THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoVINCE OF ST. JoSEPH

Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.
VoL.

XI

JULY, 1948

No.3

WHAT THE MODERN MAN SHOULD
NOT BELIEVE

U

NDER the heading, "What The Modem Man Can
Believe," there appeared in the November A tlantio
Monthly an article by Rufus M. Jones, the principal
thesis of which was: We must readjust faith to discovered
facts. The present article is an examination of that thesis. The
pivotal point of Mr. Jones' thesis is that what he terms the
" Copernican Revolution " necessitates a complete re-evaluation of the traditional faith. " Every aspect of our religious
faith must be rethought, reconstructed, and adjusted to the
demonstrated facts which this Copernican Revolution forces
upon our minds." Consequently, the whole urgency of Mr.
Jones' argumentation is based upon the supposition of this
" Copernican Revolution, which came in the dawn of the
Renaissance, [and] was one of the most staggering blows at the
dQminant faith of the western world that has ever been leveled
lJ.77

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PIERRE CONWAY

against it in the long undeclared warfare between science and
religion."
It is the uncritical acceptance of such suppositions that has
caused a sort of " Iron Curtain " to fall upon the Middle Ages,
that has caused many moderns to reject the ancient faith before
they have even. heard it. Because of them the modern man
dares not seek the truth farther back than the Renaissance.
But now the precarious position of western civilization has
sent serious thinkers on a desperate inventory of wisdom
through the ages. In this search for whatever is solid and
durable, whatever inay prove a guarantee of survival, it is
more necessary than ever to rend now this " Iron Curtain," to
be .willing to face the facts even at the price of cherished
illusions. There is nothing to fear from the truth. So let one
not be afraid to look, for once, at the Middle Ages as they
really were, and the ancient faith, as it really is. Today it is
no longer a mere academic luxury but a vital duty in the
interests of man's heritage of wisdom, to re-examine the picture
of the medieval world as Mr. Jones so persuasively draws it.
One must indeed, as Mr. Jones urges, be prepared to sacrifice
· beguiling fantasies for uncompromising facts, which, if they
exact a readjustment of one's beliefs, are nonetheless a salutary
revision in the direction of a truth which is full of hope, ever
new and ever living. Since Mr. Jones is engaged in the serious
task of evaluating the basis of one's approach to God, his
reconstruction of. medieval thought should be approached, not
as a well-written and imaginative essay, but with the studious
intent of uncompromisingly winnowing the wheat from the
chaff.
Upon what concept of the universe did the so-called "Copernican Revolution " come stealing in at the dawn of the
Renaissance? In Mr. Jones' words," Slowly, through centuries
of imaginative thinking and speculation, ... it had become a
settled conclusion that the earth was the c.enter around which
everything else in the visible universe revolved. This earthcenter for which everything else was created was thus obviously
the focus of interest ...and attention of whatever divine beings

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279

there were above it." But are we quite sure that in the Middle
Ages the earth was the center of the universe and the focus of
divine interest? What did Aristotle, whose thought was predominant in the pre-Copernican world, have to say about the
matter? "They [the Pythagoreans] hold that the most important part of the world [universe], which is the centre, should
be most strictly guarded, and they name it, or rather the fire
which occupies that place, the ' Guard-house of Zeus,' as if the
word ' centre ' were quite unequivocal, and the centre of the
mathematical figure were always the same with that of the
thing or the natural centre. But it is better to conceive of the
case of the whole heavens as analogous to that of animals, in
which the centre of the animal and that of the body are different. For this reason they have no need to be so disturbed about
the world, or to call in a guard for its centre: rather let them
look for the centre in the other sense and tell us what it is like
and where nature has set it. That centre will be something
primary and precious; but to the mere position we should give
the last place rather than the first." 1
Obviously for Aristotle the earth, no matter what its mathematical position may be, is neither the real center of the
universe, nor is it " the focus of interest and attention of
whatever divine beings there were above it." His distinction
between the real center and the mathematical center, quite
evident when it is pointed out, seems to have escaped the
moderns. When modern astronomers such as Sir James Jeans
assume that we should be -thoroughly frightened and humbled
at the knowledge that we are not the mathematical center of
the universe, they do not seem to realize that this bogey-man
was exorcised by Aristotle some two thousand years ago.
If the discovery that the earth is not the mathematical center
of the universe can create. such a revolution in our thought, it
is we who are naive, not the Greeks. As Aristotle suggested to
the Pythagoreans, " let them rather look for the centre in the
1 The

Baaic W ork8 of Arilitotle (New York, 1941), " On The Heavens," !t98b,

J!P· 4!t8, 4!!9.

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PIERRE CONWAY

other sense and tell us what it is like and where nature has
set it." This the moderns have conspicuously failed to do.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of Aristotle's medieval
commentators, further clarifies his position: " And therefore,
in the whole universe .... the earth, which is contained by all
the rest of the universe. as existing locally in the middle of the
universe, is the most material and ignoble of bodies ... " 2 Thus
the opinion of the foremost Greek and medieval scholars as to
the importance of the earth in the configuration of the universe
is quite the opposite. of that which Mr. Jones attributes to
them. Actually, the errors we attribute to the Greeks are our
own errors, while the clairvoyance we attribute to ourselves
is that of the Greeks. In effect, although Aristotle considered the earth as being situated in the mathematical center
of the universe, he did not for that reason consider either the
earth or man as the real center of the universe. The real center
of the universe was the cause of its form and its motion,
ultimately the First Mover, God, Who, in the words of Dante:
". . . moves the sun and the other stars."
The moderns, on the other hand, although they do not
consider the earth the mathematical center of the universewhich is, after all, secondary-nevertheless make the earth and
man the real center of the universe. For the ultimate modern
conception of the universe has no pretension of
it
other than as it appears to man. 8 In the final analysis, then, an
anthropocentric universe is not the universe of the Greeks,
but the universe of the moderns.
There was another great discovery in the " revolution "
which is said to have invalidated the ancient faith when
" Columbus found another ' side ' to the world, and Magellan
• St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria in Libras Ariatotelia de Coelo et Mundo
(Rome, 1986), Lib. II, lectio 20, p. 202.
• " Human thought creates an ever-changing picture of the universe. . . . Physical
concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem,
uniquely determined by the external world. . . . He (man) will never be able to
compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the
pof!Sibility or the meaning of such a comparison." Albert Einstein and Leopold
Enfeld, The Evolution of Physics (New York, 1942), pp. 9, 88.

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-or at least his men-sailed around the world and proved
that it was a globe." Mr. Jones is some 1800 years late in his
"The
chronology. To quote the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
spherical form was asserted by Pythagoras, and Aristotle used
arguments in its favor similar to those used today, viz., the
circular shadow cast on the moon during an eclipse; and the
alteration in the appearance of the heavens as one passes from
place to place on the surface. . . . The spherical form did not,
however, become generally believed until after explorers had
actually sailed around the earth; though this argument is not
intrinsically so conclusive as any of the first three given." 4
How wide-spread was this knowledge of the sphericity of
the earth in medieval and pre-Copernican times? Probably
the most definitive work available on the scientific knowledge
which Columbus had at his disposal is the Pulitzer Prizewinning Admiral of the Ocean Sea, by Samuel Eliot Morison
(incidentally, an Atlantic Monthly Press book.) Professor
Morison has nothing but scorn for those who perpetuate the
legend of medieval ignorance of the sphericity of the earth.
". . . Of all the vulgar errors connected with Columbus, the
most persistent and the most absurd is that he had to convince
people ' the world was round.' Every educated man in his day
believed the world to be a sphere, every European university
so taught geography, and seamen, though they might doubt
the practical possibility of sailing ' down under ' or holding on
when you got there, knew perfectly well from seeing ships
•" Earth," Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago, 1947), Vol. 7, p. 830. The
arguments of Aristotle referred to may be found in his work, On The Heavens:
"The evidence of the senses further corroborates this [the sphericity of the earth].
How else would eclipses of the moon show segments shaped as we see them? As
it is, the shapes which the moon itself shows each month are of every kindstraight, gibbous and concave-but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and
since it is the interposition of the earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this
line will be caused by the form of the earth's surface, which is therefore spherical.
Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only that the earth is
circular, but also that it is a circle of no great size. For quite a small change of
position to south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon." Op. cit.,
297b, p. 436.

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PIERRE CONWAY

'hull down ' and ' raising ' mountains as they approached, that
the surface of the globe was curved." 8
When the Royal Commission sat in the Dominican College
of St. Stephen in Salamanca, what was the thesis which
Columbus had to substantiate in order to win royal backing?
What was it that the Commission found " could not possibly
be true? " " Obviously the thing that ' could not possibly be
true ' was the Admiral's theory of a narrow ocean between
Spain and the Indies. It was not true. Yet owing to the
feelings of Diego de Deza, perhaps also of Talavera, that there
might be something in Columbus' project nevertheless, the
commission postponed rendering a report. What, then, becomes of the celebrated sessions of the University of Salamanca,
before whose professors of mathematics, geography, and .astronomy Columbus argued his case and was turned down
because he could not convince them that the world was round?
That is pure moonshine. Washington Irving, scenting his
opportunity for a picturesque and moving scene, took a fictitious account of this nonexistent university council published
180 years after the event, elaborated on it, and let his imagination go completely. The result is that wonderful chapter where
'an obscure navigator, a member of no learned society, destitute of all the trappings and circumstances which sometimes
give oracular authority to dullness, and depending on the mere
force of natural genius,' sustains his thesis of a spherical globe
against ' pedantic bigotry ' of flat-earth churchmen, fortified
by texts from the Bible, Lactantius and Saint Augustine, until
he began to feel nervous about the Inquisition." 6
Thanks to legends such as this Mr. Jones can write: "In the
face of steady opposition on the part of the historic Church
the ' revolution ' of thought became established, and came to
be part of the natural air men and school children breathed."
That such legends have become a part of the natural (?) air
that
men and especially school children breathe is
• Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Abridged edition; Boston,
1942), p. 88.
6

Samuel Eliot Morison, op. cit., pp. 88, 89.

WHAT THE MODERN MAN SHOULD NOT BELIEVE

undeniable. But as to how healthy they are, Professor Morison
is not here in agreement with Mr. Jones: "A gripping drama
as Irving tells it, this has become one of the most popular
Columbian myths. . . . Yet the whole story is misleading and
mischievous nonsense. . . . The issue was the width of the
ocean; and therein the opposition was right." 7
An examination of Columbus' " revolutionary " arguments
reveals, on the contrary, how closely he was basing himself
on the findings of Aristotle and-at least indirectly-of St.
Thomas Aquinas. "Multitudes of persons are still unaware of
the utter transformation of religious faith involved in this
scientific revoluton," writes Mr. Jones. "The earth has become
the center
a tiny body of matter, revolving about a sun,
of nothing but a cold dead moon." Quite breath-taking, unless
one knows that Aristotle's conclusions (c. 850 B. C.) as to the
smallness of the earth were one of Columbus' strongest arguments for the possiblity of sailing west to China.
In effect, after demonstrating the sphericity of the earth,
Aristotle continues on, in his On The Heavens, to demonstrate
the smallness of the earth in relation to the other heavenly
bodies. " Again, our observations of the stars make it evident,
not only that the earth is circular, but also that it is a circle of
no great size. For quite a small change of position to south or
north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. There is
much change, 1 mean, in the stars which are overhead, and the
stars seen are different, as one moves northward or southward.
Indeed there are some stars seen in Egypt and in the neighborhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions;
and stars, which in the north are never beyond the range of
observation, in those regions rise
set. All of which goes
to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also
that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of
so slight a change of place would not be so quickly apparent.
Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the
view of those who conceive that there is continuity between the
'Loc. cit.

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PIERRE CONWAY

parts about the Pillars of Hercules [straights of Gibraltar] and
the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one.
As further evidence in favor of this they quote the case of
elephants, a species occurring in each of these extreme regions,
suggesting that the common characteristic of these extremes is
explained by their continuity. Also those mathematicians who
try to calculate the size of the earth's circumference arrive at
the figure of 400,000 stades. This indicates not only that the
earth's mass is spherical in shape, but also that as compared
with the stars it is not of great size." 8
Although this calculation which Aristotle gives of the earth's
circumference-and which appears to be the first recordedhas since been corrected to about half, the fact of the earth's
relative smallness in comparison to other heavenly bodies, was
quite clear to him and the Middle Ages some 2000 years before
Sir James Jeans. Within 75 years of Aristotle's death, Eratosthenes made a calculation of a degree of latitude-which is
the fundamental problem involved in gaining an approximate
estimate of the earth's circumference-basing himself upon the
distance between Alexandria and Syene, and he arrived at a
circumference of 250,000 stades, which by Prof. Morison's
figures, is only some 200 miles off the correct distance of 24,902
miles. Since that time, it has simply been a matter of measuring a degree with greater accuracy and allowing for the spheroidal rather than perfectly spheric shape of the earth, a possibility, incidentally, allowed for by Aristotle. ("Either then
the earth is spherical or it is at least naturally spherical. And
it is right to call anything that which nature intends it to be,
and which belongs to it, rather than that which it is by constraint and contrary to nature.")
The smaller the earth, the shorter the distance between any
two points. To convince his prospective backers that the distance west by sea from Spain to China and India was .short,
Columbus utilized to the utmost his knowledge of Aristotle's
statements derived from the smallness of the earth. Very con" Op. cit., 297b, 298a.

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veniently also, Aristotle had specifically mentioned the distance between Spain (the Pillars of Hercules) and India as
being joined by one ocean-a theory consecrated in Columbus'
title of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Apparently, however,
Columbus got his Aristotle second-hand, from sources such as
Cardinal Pierre d' Ailly' s Imago Mundi. There he pounced
upon such statements as "Aristotle [says] between the end of
Spain and the beginning of India is a small sea navigable in
a few days." 9 But the original statement of Aristotle is a prudently qualified one, as St. Thomas Aquinas brings out in his
13th century commentary: " From this fact [the manifest
alteration of the· horizon for quite a small change of position],
as Aristotle says, it is apparent that the quantity of the circumference of the earth is not great. For if it were of great
quantity, there would not immediately appear in such a short
distance a change in the appearance of the stars. And therefore
those do not seem to be putting forth absolutely incredible
statements who wish to unite, on the basis of likeness and
nearness, the place situated farthest to the west, which is called
the Pillars of Hercules (which Hercules set up in sign of his
victory) and the place which is the Indian sea farthest to the
east; and they say that there is one sea, which they call the
Ocean, which is continuous with both places. And the likeness
of both places they conjecture from the elephants, which are
found in both places but not in the intervening regions. This is
indeed a sign of the likeness of both places, but not of their
propinquity." 10 However, in his anxiety to establish the shortness of the sea, Columbus would no doubt have preferred
Pierre d' Ailly' s version to the original.
Was Columbus also indebted to St. Thomas Aquinas? At
least indirectly. For Aristotle owed the
and the
study of his doctrines-which included demonstrations of the
sphericity of the earth and the smallness of its circumferencein great part to the courageous defense by St. Thomas when
9

Samuel Eliot Morison, op. cit., p. 94.
St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., p. 227.

10

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PIERRE CONWAY

a Master of the University of Paris. At that time, Aristotle's
physical and metaphysical works, but newly arrived from
Spain, were the subject of much suspicion because of the
Arabic glosses, particularly those of A verroes, which accompanied them. St. Thomas defended them, even at the price of
his own temporary condemnation at the hands of the Archbishops of Paris and Canterbury, and it is thus no doubt due
in great part to him, as well as to Aristotle, that the proofs of
sphericity of the globe and the approximate size of the earth
were well known to educated men in Columbus' day. Diego de
Deza, of the Royal Commission, later Archbishop of Seville,
of whom Prof. Morison writes, " Columbus found in him one
of his warmest and most useful advocates in Spain," and whom
Columbus picked to settle his claims with the Crown in his
latter days, was, like St. Thomas, a Dominican, and was
nurtured in his doctrines.
But there is an even more striking rapprochement between
Columbus and St. Thomas. Necessarily involved in the calculation of the distance from Spain to Japan and China, was
the calculation of the length of a degree. Which calculation did
Columbus choose? "Eratosthenes around 200 B. C. made a
guess at it [the degree] that was very nearly correct: 59.5
nautical miles instead of 60. Columbus, however, preferred the
computation of Alfragan. That medieval Moslem geographer
found the degree to be 56 2/3 Arabic miles." 11 It would seem
to be more than a coincidence that in his 13th century commentary upon Aristotle's On The Heavens, the contemporary
astronomer whose calculation of a degree St. Thomas cites,
should likewise be Alfragan. Commenting upon Aristotle's
tentative figure of the calculation of the earth's circumference,
St. Thomas writes: "He [Aristotle] states that those mathematicians who have attempted to reason on the magnitude of
the circumference of the earth, say that it reaches 400,000
stades. . . . According to this the circumference of the earth
will be 50,000 miles. But according to a more diligent consideru

Samuel Eliot Morison, op. cit., p. 65.

