von der Schoenheit als Symbol der Sittlichkeit."
110 Q. D. de Veritate, q. 10, a. S, c.
111 Op. cit., p. 181.

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priate illustration. This activity presuppqses not only a directing influence of the intellect on the imagination, but also an
intellectual capacity of comparison; if such a capacity did not
exist, we could never distinguish between an adequate and an
inadequate image. Furthermore, a concept, even if formed
anew and not derived directly by abstraction from a phantasm,
has to carry in itself an element indicating its possible relation
to images. This is, as it seems, the view of A. Dondeyne, who
writes: " The content of a concept presents itself spontaneously
to consciousness as a ' possible,' that is, as a content of infinitely
realisable being." 112
There are still many authors whose opinion might be quoted.
But all these studies do not advance our understanding of the
problem in ·a noticeable manner. The same terms return constantly. We read of reflexion, continuation, glow (reflexio,
continuatio, relucentia), etc., but we do not penetrate deeper
into the nature of the problem itself. 118 It is, therefore, permissible to end this report and to attempt a summary of the results
of recent philosophic endeavor.
The only real progress which has been achieved seems to be
the reference made by P. Marechal to the consciousness of
limit or the awareness of a lacuna. Rabeau may be mentioned
for stressing the fact that propositions are units, that to them
corresponds one species expressa and that they are not a mere
combination or succession of imaginable terms. We have
shown above that this is indeed the very idea of Aquinas
himself.
Philosophy has first of all to take account of facts: " Salvare
apparentia," as St. Thomas repeats after Plato and Simplicius.
It is therefore not permissible simply to discard all empirical
evidence and to declare it misleading, because sensible experience is never given in its purity. There can be no doubt that
this is the case. But the same may be asserted of every other
mental operation. If this contention were right, there could be
"L'abstraction," Rev. Neo-Sckol., 1988, 41, 1.
For a good historical study see: J. Webert, "L'image dans l'ceuvre de St.
Thomas." Rev. Tkomiste, 1926, 31, 427.
112

113

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neither an empirical nor a speculative psychology. Even if one
would concede to F. Rahner, 114 who holds this view, that philosophy may proceed independently of experience and experiment, it is nevertheless the task of philosophy to legitimate its
views ultimately by referring them to the data of experience.
The statements of this author would have gained in validity if
he had taken more account of facts.
Not all N eo-Scholastics have dealt so contemptuously with
experience and with the data of psychology. If they did not,
it is partly because they chose to disregard them altogether.
Not caring to study carefully the evidence supplied by psychology, many of th,ese authors believed in a contradiction between
psychology and the statements of Aquinas. They felt justly
that the Thomistic theory of knowledge or rather cognitive processes, could not be abandoned without seriously endangering
the system in its totality. Being convinced of the truth of the
philosophical system, they preferred to distrust the statements
of the psychologists. We have endeavored to show that in fact
there is no contradiction, that the findings of experimental psychology are rather just what one would expect to foll<;>w from
the Thomistic principles. Thus,'the evidence supplied by psychology may be used without any restriction in attempting an
explanation of the still mysterious process of intellectual knowledge of particulars. We cannot hope to attain a theory which
would be wholly satisfactory and which would eliminate all
the difficulties alluded to before. 'But we may hope to contribute something to a more penetrating classification.

IV
In devising a theory one must be clear on two points: first
a precise knowledge of what the theory is supposed to achieve,
and, secondly, the assembly of all the facts pertaining to the
problem. Now, a theory which supposes a definite philosophy
to be true, has to cope with two difficulties: it has to supply a
1 " Geist in Welt. Zur Metaphysik
der endlichen Erkenntnis bei Thomas von
Aquin. lnnsbruck: 1939.

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satisfactory explanation, and this explanation has to be couched
in the terms of the philosophy adopted .by the writer. Moreover, these terms have to be taken in their original and undistorted meaning. It happens frequently that a theoretical
explanation of certain facts or a solution of definite problems
is given apparently in the terms of a definite philosophy,
although, a closer analysis shows that these terms, have undergone in the mind of the scholar some subtle modifications, which
may pass unnoticed, the more so, since they are introduced
unwillingly and unconsciously. The ambiguity of many terms
becomes a dangerous pitfall. The same words, used in philosophy and in psychology, in the sciences and in common life, seem
to have the same signification, but this is too often an illusion.
Thus, the term " abstraction " is used in psychology and in
philosophy; it is not certain that the meaning in both instances
is exactly the same. We have had occasion already to point
out that abstraction is used by psychologists in a rather loose
sense. Identifying the abstraction of the psychologist with
that of the philosopher is the origin of disturbing misunderstandings.
The problems posited by the Thomistic theory are evident.
The phantasm is outside of the intellect; yet the intellect has
to get hold of the phantasm, first to " illuminate " it by the
force of the active intellect in order to disengage the universal
nature which is transmitted by means of the intelligible species
to the possible intellect; secondly, to clarify or illustrate a
concept when the intellect returns by way of " reflexion ";
thirdly, to form a particular judgment.
There has to be, furthermore, a definite and determining
influence exercised by the intellect on the faculty of imagination. This becomes evident from the fact that the intellect
is endowed with the capacity of " choosing " the appropriate
phantasm in the case of " constructs " and highly abstracted
notions, which do not stem directly from some phantasm.
Besides these empirical necessities, there is a further reason
which forces us to credit the intellect with the power of knowing particulars. Actual being is found only in particulars, the

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individually existing things; and being is the object of the intellect. As the highest faculty of the human mind, reason is the
light by which this mind not only becomes cognizant of things
as they are, but also finds its way in active behavior through
the world of reality.
The facts collected by experimental psychology do not contradict the ideas of philosophy. " lmageless thought " refers
to what modern psychology calls thought, that is, to propositions or " propositionable " contents of the intellect. To these
mental phenomena no phantasm corresponds, as we have
pointed out more than once. The experimental evidence, then,
referring to " imageless thought " cannot be alleged as proof
against Thomistic psychology, nor has the latter any reason for
doubting the validity of the statement made by the experithat
mental psychologists.
Experiments
demonstrating
" meaning " may be grasped before an image appears, have to
be interpreted in the light of the thesis that the image need not
be the one from which the meaning originally had been
abstracted. If the meaning is given in words,
is understood
before the word is fully grasped, one has to recall that words
are sensible data, that they evoke images or are given as such
through the external senses, and that these data are accordingly
sufficient as a material basis for intellectual understanding.
The same applies, in a similar manner to meaning presented by
way of pictures. These experiments do not constitute any
objection against the classic conception of intellectual operation.
A serious objection would arise only if "it could be shown that
meaning may become conscious spontaneously and be fully
understood without any image appearing at the same time.
Whether such a case exists or not, is not easy to decide. In
reviewing personal experience the greatest care is necessary.
Everyone is but too easily deluded into believing his personal
mode of experience to be general. In the history of psychology
there are striking proofs of such instances. Some psychologists
who belonged to the so-called motor type, his imagery being
mainly or even exclusively, of kinesthesia, thought that" inner