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ation of modern astrologers, the circumference of the earth is
much less, i.e., 20,400, as Alfragan says .... This the astrologers
were able to measure, considering the distance on the earth
caused by a difference of one degree in the heavens; and they
found that it was 500 stades according to Simplicius; or 56 2/3
miles according to Alfragan. Whence, multiplying this number
by 360, which is the number of degrees in the heavens, they
found the circumference of the earth to be of the aforesaid
quantity. From this we can argue that the quantity of the
earth is not only spherical, but also that it is not great in
comparison to the magnitude of the other stars: for the astrologers prove the sun to be 170 times greater than the earth;
although, because of its distance, it looks small to us." 12 This
is a far cry from the ignorant medieval faith which Mr. Jones
eloquently depicts for his readers. Far from minimizing the
size of the sun in comparison to the earth, the medieval astronomers, some 400 years before the development of the telescope, actually gave it a diameter-if that is what is here meant
--considerably larger than is today accepted (170 times larger
than that of earth, instead of 109).
To increase the feasibility of his project in the eyes of his
backers, Columbus first shortened the sea route to the Indies
by increasing the land mass of the globe as much as possible,
then further cut down mileage by whittling down the length of
a degree. The first was accomplished, as Prof. Morison indicates, by starting out with Ptolemy's calculation of 180 degrees
of land-already twice too large-and arbitrarily lengthening
it to 225 degrees. To this was added another 28 degrees for
Marco Polo's discoveries, plus 30 degrees for the distance
between China and Japan, and finally 9 degrees for the
distance between Spain and the Canaries. This left only 68
degrees of open sea to cross. Japan" almost kissed the Azores."
Columbus then, according to Prof Morison, whittled down
Alfragan's calculation of the degree by assuming his 56 2/3
miles to be Roman rather than Arabic miles: thereby arriving
12

St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., p. 227.

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PIERRE CONWAY

at a calculation of 45 nautical miles instead of 66.2 nautical
miles. But this is already contained in St. Thomas, who quotes
Alfragan as giving the circumference of the earth as 20,400
miles-some twenty per cent short of the true figure.
Far from being ignorant bigots, the contemporaries of
Columbus, as Prof. Morison points out, were more judicious
than he in their calculations of the distance from Spain to
Japan. Nobody could have sailed west to Asia in 1492. A spirit
of faith and daring, rather than any " revolution " against the
ideas of his time, led Columbus to embark on that " Ocean "
lying, as Aristotle said, between the Pillars of Hercules and
India, and to discover, with a timely good fortune worthy of
his enterprise, a new continent, unknown both to his contemporaries and himself, precisely at the spot where he had calculated Asia to be. It was in a sense a hero's reward. The
new continent appeared just in the nick of time to arrest the
three little ships on a course which, if it had been possible,
would assuredly have been fatal.
To " the greatest navigator of his age," the " ancient faith "
was not a hindrance but an inspiration. Prof. Morison thus
terminates his Prologue: " Yet, as the caravels sail on tropic
seas to new and ever more wonderful islands, and to high
mountain-crested coasts of terra firma. . . . I cannot forget the
eternal faith that sent this man forth, to the benefit of all
future ages. And so. . . . I venture to close my prologue by the
prayer with which Columbus began his work: J esu cum Maria
sit nobis in via." His livres de chevet were the work of two
churchmen, the Imago Mundi of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly and
the Historia Rerum of Aeneas Sylvius, later Pope Pius II. A
Dominican, Diego de Deza of the Royal Commission, became
and remained his life-long supporter. A Franciscan, Fray Juan
Perez, encouraged Columbus not to give up his project and
obtained for him the audience with Isabella that was finally to
prove definitive. Another Dominican, Bartolome de Las Casas,
wrote what Pro£. Morison calls" the one book on the discovery
o£ America that I should wish to preserve i£ all others were

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destroyed." 18 The usual costume of Columbus when in Spain
after his first two voyages was the coarse brown habit of a
Minorite friar. Why? He" found his most loyal friends ashore
among ecclesiastics, especially those in the monastic orders." 14
Where is the " utter transformation of religious faith " in all
of this?
We have seen what Columbus owed to Aristotle and St.
Thomas Aquinas. What, then, did he owe to Copernicus?
" ... One day a man named Copernicus, on his dying bed, held
in his trembling hand the book he had written which was in
the end to prove that there was no solid substance to this
slowly builded faith of the ages. At first the book made little
impression, almost no popular impression. It was only a hypothesis in a book. The Church condemned it and Luther scoffed
at it. But Galileo and Kepler slowly worked out scientific
demonstrations which made the hypothesis indubitable.
Columbus found another ' side ' to the world, and Magellanor at least his men-sailed around the world and proved that
it was a globe." Copernicus-Galileo-Kepler.
The revolution
is gaining ground. The triumphant finale: Columbus finds a
new " side " to the world and Magellan and his men prove that
it is a globe. Very dramatic. Unfortunately, when" Copernicus
held in his trembling hand the book he had written," America
had already been discovered some 50 years before. If "Copernican Revolution " there was, it had nothing to do with the
discovery of America or the voyage of Magellan. It is no doubt
only a coincidence that Mr. Jones' reversal of the chronological
order should bear such favorable testimony to his thesis. But,
as Aristotle says, we must honor truth before our friends (Eth.
I, 1096a, 13.) So let us look at the facts.
When, on October 12, 1492, Columbus made his epochmaking landfall on what is now San Salvador, Nicholas Copernicus, a young man of nineteen, nephew and ward of Lucas
Watzelrode, Bishop of Ermeland, was studying mathematics at
13

Sainuel Eliot Morison, op. cit., p. 51.

u Op. cit., p. 505.

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the University of Cracow(!) . Further studies l\t Bologna convinced him of the strong and irrevocable position of the heliocentric theory, already proposed by Pythagoras, which was
there- freely discussed. Returning to become a canon of the
Cathedral of Frauenburg, Copernicus obtained further leaves
of absence to pursue his studies in Italy, becoming both a
doctor of canon law and a doctor of medici*e. While fulfilling
his duties as canon of the cathedral, augmented when he became administrator of the diocese of Ermeland, and practising
medicine gratis among the poor who came to him, Copernicus
continued to work on his
treatise, which was
virtually finished in manuscript form by 1530, some 25 years
after the death of Columbus. Johan Albrecht Widmanstadt
began to lecture in Rome upon a brief popular account written
by Copernicus. Pope Clement Vll approved, and Cardinal
Schonberg transmitted to Copernicus a formal demand for full
publication. Finally, in 1540, Copernicus' reluctance was overcome, and after a preliminary account published at Danzig, the
complete exposition was sent to be published at Nuremberg.
The first printed copy of the De Revolutione orbium coelestium reached Frauenburg just in time to be laid on the author's
death-bed (some 50 years after the discovery of America.) The
dying Copernicus was thus spared the sorrow of knowing that
his dedication of the work to Pope Paul III had been marred
by the printer, Osiander, a Reformer, who out of deference
to the opinions of Luther and Melancthon, interposed the word
" Hypothesis " on the title-page as well as an unsigned preface
of his own, in which he warned the reader not to expect anything certain of astronomy, nor to accept the hypothesis as
true. In effect, whence came the opposition which Copernicus'
" revolutionary " work, printed at the request of the Papacy
and dedicated to a Pope, received on publication? From Luther
and Melanctlhon, " revolutionary " spirits indeed. (Luther
wrote pamphlet after pamphlet against the theory.) Who first
thundered " the world is established and shall not be moved "?
Not the historic Church but John Calvin. Who were Coper-

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nicus' most determined opponents? The "revolutionary"
Reformers.
Not until some 100 years after the discovery of America, does
Galileo appear on the scene. Is he persecuted? In a letter to
Kepler in 1597, Galileo explains that it is not the fear of presecution, but the fear of ridicule, which deters him from pushing
the Copernican theories (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Although Calvin might well have burned their author in Geneva,
in the " historic Church " the Copernican theories remained
unopposed in the 75 years following Copernicus' death. Whence
came the change? Galileo had, alas, the unhappy faculty of
producing antagonism where none had existed before. Because
of his adamant insistence upon the absolute certitude of the
Copernican doctrines, he was first warned in 1615, then forbidden in 1616 to hold the Copernican doctrine as absolute
facts, since he had not in fact-as Huxley
strated them. Although the Holy Office then qualified the
doctrine of an immovable sun in the center of the universe and
the diurnal rotation of the earth as " heretical," this was, as
Von Gebler, Galileo's Protestant historian points out, not a
declaration of the Church. (" The Church never condemned
it at all .... ") It still remained permissible to consider the
Copernican doctrines as hypotheses, which was what they were.
The works of Copernicus were placed on the Index " until
corrected," the correction consisting in holding the Copernican
doctrines as hypotheses rather than absolute facts. The readiness to accept proof when forthcoming is apparent in a letter of
Cardinal Bellarmine, the most influential member of the Sacred
CoJlege, to Foscarini, Galileo's Carmelite defender: "I say tbat
if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not
revolve around the earth, but the earth around the sun, then
it will be necessary to proceed to the explanation of the passages in Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we
rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce
that to be false which is demonstrated." 15 Certainly the " his15

Cf. "Galileo," Catholic Encyclopaedia (New York, 1918), VI, 845.

PIERRE CONWAY

toric Church " took a far more conciliatory attitude toward the
Copernican doctrines, even after Galileo had drawn unfavorable attention to their seeming conflict with Scripture, than
Luther and Melancthon of "new" faiths ever did. Galileo
returned home not ill-pleased with the results of his trip to
Rome, and continued his work in peace at Florence. 16
In 1624, on a trip to Rome, he received a pension to further
his studies from his old friend Urban VIII, who, as Cardinal
Barberini, had opposed his condemnation. Far from being
hounded by ecclesiastical censure, the enthusiastic reception
which his works continued to receive, particularly from the
Papal court, emboldened Galileo to publish in 1632, in violation
of his pledge, his Dialogo dei due massimi sistemi del mondo,
in which a follower of Corpernicus completely demolishes a
follower of Ptolemy. In 1633, he was summoned to Rome,
where he spent the grand total of 4 days in the buildings of the
Inquisition, lodged in comfortable apartments. 11 Recanting,
he was allowed to return again to Florence, after several months
spent with his friend, Archbishop Piccolomini of Siena. It was
then, during the next 8 years, that Galileo was to pursue the
researches which were to be his greatest claim to fame: his
treatises on mechanics. As to his part in the "Copernican
Revolution," beyond the development of the telescope, which
he did not invent, " to the theoretical perfection of the science,
[Galileo] contributed little or nothing .... The most substantial
part of his work consisted undoubtedly in his contributions
toward the establishment of mechanics as a science." 18 Before
he died he received the apostolic blessing of Pope Urban VIII
and was honored by burial in the church of Santa Croce in
Florence.
Copernicus' works continued to be permitted to be read by
the learned and it vanished completely from the Index in 1758.
In the meantime the 16th century attitude of the " historic
Cf. "Galileo," Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. cit., IX, 979.
Cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica, loc. cit.
18 Cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica, loc. cit.
16

17

WHAT THE MODERN

MAN SHOULD NOT BELIEVE

298

Church" that Galileo's apodictic holding of the Copernican
system, with its stationary sun, should remain as an hypothesis
until proved, now corresponds to the most advanced scientific
thinking of the present day. 19 The Copernican theory has gone
from an hypothesis to a fact and back to an hypothesis again.
The old " historic Church " with its policy of trying all things
and holding fast to what is true, has a habit of being ever new.
But what was the revolution of the Renaissance in its real
sense? It was not, as has been seen, any" Copernican Revolution," since to the " historic Church " it does not really matter
whether the sun moves around the earth or the earth around
the sun, any more than it does to Bertrand Russell-as long
as the ultimate motion come from God Who " moves the sun
and the other stars." The revolution of the Renaissance was
the transition from a God-centered to a man-centered universe.
Today, to borrow the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, men
" have not sought out reasons and causes in order to apply
them to what appears to the senses, but conversely have striven
to reduce that which appears to the senses by a certain violence
to reasons and opinions which they have preconceived." 20 In
this endeavor to recreate the universe to his own image and
likeness, man has never found the facts to fit his theories,
which therefore go on varying from year to year, and with
them modern religion. Why? "This [fitting of facts to preconceptions] is appropriate in those things which are made by men,
whose principle is the human mind: but in those things which
19 "Even on the most modern views, the question of absolute rotation
(of the
earth) presents difficulties. If all motion is relative, the difference between the
hypothesis that the earth rotates and the hypothesis that the heavens revolve is
purely verbal. . . . But if the heavens revolve, the stars move faster than light,
which is considered impossible. It cannot be said that the modern answers to this
difficulty are completely satisfying, but they are sufficiently satisfying to cause
all physicists to accept the view that motion and space are purely relative.
This, combined with the amalgamation of space and time into space-time, has
considerably altered our view of the universe from that which resulted from the
work of Galileo and Newton." (Bertrand Russell, A . History of Western Philolophy "(New York, 1945), p. 540.)
so St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit... p. !tOl.

2

294

PIERRE CONWAY

are made by divine art, it is necessary on the contrary to
consider from the works that are seen the reasons for those
works: just as an artisan from his own preconceived reasons
puts together the house which he makes, but if anyone else
sees the house after it is made, he should consider from the
work that he sees the reasons for the work." 21 The house is
already made; no theories of ours are going to change it.
It is time indeed for a revolution, time to return from preconceived notions, from a faith which consists in the " imaginative material by which ... minds can live serenely and
joyously in the realm of creative faith," from a science where
" physical concepts are free creations of the human mind ...
[and one] cannot even imagine the possiblity or the meaning "
of a comparison of them with reality, to a faith and a science
in which the Creator is not man, but God. It is not medieval
faith and science, but rather the modern conception of them
which is the product of" centuries of imaginative thinking."
To speak of a " heaven as real and localized as Nineveh or
Tyre . . . woven into the seamless fiber of the philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas," is pure fabrication, as anyone who cares to
consult Thomas Aquinas will immediately perceive. Speaking
of the location of heaven, St. Thomas writes: " Incorporeal
beings [souls] are not localized in any way known or customary
to us, as when we say corporeal beings are properly in place;
but they are rather localized after the manner which befits
spiritual substances, which cannot be fully clear to us." 22
While it is a matter of Catholic Faith that souls go to heaven,
the nature and locality of that heaven, other than that it
essentially consists in the spiritual vision of God, and that it is
not absolutely unrelated with the corporeal world, " cannot be
fully clear to us." The only reason Mr. Jones can write,
" Though the imaginative cooperation of many minds, it came
to be a settled faith that there were nine concentric domes,
turned respectively by the nine orders of angelic beings," is
•• Loc. cit.
•• St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Suppl., q. 69, a. 1, ad 1.

WHAT THE MODERN

MAN SHOULD NOT BELIEVE

295

because, for Mr. Jones, such popular opinions, such conjectures,
are faith: that wherein "imagination can feel itself at home."
But such popular imaginings were not faith for the Middle
Ages, and as theories they were rejected by the greatest
medival thinkers, such as St. Thomas. From the point of view
of faith, it did not matter, as far as the interpretation of
Scripture was concerned, whether the word "heaven" as used
in Genesis, was taken in its physical sense at all.
Thus for St. Augustine, the scriptural statement that God
made heaven and earth, meant that God made both the incorporeal !!nd the corporeal creation, the angels and the material
world. 2 R For St. Thomas, as for St. Augustine, it made no
difference, either to the Faith or to theory, whether there was,
in the astronomical sense, one heaven, or three, or eight or nine.
It was a diversity " more of words than of things." 24 For both
of these two greatest Doctors of orthodox Christianity, whether
the sun moved around the earth or the earth around the sun,
had nothing whatever to do with their faith. " For the faith
of which we speak, does not assent to anything, unless because
it is revealed by God." "Thus, therefore, those who rightly
have Christian faith, by their will assent to Christ in those
things which truly pertain to his doctrine." 25
It is only because the " faith " of which he speaks has not
been faith at all, but human opinion, that l\1r. Jones can write:
" Each time that scientific thought has undergone revolution,
there has been a widespread collapse of religious faith." The
very criterion of divine faith is that it must be ever true, ever
stable, " for the same God Who reveals mysteries and infuses
faith, endowed the human mind with the light of reason, and
God cannot deny Himself, nor ever contradict truth by
truth." 26 Such a divine faith will always be in harmony with
demonstrated facts. A "faith" that must be readjusted to
23 St. Augustine, The City of God. Bk. IX, ch. 33.
"'St: Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., I, q. 68, a. 4, c.
25 St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., 11-II, q. 1, a. 1; q. 11, a. 1.
26 Vatican Council, Sess. 3, cap. 4.

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PIERRE CONWAY

new facts is certainly not divine, and therefore it is worthless.
In Mr. Jones' context, to say that faith must be readjusted to
facts, appears to mean no more than that one must constantly
harmonize one's subjective imaginings about God with someone
else's subjective theories about the universe. But these are
neither faith nor science in the strict sense. A faith which is
divine is perennially corroborated by any science which is
demonstrated.
Although the possibilities of divergence between a " faith "
which is imagination and a" science" which is the free creation
of the human intellect are literally infinite, there is not now,
as there was not then, any warfare between a science that is
real and a religion that is true. The ancient faith, in its true
and medieval sense of an adherence to Christ in those things
which truly pertain to his doctrine, need not be abandoned.
Quite the contrary. Now, more than ever, is the time to try it.

PIERRE CONWAY, 0. P.
Providence College,
Providence, Rhode Island

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

[Second Installment]

SoME CRITICAL REMARKS

The natural impulse of a Thomist, challenged by the innumerable analyses which the existentialists plead, is to oppose their
conclusions point for point by force of that appeal to experience on which a realistic philosophy should rest. Such a course
seems normal and natural; there was a time in the history of
thought when it was effective. But existentialism, despite its
protests against abstract dialectics, is a closed system, like
psychoanalysis and scientism in general. Any overture of
traditional principles, of examples from experience, and of the
power of man's intellectual nature is greeted with the reproach
that it is the fruit of a false philosophy which has not explored
its own roots. Thomism, Jaspers 285 like Nicolai Hartmann 286
fmds is mere systemism. The principle of sufficient reason,
Heidegger argues, is premised on a view of being that cannot
define reason and sufficiency. Metaphysics is considered an
experience and thus powerless to account for experience. Far
from beginning with experience, what the existentialists wish
to do is to deduce it: ex nihilo omne ens qua ens fit.281
Existentialism builds its own system from the primitive experience of the naught. It describes the world as though it
were nothing but the nothing that is man, projecting his structures of time and space from his own self in very much the
manner of the Kantian a priori categories. Thus de W aelhens
writes that Heidegger's essential doctrine is: "the structure
of human existence determines and contains all the questions
and all the answers which man validly can pose or answer.
Beyond this it is impossible to go." 288 The same extreme
""" DP, pp. 44-45.
••• Der philoaophische Gedanke und seine Geachichte, Berlin, 1986.
88 ' WM, p. 26.
••• Op. cit., p. 272.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Kantianism appears in Jaspers' notion that to think is to
struggle and in Sartre' s account of man as fighting to define his
essence. From these converging views, each of the existentialists has constructed a system as arbitrary as the system
which he belittles. Such a system a realist cannot enter. He is
blocked at the threshold. First principles, first facts, and first
conditions are in question in the existentialist system and only
when they are successfully defended does the door swing open
or, rather, rot away. The realists today are in very much the
position of Aristotle in the face of the ancient sophists. Hence
their arguments must remain at the threshold of philosophy
by showing that the existentialists deny the very experience
on which they operate. Discussion of the finer points, philosophical and theological-for the existentialists raise theological issues-must await the solution of the more general
problems. Cast in such a general form, some counter-arguments of existentialism are here suggested with a minimum
expression, when occasion warrants, of the positive solutions to
their pro"blems and with a concluding section on the meaning
of existentialism for the typical philosophical pattern in contemporary America.
What there is of positive value in existentialism is difficult to
say. If there is anything in it that has not been said before, it
is probably in the form of material for aesthetics and empirical
psychology 289 rather than for a realistic philosophy. But no
one could come, unmoved, through its critique of systemism,
Hegelian (and this could include Marxism) and scientistic.
This searching attack is especially apparent in Kierkegaard
and Jaspers.
Kierkegaard did not, of course, foresee the great interest in
history that, greatly abetted by Hegel, was to sweep western
scholarship in the form of positivism, evolutionary biology,
paleontology, ethnology, and other such inductive descriptions.
oso For a comprehensive study of anguish, cf., Boutonier, J., L'Angoisse, Paris,
1945. It could be concluded that anguish is psychopathic more than normal, associated with that feeling of inadequacy which, broadly, is the definition of
psychoneuroses.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

299

He could not naturally have forecast the French sociologism of
Durkheim and Levy-Bruehl, who preached and practiced the
method that research into history and pre-history, from primitive societies on downward, is the only way of studying man,
the social being. Nor did he personally anticipate the development of Freudian psychoanalysis which treats man, in sickness
and in health-and according to Freud he is always sick-as
though his present problems and perplexities could be unravelled by tracing them genetically to childhood, to prenatal
life, to the biology of his parents, all the way back through the
course of evolution to the lower forms from which man supposedly came. Kierkegaard did not foresee the high summer
of the scientific method which in each generation believes itself
to approximate closer and closer to the ultimate in matter but
frankly admits that there can be no end to its atomizing. 290
As in purely historical research which, no matter how far back
it reach, must always admit of a moment beyond that where it
chooses to begin its descriptions, so in scientific method, the
fundamental particles can always be divided, never reaching
that state of simplicity which by the simplicity of itself could
never be apprehended by quantitative techniques.
Kierkegaard did not anticipate all this. But though writing
against approximation in a particular philosophy at a particular time, his critique really answered, before they were born,
the discursive methods so prevalent since the last half of the
nineteenth century. If all laws are statistical laws, then certainly the individual is truly meaningless. Moreover, by the
very structure of science itself where a theory is prospective,
aiming to predict, where in the thesis of C. I. Lewis 291 knowledge always bears on the future, the meaning of the present,
the locus of thought and action, escapes science. Proposed
since Bacon's classic phrases as a knowledge of the here and
now, science really bears upon some other world. Knowledge
cannot be prospective like scientific theory nor retrospective
••• d'Abro, A., The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein,
New York, 1927, p. 420.
101 Op. cit.

800

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

like the attitude toward .scientific fact (for in the transitive
notion of knowledge the fact must always occur ahead of the
observation which registers it) . Knowledge of the here and
now is attained by inspection, which is but to translate the
idea of abstraction. Only thus can knowledge be united with
and distinct from the thing known. Existentialists, it· will be
seen, do not solve the problems which they raise. Indeed, it is
difficult to see, to elaborate on Blondel's statement, 292 how any
problems at all could even be raised on existentialist premises.
Perhaps the most ·striking defect of existentialism at first
glance is its inability to appraise the premises on which it rests.
Goedel showed, in accordance with Russell's thought, that
scientific method must always remain heterological, 298 unable
to give critical reinforcement to its own foundations and fated
for this reason to rest on at least a small number of undefined
terms. The result has become a kind of game among modern
logicians like Carnap, Morris, Hilbert, and Russell himself to
see how this number of undefined terms can be reduced to the
fewest. The same begging of the question can be charged
againts existentialism. It cannot describe the describer, the
phenomenologist. Contrary to some impressions, one only repeats himself, he does not escape the vicious circle, by discussing language in terms of a metalanguage. 294 So in existentialism if truth must truly be lived to be known, if knowledge
in speculative thought is merely-academic (Kierkegaard) ,
inauthentic (Heidegger), checkmated (Jaspers), and gratuitous (Sartre), then existentialism could never be elaborated
iuto a philosophical corpus. Philosophy could never even attain
to the status of a tautology if what is described is radically
ineffable and thus not susceptible of any form of duality,
necessary to judgment.
The existentialist is in the same comer as the modem scientist. Just as the observer is exempted from the laws which
•" Cf. aupra, n. 14.
••• There can never be anything more than "approximations to .•• self-re.
flexivity." Monatahefte fur Mathematik und Physik, XXXVIll (1981), p. 167.
••• K. Popper holds that the vicious circle is so escaped in "New Foundations
for Logic," Mind, LVI (1947), pp. 288-iS4o.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

301

his science discloses and cannot, because he denies a reflective
method, apply to his own self, so the existentialist is standing
by as a spectator rather than an actor in the life he pretends
to describe from within. Existentialism is but the analytic
spirit which Descartes released into modern philosophy and
which has flowed to its headwaters. That analytic spirit cannot
apply to the analyst. If it did, the scientist would find himself
analyzed away. His words would become meaningless and his
mind a blank.
No one who tracks down the existentialist dialectic can fail
to note the practical resort to concepts and principles that its
theories must reject as untenable. Wahl has shown how much
Kierkegaard took from the Hegel whom he opposed so vigorously.295 In his analysis of bad faith, Sartre considers on a
purely theoretical level what he has postulated as existence
without essence and hence without any form of intelligibility. 296
On the existentialist premises, nothing in being could ever be
known since the existentialist, when he writes philosophy, must
separate himself from the object and thus, if existentialism is
true, automatically invalidate what he says.
The principle of non-contradiction is constantly invoked.
Without it, Aristotle said, man would be a plant, unable even
to communicate. How could being be distinguished from nothing in the initial experience, unless the principle of non-contradiction were applied. The principles of causality and of sufficient reason have impelled the existentialists to seek the meaning of being and all of its modalities-the world, others, tools,
liberty-to which they give an original and distinctive interpretation. Man, morality, time, love-ali involve knowledge
from sources other than those which the existentialist can legitimately tap. How differentiate time from Mitsein, liberty from
a toothache, Mathieu from a typewriter, in such a way as to
work back to their foundations?
As in scientism, the flank of existentialism is exposed to the
explosive contradiction of viewing the familiar world as an illu••• Op. cit.

••• Lavelle, L., De l'Etre, p.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

sion, as Kant and Bergson argued, and then basing its entire
polemic on terms and principles that trace their origins to
ordinary lay experiences. Words and thoughts existentialists
coin and maneuver with remarkable surety and deftness. Yet
ultimately they are substitutes for experience as enjoyed by
by the ordinary man. They are signs. The vocabulary and
concepts of existentialism are thus taken from the common
sense world which it theoretically must regard as meaningless
and inauthentic.
Yet if the signs of a thing are not reliable, then the signa tum
itself escapes us. Existentialism ends by annihilating itself.
What has been said of Heidegger can be said of all the existentialists, that they remain in experienced experience. 297 Thus,
existentialism, when considered not in what it tries to represent
but as that reality which knowledge enjoys entitativelyThomistic psychology calls it a habitus of the mind-is impossible, therefore false. There can be no existentialist philosophy,
so that one could stop at this point without discussing its
truth. Moreover, that existentialists think out theories and
write their thoughts for others indicates that they, like the
scientist, rely on the validity of universal ideas which they so
heatedly contest in an academic way.
De Waelhens has pointed out, against the method of Heidegger in particular, that pure description is impossible in
knowledge relating to existence. 298 Perhaps one could move
farther, challenging the validity of description in any form of
knowledge as knowledge. 299 Knowledge can only be cast in
terms of causes and reasons. Logic may well employ descriptions for its categories. It is not a science of the real but of
the ens rationis. Description, like example, leads to knowledge
by occasioning an abstraction. But real being can only be
known in terms of causal analysis. The principle of causality
prompts the existentialists, as it does everyone else, to seek
•••Hofman, P., Metaphysik oder verstehende Sinn-Wissenschaft? Berlin, 1929,
p. 57.
298 Op. cit., p. 819.
299 Literature
is of course exempted here since its aim is not knowledge, pure
and simple.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

303

grounds and relations. It leads them to what they propose as
answers to the nature of being or human existence. Ask anyone who says that the sky is blue, an apparently pure description, why he makes such a statement. He will reply with a
causal clause. He will say, "Because I see it with my eyes,"
" Because I measure it with my spectroscope," " Because it is
the same color as my shirt." No judgment is immune from
causal implication. If it were, it would not be knowledge. No
meaningful statement is ever pure description. In the Ode to
the Nightingale Keats speaks of charming "magic casements
opening on the foam of faerylands forlorn." By this pure description he may appeal to the emotions, but he is not imparting meaningful knowledge. Description as such is not hierarchical. It is consistent but not causal, imaginative more
than intellectual.
In philosophy, it is a logical device.
In a similar light, de Waelhens proposes that phenomenology
can always be made to support the idea with which the describer begins. 300 Hegel, who so heavily strained the method
of phenomenology, is certainly consistent once his original
identification of the logical and the ontal is admitted. Indeed,
the world could be described in terms of will, emotions, images,
organisms, evolution, de-volution, and any number of other
viewpoints if description alone is emphasized. Philosophy then
becomes a game where you choose an aspect of the real and see
how far you can get with it. Gabriel Marcel with delicate
sensibility to the problems of contemporary man, has developed
an admirable "Christian" existentialism that stands in direct
contrast to Sartre. But the acceptance of his phenomenological
analyses, searching and inspiring though they be, confirms the
faith and the facts which Marcel has already admitted as a
Catholic and demands a more rigorous grounding than phenomenology can provide. 301 Since the individual as such is
••• Op. cit., p. 820.
Marcel admits his postulational basis as a philosopher. "Ce moi preexistant,
nous ne pouvons que le postuler, et si nous tentons de le caracteriser, ce sera
toujours negativement, par voie d'exclusion." Homo Viator, p. 17. Cf. G. de
Ruggiero, Existentialism: Disintegration of Man's Soul," New York, 1948, p. 77.
301

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

determined by matter, it is explainable how, in a description, it
submits to an infinity of different interpretations, sharing
as it does in matter's infinite community-a community that
stretches not only through the possible members of the species
individuated but to all possible material things. Phenomenology can be a prolegomenon to philosophy, mustering data
and illustrating concepts. But it is not a study of causes-. It
is rather the occasion for the study, through the abstractions
which it suggests.
Weighty and irreducible as the individual may be, it is not
the fact where man's thinking career begins. To start thinking
with the individual has been the trapdoor through which postCartesian philosophies have in their time always gone to death.
Kant began his philosophy with an analytic. Hegel started
formally with the individual. Pragmatism works from individual experiences and the sciences look to their fact-finding
for induction. Indeed, this tendency antedates Descartes who,
when he began philosophy with his own thought, was paralleling, if not continuing, the direction of Ockhamists and Scotists.
Existentialism, the latest version of this general spirit, is the
Cartesian cogito grown to its fullness or, better say, emptiness.
It is more Cartesian than Descartes.
Existentialism is a philosophy of radical induction. It begins
with an individual situation, working outward toward the general in thought and being. Thus the individual ab initio is alone
with himself, uncared for, thrust against individual, irrelational
situations, struggling through and for his freedom, fighting
to define himself against a defeating darkness. Theologically,
Keane begins with the individual, attempting to fan outward
toward religion as a kind of psychological necessity. 302 To know
God one must begin by being guilty. Alvarez has shown that
the existentialist aim is in general to begin with man, moving
to religion, and finding God at the end of the relation rather
than posing and solving first the problem of God's existence. 303
••• Cf. C. Keane's Meaning of Existence, New York, 1947 (passim).
••• Alvarez A., El Tema de Dios en la Filosofia Existencial, Madrid, 1945.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

805

Przywara would call this the religion of" transcendence"; 804 he
opposes it by showing the Catholic theology, not of finitude
in endless striving, but of " God hitherward," the Incarnation.
Against the existentialist, it must be said that radical induction would make knowledge impossible. In such a view, knowledge would never begin. It must first find and identify the
individual. Is this or that thing really an individual? Since
the idea of a whole is not yet had, the " individual " in our
first forage would be suspected of not being an individual but
breakable into the real units with which induction must begin.
The analysis into component parts proves successful. Yet in
asking whether the parts are individuals, we are buffeted by
the same problem as before. What, it may be asked, is the
natural unit in matter?
Proceeding on purely scientific
premises without recognition of hylomorphism in atoms, the
scientist discovers smaller units and calls them fundamental
particles. Then refusing to call these subatomic units irreducible, he seeks to divide them. Without recourse to ideas
outside pure scientific method, this movement results in an
eternal chase after premises. No secure knowledge would be
had until these forever fleeing premises could be coralled into
an ultimate and irreducible thing that, since there is nothing
more fundamental, is its own evidence. The movement toward
fact in science is retrogressive rather than progressive in principle. Pressed onward, it would prevent knowledge from beginning. If radical induction is impossible and knowledge is a
fact, then it is evident that the moment when knowledge begins
the general and not the individual must be known. On the
premises of scientism and existentialism, where the validity of
the idea of being is denied, knowledge could not occur. Even
scientific discovery does not disclose absolute novelty. That
the scientist knows where he is, finding his way back to relate
his new facts to previous knowledge, is a sign that he has been
in the ·unknown territory beforehand, knowing it somehow in
a vague and virtual way by the light of being that makes everything man's home.
••• Polarity, London, 1935. Cf., for example, p. '1-7.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Aquinas, following Avicenna, held that being is the first idea
which occurs to the intellect. The truth of this statement appears in the impossibility of knowledge on any other premise.
Science would vanish if knowledge did not move from the more
universal to the less. Otherwise it would forever be a blind
jump from the unknown to known. Novelty would stand
windowless and ever ·irrelational. Classification, a phase of
every scientific enterprise, perhaps the chief and sole intention
of empirical science, requires knowledge of the general class in
terms of which the particulars are distributed. Setting up a
general class from a limited number of observations on particulars violates the principle of causality, indeed the principle
of identity. For knowledge not only to be true but also to be
even possible, since the individual is meaningful only when
related to its class, the general must be known first, not in tem:Poral priority to knowledge of the existing particular but before this datum is known, consciously and reflexly by the
intellect. The individual, as such, cannot be classified. It
cannot be differentiated but only integrated. It is a member
of a class rather than a class. Even in statistics which seems
to deal with a sum of individuals, the statistician must apprehend the general first; he must see that they are all members
of the same class before he can sum them up. That the existentialists classify-they speak of hope and despair, the poursoi and the en-soi, proper existence and improper modalities,
various types of Grenzsituationen___:indicates that in practice
they too recognize the validity of the general fact and ultimately of the ens primum cognitum.
No one remembers his first idea. The fact that it involved
the idea of being is not a matter of memory but rather of
taking our certain knowledge, which criteriology defends, and
asking how such knowledge is possible. The possibility of
knowledge cannot be studied, as Kant projected and as the
existentialists attempt, before knowledge is a fact. Potentiality
cannot be known except in terms of actuality. Potentiality was
picturesquely called by Santayana " a retrospective name for
material fertility." 305 Knowledge must be discussed first as
"'
1980, p. 100.
••• The Realm of Matte-r, London,

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

807

the evident fact which it is and secondly in terms of its possibility. It is an absurdity to use knowledge to destroy knowledge; it would, by being used, survive its own suicide. Indeed,
if there is any certain knowledge, God's existence can be argued
from the fact that there must somehow be eternal knowledge.
The existentialists, on the contrary, would make this primum
cognitum a matter of memory. On this so-called category, the
Kierkegaardian dialectic of repetition seems to depend. 306 The
intensely personal and, in general, psychological cast to all the
existentialists studied above would reduce knowledge to experience, denying that we can know except by continuity with the
past-which memory provides. Their entire dialectic views
man entirely in terms of history and of time, the field of
memory, and never in terms of the trans-historical and supratemporal which is the domain of intelligence. If memory is at
work here, could man remember the nothing of his first experience? As a matter of fact, existentialism would argue toward
an even closer physical compression of the past with the present
than memory itself can afford. In the Gleichursprunglichkeit,
the past, present, and future are united. The Dasein is
simply da.
Whether this being which existentialism describes in terms of
subjectivity, the Dasein, the pour-soi, is individual is another
question. It is humanly impossible to know that a thing is
without knowing what it is in some minimum fashion. Above
all, this could never be reported to others. To know, however,
that it is in the case of being is to grasp the grounds for a whole
metaphysical development. John of St. Thomas, speaking of
the ens primum cognitum, says that it is almost like knowing
not what something is but whether it is; 307 almost, he puts it,
for there is always some minimum of content if only in vague
terms like that which is.
A parenthesis may be pardoned here to indicate that the
statement being is does not form the meaningless tautology
Repetition, p. 4.
· 800 " • • • repetition, properly so-called, is recollected forwards."
Kierkegaard has a two-fold division of memory
like Bergson's.
807 Cura. Philoa, Turin, 1988, pp. !tO fl.