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speech " consisted in the reproduction of articulatory movements. But there are many persons who do not have such
kinesthetic imagery. People whose vital imagination is well
developed are inclined to believe that everyone " thinks " in
visual images. In inquiring into the presence or absence of
images one has to take account of the particular type of imagination. Images may be very poorly developed and consist in
mere fragments or symbols of the thing imagined. These symbols often have no resemblance to the thing for which they
stand.
The psychologist will have to inquire whether the important
factor is the image as such, or the activity of imagination of
any kind whatsoever. It may be that the particular kind
of image is quite irrelevant and that the important fact is the
imagination being aroused to some activity. On these things
as well as on the question of meaning without any imagery no
decision as yet seems possible, since the necessary experimental
evidence is lacking.
The experiments on the understanding of meaning and its
relation to imagery deal with a mental process which is in truth
rather uncommon. The usual task, outside of the laboratory,
is not understanding isolated words or pictures, but grasping
contexts. Isolated words, when used in common speech, are
usually fragmentary sentences. A question is often answered
by one word. But this word stands for a sentence which
repeats the question in the form of an assertion. An exclamation may consist of one word; if it is meaningful, that is, more
than a mere expression of emotional disturbance, this word too
replaces a sentence. I may call something to another person's
attention by simply saying: "there"; the accompanying
demonstrative gesture stands in fact for the predicate of a
sentence reading, more or less "look, there at this thing."
And so on.
The average case is the understanding of contexts which may
be nearer or farther from a proposition and from the possibility
of being cast into a sentence; meaning as it is encountered in
common intercourse with reality, is practically always meaning

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of relations. Hardly ever does an isolated concept rise into
consciousness and have to be understood. It is probable that
cases-if such cases exist--of understanding, without accompanying images, will always be of sentences or sentence-like cc;mtents. But this question is much in need of experimental .
investigation, before a definite statement can be made. In any
case, one may feel safe in asserting that no fact is known that
would prove the existence of concept-understanding without
some image being involved. Thomistic philosophy has, therefore, nothing to fear from experimental psychology, and the
latter cannot pretend that its findings disprove the statements
of pre-experimental, philosophical psychology.
Experiments may, however, contribute much to a better
understanding and a clearer demonstration of the principles
asserted by Thomistic psychology. It would be especially
interesting to have detailed introspective evidence, under controlled conditions, on the mental processes involved in the
thinking or forming of particular judgments. So far as we
can see, this problem has not yet been studied.
Thus, if we desire to attain a somewhat clearer idea on the
way in which the intellect gets in touch with the particular, we
are thrown back on philosophical analysis. Particularity and
singularity as such are not unknown to the intellect. We distinguish perfectly .one intellectual operation from another, or
one concept from another. Also, the intellect knows itself as
one and as distinguished from any other. It is not singularity,
but materiality which seems impenetrable to the intellectual
power.
Materiality is a property not only of the particular things
apprehended by the mind, but also of the mind's own faculties
by which this apprehension is primarily achieved. There is one
particular material thing of which reason is fully conscious,
namely, the human body. The soul knows itself united to
matter and residing, as it were, in this particular body,
(Though one has to remember that this body is not strictly
matter, but matter informed by the soul.) The intellectual
powers have to be cognizant of the body and of the sensory

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faculties depending on this body, otherwise we would never
know that a given sense impression is ours, neither would we
know how to put into execution an act of will arising in the
volitional faculty. The problem of the intellectual knowledge
of particulars starts therefore not only with the awareness of
things outside of ourselves; it starts with our knowing ourselves.
Little is gained by pointing out the fact that, after all, sensory and intellectual faculties belong to the one selfsame soul.
The faculties are proper accidents, really distinct from each
other and from the substance of the soul. It is only a metaphorical way of expression and not much more than a description or a factual statement, if one asserts that the various faculties communicate with each other because of, or through, the
soul to which they belong. This has apparently been felt by
the authors who dealt with this problem. Because of this, they
sought to discover some mean between the intellect and the
senses or imagination. Aquinas himself refers us, especially
in regard to the operation of the will, to the vis cogitativa.
However close this internal sense may be to the intellect, it can
never become a real mean because there is no mean imaginable
between materiality and immateriality. A thing is either the
on:e or the other; there are no transitions from one level to the
other. Nor can this gap be bridged by referring to some
" spiritualization " of the image. This too is only another way
of stating the facts, but not an explanation of them.
Another way out of this difficulty seems to present itself if
one considers the fact that mere pure perception, as an achievement of the senses alone, does in truth not exist, at least, not
under normal and average conditions. What we call a perception is much more than a mere affection of the senses; it is
this plus a noticeable intellectual factor.
In calling the object
apprehended a something we employ the intellect; " something " is not less a concept than dog or man or size. In recognizing a simple color as, e. g., red, we draw, not only on the store
of sensory memory, but on the store of intellectual memory as
well. In this sense one may surely speak of a "spiritualization " not only of the image but also of the percept. It is also

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true that the process of apprehension involves a gradual dematerialization of the object. The species sensibilis, material
though it is, does not carry, as it were, the matter from the particular thing apprehended into the senses. Moreover, the
image, especially if it is somewhat generalized and not a mere
" portrait" of an individual thing, is still less material. But all
this leaves the central problem unsolved. The cooperation of
the intellect with the senses in perception presupposes that the
intellect is somehow capable of transcending · the barrier
between materiality and immateriality.
It is true furthermore that the intellect knows directly, by
the nature of the concept, of the latter's reference to a multitude
of singulars. It is indeed the nature of the concept to imply
such a reference; its nature is to be predicated of many things.
But by this, the intellect does not attain the least knowledge
of any individual particular; nor is the particular " given " by
the knowledge of all the universals, i£ such a knowledge is possible at all, which may be abstracted from the thing and its
properties. The individual is not what older Scholastics termed
a "collection of properties"; 115 each of these properties being
expressible by name. Not even a perfect knowledge of the
general laws which condition the appearance of an eclipse at
a certain moment enables the astronomer to know actually
this .one phenomenon unless he observes it. But does this
knowledge of the universal nature necessitate an intellectual
grasp of the particular? Must the intellect in order to know that
its concept refers to an undetermined, and, eventually, infinite
number of particulars have a knowledge of any individual particular? Or is its knowledge of the universal's nature based on
an intellectual apprehension of some relation between this universal and the notion of the particular in general? Or again:
Is the notion of a concept, for example, the concept of elliptic
functions in mathematics, secondary by nature to the universal
derived by abstraction from a phantasm? That such a highly
abstract notion is secondary in time is clear; the first notions the
115 Cf. the remarks of L. Raeyemaker,
Rev. Neo-Schol., 1937, 40, 604, in his
critical report on Fuetscher's work on Akt und Potenz.