308

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

which existentialism and scientism paints it to be. What, let
us ask with Heidegger, is the meaning of being? The answer
brings us to the feet of God.
A piece of iron may be said to have meaning as far as it is,
says, cast into the form of a hammer .. The meaning of the
hammer derives from the outside, from the use to which it is
put by man. A dog may be said to have meaning for hunting,
say, or for amusement, comfort, and companionship if he is a
household pet. A dress has meaning as far as it can be worn
and food in so far as it is edible. Trees give shade to man.
Flowers and music beautify his life. In human society, the
worker is often regarded by the capitalist as existing entirely
for employment, and the worker in turn oftentimes accords
little reality to the capitalist except as being his boss. But
apart from their relationships to something outside themselves,
do things have any meaning and reality?
Reflection shows that things do not acquire their meaning
and reality from the outside. Being is efficacious of itself. It
is not a blank check on which man writes his meaning and
value but legal tender with fixed standards that he is bound to
honor. Reality determines man more than man fashions his
environment of being. If we grant, for a moment, that the
hammer as such, derives its meaning from the outside (for it
is a work of art not of nature), what can be said of the iron
which composes the hammer? It has certain chemophysical
properties. It has a fixed color, melting point, specific gravity,
and the like. It could be said, in this connection, that the
meaning of the iron for· the scientist is derived from the outside. Language bears witness to this fact. We say: " Iron has
certain properties." The physicist may now train particle-guns
on the iron to break it down into smaller units of matter, explaining all the chemical appearance of the iron entirely in
terms of these subatomic particles and processes. But now
somewhere this division must come to an end. Otherwise, the
iron, infinitely divided in itself, could not be anywhere and
would be nothing. There must come a time and place where
we stop saying that a thing has attributes and appearances by

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

809

virtue of something outside itself. There comes a time and
place where instead of saying that a being has something, we
simply say it is something.
To say that being is is to affirm a simple relationship that
quantitative techniques cannot touch but that is available only
to a spiritual, simple soul. Being is efficacious of itself. By
this is meant that a thing does not derive all of its meaning
and reality from the outside. It has something intrinsically.
It is intrinsically and is hence not a mere phenomenon, determined, like prime matter, completely from the outside. Far
from passivity, being is actual. Far from being wholly patterned from without it has a nature that resists change by
reacting. To say that being is is almost tautological, but if
for no other reason the fact that meaningful knowledge flows
from such a judgment, as will be seen below, evinces the
fecundity of this principle. Existence is so much associated
with being that the two are united inseparably. Ens est id
quod est. Ens est id cujus actus est esse. Just as, to avoid the
nihilism of an infinite regression, we say that there is something somewhere in the hammer which does not derive its reality from the outside, so we say that there is a point where
being and meaning are synonymous, where meaning, like being,
must come from within. The meaning of being is that it is.
What we mean by efficacity is that existence is not superadded
to it like an attribute, the color to the iron. No matter what
we may say about the hammer, the iron, and the electrons, we
cannot doubt the fact that it is intrinsic in being to be. We do
not make it what it is. It is in itself. Being therefore has
meaning apart from man and man's devices. Its business, its
nature, its meaning, its reality is to be. Heidegger missed his
mark when he sought the meaning of being, der Sinn von Sein.
Sinn and Sein really turn out to be the same thing. Being iaa principle so simple that the mind cannot err in the necessity
of accepting it, so rich that it can integrate all knowledge.
The proof of God's existence depends on the judgment that
being is. Heidegger makes capital, in his pillaging of the past,
of what Leibniz called the principle of sufficient reason. This
3

310

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

principle may be stated thus: whatever it has a sufficient reason for itself. As a corollary, it follows that if a thing does not
have within itself the sufficient reason for itself, then it must
have that sufficient reason outside itself (principle of causality) .
This corollary is but an application of the principle of contradiction. The problem is to establish the principle: whatever is must have a sufficient reason for itself. Once this
principle is accepted, God's existence can be proved at once.
Let us return to the familiar dictum: being is. This is a statement of what is beyond and below the principle of inertia. It
discovers and states a truth that is immediate-paraphrasing
Kierkegaard it may be called the immediacy of a thing to
itself-whereas mediacy characterizes the possessions by a thing
which occur to it in obedience to inertia. Being is-this means
that a reality, a thing of the nature of the simple, is not completely (inertially) determined from without. It is an immediacy, an intimacy, an inwardness, a thing in its own right and
its own whatness. What is immediate is made by an immediate
action, and made a thing must be if it is not pure immediacy but
has an admixture of the mediate. If being must be made immediately, it is made without the mediation of a subject, ex nihilo
sui et subjecti. Immediacies, in other words, no matter how
strongly intermingled as finite beings are, with mediacy, ultimately require the existence of the pure immediacy which is
God.
But what do we mean now by sufficient reason? Why must
being have a sufficient reason? Is this, after all, simply a vote
of confidence, as Heidegger seemed to think, that the universe
is ultimately intelligible, explainable, reasonable? It is not thus
at all. To say that things have a sufficient reason is like making
the statement, being is. Reason is not used here in the sense
of order and intelligibility. This would prejudice the question.
The principle simply means that there are facts or combinations of facts which account for being's being on this side of
nothingness. This reason may be internal or external or it may
be, as it actually is, in the ultimate sense, a union of the two.
What if being did not have a sufficient reason for standing out

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

311

from nothingness? If it had no such principle, then everything
is indifferent in the universe. In such a case, being is the same
as nothing. But obviously there must be a sufficient reason
why being rebels at nothingness, why there is in what exists,
an inward, as opposed to inertial, character. An indifferent
universe confounds the two, being and nothing. Only the principle of sufficient reason can preserve their difference. Hence
it is that the principle is like saying: being is.
Is there perhaps a reason for being, something more fundamental from which being itself is derived? If we examine finite
being, this is so. Finite being does not explain itself. It has a
reason outside of itself. But we cannot go on and on in this
process ad infinitum. Somewhere we must come to a point
where a being is its own sufficient reason and does not have to
look outside of itself to be accounted for. For outside of
being there is nothing, and if there was a time when nothing
was, then nothing could ever be. This being with its own
sufficient reason is God.
It is an artefact, veneered by a word, to hold that the substance of man is his existence, or that existence precedes essence.
What is the das, l'etre, which both Heidegger and Sartre
acknowledge to be. Perhaps the existentialists have come to
the idea of being which is close to that of traditional metaphysics (or at least identify the ens primum cognitum) and
then have mistaken the gold that they had mined for false
appearances. Perhaps as in Hegel, the vagueness of transcendental being becomes for the existentialists a synonym with
nothing, confusing the denotation and connotation of concepts.
Vagueness in such a view ends in vanishing, and the commonest
predicate of reality becomes nothingness. But what is vague is
still not nothing any more than by dividing matter man will
eventually annihilate it. John Dewey's thought seems also to
have a slight but forgotten consciousness of the ens primum
cognitum in his notion of a problem:
There is a troubled, perplexed, trying situation, where the difficulty is, as it were, spread throughout the entire situation, infect-

312

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

ing it as a whole. If we knew just what the difficulty was and
where it lay, the job of reflection would be much easier than it is.808
What is a problem is pre-reflective, vague, and indeterminate.
But obviously it is not nothing. Otherwise it could not be
recognized. A vagueness in the beginning of thought testifies
to the primacy of the idea of being.
Though pretending to oppose abstractions, the existentialists
adopt the conceptualization of being as the norm for determining its meaning. The ultimate for them is meaningless because there is nothing more ultimate in terms of which it can be
deduced or described, no genus within which the species are related. Pure analysis must always be a genus-species type of
knowledge where, without knowledge of a prior, relating whole,
one point of reality becomes meaningful only with respect to
the point preceding and not in an ultimate, viewpoint-less
fashion. 809 Because they cannot deduce being, they tab it as a
meaningless tautology. In search of genus-species relations,
the existentialists seek knowledge in terms of clarity and distinction in ideas, whereas the full meaning of being is not
grasped until man's knowing is completed in judgment. 310 It
has recently been evidenced that St. Thomas held to the comj>1etion of knowledge of being through the negative judgment
(separatio). Geiger writes: "By this act, as far as it is proper
to metaphysics, we not only consider different aspects [of being]
but affirm in being the relative iru:lependence of certain principles of being."· 811 Being is that. which is, and we are not
aware of its is-ness until we judge. We know its" that which"
by apprehension. Gilson has stated that a genuine philosophy
808 How We Think, New York, 1988, p. 108.
That the existentialists have this
positive contact with being but refuse to recognize it is suggested by Marcel, G.,
Homo Viator, p. !WO.
809 No matter from what aspect we look at being, we can always say of it that
it is. That is why metaphysics is above viewpoints and is a science of the ultimate absolutely.
810 de V er. 1, 1, aed. cont. 8; cf., "Existentialism
and the Judgment," by R.
Henle, in Proc. Am!J'r. Cath. Philos. Assoc., 1946, pp. 40-58.
811 La Participation dans la Philosophie de Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Paris, 194!l,
p. 818. The passage from St. Thomas is his long discussion in In de Trin. Boet.,
6, 8, c.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

818

" is dominated by that which cannot be conceptualized." 312 If
then our knowledge of being, which is not of the genus-species
type and is not deduced from previous grounds, requires the act
of the mind composing and dividing, it is difficult to see how
there can be an intuition of being.
Aquinas held that the naught was the second of man's intellectual experiences after being had been known in the first. m
The existentialists reverse this procedure, according a primacy
to the experience of the naught, so much so that perfection consists not in filling the mind with truth but in keeping it open
and vacuous. 814 But if they truly experienced the naught and
not merely the vague being of common sense, how could they
report on it? Certainly they could not present it in familiar
language, the language of being, unless they admit that being
is known and understood first, forming the positive reality with
nothingness as a negation of it. Knowledge is always of something, and between something and nothing there is no continuity. In holding to the primacy of the naught in knowledge,
the existentialists pursue the analytic method to its completion. Scientism has conveniently stopped along the way.
The Thomistic position accords with reality as it is. If knowledge began in nothing it could never get started. If we knew
only being, our first idea would never end. The fact that
knowledge reflects both beginning and progress shows that the
limits must be apprehended after the thing to which the limits
apply. The existentialists maintain that nothing is experienced
and that it is being which flees us. But obviously it is not a
radical flight. If we knew that being were fleeing us, we would
already have overtaken it. Lavelle has argued that it is the
nothingness not being _which escapes us. Unity, for example,
is posed at the beginning of counting and it is the multiple, the
chaotic, the disordered (hence the relative non-entity) which
811 " Existence and Philosophy," in Proc. A
Cath. Phil. Assoc., 1946, p. 7.
However, to speak of existence as " something beyond essence and beyond the
intelligible" (p. 10) is susceptible of interpretation that there is a Bergsonian
irrationale at the basis of reality.
811 de Pot., 7, 7 ad 15.
110 Vietta, E., Theologie ohne Gott, Ziirich, 1946, p. 60.

814

VINCENT EDW ..niD SMITH

flees us when we try to count in the direction of the end of the
series. 315 In explaining the primacy of being over the naught
where knowledge is concerned, Allers has well stated that nothing-ness is experienced as a non-fulfillment, 316 an incompletion.
These analyses substantiate Geiger's thesis. The multiple as
such is unintelligible, and if existentialism be true, we could
never know anything. Anguish, desolation, care-all of these
make sense only in terms of a pre-existing possession, the
primacy of the positive.
In a more specific sense, existentialism holds that we do not
know anything unless we physically are it and are united with
the object; knowledge is rendered impossible because there is
no subject left to know. Thought, it is said, lies outside of
being; experience must be experienced to be known. All we
can say of man is that he is Da. But in saying that the Dasein
is Da, the existentialist rules of the game are violated. If
existentialism is true, how could we know anything?
Knowledge, obviously, requires two things: the subject must
remain itself and know; the object must remain itself and be
known. If the subject had to change in order to know the
object and to change in order to know the change, an infinite
series of subject-less changes is opened, making all knowledge
impossible. That is why Plato conceived his theory of reminiscence and why Aristotle posited the agent intellect. If the
object must be changed and be changed to make known the
change, another infinite series is initiated. If the subject were
changed by knowing, it would not beoome the object; if the
object were changed, the subject could not become it as other.
If we know anything, then obviously we remain ourselves while
becoming the new. We have our own forms and at the same
time the forms of other. If being were changed to be known,
it could be annihilated-for how else could being be changed?
And hence, in existentialism, neither being nor nothing could
be known. An inert universe is a nihilistic one. 311
315

De l' Acte, Paris, 1937, p. 209.

On Darkness, Silence, and the Naught," in TIIE THOMIST, IX (1946), pp.
570 ff.
817 Marcel, in his analysis of l'Etre et le Neant, seems likewise to be in accord
816 "

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

315

It has been pointed out that the universe of existentialism
involves a cosmic dynamism like that of Heraclitus. 318 How in
the pure motion can the moments of time be distinguished? 319
That the existentialist universe is pure dynamism can easily be
shown. For Kierkegaard, it is impossible to be a Christian;
man is always becoming a Christian. For Heidegger, man is
caught between being and nothing. Jaspers views existence in
terms of struggle. In Sartre, man is constantly fighting to
define himself. Sartre is diametrically opposed, he says, to
quietism. 320 Such a dynamic version of things is but an aspect
of the nihilism where the existentialists end. The universe of
Heraclitus was one that had no being, where all is melted into
the pure indeterminacy of a continuum. Pure indeterminacy,
like prime matter, is actually nothing.
Yet in another sense, it can be defended that existentialism
offers an inert picture of the cosmos, inert like prime matter
itself. This means that there cannot be any motion at all since
the agent, alone in his there-ness, could never get started. Man
becomes a meaningless tautology, and it takes two terms for
motion to occur. If he is, as the existentialists say, an autorelation 321 then his only possibility is annihilation rather than
motion. Another form than his own, far from enriching his
being, annihilates it.
Aquinas seems to argue that a completely dynamic universe
is likewise inert. In rejecting the principle that there can be no
with Aquinas' view as stated by Geiger. He holds that Sartre actually states but
refuses to recognize that being is contacted and that more than mere limit is
recognized. Thus Sartre says that the non-being haunts being. It is outside of it,
a glove around it, to translate Marcel's language literally. Homo Viator, p. 137.
The idea of nothingness would thus seem to be secondary and limiting. Marcel
thinks that there is a positivity about the concept of abandonment and that
the reason for the negative emphasis which this state would seem to have is
" notre imperfection rendue manifeste," p. 244. This would imply that the perfective is apprehended first. Without it imperfection would have no sense, just
as the concept of limit alone, even as formalistic mathematics of contemporary
thought, is nonsense.
818 Cf., e. g., de Tonquedec, op. cit., pp. 90 ff.
819 Lefevre, L., L'Existentialiste est-il un Philosophe? Paris, 1946, pp. 21-22.
820 EH, pp. 55 ff.
821 This term is from Alvarez, op. cit., pp. 79 ff.

316

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

infinite series of directly subordinated causes, it is familiarly
said that all causes would be intermediate. Where all is intermediate all must be process. If M and N were members of
the series, subordinated to each other, they would have only
intermediates between them and only intermediates joining
them to other intermediates and so on. Thus all would be
motion, indeterminate. Nothing could be immediately as
being is.
At the same time, everything would be inert. An intermediate cause A could never affect its subordinate B because
it would have to go through simply intermediate steps to do it
and thus could never reach B. B as a result would never move.
If everything is intermediate, then there must be a radical
between-ness between things, radical such that it could never
be bridged. 322
Aristotle, clarified by Aquinas, deduces both radical dynamism and radical inertia from the pre-Aristotelean hypotheses that there is an infinity of matter, an infinity of
parts specifically alike. Of such a complexus Aristotle says:
" It will either be at home everywhere-then it will not be
moved; or it will be moved everywhere-and then it will not
come to rest." 323
It may seem strange, in spite of loud protests
systems,
to find existentialism resembling the universe of modern scientism. According to the doctrine and direction of modern
physics, nothing has any reality of its own. Everything is
wholly determined by what lies outside of it. The being of
physics is thus an impoverished thing. On the side of the
subject, a thing cannot remain itself and become something
else; on the side of the object, a thing cannot remain itself and
" be become." There is thus no possibility of knowledge in
scientism. Being is simply inert, and the inert, like the potential, is multiple, chaotic, disordered, and unknowable.
Now the' themes of existentialism run in very much the same
••• Summa cont. Gentiles, I, IS.
••• This English translation from the Physics is taken from McKeon, R., The
Basic Works of Aristotle, New York, pp. 262-268.

EXISTENTIALISM

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317

monotonous chant. Being cannot remain itself and become
other without the annihiiation of self. The world, when we
try to think of it as other vanishes into pure alteriety (das
schlechthin Andre) .324 Knowledge involves absolute ek-stasis. 325
Absolute ek-statis, absolute otherness is a complete denial of
the knower and known; it entails their changing rather than
persisting through a knowledge act. What is inert is irrelational. In this truth, Aquinas was so tremendously ahead of
his time when he rooted individuation in matter, the irrelational-though he recognized that the individual was a form
individuated. The being of existentialism is inert, and a completely inert universe leads to nihilism.
The affinity for the inert universe of science can be further
expressed by noting that the existentialists admit of only material and motor causality. Knowledge can never be enjoyed
in sudh a universe. They wish to get inside of experience to
know it-material identity. In the efficient order, they envision
knowledge as a construction. The Dasein is made intelligible
by temporalizing itself. Being becomes an act, a striving, an
actualization-in the order of motor causes. Of the same stuff
and the same agency is the universe of physics, where the aim
is the control of matter. Formal causality is denied. The
existentialist and scientistic worlds are thus without form and
without finality. With no form, knowledge is impossible. Without finality will cannot be explained. What we know are forms.
What we will is not indeterminacy, matter, but determinations.
Though purportedly arguing that the individual c,annot know
other as other, the existentialists actually compromise their
extreme postulates. When Heidegger speaks of other men as
" doubles of ourselves," 326 he actually approaches the Aristotelean view whose realism he so explosively denies. To know
other as of ourselves implies that we remain what we are. To
know other as a dooble implies that we know it as other. Thus
there is, at least on one level, not the annihilation of which the
existentialists speak but the recognition of a positive thing
outside of us who, in our turn, abide through the knowledge.
""' WM, p. 19.

825

SZ, p. S!i!O.

••• cr. supra, n. 1!i!7.

818

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

The subject is thus not inert, and neither is the ubject. Both
remain what they were and enter into the knowledge relation.
Sartre is guilty of tht:; same miscarriage of his principles. In
the architectonic of his humanism, he holds that the projects
of others can be understood by us beaause we can remake their
own projects in ourselves. 327 But to remake in us what is theirs
implies becoming other as other, while remaining ourselves. It
contravenes the inert, irrelational type of universe which existentialism describes. Further, if knowledge is a fact, then what
is common is apprehended before the particular, what is objective before what is subjective, what is vague before what is
distinct. That all men can share in the same project implies
that the project transcends them as individuals and that what
is common or general is reached without recourse to radical
induction. Sartre's theory of the look is a verbalism. To know myself
as seen and to know other as the seer implies that both subject
and object are present in the cognitive act in such a way that
other is known as other; the subject, obviously, remains itself
while acquiring a new form. There is neither pure otherness
where the subject is annihilated, hence not involved in the
relation, nor pure sameness where there would be no distinction, no otherness. The knowledge problem cannot be solved
by a trick of words but by looking at the facts as they are
given. Shame, pride, are social bearings. They imply the
permanence of a subject which, while in this identity with
itself, can enter into relations with other things.
The existentialist doctrine of will is likewise a play on words.
Freedom is a spontaneity, it is said, an autonomy, existing of,
by, and for itself. It is not a property of man. It is man,
random and gratuitous.
Freedom is ineffable and indivisible.
An ad hominem argument could be drawn here from the
appeal, made by the existentialists, for man to invoke his freedom and to realize an experience like theirs. They thus show
respect for a common element in all men, and element that
827 For example, "L'Europeen
... peut refaire en lui le projet du chinois, de
l'indien, ou de !'africain." EH, pp. 69-70.

EXISTENTIALISM

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319

cannot be the ineffable and indivisible thing which their extreme principles require. If freedom builds our worlds, why is
it that all worlds are alike at least in their larger fumitures, to
use Russell's term. Spontaneity cannot originate order, any
more than nothingness can suddenly bloom into being. Finally,
if will involves preceding knowledge as everyday experience
indicates, then to suppose an extraordinary act in the beginning
of conscious life when the tables would be turned is a gratuitous
assumption. The bridge between the extraordinary and the
ordinary must also be extraordinary; a universe results like
that of Eddington where everything is a miracle.
But a more direct engagement may be made by reflection on
the meaning of the indivisible, unmatchable act which existentialist ascribe to will. If this indivisible of theirs willed anything, even itself, it would be destroyed in the willing because
it would be divided. It would not remain itself and will. If
it were in immediate touch with nothing, then man could not
persist to report on that experience, to submit to its influence,
for on existentialist premises there is no
between
being and nothing but a leap. The will would be alternately as
nothing and being, dying and rising from the dead, in a series
of annihilations and self-creations. There could be no responsibility, no continuity in existence, no relation to the pristine
experience. If awareness of being is being, as the existentialists
argue, then this preceding nothingness cannot relate to the
awareness. That which is must be explained. That which is
not we do not know. Further, we are not responsible for that
which is not, only for that which is. Existentialism has thus
simply restated the problem of existence without solving it.
Why is being not nothing? It is to prejudge the answer to
reply that it is nothing. A new meaning has been given to the
word " naught." Freedom cannot be inertly. indivisible. It
takes the form of a liberum arbitrium.
Finally, knowledge must precede freedQID, at least in a
priority of nature if not of time, or it could never catch up
with it to report on freedom's prior actions. Existentialism

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

lays claim to report on experience and the world. That it
ventures such a report indicates that it acknowledges the
maxim nil volitum nisi praecognitum. Its knowledge is there
with freedom, analyzing it and, because of the knowledge, surpassing freedom, one may even say dominating it. 328 Man,
the reflecting being, can always catch up with himself and
start life over ·again. For man, the master-causa sui as
Aquinas says because he is free-there is always hope rather
than despair.
The decision that thefirst idea is of ourselves, that there is
no form, no final cause for voluntary action, the merger of
man and his world with nothingness, are all parts of a single
theme, the view of being entirely in terms of finitude. 329 All
beings exist only in so far as they bear a likeness to God,
participating somehow in His infinite perfection. Because the
existentialists never see this spark of infinity in the finite, their
minds can never be enkindled with a knowledge of God. Scientism is in the same nihilistic position, and here existentialism
can serve as a road-marker that essentialism like its opposite,
the forking avenues mentioned in the beginning, really leads
beyond the horizons of reality itself.
Because man's first idea is a general, albeit vague, one, that
of being, he reaches the level of the truly transcendent, the
transcendental.
That is to say, he has moved beyond his own
328 Guthrie's
thesis (op. cit., pp. 102-3) is that there is an a priori will toward
good which starts knowledge. This voluntarism can be rejected simply by showing that the intellect penetrates deeper and more perfectly into reality and cannot
therefore have been taken there by the less deep and less perfect action of will.
The lower cannot move ·the higher.
329 That the existentialists
so view man can be seen from the preceding exposition and from the verdict of their critics. Cf., e. g., Delp, A., Tragische Existenz,
Freiburg im B., 1935, p. 66; Sternberger, A., Der Verstandene Tod, Leipzig, 1934,
pp. 139 ff.; Stefanini, L., L'esistenzialismo di M. Heidegger, Padua, 1944, pp. 55,
60; Hofmann, P., op. cit., pp. 53 ff.; Jaspers follows Nietzsche in his view of "diesseitigkeit." N, pp. 255, 379 ff. That nihilism must be the fruit of such a view can
be seen from comparing the above passages with the theses of True, op. cit., p. 18;
Alvarez, op. cit., p. 284; and de Ruggiero, op. cit., p. 41. The Thomist's decision that existentialism means nihilism will appear from a critical analysis of
Lowith, K., Von Hegel bis Nietzsche, Berlin, 1941.

EXISTENTIALISM

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subjectivity and has grasped reality in terms of its unlimited,
because general, aspects. 330 Philosophy begins, not in dread,
negation, limit, but in wonder, the address of man toward the
vastness of the unlimited, i. e., the infinite. Man thus reaches
the objective order because he touches what is common. When
two men have the same idea, there must be an objective standard exterior to both in terms of which the comparison is made;
a thing is not changed by being known, for each knower, changing the object, would leave it incapable of being known by
the other. The basis of community and objectivity semiotic
does not grasp.
I£ our first idea is a categorical one, limited and even egocentric,331 then we are consigned to remain in the limits that
it sets-remaining an insistentia, 332 not an exsistentia. What
is common then becomes an extrapolation, a simple guess, with
no way of including individuals; since the idea of a sum would
likewise be irrelational, individual, we could never even know
the sum of individuals. What begins with the individual must
be radically inductive, and this, it was seen, would make knowledge impossible. We would, it was said, tread the road which
science has taken, analyzing matter until it is virtually analyzed
away, moving in our search for the individual to smaller and
vaguer particles and forces until smallness and vagueness
telescope into nothingness. Pure scientific method leads to
nihilism because it can never begin with a sureness of foot. It
must analyze its own premises and the premises of the premises.
Infinite analysis is an infinite series. The existentialists, following Kant, are extremely analytic. More than any of the
330 That intelligibility
follows upon remotion from matter which determines to
one, this remotion being the same thing as generality, is shown by the analysis of
J. Marcotte, "Materiality and Knowledge," in The New Scholasticism, XXI (1947)
praesert., pp. 359 ff.
831 This departure
from the subject's knowledge of himself is at least a grave
danger in the notion of Balthasar, N., La Methode en Metaphysique, Louvain,
1943. He speaks of " intrinsecisme," a suggestion of Kierkegaardian inwardness,
and it is difficult to see how he can escape the fate which befalls the beginning
with the limited.
332 This term is from Alvarez, op. cit., p. 115.

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

others, Sartre displays the spirit of Cartesian analysis which
empties the mind of the world and the world of its being.
In this respect, existentialism has simply pressed forward
the method of analysis abroad in modern thought, an analysis
that led Russell to a philosophy of pointing, 333 with the object
of the finger as the ineffable something which Whitehead and
Russell termed an event. 334 But what is pointing? Can we
point at the pointing itself? Can we not further analyze tomorrow what today is the object of pointing, showing that
this too can be produced and controlled? Knowledge cannot
be infinitely inductive if it is knowledge. In that case, it would
destroy itself, denying that there is anything to know. Science
studies being in terms of what it is not, rather than what it is,
its limits, its inertias, its passivities, its controllability in experiment. Radical induction can make no contact with the
general, the objective, the common, the public, the infinite.
The existentialists obviously deny form. Like modern science, they deal only in terms of efficient and material causality.
Being they insist is inert, i.e., changed only by being annihilated. Now it is by form that a thing resembles the infinite;
the perfection of a creature consists in this resemblance. 335 It
is only so far as a thing is not limited that it is intelligible. 336
All of man's knowledge is not mediate; in such a series nothing
could ever be known. The principle of immediacy is form. It
makes a thing what it is. Thus in a universe where matter is
Cf. The Principles of Mathematics, New York, 1938, p. 27.
The parallelism between Heidegger and Whitehead is traced out by Barrett,
W., What is Existentialism, Partisan Review Series, No. 2, New York, 1947, pp.
13 ff. Barrett's thwsis could be even more pointedly put by the analysis of the
principle of sufficient reason in Heidegger and Whitehead. Barrett's final remarks,
redolent of dialectical materialism, are that Heidegger in making man the determinant of time reversed the real order which makes time the determinant of man.
Sartre's journal, Les Temps Modernes, deals largely with concrete meanings of
existentialism. In his articles on materialism and revolution, I (1946), 1-2, he has
effectively shown against Marxism that matter can only be controlled by dominating it and revolutions can be implemented only by rejecting determinism and
the Hegelian continuum in favor of the free acts of free individuals.
335 ST, I, 6, 4.
336 Cf. Marcotte,
art. cit., passim.
333

334

EXISTENTIALISM

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323

wedded to form, there is no need to make reality intelligible
as science does. It is intelligible by its nature as informed,
needing only to be seen, after the agency of abstraction, to be
known. If we had to make intelligible everything that we
know we could never know anything. Understanding things
in terms of what they are not, we would never know anything
at all.
Form enriches the material universe. It is by form that a
thing can be itself and extend beyond its. own limits, whether
it be by transitive action on other things or by being known.
That such extensions occur is obvious by the fact that we
know, and by the mutual actions of material things, involving
both permanence and change, the mediate and the immediate.
Man, by knowing, does not impoverish or destroy himself. The
world is not known by being annihilated. Otherwise man
would not remember that he knew and the universe would not
be public for man to know. Thus Aquinas speaks of man's
knowledge as being " a remedy " in a finite thing, for its finitude-the remedy of the infinite. 331 Form gives to things their
public character, accessible to many individuals because not
completely finited to one. Form gives to things a stability
that is supra-temporal and supra-spatial, a whisper of the
eternal and the infinite.
In their denial of form, existentialists apply, rather than
contradict, the Hegelianism to which their doctrine owes its
origin as an historical reaction. Hegel denied the difference
between real and logical being (the ens rationis). It is this
distinction which accounts for the objectivity of knowledge.
What we do to things, when we know them, is not to wedge a
medium between reality and the mind but to employ an ens
rationis that makes no addition to being, thus preserving its
objectivity and independence. Modern logic-existentialist, if
the idea of logic has any meaning here, and certainly mathematical logic-is a logic without an ens rationis. We neither
add nor subtract in being when we know it. Thus to Hei337

Ibid., p. 358; de Ver., II, !1.

324

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

degger's question at the beginning of Sein und Zeit, we do not
prejudge the question when we ask what is being. Is and being,
in such a judgment, imply different orders. The first involves
the ens rationis, the second the ens reale. Refusing to bow
before the self-evidence of the immediate, existentialists instead
declare the nothingness alone is evident. They too, are prejudging the qu-estion on their own terms for " is " in their
formulation. Since they do. not admit an ens ratianis, it becomes a real being, and in this undifferentiated act of the mind
without an ens ratianis, no duality could ever be detected, and
no judicial act or question could occur. Nothing and being
are identified because the existentialists fail to see that what
is not a real being can nevertheless be not-nothing absolutely
but an ens rationis. Existentialism has set the stage for its act
before its play begins. It is by form that things act, that
things are, that they are known. It is by form that unity prevails amid a multiple world which, as pure manifold, would be
truly nothing in the actual order. To deny form is to deny
being, to deny the prihciple of contradiction, to deny duality,
and to equate what is with what is not. It is to explore being
in terms of its limits, what it is not, in terms entirely of its
finite character. It is to run the human mind forever in reverse.
The principle of finality comes into the foreground as an
answer to the existentialist doctrine of will. Will, even free
will, as having a nature can be understood only as a tendency.
If a thing did not have definite tendencies, it would tend in
all directions simultaneously and nothing could ever happen.
It would explode. What tended to nothing would be nothing.
The denial of all tendency completely closes man off into his
own limitedness, considers only what is finite. This shows
again that what is radically finite is nothing. Order, the work
of tendency, is but the resemblance to infinity. By tendencies,
things stretch beyond themselves, beyond their limits. The
natural tendencies of things toward ends which are called the
laws of natures are but the effects, St. Thomas says, of the love
in the finite for God. 338 Assimilari Deo is the aim and purpose
818

In de Div. Nom., X, 1.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

325

of all finite action. Law is not brute force but a bond (ligatio)
uniting man to the infinite, and its fullness is love. Man, obeying law, participates in eternal reason. 339 Law is the compensation for the loneliness of man, and if he is not directed by law,
he is nothing. Only on recognition that there is in man, and
even in nature, both the limited and the unlimited, can a
genuine philosophy be constructed. In speaking of man's
penchant for the infinite Aquinas writes:
It was therefore necessary for the perfection of the universe to
be consummated that there be some creatures who return to God
not only according to a resemblance of nature but also through
operation; this could not be except by the act of intellect and will,
since God Himself acts in this fashion.340

Finality is a pull more than a push; for if all is vacuous outside of us, how is resistance to be explained. A mere push
without order and goal would be a random thing. It would
be Cartesian teleology all over again, that the explanation of a
thing is to be sought entirely within it by breaking it up, thus
making finitude sufficient unto itself and failing to account for
relatedness. To explain action as a push only takes away
nature and substitutes ontologism, even as Descartes was historically culminated by Malebranche. Push is a synonym for
Geworfenheit, abandonment.
In a word, the nihilism of the existentialist universe is the
fruit of seeking the account of creatures entirely in terms of
finitude. Only a universe that participates in infinite being
can really be. Finite creatures, unless-like God-they are
something from within, have form, and display finality, would
annihilate themselves by their own limits. It is infinity which
is the cause of the universe, infinity which is shared by the
beings of the universe, infinity which is the end of action. A
radically finite universe could not possibly exist. Sartre holds
that the story of life is the story of a check. For Jaspers, what
••• ST, I-ll, 91, 2.