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mind forms are abstracted from sensible images. It is also clear
that the highest degrees of abstraction rest ultimately on the
first. This does not, however, necessitate a constant referring
of the highest concept to those gained by the first steps of
abstraction; not even an implicit reference is necessarily implied.
These problems have, however, but an indirect bearing on the
questions under discussion. To mention them seems advisable
because thus the wide range of problems related to the one of
intellectual knowledge of the particular becomes manifest. But
we cannot attempt to analyze all these issues.
The various suggestions of how to find an answer to the question of bridging the gap between the intellect and the particular leave this gap as wide as before. They are rather indicaions that the gap has to be bridged by some theory, since it is
evidently bridged in reality. The problem is more of a metaphysical than of a psychological nature. It will be solved, probably better, from a standpoint on the terrain of ontology than
on the ground of psychology. The attempts to discover any
mean between intellect and senses or the immaterial and the
material seem bound to fail. Psychological analysis and description may supply some valuable indications on the direction into
which metaphysical inquiry must turn.
By this we do not refer to the Thomistic notion of extension
(continuatio). This term only expresses the fact that there is
an undoubted cooperation of the sensory faculties and the intellectual powers, and a penetration, as it were, of the latter into
the former in such a way that, even a simple sensory operation
has a certain amount of intellectuality admixed. Extension is
not an explanatory but a descriptive term.
One notion which has been reported above seems of a particular usefulness, the one, namely, contributed by P. Marechal
when he pointed out the limit, the boundary, or the barrier
of which the intellect becomes aware when approaching the
particular. We shall see presently that this notion deserves
particular consideration.
Thomism is convinced of the basic intelligibility of reality.
In spite of the limitations of the human mind, the whole of

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reality may be somehow grasped by it. ·Things we cannot
understand in their essence may be at least understood by way
of analogy. The analogical way of understanding is
counterpart of the analogical structure of being. The terms we
use are ambiguous or equivocal; but the fact that we know this
equivocation is a proof of our capacity of understanding, somehow, even things which are beyond our power of understanding.
Mention has been made of N. Hartmann's notion that even the
transintelligible is endowed with a "minimum of intelligibility," else we could not know it at all and would not be able
to call it the transintelligible. The transintelligible is, so to
speak, on both sides of the intelligible; it is below, as matter,
and above, as pure spiritual being. . The latter is, as such, not
transintelligible; being spiritual and immaterial it is rather an
appropriate object of the intellect, were it not for the intellect's
limitations and its dependence on the sense functions. Matter
is essentially transintelligible, but it is not so far " below " the
intellect that its concept is inaccessible to reason. Even the
concept of prime matter is a purely intellectual achievement.
Prime matter can never become an object of experience; it is
itself a limitative notion-Grenzbegrifj, to use the Kantian
term which expresses exactly what we have in mind. Matter
can be thought of only in correlation with form. Form may be
thought of independently of matter, because we can think, if
inadequately, of the pure and subsistent forms. ·The theory of
ideas as conceived by Plato is a historical demonstration of the
mind's capacity to think pure forms. The abstract notion is a
likeness of the form which in Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology
cannot be conceived as existing independently of, and separated from, matter and the individual thing. It is of the very
nature of form to be concretized-" contracted "-by union
with matter. The relation to matter is an essential feature of
the form, and thinking of form the mind cannot think but of
form as related to matter. That the concept is capable of being
predicated of many things is but the psychological counterpart
of its ontological nature. Thinking the universal, the mind
necessarily thinks the universal's relation to matter and to indi-

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viduals. Thus far the knowledge of particulars is entailed in
the knowledge of concepts or universals.
The philosopher discovers, by his painstaking inquiries, only
what is really involved in human knowledge. He states explicitly what is implicitly given in the mental facts which mirror
reality. That only the particular is really existent and that the
concept follows the existing thing is not a fact because it may be
deduced from experience, by means of turning to the phantasm;
it can be deduced because it is a fact which is contained in the
very notion of a concept, a fact which is implicitly given
together with the concept, and which has only to be drawn into
light and couched in words to acquire a certain compulsory
force. Thinking a concept is at the same time thinking it as
only existing in particulars. Existence is not derived, or need
not be derived, from experience about things outside of the
mind. Existence is the immediate experience of the mind itself.
From the time when St. Augustine first pointed out : " I know
that I know," as the one irrefutable fact which even the sceptic
cannot but recognize, there has never been any doubt .about
this fact: that the mind knows itself as existing. The Cartesian cogito has a long and noble ancestry. 116 The experience of
existence as my existence makes me a ware also of this existence
being an individual one.
Reason, therefore, knows of existence and knows too that existence is always, at least so far as it is accessible to direct experience, individual existence. Reason knows furthermore that the
concept implies existence, therefore existence as actual in individuals. The search for the individual is accordingly a natural
tendency of the intellect. In proceeding on this search, the
intellect encounters the barrier of materiality. An obstacle
which opposes itself to the progress of intellectual movement
may be of two kinds. It may be in the nature of an impenetrable, dark, unwieldy resistence, or, it may present itself in
some dim light, translucent as it were, unsurmountable indeed,
but recognizable in its nature. The latter case seems to be
116

Cf. the various studies on Descartes' philosophy by Dr. E. Gilson.

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the one realized in the attempt of the intellect to attain the
individual, of whose existence the intellect is certain beforehand, -since the very nature of its proper contents, the universal,
testifies to the fact that that to which it refers, exists, if at all,
in particulars.
These particulars may be thought of, in a
general manner, as being material, because the universal notion
of a material particular is, of course, attainable by the intellect.
Reason, therefore, knows what it has to look for; but on its way
to this preconceived aim reason encounters an insurmountable
obstacle behind which the things desired are hidden.
Certain facts pertaining equally to grammar, logic, the philosophy and the psychology of language may be mentioned in
this respect. We refer to the so-called distributive judgments.
The two propositions: " The dog has four legs," and " every
dog has four legs," are equivalent; they state the same fact,
they refer to the same " Objective," to use the terminology of
A. v. Meinong. They are convertible. The psychological background, however, is not quite the same in both these cases.
The first proposition is, so to speak, more purely intellectual
than the second, which implies, in an indirect manner or by
implication, a reference to particulars. These particulars are
not grasped as individuals; they are nevertheless intended as
individuals in a general and indefinite manner. The fact that
the intellect may form these two propositions shows that the
concept as such implies some intellectual knowledge of the
particular.
Another point where the intellect gets in relatively close
touch with the particular is the proper name. A name, generally speaking, is a name of a class or a universal. A proper
name is a general name narrowed down until it fits one individual only. As a name, the proper name belongs to the group
of vocal symbols used for universals; as a proper name, it is
related to one individual. There are certain transitions between
the proper and the general name. A general name can be used
as a name for an individual, for example, a father calling his
boy "son"; and a proper name may be used in a general

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fashion, for instance, a child calling all dogs by the name of
his own dog.
Another phenomenon which is related to the one of the
proper name is the possessive pronoun. By adding "my" or
" his " to a general name, this name becomes the name of an
individual; my house, my friend, his book, are individuals.
Possessive pronouns refer to the person who possesses a thing.
A thing belonging to a person partakes, in a sense, of this person's individuality.
(This is manifest in the attitude children
have in regard to their possessions. Though it is a mistaken
idea to believe that the child does not distinguish between himself and surrounding objects-in fact he has a quite clear,
though not explicit and not formulated, knowledge of the
uniqueness of his ego, as St. Augustine has already pointed out
-it is true that the relations of a child to things belonging to
him or to which he is accustomed are closer than is generally
the case with adults.) That something belongs to me is not a
datum of the senses; it hardly could be given by the senses
alone, not even by the vis cogitativa, though this power is capable of grasping certain relations. To realize fully the meaning
of the relation expressed by " mine " man needs some intellectual insight.
There are probably still other ways by which the particular
gets near to the intellect. Nonetheless, it can never really
enter the sphere of immateriality. But the intellect knows, by
the indication alluded to above, what it would find behind the
barrier, could it but pass it. But must the intellect pass the
barrier to be able to deal with the particular? The common idea
seems to be that in understanding the meaning of a particular,
or in forming a judgment about it, the intellect has to "contain" this particular. It might be, however, a mistaken notion
due to the illusion created by the grammatical form expressing
the intellectual operation. This illusion arises because the
name of the particular has to be employed in the sentence. The
sentence is the expression of an intellectual operation; thus the
common opinion that the particular is in the intellect in the
same manner as it is in the senses.