••o CG, II, 46. For further enlightening remarks on the question of creaturely
similitude to God, cf., Przywara, op. cit., p. 62, also pp. 99 ff.
4

326

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

is ultimate is failure. For Heidegger, man is a prisoner of time,
and time is absolutely without that reference to eternity in
which tradition says it participates. But a complete check, a
radical failure, an absolutely finite duration would be nothing
at all. The fact that there is something that is, thoughts that
are formed and actions that are posited, is a testimony that
man is not absolutely finite and that his world is likewise more
than an absolute limit. Guthrie's existential, as opposed to
essential, ego is an argument to this fact, though a critic
might easily object that existence is here made into a quid. 341
D' Arcy, likewise viewing existence as the source of Agape and
essence as the raison d' etre of Eros, uses the rather suggestive
language of man as being " co-efficient " with God. 342 The
problem of praemotion is definitely redivivum in existentialism.
The Newtonian God did not produce the universe; for it
could never be if it were totally finite. The Cartesian God did
not make it, for it would then be a random world stemming
from blind will without reference to the forms investing things
with stability and sense as the reflections of Supreme Intelligence, without reference to the ends ordained by the Creator
thinking His Own Essence and projecting into time His Own
imitations which bound beyond their limits to return to Him.
The Kantian God of will and law is a similar failure to account
for the intrinsic likenesses of things to God in their very being.
Above all, our universe is nothing at all if it is the universe of
modern existentialism and scientism. Existence can only be
accounted for by God. If there is no God, it is nothing.
301 Op. cit.
Though intending to knit existence and essence closer together
than in " algebraic," essentialist metaphysics, Guthrie's analysis would seem in
the end to drive a greater wedge between them than there was before. Whether
we assign part of our dynamisms to essence and part to existence can only be
settled against such hard facts as the unity of being, that existence is a state and
not a thing, and the words of Cajetan: Existentia non existit.
302 The M.ind and Heart of Love, New York, 1947, p. 804.
The reader may
wonder whether D'Arcy has sufficiently overcome the objections raised against
Guthrie that he essentializes existence. The reader may likewise question whether
he has satisfactorily dismissed the solutions offered by Rousselot and Gilson to the
problem of Eros versus Agape. For a general but perhaps more satisfying treatment of the infinite in our world, cf. Przywara, op. cit., p. 68, p. 104.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

327

Here there is a signal benefit to be derived from existentialism, a kind of via negativa which simply sweeps to their
logical destiny the forces which Descartes and Kant set in
motion. The scientific movement, philosophically embodied
in naturalists, loSical positivists, and scientists having no other
label for their scientism, has not tracked down its analyses. In
the strict scientific method, which postulates analysis ad infinitum, in its view of being as completely inert to be known by
the way in which we can control it experimentally, lurks the
same nihilism which the existentialists formally meet by their
more stubborn analytic. Scientism would not admit that being
is primary and meaningful; it would say, rather, that being
is an illusion and that the real world is a patchwork of particles and forces. The pure scientist rejects form and finality.
Instead of considering form as the seal of infinity in the finite
world, he would reduce it to the limitations of his measure. He
would ask it to be controlled, finited. Instead of considering
finality, involving an extrinsic something on which a moving
object is naturally ranged, he seeks account of his realities
entirely within themselves, seeking the inertial structures which
things are made of. Whatever dynamism there is has come
to be of a statistical kind. The law of entropy, a supreme law
in the physicists' world, declares that the universe is tending to
a greater and greater thermal disorder through the heat dissipated by every action and which, as heat, is defined as a
disordered movement. Absolute disorder, the end of the motion, lies beyond being. It is nothing. Motion in physics,
like the Newtonian clock that God threw into space to unwind,
involves the direction from act to potency, rather than the
reverse, a parallel in the dynamic order to the empirical account
of structure.
The positivist, in the spirit of Descartes, seeks to doubt, and
deny whatever cannot be captured into the clarity and distinctness of pointer-readings, establishing what Russell has
called a" hierarchy of dubitables." In this purifying of method,
anything short of purging it completely is certainly the failure

328

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

of nerve of which Hook speaks. Now when method is purified
of
that is not empirically demonstrable, then it is
found that the distinction between thinker and world, even
between thinker and thought, is no longer tenable; radically
inductive on the side of knowledge itself, we are reduced to
repeating the meaningless fact that the thinker is simply Da,
completely enclosed in his situation, confronted by the absolutely other, the completely ecstatic, the nothingness of things.
The existentialist approach which Kant suggests by his stress
of analytic is the final nihilism of analysts whose nerve stayed
with them to the bitter end. The fact that scientism has not
reached this extreme nihilistic impasse reflects its own failure
of nerve.
Such a thought may be expressed otherwise by reflecting on
the common expression " meaningless question." A question
of this kind, say the logical positivists and men like Bridgeman,
is one that empirical science cannot formulate at its own level.
But the real problem is the definition of a meaningful question
which can only be defined according to the canon of meaninglessness. Arbitrary it must remain until it is grounded, but
the moment when we pursue the answer on empirical grounds,
we are back at the meaning of a question in general and the
meaning. of the questioner. It is the same problem that beset
Heidegger, and the answer to it, from the viewpoint of scientism
and existentialism alike:. can only be that the questioner is
there, a meaningless, vacuous moment in space and time to
be known only by Russell's pointing. Nothing could possibly
be meaningful in that world. Nothing could possibly be.
Existentialists thus present the soul-shaking depths of a
universe where there is no infinite, no God. "We are in
hell." 848 They bring out in lurid color the ultimate meaning
of considering being, as scientism does, to be radically finite,
containing its own laws and available entirely to the measures
of scientific method. Existentialism has not yet captured
America. Scientism still holds the field. The meaning which
••• No Exit and the Fliea, p. 47.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

329

existentialism can bring to American philosophy is the ultimate
direction of scientistic principles denying being, its form,
finality, and co-efficiency with the infinite, aiming bluntly toward the decision that nothing is and nothing can be known.
The price of Cartesianism is atheism, and the hundred-percent
tax on it is a nihilistic universe. If anything is, there must be
a God.
One may borrow here the formal method of scientism and
pose the problem of theodicy for dialectical purposes in obedience to the canon of hypothesis, so widely accepted in contemporary American thought. If there is no God, then nothing
is. Only if there is a God can anything be explained, can
anything be. The " hypothesis " can be tested in a crucial
experiment by opening our eyes. Certainly the philosophers,
even in their devotion to science and scientific method, cannot
deny the existence of everything. If this is so, then the only
way to retain the existence of anything at all is the acceptance
that there is a God. What is not love of God is amor fati.
What is not knowledge of Him is knowledge of nothing. Only
in His existence can we save the appearances. Only thus can
being be.
VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

THE BASIS OF THE SUAREZIAN TEACHING
ON HUMAN FREEDOM
[Second Installment]

I. THE SuAREZIAN

TEACHING

ABouT HuMAN FREEDOM

I. THE APPETITIVE FACULTIES IN GENERAL
1. Appeties in General. Everything that is has a propensity
toward its own good, an appetite called natural which follows
every form, even the forms of non-living things. 7 Over and
above this, living, knowing substances have an appetitive
power peculiar to them, a power through which the soul, by an
elicited act proper to that appetite seeks what is good for it
in a living way. The reason for this is that appetite always
follows form. Therefore, according to the diversity of the ratio
of the form there follows a diverse ratio of appetite. Agents
which know apprehend what is good and what is evil for them;
and that apprehension is a form in them. Necessarily, then,
they have a special and peculiar power of seeking that good and
avoiding the evil. 8
Even within the general class of knowing subjects we find
differences. Some things endowed with knowledge do not rise
above the level of sense knowledge; others are intellectual.
Since from diverse kinds of knowledge there flow diverse kinds
of appetites we must conclude that the appetites of knowing
things differ: some are sensitive, and as such are material and
limited to individual material objects; others are rational. rising
above the plane of mere sense. They are, in their object and
nature, spiritual. 9
7 Appetitus
naturalis dicitur quaelibet propensio cujusvis rei in suum proprium
bonum (De Anima, Liber V, cap. 1, n. 1).
8 Appetitus
sequatur formam, ideoque juxta diversum modum, rationemque
formae diversa ratio appetitus consequatur (Ibid., n. 2) .
• Ibid., n. 2.

330

BASIS OF SUAREZIAN

TEACHING ON HUMAN FREEDOM

881

We can consider the object of an appetitive power in a twofold way: that of which it is "prosecutive " (to which it tends),
and that to which it is " aversative " (from which it turns
away). The adequate object of appetite in general as it is
prosecutive is good, or the ratio of good. This does not mean
that bonum in universale is the object of every appetite; but
every appetite does seek good either in general or in particular.
The object of appetite in general as it is aversative is evil.
This aspect is founded, rooted, in the first; the appetite cannot
bear on the evil (as desiring it) under the aspect of evil, as
some have said that the intellectual appetite (will) can do;
for the appetite is always for the good of the supposit, and
for its perfection, which cannot be attained by evil. Hence
when an appetite does in fact tend to an evil it always seeks it
under some aspect of good, real or apparent, in it. 1 ° For this
reason we cannot desire an impossible thing, apprehended as
impossible, except in a conditional way, "if it were possible."
It is to be noted that we can never will any good that does not
have some reference to ourselves. We will good to God, but He
is universal good, the font of all good, in Whom is all good; we
will good to creatures because they are in some determined way
one with us, or for us.11
A capital point in the Suarezian account {)f the acts of the
appetite is the role played by the object. The appetite elicits
its own act without any efficiency on the part of the desired
object, or on the part of our knowledge of that object. Many
have maintained that the object as well as the appetite has
efficiency with respect to the act. This for him is false. For
it to do so it would be necessary either: I) that the object
produce something in the appetite, given which the appetite
could then move to act; or !2) the object per se concurs to the
10 Notandum est ... nor. esse sensum conclusionis potentiam appetitivam
habere
pro objecto bonum sub absoluta ratione bcni ... sensus ergo est omnem potentiam
appetitivam habere pro objecto formaii rationem boni communis, vel particularis
(Ibid., sect. 2, n. 4) .
11 Impossibile est appeti quod non respiciat bonum proprium ipsius appetentis,
vel illud includat aliquo modo (Ibid., n. 7).

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

substance of the act. The first is inadmissible because the
object has no efficieney. Only God, as object, can move the
appetite efficiently. Moreover, supposing the truth of the position, the object would effectively move the appetite either by
efficiently producing a form in it or, though producing nothing,
by impelling the powers to second act. The first of these is
impossible since the appetite is of itself constituted in first act,
therefore needs no form. " An appetitive power is of itself
constituted in first act . . . the appetite is of itself inclined to
good and therefore needs no form through which it is constituted in first act. .. " 12 The second alternative (that the
object impels the power to second act) is impossible for if such
objective attraction were efficient the potency would be merely
passive; the act then would be from the object and not from the
potency. 18
The second possibility (the object concurs to the substance
of the act) is also impossible, since only that efficiency concurs
in the act of a power which constitutes it in first act, and the
appetitive power is constituted in first act of itself, and not
through its object. Neither can it be said that power and
object concur as two partial agents, since the appetite alone is
sufficient; besides it would lead to an impossibility, namely,
that the appetite use knowledge. " If some other cause should
concur clearly it would be none other than the previous act of
knowledge_... but the appetite;as it cannot use the object
known, neither (can it use) the formal apprehension of it, since
11 Potentia appetitiva ex se est in actu primo constituta . . • potentia appetitiva
de se inclinatur ad bonum, proindeque nulla eget forma per quam in actu primo
constituatur {Ibid., cap. S, n. S). Suarez here cites St. Thomas, Summa Theologica
I, q. 27, a. 4, in support of this position. St. Thomas' point in that article is that
the intellect is in act because the thing known is in the intellect according to its
likeness, through a species; but the will is in act, not through the presence in the
will of the thing willed, but from this, that
will has a certain inclination to the
thing willed. St. Thomas neither says nor implies that the will needs no form in
order to be constituted in act.
18 Tractatio ilia sive impulsio potentiae ab objecto facta non nisi objectum die&
aut concipi Yaleat in quo certe nulla involvitur efficientia, praeterquam quod jam
alias potentia haberet se mere passive et ab objecto actum reciperet, quod improbatum est (Ibid., n. S) •

BASIS OF SUAREZIAN

TEACHING ON HUMAN FREEDOM

888

it (the apprehension) exists in another potency." u Knowledge
is a necessary condition for the act (" apprehension is a required condition of the object.") 15 " The apprehension of the
object concurs . . . as an accidental cause." 16 The object,
since it does not concur effectively in producing the substance
of the act, cannot effectively concur in its specification.17 The
union of appetible and appetite, in fact, differs from that of
object known and knower; for in the latter case the union
must be in the knowing power, whereas for appetition it is
enough that the object be in another power, namely, in the
knowing power. Thus, says Suarez, whenever St. Thomas
speaks of the will as passive, or of the motion on the will of the
end, the term must be understood as a metaphor; when he
speaks of the end as a principle of action he is speaking morally
and not physically .18
2. The Will in General. Coming now to that appetite which
is the will, its object is the good in general, not any aspect of
good in particular. This is clear, since I) the will is supreme
among appetitive powers, hence its object must be supreme,
and 2) since the will follows the intellect its act is co-extensive
with that of the intellect. But the intellect can know all good;
therefore the will can seek all good.19
" . . . cum appetitus ipse ex se habeat sufficientem inclinationem ad objectum,
ex se est sufficiens elicere proprium actum superflue ergo fingitur efficientia in
objecto. . . . Cum enim appetitio sit vitalis elici aliter non potest quam a potentia
cujus est actus, quod si causa alia concurreret, non alia sane foret quam praevius
cognitionis actus • . • appetitus autem sicut non potest uti objecto cognito, ita
neque ipsa formali ejus apprehensione, cum in alia potentia existat . . . (Ibid.,
n. 4).
15 Apprehensio est conditio objecti tantum requisita, et applicans illud potentiae
(Ibid., n. 6) .
16 Apprehensio itaque objecti tantum concurrit ad amorem, ut causa per accidens
physice loquendo (Ibid., n. 8).
u Objectum autem efficienter non concurrit ad substantiam actus: ergo neque ad
specificationem (Ibid., n. 5) •
18 Averroes vero agit de motione metaphysics, de qua etiam interpretandus
erit
D. Thomas ubicumque de eo tractat, quando autem finem vocat principium actionis
intelligit moraliter, non physice: similiter appetitus potentia passiva dicitur, metaphorice, sicut motio finis metaphorica est. (Ibid., n. S).
11 Ibid., cap. 7, n. !.

884

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

The acts of the will include all eleven acts of the lower
appetitive faculties (love, joy, desire, flight, delight, sorrow,
hope, despair, fear, and anger), but in a higher, a spiritual way.
Such acts are divided into those concerned with the E>nd of
man, and those concerned with the means to it. With respect
to the end as such we can have desire (intention) and delight
(fruition.) With regard to a means as means two acts are
possible: election and use. By the former we separate and
prefer one of the means offered by reason as capable of leading
to the end desired; by use that means is placed in the order of
execution. 20
Acts of the will are elicited or imperated according as they
proceed from the will itself or from some other faculty moved
by the will, for the will can move all the powers which can help
attain the end, since the will regards the end. 21 "\Vith regard
to the acts of the intellect there is some difficulty, for while
intellect is moved by the will, it also moves the will (since
appetition follows knowledge). St. Thomas answers that the
inte!lect m.>Yes the will after the manner of a final cause but
the will moves the intellect efficiently. If the intellect at times,
through imperation, effectively moves the will this is not due
to the intellect as such, but to a previous act of the will; the
efficiency is altogether from the previous election on the part
of the appetite. Of the acts of the two powers that of intellect
is first. To its first act it is moved not by the will but either by
a natural inclination or by the extrinsic proposal of some
object. 22 We often experience, Suarez adds, certain acts in our
intellect which proceed from the will in no way but come from
•• At circa medium ut medium duo versantur proprie actus voluntatis: nimirum
electio et usus. • . . Primum est acceptare aliquod illorum (mediorum) . . . facta
autem electione necessarium est ut id medium executioni mandetur cui deservit
usus (Ibid., n. 4).
"'Ibid., n. 5.
•• Absolute loquendo intellectus tantum potest movere :finaliter voluntatem, voluntas vero intellectum e:ffective. Ex quo colliges inter actus harum potentiarum praeire
primo oportere actum intellectus. Quoad primum actum non movetur a voluntate
sed vel ab inclinatione naturali, vel ab extrinseca aliqua propositione objecti
(Ibid., n. 6) •

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God, angels or devils; both intellect and lower faculties then can
act without the wilJ.23 The motion by which the will moves the
other faculties is merely a moral motion, an efficiency which is
accidental in the eyes of the philosopher, though it is per se
to the
As between intellect and will the former is
the more noble power, since I) its object is more simple and
more abstract (the quiddity of things, abstacting from their
existence, whereas the will bears only on things having order
to existence), 2) it flows more immediately ,from the essence
of the soul, 8) it is from the intellect that man's dignity is
especially derived, and 4) it is the rule of all voluntary
operations. 25

II. THE ExiSTENCE OF HuMAN FREEDOM
1. Significance of Freedom. But we are more concerned with
the precise nature of human freedom. Freedom can be understood in a three-fold way: 1) as freedom from the servitude of
sin and punishment; 2) as freedom from coaction only. This
is two-fold: a) freedom from that coaction which brings absolute necessity of a motion whic!J is against the internal
appetite of the thing moved; and b) freedom from that coaction
which brings necessity improperly so called, such necessity as
arises from fear which induces us to avoid some undesirable
thing; and 8) freedom from necessity. Suarez noted that freedom from coaction is not identical with freedom from necessity. Love of God in heaven is free of coaction, yet necessary;
the act of a created will can be truly voluntary and therefore
free of coaction, yet necessary because impelled by an extrinsic
efficient cause. 26
•• Saepe experimur actus quosdam apud intellectum nostrum qui a voluntate neutiquam praecedunt. . . . Motio ergo voluntatis · non est adeo necessaria in his
potentiis ad agendum ut sine ilia operari omnino nequeunt; saepe enim aliae
potentiae in actionibus suis motionem intellectus praecurrunt (Ibid., n. 6) •
•• (ilia motione voluntatis a qua dicuntur effective moveri potentiae reliquae)
. . . est nimirum sola moralis motio, quae in philosophia naturali eflicientia est
accidentaria, in morali vero censetur per se (Ibid., n. 7).
•• Ibid., cap. 9, nn. 2 ss.
•• Dilectio enim Dei in patria a coactione Iibera est, non tamen a necessitate

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2. The Fact of Human Freedom. Can the notion of freedom
be verified of man's will? It can, and that in the third and most
perfect sense of freedom from necessity, necessity such as is
found in irrational things. Man's freedom is so evident that
Suarez pauses only once to prove it. He shows it: 1) from the
common agreement of men and especially of philosophers,
pagans as well as Christian; 2) from common experience. We
know that we have in ourselves the power to do something or
not to. do it; that we think things over in order to decide on
of action; and 8) from the fact that we
one or the other
are intellectual. This argument is simple enough. A universal
and indifferent appetite follows knowledge which is universal
and (in its own way) indifferent. But intellectual knowledge,
such as men have, is universal and perfect in such a way that
the intellectual being knows what constitutes its final goal, and
what constitutes a mere means to that goal, a means not really
necessary to it. The appetite therefore which follows such
knowledge (the appetite called the will) has this same indifference or power so that it does not desire everything, nor does
it desire every means necessarily, but rather it freely desires
those things which the intellect shows it are not necessary.
Thus free selection follows on reason's weighing of the goodness
of various things. The major premise is proved by pointing
out that vital appetition always follows knowledge. Hence the
more perfect the knowledge the more perfect the appetition. 27
The argument is confirmed by a consideration of man's
participation of God's attributes. God is free with regard to
things not necessary to Him. Since man participates God's
(Ibid., n. 4. aliquando vero actus voluntarius potest esse necessarius tantum ab
extrinseco efficiente); (Prol. Primum, cap. 1, nn. 4, 7).
•• Appetitus vitalis sequitur cognitionem et ideo perfectiorem cognitionem comitatur perfectior appetitus; ergo et cognitionem universalem et suo modo indifsequitur etiam appetitus universalis et indifierens; cognitio autem intellectualis ita est universalis et perfects ut propriam rationem finis et mediorum
percipiat • . . ergo appetitus qui hanc cognitionem sequitur habet hanc indifferentiam seu perfectam potestatem in appetendo ut non omne bonum aut omne
medium necessaria appetat (Diap. Meta., disp. 19, sect.
nn. U-17; cfr. Pesch, op.
889-851).
cit., pp.

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intellectual nature it follows that man also participates, in his
operations, God's freedom. 28

III. THE FREE FACULTY IN MAN
1. The Nature of the Free Faculty. Suarez now determines
more precisely what this freedom of will is and what are its
conditions. We have seen that liberty from mere coaction is
not human liberty, for the former implies that the act is free
of extrinsic compulsion, not that it is free in the sense that the
agent has determined himself to do this. Clearly, then, human
liberty implies freedom from necessity arising from natural
determination to one thing, such as animals have. But what
is this freedom?
There are four possibilities. The name might indicate: 1)
an act; 2) a habit; 8) a potency as modified by a habit; or
4) a potency as unmodified. It cannot be an act since man
remains free even when he is not operating. Neither is it a
habit. Any habit is either acquired or natural. Now there are
no innate or natural habits in a man's will, hence that possibility is ruled out. H freedom were an acquired habit it would
have to be preceded by similar acts (i.e., free acts) which
would generate it and hence freedom would exist prior to the
of the habit which, on the supposition, is freedom.
But nothing can be prior to its own being.
Nor can freedom be the will as modified by a habit for no
habit gives a faculty power to act. Presupposing that power. it
gives facility in its use. Any natural act which is placed by the
will as modified by a habit can be placed by the will without the
habit. The only possibility is that freedom is a faculty, absolutely taken. 29
Just which faculty is the subject of freedom is a much
discussed question. Suarez' answer is clear: the will is the
liberum arbitrium. 80 His argument is this: freedom must be
•• Ibid., n. 17.
•• Ibid., sect. 5; Pesch, op. cit., p. 221.
•• Quia hie modus operandi soli voluntati convenit, ideo ilia est formaliter Iibera

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in a spiritual faculty but it cannot be formally in the intellect
.and therefore it is in the will alone, formally. That it is not in
the intellect is clear from this, that the intellect is not indifferent. As to specification this is clear, for the intellect is
naturally determined to assent to the true, to dissent from the
false. In probable matters the intellect does seem to have some
freedom, but this is only because the object is not sufficiently
applied for reason's natural impulse to bear on it. Again the
object of the intellect is truth, and since truth consists in the
indivisible there cannot be, in one object, truth and falsehood.
Hence the intellect, unlike the will, is naturally determined to
one thing as to the species of its act.
Neither is the intellect free as to exercise, since only the act
of a faculty which is intrinsically voluntary can be free in this
way. This is clear since the determination of a power to an act.
can only be either voluntary (i. e., from the elicited inclination
of the one operating) or natural. But a power free as to
exercise cannot be determined only by nature, but must be
determined voluntarily. This can be either: 1) extrinsically
(by a voluntary act elicited by another power), and the power
so determined is not free since it is moved and determined by
another faculty; or 2) intrinsically, i.e., by the power itself,
which can only be an appetite. Since the intellect is not an
appetite it is not free as to exercise. To dispute whether it is
the root of freedom or simply a necessary condition of freedom
is simply to dispute in words for Suarez. He says it is both. Inet liberum arbitrium (Prolegomenon I, cap. 8, n. 7; cfr. particularly Disp. Meta .•
disp. 19, sect. 5 and 6, in which Sual'ez clearly denies to the intellect any determining judgment in a free act. He rejects a preceding definite practical judgment on
the ground that " si illud judicium rationis est ita praerequisitum ad operandum ut
in suo generc sit causa necessaria ad actum liberum voluntatis ergo voluntas ...
non est potentia Iibera "-Disp. Meta., loc. cit., sect. 6, n. 2). Suarez also rejects
the doctrine that the act of intellect and will can mutually cause each other:
" Dicunt . . . illos duos actus esse sibi invicem causas in diversis generibus
causarum, quia et voluntas determinat intellectum, ut ita practice judicet, et
intellectus determinat voluntatem, ut velit rem talem .... Voluntas enim determinat intellectum efficienter, intellectus autem voluntatem finaliter. Sed haec
doctrina mihi non probatur ... et praeterea ostendo esse impossibilem (Ibid., n.
5; Pesch, op. cit., pp. 222'-223; 851-855).

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tellectual knowledge is certainly a necessary condition for the
formally free power which is the will.31 To maintain that it is
also free is to open the way to such inconvenient conclusions
as this, that sin would really be two sins: one of judging evil
that is to be done, another in electing the evil.
The first characteristic of a formally free power is that it
be active. 82 Scripture,S 3 The Council of Trent, 84 and St.
Thomas
are among the authorities cited for this. Suarez
argues from reason, that a free faculty is that which has in its
own ·power to change or not to change; for in that power is
dominion over the act. But this power is not in a passive
faculty as such. Therefore it is in active faculty. The minor
premise is clear from this that, whether a passive power receives
an effect or not depends, not on the power of the patient, but
on the power of the agent; for granted the action the passion
necessarily follows. If the will received its act from an extrinsic
agent, then, it would be necessitated and not free. The very
notion of freedom supposes determination from within; only an
active faculty can so determine itself.
The second characteristic of a free faculty is that it be
indifferent. For the formal liberty of any faculty there is required indifference through a certain dominative eminence of
the active power (precisely as active) both as to various actions
and as to exercising or not exercising those acts. Here we are
speaking of created liberty which regards principally internal
acts of the will. God's freedom falls only on external acts and
effects since in His internal acts (acts ad intra) "no effect
81 Neque oportet
disputare (utrum) . . . rationem dicendam esse radicem
libertatis, (vel) solum conditionem necessa.riam ... nam hi auctores videntur de
modo loquendi magis quam de re contendere. Nam cum cognitio solum est necessaria conditio . . . ideo modum cognitionis solum appellare volunt conditionem
necessariam ad modum volitionis. . . . Optime tamen dici potest radicem libertatis
esse rationis ... usum (Disp. Meta., loc.cit., sect. 5, n. !ll).
•• Prol. Primum, cap. !l, nn. 1-6.
•• Suarez cites Ecclesiasticus xv: " Ad quod volueris porrige manum tuam " and
" Quae enim odit, ne feceris."
•• Suarez cites Trent, sess. VI, cap. 5 (Denz., n. 797) and cap. 6 (Denz., n. 798).
•• Summa Theol., I. Q. 82, a. 4; I-II, Q. 9, aa. I, 8; Q. D. de Verit., Q. 22, a. 9.

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

or reception or addition can be free." 36 That liberty is indifference is a dogma of faith accepted by all Catholics. "It
is certainly of faith therefore that there is in us liberty of indifference or dominion." "It is a dogma of faith that liberty
consists not only in the faculty of operating voluntarily and
freely, but moreover that there is in us that condition of
liberty which includes the power of acting and not acting,
indifference in operating." 37 Again Suarez says that the
Council of Trent enunciates the doctrine that liberty is indifferent. "It (the Council) declares that the use of this (liberty)
consists (positum esse) in the aforesaid indifference." 88
Supposing that liberty is indifference, of what is it indifference and with respect to what? Here we must distinguish.
Liberty can be understood, as Scotus says, in order to: 1)
diverse acts immanent in the free faculty (i. e., indifference
of the faculty with respect to acts); 2) different objects (i.e.,
indifference of the acts with respect to objects); or 3) to
diverse effects extrinsic to the agent. The third is consequential
and posterior to any liberty, so interest centers in the first two.
Human liberty is primarily in the faculty with respect to acts.
Divine freedom is the indifference of most pure act with respect
to created objects; and in this is the distinction between the two.
To have this indifference immediately in the act with respect
to objects is proper to God; creatures have liberty as a faculty
which can act or not act. To argue then in this way: " God is
86 Secunda dicimus ... ad formalem libertatem
alicujus facultatis requiri indifferentiam per eminentiam quamdam potentiae activae ut activa est, tum ad varias
actiones, tum ad exercendas vel non exercendas illas . . . in Deo ad intra nulla
efiectio, vel receptio seu additio Iibera esse potest (Prol. Primum, cap. 2, n. 7) .
87 In hoc solum
(asserimus esse certum de fide) dari indifierentiam in actibus
humanis et liberis quod in nobis nostrisque actibus inveniri potest haec perfectio
. . . quae in hoc dominio et indifferentia consistit. . . . Est igitur certum dogma
fidei (ut existimamus) libertatem hanc non consistere tantum in facultate operandi
voluntarie ... sed praeterea dari in nobis . . . earn libertatis conditionem quae
potestatem agendi et non agendi includit quae ... dici solet dominium in actionem
propriam seu indifferentia in operando (Opusculum Primum, Liber I, cap. 1, n. 2).
88 Sufficit nobis definitio Concilii Tridentini
(sess. 6) ubi non solum definit esse
in nobis liberum arbitrium sed etiam illud ejusque usum in praedicta indifl'erentia
positum esse declarat (Ibid., n. 6) .

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841

determined and yet free; therefore men can be determined to
act and yet free" is to overlook the perfection of God's liberty
which no creature can attain. God's determination is an act of
His own freedom, it comes from His own intrinsic liberty and
not from something other than Himself. Therefore it is not at
all in conflict with liberty, as determination in us would be. 39
Admitting the distinction between freedom of exercise and
freedom of specification (" The first of which consists in the
power of having or not having the act, the latter (consists) in
the power of having this or that act ") Suarez shows that
indifference is necessary for each. For freedom of exercise an
active power is needed (otherwise the power will always lack
action). If the power lacks act from some impotency there is
necessity and not freedom in that lack, since impotency equals
impossibility. Hence for the lack of power to be free there must
be in the very faculty a power of action such that by its own
power it cannot act by reason of its dominion. 40
If freedom of specification is with respect to many acts it
is necessary that there be in the faculty a power effective of
all these acts. If it lacks that power it is not free since it is not
active. Thus for both kinds of freedom indifference is necessary, an indifference which has a certain dominative eminence
so that it chooses between the possibilities. 41
In the third place it is required for the proximate and
39 Si vero est sensus non esse necessariam potentiae
indifferentiam in ordine ad
actus sed in ordine ad objecta sufficere, est quidem hoc verum in Deo, non vero
-in nobis; Deus enim ex se est indifferens ad volenda objecta extra se, non per
modum potentiae ad actus sed per modum simplicissimi actus . . . quod in Deo
mirabile est et proprium ejus. . . . Creatura vero non potest attingere perfectionem
illam .... Neque ad rem spectat quod voluntas Dei fuerit ab aeterno determinata;
... ilia determinatio !}On pugnat cum indifferentia quia est ab intrinseca Iibertate
(Ibid., cap. 2, n. 14; cfr. also Disp. Meta., disp. 19).
•• Nisi supponatur vis agendi in tali facultate semper carebit actione ..• si
potentia careat actione ex aliqua impotentia agendi tunc non est libertas in carentia
actionis sed necessitas quia impotentia aequivalet impossibilitati: ergo (Iibertas)
supponit ... potentiam . . . ex eminentia virtutis (Prol. Primum, cap. 2, n. 8) .
" Si talis indifferentia (quoad specificationem) sit respectu plurium actuum,
necesse est ut sit in tali facultate sit vis effectrix omnium illorum actuum: nam si
tali virtute careat ad aliquem illorum . . . respectu illius non erit Iibera, cum . . .
non sit activa (Ibid., n. 9).

5

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

absolute freedom of the will that the power of the faculty in
its order of proximate cause have complete active and dominative power over those acts with respect to which it is said to be
simply and proximately free. If the faculty does not have in
itself this complete power it cannot will or not will; therefore
it lacks dominion and hence freedom. Suarez claims the support of St. Thomas for this position quoting his words that
" free will consists in this that it does not exceed the powers
of the potency." 42 Even if one supposes that the will is not
the sole proximate principle of the act but requires the object
too (which, according to Suarez, is more probably incorrect) the
will still has complete active power; for on the supposition the
will has only inchoative liberty prior to the presentation of the
subject; given the presentation it is completely free. For supernatural acts the will clearly needs some complement. The point
is, granted the complement, it is free. 43
Suarez' fourth condition is that while liberty in first act can
be both remote and proximate it requires, in both cases, the
indifference of an active power. Remote freedom is that of an
operative faculty regarded in itself alone, a faculty which does
not have the other things required for act. Proximate freedom
in first act is that of a faculty expedited and endowed with
all that is needed to act, for, simply speaking, one is able to
act (potens) in first act who is so disposed that he can place
the act without any immutation at all, in himself, in the object,
or in anything else.

'"Q. D. de Verit., Q.
a. 4. St. Thomas in this place points out that the
liberum arbitrium is a faculty. He does so by showing that the judgment involved
does not require that peculiar principles be added to the faculty since the judgment
is a natural one, hence does not exceed the power of human reason. His point is
that the act of this faculty is a perfectly normal one; he does not say or imply
that the liberum arbitrium is of itself a complete principle of its own operation.
•• Dico, tertio, ad libertatem proximam et absolutam arbitrii requiri ut virtus
facultatis, in suo ordine causae proximae habeat completam vim activam et dominativam illorum actuum . . . alias non habebit dominium . . . neque proximam et
absolutam libertatem. . . . Quomodocumque ergo voluntas supponatur habere
integram vim agendi actum sive per se sola, sive per aliquid jam illi additum, vel
sufficienter conjunctum esse poterit plene et sufficienter Iibera (Prol. Primum, cap.
!l, nn. 10-12).

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That liberty in the first state (i.e., remote) requires indifference is clear; a man who is sleeping (or one who is not actually
thinking) is still free, for his will can still act without necessity.
Should he lose the faculty or its property he can no longer be
called free.
That proximate liberty in first act also requires indifference
(and this is, for Suarez, the cardinal truth in reconciling freedom
and divine motion) , is proved from a three-fold consideration.
1) The power in question is, on the supposition, free. Therefore
it must have active indifference in operating, since that is the
very definition of freedom. 2) Otherwise, the power which is
remotely free would never be proximately free to act and not
act; which is against the very nature of a free power and makes
the actual use of liberty impossible. 8) Formal liberty includes
a two-fold power with respect to one and the same object,
namely, the power of willing and the power of not willing. If
the faculty as proximately disposed to act is not indifferent to
both parts of its power it must be proximately and simply
potent as to one part, and remotely potent but proximately
impotent as to the other part. In acting, then, the will would
not be master of both powers but would have one part of its
powers only and therefore would not be free. 44
So much for the notion of and conditions requisite to a free
power. Suarez is now in a position to determine the very
definition of such a power. 45 It is one" which, given everything
" Dico, quarto, libertatem in actu primo esse remotam et proximam et utramque
requirere indiflerentiam potentiae activae. . . . Quod quidem in statu remoto per
se notum est. . . . Altera pars est difficilior; est tamen verissima . . . et fortasse est
cardo totius concordiae gratiae cum libero arbitrio. . . . Primo ergo probatur quia
ilia etiam est potestas vere Iibera: ergo in illo etiam statu retinere debet indifferentiam activam . . . quia haec est de intrinseca ratione libertatis . . . secundo
quia alias nunquam potentia Iibera in actu primo remoto esset proxime Iibera ad
agendum vel non agendum quod est ... contra usum libertatis. Tertio probatur
quia libertas formalis . . . duplicem potestatem inadaequatam ... includit circa
idem objectum; potestas volendi . . . (et) non volendi. Si ergo voluntas jam
expedita . . . ad operandum non est indiflerens ad utramque . . . ad unam manebit
proxime et simpliciter potens, ad alteram vero non nisi remote ac subinde proxime
impotens (Ibid., nn. 18-15).
•• Cfr. Prol. Primum, cap. 8 for the discussion of this definition; also Pesch,
op. cit., pp. 865-871.