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The intellect knows that there are particulars. It knows too
that it has ultimately derived all its contents from without. It
suffers, as Rabeau expresses it, a shock from the phantasm. It
undergoes another shock when encountering any
This
does not mean that the process of abstraction has to be repeated
every time an image presents itself. The image may be one of
imagination, or one of perception. This does not make any
difference, since the memory image, eventually to be revived in
imagination, has to arise simultaneously with the percept, as
H. Bergson rightly points out. 117 Even impres.sions, of which
the mind does not become conscious at the time of their actual
presence, cause memory images to be developed. Impressions
of which we are not cognizant, are remembered, and, under
certain conditions, recalled. 118 Sometimes a kind of renewal of
the abstractive process takes place, when we encounter an
object which we recognize as known without being able to place
it. Recognition, however, usually does not consist in a comparison of a new impression with an image; it rather consists
in the awareness, that the new object-the same applies to
objects of the intellect-fits into some already existing frame
or constellation. 119
That the intellect suffers such a shock from the activity of
the sensory faculty postulates a "continuity" between the
two. Is this continuity sufficiently explained by referring to the
unity of the soul to which all the faculties belong? This seems
doubtful, for there is still the difficulty resulting from the
materiality of the sensory faculties. These faculties, however,
are not purely material. They are faculties of the composite,
and accordingly, spiritual as well as material. One can hardly
conclude from this fact that the sensible species, the phantasm,
and the mental states, in which the impressions are conserved
in memory, are "spiritualized" in a strict sense; this "spiritu117

"Le souvenir du present et Ia fausse reconnaissance," Rev. Philos., 1908,

66, 561.
118 R. Allers and J. Teler, "Ueber das Auftauchen unbemerkter
Eindriicke in
Assoziationen,'' Zschr. f. d. ges. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 1923.
119 Cf. 0. Selz, I. c. passim.

THE INTELLECTUAL

COGNITION

OF PARTICULARS

161

alization " is relative, and the expression is not much more than
a descriptive metaphor. Another consideration, however, seems
permitted.
Analogically, one may assert that the spiritual
factor in the sensory faculties is related to the material factor
in a similar manner as the soul is related to the composite
human being. The psychical "part" of the sensory faculties
is, in a way, the formal factor, and, as such, accessible to the'
intellect. Thus, any modification of a formal character will be
within reach of intellectual cognition. Sense impressions condition an accidental information of the sensory faculty, therefore, some modification within the formal element of these
faculties. The activity, or, envisioned from another angle, the
passivity of the sensory faculty thus becomes a proper object
of the intellect.
It is possible that a satisfactory theory of intellectual cognition of particulars might be developed along these lines. There
remain, however, two problems which should be mentioned,
even though a thorough discussion of them must be postponed.
One of these problems refers to the dominion the intellect exercises over the imagination in the" choice of phantasms.'' The
other problem concerns the manner in which meaning is "contained " in symbolic ·phantasms.
The latter problem necessitates so lengthy an analysis that it cannot even be touched
upon in this context. Some words may be said however, on the
first problem.
No faculty of the human soul ever operates in isolation; every
mental operation is always the cooperation of many, practically, of all faculties. Perception implies an intellectual factor;
the intellect depends on sensory faculties; will relies on the intellect for supplying the ends; the sensory appetite cannot operate
without sensory cognition; nor can the will flow over into action
without the sensory appetites cooperating. The fact, then,
that an intellectual operation actuates imagination is neither
an exception nor in any way more wonderful than the other
activities of the mind. The problem is posited by the fact that
a definite intellectual operation actuates a definite imaginative
activity. We observe, at times, that the imagination works in
11

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RUDOLF ALLERS

a manner not in accordance with the needs of the intellect.
Frequently we cannot find the right word to express what is in
our minds, the really illustrative analogy or image is not at
hand, we search for an appropriate symbol. The precise
cooperation of the imagination is, therefore, not a pre-established way of functioning but an achievement which has to be
trained by experience, developed by exercise, controlled by
the intellect. Notions which are well known, easily find the
corresponding images and symbols ready made in the imagination and memory. For other, more unusual, and newly
formed concepts of a higher degree of abstraction, images have
to be created or painstakingly sought. The particular image is
forever outside of the intellect. The particular activity of
imagination is not. It is probable that the particular activity
of imagination is strictly correlated to the particular image.
In Husserl's philosophy there is a notion which seems to apply
here. He speaks of a strict correlation between Noesis and
N oema, the act-aspect of knowing and its content-aspect.
What Husserl states of theoretical knowledge or of the cognition
of "essence" (Wesensschau) applies to every mental operation of any kind whatsoever. This relation is, if we understand
things correctly, not one due to psychological laws, but
depends on ontological facts. It depends on the same basic
parallelism between notions and reality which enables the
human mind to understand reality and to apply to real things
the ideas thought out by the mind.
The problem of cognition, whether intellectual or sensual, is
in the last analysis not to be solved solely by psychology. It is
a psychological problem, since its solution demands a thorough
knowledge of empirical facts which is the task of psychology.
Psychology alone, however, cannot discover any ultimate
answer to its own questions. To comply with its own task,
psychology has to be more than just empirical psychology;
psychology transcends, whenever it arrives at its last and deepest problems, its own boundaries. To be complete, psychology
must embrace philosophy.

*

*

*

THE INTELLECTUAL

COGNITION

OF PARTICULARS

163

We have tried, in the foregoing pages, to report on the
Thomistic theory of intellectual knowledge, particularly, in
regard to material singulars. We have also endeavored to show
that there is no contradiction between the statements of
Thomistic psychology and the findings of modern experimental
research, especially in reference to " imageless thought." Finally
we have attempted to indicate the ways in which the solutions
to certain basic problems may be found; problems which are at
home, so to speak, within the confines of psychology and philosophy. We cannot boast of having proposed definite and
wholly satisfactory solutions of these problems, we hope the way
has been prepared for further inquiries. The study of these
important problems will have to proceed by means of experimental investigations as well as by means of philosophical,
ontological, analysis.
Psychology has been called by Kant a " stranger in the
country of philosophy
who in time will return to his own
country, namely, a truly philosophical anthropology.
This
philosophical anthropology may be rightly called a metaphysics
of the human person. We are still far from laying even the
foundations of this edifice. What we have tried to state here is
not even a contribution to the foundations; it aspires to be
nothing more than a preliminary sketch, useful, perhaps, for
drafting the first blueprint.
H

RUDOLF ALLERS

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

BOOK REVIEWS
Language and Reality. :ay WILBUR lVIARsHALL URBAN. New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1939. Pp. 755, with indices. $5.50.
The sub-title of this volume frtrther indicates its nature: it treats of
" the philosophy of language and the principles of symbolism." It is the
author's contribution to the solution of what he holds to be the basic
problem of both science and philosophy: " Language is the last and deepest
problem of the philosophic mind " (p. 22) . In its effort to advance a
solution of this problem Prof. Urban's book g1ves many and varied rewards
to its reader. These come from the author's own thinking upon the general
question and its countless aspects, and from his wide range of reading, as
exhibited in countless quotations.
Language and Reality consists of two parts. In Part I-on the pl1ilosophy
of language-eight chapters discuss the following general subjects: the
theme of a philosophy of language; the origin, development and science of
language; language as the bearer of meaning; the primary functions of
language; linguistic validity; the nature and conditions of intelligible communication; language and logic; language and cognition. In Part li-the
principles of symbolism-six chapters discuss the general theory of symbolism; the language of poetry and its symbolic form; symbolism as a
scientific principle; religious symbols and the problem of religious knowledge;
symbolism as a metaphysical principle; philosophia perennis: the "natural
metaphysic of the human mind." Four appendices discuss in turn the
development of language; the problem of translation in general logistics;
as a theological
neo-nominalistic philosophies of language; and
principle in St. Thomas.
Prof. Urban cannot emphasize too much his conviction that the last and
deepest problem of the philosophic mind is found in language. He holds
that this is true whether reality be approached through life or through
science. " Life as it is merely lived is senseless. It is perhaps conceivable
that we may have a direct apprehension or intuition of life, but the meaning
of life can neither be apprehended nor expressed except in language of
some kind. . . . In a very real sense the limits of my language are the
limits of my world. Science, in the last analysis, is language well made "
(p. 21) . Again: "All life comes back to the question of speech, the medium
through which we communicate" (p. 50). This being held, " ... the
deepest problem of the philosophy of language is to be found. It is the
critical problem of the relation of linguistic forms, and of symbolic forms
in general, to the immediately given reality .... The only real problem
is whether our creations have taken us 'to reality or away from it, whether

164

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165

they have become a veil to be torn away, or are, after all, when properly
understood, the only road we have to reality" (p. 50).
In his long consideration of this problem the author comes to an expected
conclusion: " There are in general only two ways of solving the problem of
language and cognition. The first of these ... assumes a ' reality ' known
independently of language and its categories, a hypothetical ' pure experience ' to be discovered by stripping off language. This way is closed
to us, for the assumptions on which it is based are pure myth. The second
way proposes an exactly opposite method and proceeds upon opposite
assumptions. Instead, as in the first way, attempting to get back of the
forms of thought and language to a hypothetical ' pure experience,' it
assumes that experience is never ' pure ' in this sense, and that intuition
and expression are inseparable. It therefore proposes not to deny, but to
complete and perfect the principles of expression and symbolism. It proceeds upon the assumption that the more richly and energetically the human
spirit builds its languages and symbolisms, the nearer it comes, if not to
the original source of its being, certainly to its ultimate meaning and
reality. 1f the entire process of human culture consists in the creation of
certain spiritual constructions, symbolie forms of various types; the way to
truth and reality lies, not in negating these forms, but rather in seeking
to understand them and in becoming more and more conscious of the
formative principles embodied in these constructions. . . . Language which,
as we have seen, is inseparable from thought and knowledge, is not moulded
on reality. It is rather the mould in which reality as significant is first
given. This is the idealistic minimum which must be present in any adequate philosophy of language" (pp. 374-5).
In a sense it is with words as well as with wonder that philosophy begins.
Coleridge's development of Aristotle's thought may be paraphrased: It is
with words that philosophy begins; it is with words that it grows; it is
with words that it ends. Not with "mere words,'' it is true, but with
words that have some degree of precision and comistency of meaning. To
engage in the common affairs of our daily life, much more to engage in the
scientific and philosophic tasks of describing things and assigning causes
to them, it is necessary that we, as social beings, be able to fashion means
to an end. We must be able to fashion a means adequate to express to
ourselves and to our fellows the meaning that we discover in things and
the uses that we find we can put things to. It is also seen that development
of knowledge and of expression are inseparable. Allowing for all defects
of expression in individuals, among groups and races, and at various ages
in history, it is yet true that what is known can find expression, while lack
of power to manifest meaning argues the absence of genuine understanding.
Yet despite all this, and despite many further considerations, the problem
of language remains the problem of a means rather than of an end. Unless

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BOOK REVIEWS

a most extended meaning be given to the term " language," it is difficult to
agree that language is the last and deepest problem of the
mind.
Can assent be given with Prof. Urban to Hegel's dictum that language
is the actuality of culture? Only, it seems to the present writer, if the
widest possible interpretation is given to language. In that case language
will include music, painting, sculpture, and architecture along with literature. It will include science together with philosophy; moral practice along
with moral theory; social, political and economic institutions along with
theoretical bases. All are forms of expression. Indeed, what a people or an
age fails to do may be more expressive than the most formal proclamations
of language in the literal sense of the term. Thus the sterility that has
largely prevailed in the field of the arts and architecture throughout
American history, the lack of creative impulse and the defect of integrating
principles-all this is only too revealing of a corresponding emptiness
within the dominant American character. Yet it would seem as if consideration of such presences or absences in a culture falls outside the province
of a philosophy of language. Language is to be thought of as the instrument--or
as the material cause--of a certain part of a culture, rather
than as the actuality of culture itself.
Among the many related subjects that Prof. Urban brings into his
general discussion is the problem of the nature and meaning of truth.
Holding that no adequate philosophy has ever been exclusively realistic
or idealistic, he anticipates that despite this thesis his truth-theory will
be charged with being the idealistic doctrine in new disguise, for he has
written: " Truth, then, in the last analysis, is immanent in discourse-the
sum-total of intelligible discourse is the truth. V eritas in dicto, non in re
consistit. If there is no knowing that does not involve expression (and
ultimately linguistic expression) , whether such knowledge be knowledge
by acquaintance or knowledge by description, then it is only in language
that the meaning of that knowledge can be elucidated and interpreted "
(p. 394).
If this anticipated charge of idealism in Prof. Urban's truth-theory is to
be rejected with complete success, it will undoubtedly require concession of
truth to things as well as to language. For the present writer it is impossible to see how a satisfactory theory of truth can be raised upon a deemphasis of ontological truth. Much less can it be raised upon an evacuation of such truth. So also with regard to meaning. An acceptable theory
values.
of meaning will give full allowance to both realistic and
Such allowance will necessitate the assertion of meaning and value to
things iu themselves, prior to and independently of our discovery and
expression of such meaning aud value. A forthright realism has its place in
metaphysics as well as in the realm of conduct, and can lead to great
results in theories of truth and meaning.
There is in Language and Reality an embarrassment of riches for the

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167

reviewer. The completeness and clarity of the discussion, the variety of
subjects brought under the general thesis, the wealth of illustration and
documentation, the independence and originality of view-aU these contribute to the importance and value of the volume. Where the reader does
not agree with positions stated, the author's candor and conviction still
exert their instructive and persuasive power.
JoHN K. RYAN

The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

Greek Popular Religion. By MARTIN P. NILSSON. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1940. Pp. 166, with 39 illustrations and index. $2.50.
This is the first book in a new series of lectures sponsored by the
American Council of Learned Societies. The author, one time rector of the
University of Lund, Sweden, has in his long career made many notable
contributions to the study of religions, particularly that of Greece. He is,
consequently, treading on what is for him familiar ground in the present
volume, whose seven papers deal with every aspect of the religious life in
ancient Greece.
Briefly, Mr. Nilsson's thesis· is this: Greek popular religion (which he
takes to mean the religion of the ordinary man) suffered a gradual evolution which culminated in a complicated set of beliefs. The zenith of this
development occurred in the Golden Age, and it was something artificially
imposed upon the simple belief of a simple people. It does not, therefore,
adequately represent or reflect the actual state of their religious feeling, but
was quite simply a base attempt of the great artisans of Greek literature to
impose a higher level (artificial, of course) of religious ideas upon the man
of the street and of the field. The attempt was foredoomed to failure, for
the lofty, intricate speculations of the great thinkers were too far removed
from the life-giving sap of the popular religion. They flourished briefly,
then languished and died. But the sound, sturdy, popular religion still
exists.

I
Since the present discussion must inevitably use unfamiliar technical
expressions, one must admire the sagacity of the author in devoting his first
chapter to a definition of terms.
we learn what is meant by
water-spirits, demons, nymphs, heroes, 1 etc. Man travelled, and the berms
(tall stones or heaps of stones haunted by the god Hermes) provided him
with guidance. Water was scarce and so beneficial to land and herds that
1 The author
here displays a simple naivete in regard to Catholic belief that is
nothing short of amazing. Coming from a scholar like Mr. Nilsson, the remark
that " The power of the saints, like that of the heroes, is bound to their relics ...
and the pope canonizes a saint for similar reasons " (p.
is astonishing, to say
the least.

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the Greek considered rivers and brooks and springs to be inhabited by a
god or gods; watered-places, groves, and forests were invested with helpful
beings.
In a sense the first chapter of this book is the most important of all. The
Greek was essentially religious. Living as he did so close to nature, upon
whose generosity it depended whether or not he would starve or live in
abundance, it was only to be expected that his religion be expressed in a
manner which reflected his life. The Greeks were an agrarian folk,, and
peopled nature with vague, misty spirits who wielded a considerable influence upon crops. The bad spirits among this number were periodically
rendered impotent by vario-qs rites of purification and first-fruits. It is a
point to be noted that the religious calendar followed that of nature, and
the feasts with their accompanying magical rites, marked the coming of the
different seasons. There were many festivals: those of fruit-offering, wine,
flowers, swinging, new wine, etc. At some of them (those of Dionysius, for
example) the great tragedies and comedies were first produced. However,
Mr. Nilsson, inexorably clinging to his point, declares that scarcely a single
festival was associated with a particular god until later times. The gods
have vanished, but many of the festivals remain even in modern Greece.
II
Of all the religious rites of ancient times, there is hardly one to compare
with the Eleusinian Mysteries for haunting, persistent, provocative charm
and fascination. Distance may perhaps lend a certain enchantment to the
view, and their very mysteriousness arouses a desire to lift the veil and peer
behind, but the fact remains that the Eleusinian Mysteries were the highest
form of religious expression attained by the Greeks.
The author is inclined to believe, and with reason, that the kernel of the
mysteries lay in the reuniting of Demeter, the goddess of cereals, with her
daughter Kore (Persephone). The story of the rape of Kore is well known.
While she was playing in a meadow, the earth suddenly burst open and the
god of the nether world appeared. He seized the girl and brought her to
his subterranean realm. The disconsolate mother strikes the earth with
barrenness until Kore is permitted to return temporarily to earth.
In what did the mysteries consist for the initiates? The mystae have
kept their jealous secret all too well. However, we know that after preliminary rites of a bath in the sea and sacrifices, there was a procession to
Eleusis. On the eighth and ninth days there took place in the dead of
night, illumined only by flickering torches, the ceremony which made of the
candidate a" seer" (one who saw). After performing certain acts of which
we know absolutely nothing, he pronounced the formula: " I have fasted,
I have drunk of the kykeon (a mixed drink which once restored the fasting
Demeter) , I have taken from the chest, and having worked, I have laid

BOOK REVIEWS

169

down into the basket and from the basket into the chest." The formula
has been disclosed to us by Clement of Alexandria. Mr. Nilsson is frankly
sceptical of its value, adjudging it to be a prejudiced invention (p. 43) .
In this he goes too far, for the early Christian writers were honorable men,
and the ridicule they may have heaped upon pagan practices was founded
on what they knew them to be. But taken even at its best, the quotation is
not very enlightening. It does not tell us in what the rites consisted.
Apparently they consisted in the seeing of some object, but what the
object was we do not know. Various are the conjectures: 2 a phallus? a
serpent? an ear of corn symbolizing the reunion of the Mother and the Corn
Maiden? At any rate, the Mysteries were anything but a gloomy festival;
they conferred joy and happiness on man. The torches were extinguished,
the initiates joyfully ran a race symbolical of their coming to a land of
light,-an image of their future destinies. The last act of the drama was
the reenactment of a sacred marriage by the high priest and a priestess,
symbolical of or representing the union of Demeter with a mortal, which
was, for the initiates, a promise of rich, full harvest. 3
The Mysteries, then, were intimately connected with the lives and hopes
of an agrarian people. But what spiritual value did they have? Mr. Nilsson
insists (p. 63) that they persisted from a hoary antiquity because they
contained no dogma (indeed, to this cherished fact they owed their hardy
existence!) but only some simple fundamental ideas about life and death
as symbolized in the springing up of a new crop from the old. Upon this
basis was developed a hope of immortality and a belief in the eternity of
life, not for the individual but for generations which were to spring one from
another; and likewise a sort of vague humanitarianism.
Once civilization
had lost touch with the soil, with agriculture, man became uninterested in
the immortality of future generations, and desired it for himself.
Here however we are no longer concerned with historical evidence, but
with theory, and the theorizing is that of the author, not of the texts. All
that we know of the ancient religions of Egyp't and the Near East shouts
at us that man had a persistent belief in his own personal immortality.
True, the next life was usually nothing more than a continuation of the
present one, but at least it was personal. In this discussion, what is certain
is that the initiation at Eleusis corroborated the hope in a life after death,
but the promised happiness should begin to be realized in the present
existence. The miming of the sacred marriage led the initiates to believe
that they could share in some way a life with the divinity. But of itself
the rite does not suggest a divine force communicated to them in order to
practice virtue. The guarantee offered by the mysteries sufficed, and even
supplied the absence of aU virtue. The " seers " were assured of their
2

For the following remarks, confer M. J. Lagrange in Revue Biblique (RB)

1919; 19!'l9.
3 RB, 1919, flOO ff.

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salvation with a religious assurance, but it was not demanded of them that
they mend their lives. 4

ill
How did the early Greek bring his religion into his daily life? There
no professional religion, but every man's hearth and home was the
altar upon which he expressed his piety by acts of libations, and food-offerings to the house gods. All this was soon to change. Men began moving into
cities, and around the 8th century B. C., life became more and more
industrialized. When Athens had successfully driven off the Persians, it
became the leader of Greek commerce and culture. The triumphant gods
who had given victory to Greece were popular indeed, and religion went
hand in hand with patriotism. Religious festivals became national carnivals
where every man had his ffil at the expense of the State. The reaction set
in in the 5th century, which saw the decline of Athens. The great gods,
explains the author, had become too exalted to give help to the ordinary
man in the necessities of his ordinary life, and for this reason we see many
new and lesser gods imported from Asia Minor and Thrace: · Cybele,
Bendis, Aesclepius and many others. Aristophanes and the comic poets
mocked the gods with an ahnost unbelievable impunity.

WM

IV
Along with the mystical elements common to all forms of religion, there
is another which the author designates as legalism or ritualism, whereby a
man endeavors to make.peace with God and win his favor by faithfully
and meticulously fulffiling his commandments (p. 103). Hesiod lays down
many rules for the religious life and conduct of man some of which are
" not far from Protestant ideas " as, for example, the hallowing of labor!
Many of these rules are but a step removed from superstition; and ritualism,
as promoted by Apollo and advocated by Hesiod, fastened its " fetters "
on the whole of man's life. This was, however, only a" tendency" (p. 107),
despite the fact that it had " sprung from the depths of the popular mind "
(p. 108).
Mr. Nilsson is happy to refute the common opinion that the Greeks of
the classical period were quite free from superstition. He explains its
absence from great literature of the period " because great writers found
such base things not worth mentioning" (p. 111); it would be more to the
point to explain its absence by the fact that the great writers simply took
it for granted.
One important contribution which we owe in great part to the Greeks is
the development of the idea of Tartarus or hell. For Homer the soul was a
pale valueless shade; it was the body that counted as the man. With the
coming of the Urphics the soul began to be looked upon as immortal,
• Cf. Lagrange, RB, 1919, 208-215; 1929, 63 ff., 200 ff.

BOOK REVIEWS

171

imprisoned in the body. This led naturally to new ideas relative to the
other world. The old idea that it was to be a repetition of the present
existence was retained, but to it was coupled the growing conviction of
divine justice; individuals guilty of grave misdeeds unpunished during life
were to suffer their punishment in the life after death.
"Greek Popular Religion" closes with a chapter on" Seers and Oracles."
These were an acknowledged part of the Greek religion, and exerted great
influence in political circles; the author gives abundant details.

v
In the final summation, Mr. Nilsson again affirms that religion is dependent on the conditions of life. There is a basic assumption here to which
we cannot ascribe. To speak loosely, as modems do, religion is an elastic
term which comprises all a man's intellectual, volitional, and emotional acts
of homage, with emphasis upon the last element. In this sense it includes
faith also. But, speaking accurately, religion is in the will, a virtue connected with justice, and its whole purpose is to give external evidence
of man's conviction (based upon his reason) of his subjection to a superior
being. This fundamental note of subjection is a constant, even though the
external recognition of man's subjection is subject to change. As for evolution of religion itself, it must be conceded to the apthor that the externals
did change with a change in environment, but certainly not in the sense that
the objective content of man's belief in his subjection changed. At any rate,
the author is concerned mainly with the externals.
A criticism suggested by a careful reading of this book is one that may
easily be misunderstood. It is this: the author's thesis, dealing with such
remote times, appears to be something like a Hollywood set seen through
the camera. Everything falls so neatly into place that one wonders if he
did not unconsciously build up a case for himself. As a matter of fact, his
conclusions are couched in such terms that they are practically dogmas
(which elsewhere he judges severely), and one hesitates to accept the fact
that in the nebulous regions of ancient beliefs, all can be explained. It
would be better, then, to describe his conclusions as hypotheses which are
worth no more than the historical evidence with which he bolsters them up.
The probability of the opinions opposed to his remains.
Lastly, the long period of Greek religion (about two thousand years,
from 1500-500 B. C.), entails problems that can hardly be treated fully in
many books. The author has availed himself of the extant Greek literature
and of archeological findings of importance, and has done remarkably well
in this particularly difficult domain of study in his reconstruction of the
ordinary daily life of Greek society, with its bearings upon religion.
THOMAS AQIDNAS

Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

MURPHY, 0. P.

BRIEF NOTICES
Science and Wisdom. By JACQUES MARITAIN. Trans. by BERNARD WALL.
New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940. Pp.
$8.00.
This is really two books, or a book with a rather long and quite unnecessary appendix. The title refers to the first part of the l!ook, which contains
three chapters: Science and Wisdom; The Philosophy of Nature; Philosophy
in Faith. We find in these chapters a brief and clear summation of several
previous works by M. Maritain. The reader will find here an excellent introduction to Maritain's thought on many modern problems.
The second part of the work, entitled: "Reflections on Moral Philosophy," might be considered an extension of the third chapter mentioned
above: Philosophy in Faith. It contains a defense of the idea that there
can be no true moral philosophy (as a practico-practical science) unless it
be subalternated to revealed theology. Here the author is defending an
opinion, expressed more fully elsewhere, against the objections of two
theologians. The ordinary reader will feel somewhat lost in this section,
but it contains many valuable passages. We should like to call attention
to three: the special work of the moral philosopher as distinct from the
moral theologian (p. 117) ; the relation of the empirical sciences of culture,
such as history, sociology, etc., to moral philosophy (p. 168); and, finally,
the passages concerned with the ethical conditions of human thinking
(p. 205).
A Preface to Metaphysics. By JACQUES MARITAIN. New York: Sheed &
Ward, 1989. Pp. 152. $1.75.
"It is not enough to employ the word being, to say 'Being.' We must
have the intuition, the intellectual perception of the inexhaustible and
incomprehensible reality thus manifested as the object of this perception.
It is this intuition that makes the metaphysician " (p. 44) . This small work
may well be called a vademecnm of metaphysical contemplation. In seven
chapters M. Maritain gives us the fruit of his profond knowledge of the
object of metaphysics. Every paragraph, every sentence, holds the attention
of the mind, and provides an insight into the mystery of being.
The plan of the work is extremely simple. The first chapter, an introduction, repeats the author's well-known defense of Thomistic metaphysics, and here especially valuable is the distinction between " mystery "
and " problem." The next three chapters contain a masterly meditation on
the meaning of Being. First, he considers what being is not-not " the
particularized being of the sciences inferior to metaphysics, the vague
being of common sense, the being divested of reality which is the subject

172

BRIEF NOTICES

178

of logic and the pseudo-being of a misconceived and decadent logic "
{p. 42) . Then follow two chapters on " Being as such " and on some of
the characteristics of being. The last three chapters consider the first
principles of being-identity, sufficient reason, finality and causation. Maritain has written no better
than this Preface to Metaphysics.

Nature and Functions of Authority. {The Aquinas Lecture, 1940),. By
YVEs SIMoN. Milwaukee: Marquette Univ. Press, 1940.. Pp. 78. $1.50.
Yves Simon approaches. here one of the most fundamental practical
problems of our day-where are we to place the limits of authority and
freedom? Most men see the problem in the form of a dilemma; either we
deny freedom to individuals and extend the authority of the state, or we
drastically restrict the authority of the state and leave the individual with
complete freedom. We must choose between individualism, or the laissezfaire attitude, and authoritarianism, or collectivism. There are historical
reasons for this difficulty. Revolt against authority, of the Church, the
state, and the family, has brought about impressive material and social
progress, through individual efforts. However, there is another side to the
picture; the ruthlessness of these individual efforts has created social and
economic conditions that weigh heavily on the majority of men and cause
the totalitarian reaction against individualism.
In this short work the author asks himself " whether it is possible to
find out principles to which we can make appeal in our endeavor to proportion exactly authority and liberty in any given situation" {p. 41). By
an analysis of the field in which authority works (the practical order) and
by a distinction between the various functions of authority, Simon arrives
at a clear and precise statement of the relations between authority and
liberty. Authority loses all of its stigma when we realize that its essential
function is to provide for the unity of action of every multitude which
cannot attain its common good except through common action.

Catholicism and the Progress of Science. By W. M. AGAR. New York: Macmillan, 1940. Pp. 109. $1.00.
The Medieval Papacy in Action. By M. W. BALDWIN. New York, Macmillan, 1940. Pp. l13. $1.00.
Under the auspices of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the
Macmillan Company is publishing a series of popular books on important
topics in the history of Christianity, under the general title of The Christendom Series. The two books under review are the first of the series.
In Catholicism and the Progress of Science, W. M. Agar simply and
clearly discusses various scientific questions that bear on the relation of

174

BRIEF NOTICES

science and religion. His treatment of organic evolution is especially recommended for its sanity. An adequate bibliography is
The Medieval Papacy in Action describes how the Holy See, after
reestablishing its supremacy in the thirteenth century, ruled the Church
and extended the influence of Christian principles in the world. Well
written, the book concisely outlines the development and organization of
ecclesiastical government in the middle ages, offering at the end a bibliography for those who may wish to investigate farther.

Life's Final Goal. By REv. HENRY C. ScHUYLER. Philadelphia: The Peter
Reilly Co., 1939. Pp. 365. $3.00.
In Life's Final Goal Fr. Schuyler restricts himself to argumentation
derived solely from the light of reason in an endeavor to indicate how order
and harmony may be introduced into the lives of men .
. This work, which presupposes a knowledge of philosophy, is divided into
three parts, the first of which is psychological in character; the second is a
combination of cosmological and metaphysical considerations; the third
presents a unification of the matter which has been treated separately in
the preceding portions of the book.
There is a constant stress upon the necessity of an intelligent regimentation of man's faculties of intellect and will to the end that each individual
may achieve his highest development and accomplish the purpose of his
existence. The route of the philosopher in the quest of the " Ultimate "
and " Absolute " is painstakenly indicated and illuminated with homely
examples.
A fault, but not one beyond repair, might be found in the lack of
bibliography and indication of more profound treatises anent the many and
serious problems met in the perusal of this work.
Man of Spain: A Biography of Francis Suarez. By J. H. FicHTER. New
York: Macmillan Co., 1940. Pp. 349, with index. $2.50.
The era is one of Spanish prestige and thought, the period of the
Armada. Separation within the fold of Christ has just begun; to repress it
the Council of Trent has convened and intense study of unadulterated
Scholastic doctrine is being advocated by Rome.
Joseph H. Fichter has caught the atmosphere in which the man lived,
and the personality of the man, Francis Suarez. Thanks'" to an excellent
evaluation of material and a facile presentation he has given us a thoroughly
interesting life. The reader becomes acquainted with Suarez the man, and
incidentally with Suarez the son of Ignatius, the scholar, and the teacher.
The teachings original with the Jesuit are presented with unusual clarity.
The partiality of the sources upon which the author relies, thwarts, in
not a few instances, his manifest efforts toward objectivity.

BRIEF NOTICES

175

National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church .. By NATHANlEL MICKLEM, Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. London: Oxford University Press, 1939. Pp. :li:vi + 243, with index.
Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
this work, as indicated in the subtitle is ". . . an Account of the Conflict
between the National Socialist Government of Germany and the Roman
Catholic Church, 1933-1938."
The author first sets forth from official sources the Nazi Weltanschauung,
and then shows the theory put into practice by presenting an historical and
chronological survey. Being neither a Catholic nor a follower of Nazi
philosophy, Doctor Micklem has sought throughout to be objective and
impartial. He makes no defense of, no attack on, the position of either
side, but he furnishes ample material for a discussion of the philosophical
and theological principles involved in the impasse.
Since the appearance of this book, international events have only too
vividly and cruelly verified a conclusion the reader could not avoid, viz.,
the conflict is not a battle of religious in the field of academics; it is a
battle waged by an academic religion on the march.
Modern War and Basic Ethics. By JoHN K. RYAN. Milwaukee: Bruce.
1940. Pp. 142, with index. $1.75.
This work falls into two parts. The first, comprising Chapters I to IV,
treats of the scholastic doctrine of war as contained in the writings of St.
Thomas, Vitoria and Suarez. The basic and unchangeable principles of
ethics are clearly set forth. The second part, Chapters V to X, apply these
principles to modern war, especially, modern aggressive war. The author
questions whether there can be a just and adequate cause for modern war ..
His discussion of the attack on civilian population is especially good.
Construction de la Paix. By TH. DEMAN, 0. P. (Collection: Chretiente, 8)
Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1989. Pp. vi+ 77.
This small book from the pen of a great French theologian has a tragic
air about it. Peace is really not the work of statesmen, diplomats, and
jurists; it is something much too spiritual to be accomplished by their
efforts. Fr. Deman studies its requirements, which are justice and charity.
Without interior peace there is no possibility of exterior peace.
The New Testament: A New Translation from the Original Greek. By
F. A. SPENSER, 0. P. New York: Macmillan, 1940. Pp. 719, with
index. $2.50.
We are happy to note that Macmillan has issued a cheaper edition of
this fine translation of the New Testament.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Albright, W. F. From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the
Historical Process. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1940. Pp. 868,
with index. $2.50.
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux .. The Steps of Humility. (Trans., with Introduction and Notes, by G. B. Burch) Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Univ.
Press, 1940. Pp. xi+ 287, with index. $8.00.
Blakely, P. L., S. J. What Jesus Said: 'Reflections on the Sunday and
Feast-day Gospels. New York: America Press, 1940. Pp. 140. $1.50.
Brightman, E. S. A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940.
Pp. xvii + 589, with bibliography and index. $4.00.
Cotter, H. C. S.J. Theologia Fundamentalis. Weston, Mass., 1940. Pp.
789, with index. $8.50 .
.Hocking, W. E. Living Religions and a World Faith. New York: Macmillan, 1940. Pp. 291, with index. $2.50.
Klein, Felix. The Doctrine of the Trinity. (Trans. by D. J. Sullivan.)
New York: Kenedy, 1940. Pp. 298. $2.50.
Maritain, J. Scholasticism and Politics. (Trans. by M. J. Adler.) New
York: Macmillan, 1940. Pp. 248. $2.50.
St. Austin, Mother Mary. The Divine Crucible of Purgatory. (Revised
and Edited by Nicholas Ryan, S. J.) New York:
1940. Pp.
185, with index. $2.25.
Woodbridge, F. J. E. An Essay on Nature. New York: Columbia Univ.
351, with index. $8.00.
Press, 1940. Pp. x

+

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