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

necessary to the act, can act and not act " (quae positis omnibus
requisitis ad actum, potest agere et non agere) .
This description is nothing new, Suarez maintains; it simply
gathers in one formula the elements of freedom described by
authorities who preceded him. 46 St. Thomas's description for
instance, " liberum arbitrium is the faculty of will and reason,"
with St. Thomas's own modification" by which man is master
of his acts," 47 is equivalently expressed in " the faculty of will
and reason for both acting and not acting," for the very
mastery or dominion· mentioned by St. Thomas is precisely the
power of doing or not doing. The final element of Suarez'
definition " granted everything necessary to the act " is added
to indicate. in which faculty freedom resides, for while many
faculties can act or not act (as intellect can believe or not
believe in credible matters, assent or dissent in probable matters) the will alone continues to have this power even when
everything necessary to its act is present. It alone can do or
not do by its internal force. Thus the will alone is a free
faculty. 48
Now the definition just given is to be understood in the
composed sense, and not in the divided sense, that is, granted
the prerequisites the will can still both act and not act. The
divided sense is this, that given the prerequisites the will can
use its freedom not to act, only if one of the requisites to act
is taken away. If this divided sense is maintained the will is
no more free than any natural agent. The sun, for example,
while acting can still not act on condition that a requisite for
its operation be removed; and again the blessed in heaven who
love God necessarily by reason of the object (God Himself) can
•• Ibid., nn. 4-6.
•• Summa Theol., 1-11, 1, a. 1.
•• lntellectus autem non habent hanc facultatem (agendi et non agendi, ut
credendi et non credendi, vel etiam dissentiendi et assentiendi) ita indifferentem
ut sese possit determinare ad actum vel suspendere ilium aut ad oppositum se
determinare .... Et tunc intellectus nunquam positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum
potest agere et non agere. . . . Voluntas autem sicut potest agere ex intema
facultate . . . sine motione alterius potentiae ita ex eadem interna facultate potest
non agere (Prol. Primum, cap. S, nn. 6-7).

BASIS OF SUAREZIAN TEACHING ON HUMAN FREEDOM

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stop loving Him if something necessary to the act be taken
away. Formal freedom, then, demands that the free power
have the power to cease acting of itself and by its own dominion,
and not merely because requisite external conditions no longer
obtain. Things which stop acting for that reason are not said
to have a power to non-act; rather they are said not to have the
power to act."9
The divided sense destroys freedom, for if the will's power to
non-act were not intrinsic, then, supposing the necessary conditions, the act would flow necessarily, not freely; for if in the
presence of the prerequisites there is no power not to act, the
power to act is necessary. Again if the will in the presence of
everything necessary to its act can not-act only in the divided
sense (i. e., if a requisite be subtracted) , then the will has never
the proximate power to act and not act, but only to act. Thus
there would be no true use of liberty; there would be only
exercise of that one member of the disjunction to which the
will is proximately disposed. Moral imputability and responsibiljty for our acts thus becomes impossible.50
What has been said of the prerequisites to act in general isalso true of that prerequisite which is God's concursus. Granted
God's influxus man can still act and not act in the composed
sense, a proposition which must be defended for the reasons
indicated above. If the will could not-act only on the supposition that concursus were removed the will would not have
•• Dicimus descriptionem illam in sensu composito esse intelligendam • . . quia
positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum posse non agere in sensu diviso, i. e. retinere
potentiam ad agendum ablata aliqua conditione ex praerequisitis non est proprium
potentiae liberae, sed cuilibet naturaliter agenti convenit . . . ita operari . . . ut
solum possit facultas ab operatione cessare in sen!lu diviso ... non est posse cessare
ex interns potestate et domino actionis ... quia tunc non cessatur ex potestate non
agendi, sed. potius ex impotentia agendi (Ibid., nn. 8-10).
•• Si ergo voluntas positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum potest non agere tantum
diviso, tunc non est potentia proxima ad non agendum, sed tantum potentia
in
remota. . . . Quando non habet omnia praerequisita ad agendum non est potentia
proxima ad agendum; nunquam ergo est potentia proxima ad agendum et non
agendum, sed ad alterum tantum . . . ergo . . . nunquam exercet potestatem
liberam sed solum eam partem exercet ad quam proxime est praeparata (Ibid.,
n. 11).

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

a proximately free power; for the condition of its not acting
would not be under its control. Hence free use would be impossible. The hand while writing can not-write, supposing
that the will ceases to move the executive faculties, but no
one maintains that the hand is therefore free. To reply that
the will is a peculiar kind of agent in that even under God's
motion it retains its power to not-act solves nothing. If that
is understood in the composed sense, then the Suarezian position
is admitted. If it is understood in the divided sense (and it
can be meant in only one or the other sense) , then the will,
like any other faculty, does not (supposing the removal of a
prerequisite to act) have intrinsic power to not-act, but rather
necessarily does not act. To safeguard the reality of freedom
we must accept his formula in the composed sense Suarez
assures us. 51
To safeguard the same human liberty he also denies any
previous concursus on God's part. Concurrent motion suffices
in his view. God wills to concur with men who cooperate with
Him he argues; but whether, in fact, this man does cooperate
is left in man's own power. God's volition falls on the (human)
act, not absolutely, but as the act is co-produced by the human
and divine wills; His· volition is quasi-conditional if this man
wills to co-operate. God's will in such a matter of itself alone
effects nothing. From all eternity the divine will is, as it were,
prepared, and has its power applied to co-acting with the
created will.52
51 Omnia quae generaliter diximus de praerequisitis ad agendum aeque procedunt
de omnibus praerequisitis sive ex parte Dei sive ex parte aliarum rerum vel
causarum. . . . Si (divina motione) posita non manet in voluntate potestas ad
non agendum nisi in sensu diviso . . . ergo in voluntate sic mota non manet
libertas non agendi et consequenter nee ipsum operari liberum est (Ibid., un. 12-15).
52 Negamus priorem partem de concursu praevio; sufficit enim simultaneus ....
Concedimus enim aliquam voluntatem Dei esse praeviam ad volitionem hominis
... non oportet ut sit voluntas absoluta quod talis actus fiat et in rerum natura
ponatur . . . sed sufficit voluntas concurrendi cum arbitrio hominis . . . si ipse
cooperari velit quod semper relinquitur in manu et potestate ejus . . . per illam
volitionem (Deus) non vult actum voluntatis humanae simpliciter et absolute, sed
ut mefficiendum ab eadem voluntate humana et quasi sub conditione ... et ideo
· talis voluntas Dei nihil operatur per se sola (Ibid., n. 16).

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2. The Relation of Freedom to Partial Goods. To understand more fully the Suarezian notion of the nature of the free
faculty we must now take up another question, whether this
indifferent power can by God's motion be necessitated to act
with respect to an object which is indifferent, that is known not
to be the perfect good. 53 As to specification there is no difficulty
since God can necessitate it in this way by denying concurrence
to every species but this one. The problem arises, Suarez thinks,
with reference to exercise of act, and his answer to it is that God
can necessitate the will even in this way. 54 The argument from
authority includes: a) a very lengthy list of theologians said
by Suarez to favor this position, among them St. Thomas; 55
b) the mode of argumentation used by the Fathers against the
heretics; and c) such pronouncements as those contained in
the Council of Trent, which latter imply not that such necessitating motion js never given, but that when freedom is used,
such motion cannot precede that use! 6
His proof from reason is easily grasped. Since God can do
all things He can ·change the will when and as He chooses
(provided no contradiction is implied) , preserving its liberty
or not, as He decides. There is repugnance in neither, though
it seems more difficult to Suarez to move the will by preserving
its liberty, than to move it by necessitating it. It is clear that
when God does so necessitate the act it is not free because
liberty in operation is not only the being of the act or its
intrinsic mode, but is its denomination from the power of
acting and not-acting precisely as that power is expedited to
both parts. Since that power is not used in the act in question,
denomination from it must be lacking. To deny that God can
•• Ibid., capp. 4, 5; cfr. Pesch, op. cit., pp. 261 ss.
•• Dico ergo Deum posse ita movere voluntatem (quoad exercitium) stante
integro judicio rationis de objecto ex se indifferente, seu non necessario, ut motu
non libero sed simpliciter necessario in illud feratur (Ibid., cap. 4, n. 9; cfr.
Joannes a Saneto Thoma, Philosophia Naturalia, IVa Pars, Quaestio XII, art. !l).
Suarez adds, however (Opus. Primum, cap. !l, n. 7), that God does not orinarily
do this.
•• Q. D. de Verit., q. !l!l, a. 8.
•• Suarez appeals to Sess. 6, c. 5 (Denz. n. 797) and can. 4 (Denz. n. 814).

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necessitate the will with respect to such an object Is, Suarez
adds, to derogate from God's omnipotence. 57
Those who deny this position and simultaneously assert
that God can efficaciously or physically predetermine the will
are illogical. The predetermination they affirm would be the
necessitation they deny. The fact that the object of the act
in question is indifferent does not guarantee actual liberty for
the will itself can be necessitated ab extrinseco. The argument
that an indifferent object makes a free act overlooks these
elements: 1) judgment is the root of liberty, not its form; 2)
the intellectual judgment is natural, not free; 8) the object of
the judgment, though not necessitating the will, cannot be the
form from which the volitional act is denominated free since
formal liberty is a property not of the object, but an intrinsic
property inhering in the will of the one operating. 58 What the
proponents of this theory forget Suarez thinks, is that necessity
arising from an extrinsic principle is quite as absolute as that
from an intrinsic principle. Liberty requires freedom from both.
Those who deny that God can necessitate the will with
regard to indifferent goods and who yet affirm that He does
predetermine it with regard to those same things argue that the
will bears only on known goods, therefore it cannot be necessitated to. what is known not to be necessary. Suarez uses
57 Posse Deurn, quia omnipotens est mutare voluntatem
hominis quando voluerit,
et ubi voluerit ... non solum potest mutare voluntatem servando ejus libertatem
sed etiam necessitando illam. . . . lmo difficilius videtur voluntatem mutare efficaciter salva ejus libertate, quam earn necessitando . . . tunc autem operatio erit
necessaria et non libera quoad exercitium quia libertas . . . est denominata a
potestate agendi et non agendi ergo tunc actus carebit tali denominatione et consequenter erit nccessarius (Prol. Primum, cap 4, n. 18) .
58 • • • illud ipsum praedeterminare
illo modo est necessitare ... cum objectum
sic judicatum non necessitet voluntatem potest aliunde voluntas superari et extrinseca necessitas illi imponi. . . . lllud judicium est origo libertatis ... non ergo est
ipsa formalis libertas. In illo judicio ... actus non est formaliter liber, sed naturalis
prout antecedit voluntatem; ergo non potest esse forma denominans liberum actum .
. . . Formalis libertas non est proprietas abjecti, sed intrinseca proprietas hominis
operantis voluntati inhaerens ... argumentum (Thomistarum) enim probat actum
a voluntate elicitum cum indifferentia judicii non esse necessarium ab intrinseco,
ac subinde fore liberum nisi ab extrinseco necessitas inferatur voluntati; hanc vero
inferri non posse illo argumento non probatur (Ibid., nn. 14-16).

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their own argument against them. The will bears solely on
known goods, he answers; therefore it cannot be predetermined
unless the good (object) be judged as something to be loved.
So long, then, as the judgment is indifferent, i. e., proposes
the object as apt to be either chosen or rejected, the will cannot
be predetermined to one part. It is impossible, then, for the
will to tend to the good by reason of this supposed predetermination; since, in fact, predetermination is true necessity, the
argument, if valid against necessitation, is valid against predetermination.69
How can God necessitate the will with regard to an indifferent object? 60 Suarez indicates two ways: 1) by a mutation
in the will antecedent to and really distinct from the act of the
will, by which mutation the will is so impelled that it necessarily elicits its act; or 2) God immediately by Himself makes
the will act necessarily, not by some prior reality distinct from
the human act, but by an action imbibed into that human act.
God's action is an aid or simultaneous concursus which cooperates with the human will.61
The first of these is for Suarez the same thing as, the premotion spoken of by some of his adversaries. It is a quality in
the order of first act given to produce the act efficiently together
with the will, yet it is inseparable from second act and might
be permanent or transient. The non-repugnance of this notion
is evident from this that a finite power (such as the will) can
be overcome by an infinite power (such as God) .62
60 VoluntaJI non fertur nisi in bonum cognitum; ergo non potest praedeterminari
nisi bonum illud judicatum sit ut determinate amandum; ergo quamdiu judicium est
indifferens ex parte objecti . . . non potest voluntas ad unam partem praedeterminari; ergo erit impossibile mediante illo judicio voluntatem intendere in illud
bonum ex praedeterminatione (Ibid., n. 19).
•• Ibid., cap. 5.
81 Unus
(modus necessitandi voluntatem) est per antecedentem mutationem
factam in voluntate, distinctam realiter ab ipso actu . . . alter est si Deus per
seipsum immediate faciat voluntatem necessario velle . . . per actionem ipsam
imbibitam in ipso velle quae ut est a Deo, habet rationem auxilii seu concursus
simultanei cooperantis. . . . (Ibid., n. 1).
82 Ibid., nn. 2-9.

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The second mode is deducible from St. Thomas' teaching 63
and also from reason, that is, what God can do through second
causes, He also can do alone. But we have seen that God can
necessitate the will by a created quality, therefore He can do
it without that quality. Necessitation of the will comes through
an absolute and efficacious divine will which excludes every
contingent condition on the part of man and is antecedent to
human consent. It is of such decrees as these that theologians
understood such Scriptural texts as: " No one can resist Thy
will." 64
God's effective decrees, then, are two-fold. 1) the intention
which of itself effects nothing in creatures, but is an internal
predefinition by God; fl) execution through which God efficaciously and immediately causes what He wills. This second
necessitates our will and efficiently produces in it some reality
distinct from act and distinct also from ordinary concursus,
since it necessitates the will by effectively restraining its natural
power of resisting God's help. This reality changes the connatural mode of its (the will's) operating. Its possibility arises
from the subordination of the created will to the divine, a subordination having its fundament in the active power of the
divine will.65
Since we are now at the very heart of the controversy (the
relations of necessity and freedom) Suarez pauses to clarify
63

Q. D. de Verit., Zoe. cit.

Quidquid Deus operatur per
secundas potest se solo operari . . . sed
dictum est posse Deum necessitare voluntatem media qualitate creata: ergo etiam
sine ilia. . . . Est . . . certum sc. necessarium esse ut Deus, efficaci et absoluta
voluntate excludente omnem conditionem contingentem ex parte voluntatis humanae
et antecedentem ad consensum hominis velit facere ut homo . . . consentiat
(Prol. Primum, cap. 5, nn. 9-11).
•• . . . distinguere soleo in divina voluntate duplex decretum efficax: unum
per modum intentionis tantum . . . nihil per seipsum et immediate ad extra
operans . . . aliud per modum usus seu executionis quia per illud efficaciter Deus
ad extra operatur quod vult (Ibid., n. 13) ... quando Deus efficaci et absoluta
voluntate . . . vult hominis voluntatem velle objectum alias indifferenter propositum . . . minime possit voluntas per inn a tam libertatem illi (eoncursui)
resistere (n. 20). Actus voluntatis nunquem est necessarius quoad exercitium nisi
quia voluntas privatur potentia proxima suspendeni influxum suum vel . . . impeditur omnino ne ilia uti valeat (n. 22) .
64

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the terms and precise things controverted. 66 In this matter
certain propositions are universally admitted. They are: (1)
a certain suppositional necessity of producing some effect, and
impotency to produce, at the same time, some other effect, are
reconcilable with the freedom both of the power and of its
act. Some other necessity, even though suppositional, can be
repugnant to liberty or to its use. The first part is clear. Divine
foreknowledge and predestination imply a free effect so preknown that it is impossible for the effect not to take place; yet
the act does not therefore cease to be free. There are other
such suppositions which leave the act free. Supposing an end
already intended there necessarily follows the election of the
unique and necessary means to the end; yet there is liberty in
that election provided the original intention was free.
The second part of this proposition is likewise clear from
examples. The love whereby the blessed love God is necessary
yet it supposes the sight of God; and the acts produced in us
by exciting grace (actus gratiae excitantis) are necessary in
us, though only on the supposition of divine motion. 67
All likewise admit (2) that the distinction of two-fold necessity, in the composed and divided senses, explained in the
legitimate way, is very good and necessary. 68 (3) There is no
repugnance in one faculty's being, at one time, potential to two
acts; wood, for example, is, at one time, capable of being both
hot and cold; the intellect, at one time, has the active power
of assenting and dissenting. The same is true of the will.69
(4) When a faculty which is capable of contrary effects or
acts receives one of them it does not lose its power for the other,
though it cannot exercise that power while yet retaining the
act being exercised. The will, then, while acting, has the
•• Cfr. Prol. Primum, cap. 6.
•
• beatificus
arnor in patria earn habet necessitatern quae libertatern
excludit et tarnen ilia necessitas non est sine aliqua suppositione saltern visionis
Dei ... actus gratiae excitantis sunt ita necessarii in nobis ut non sint liberi, et
tarnen non fiunt necessarii nisi ex aliqua suppositione divinae rnotionis (Ibid.,
nn. 2-3).
88 Ibid., n. 4.
80 Ibid., n. 5.
87 •

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

natural power to suspend the act or to place a contrary act,
though it cannot use this power while persevering in the act
in question. It is said to suspend the act, or to do the contrary,
in the divided sense, and no one disputes this explanation of
the famous distinction. 70 (5) Necessity is two-fold, that is,
preceding (which makes the thing to be) and subsequent
(which the thing operating makes) . The first is, as St. Anselm
teaches, opposed to freedom, the second is not. We can apply
this distinction to the composed sense, and have it:
compose

d

<

from a previous supposition
from a subsequent supposition

According to Suarez, the first of these induces necessity absolutely speaking, but a consequent supposition does not. St.
Thomas' dictum that necessity of consequent is opposed to
liberty, but that necessity of consequence is not opposed to it,
is to be distinguished in the same way, for some necessity of
consequence does destroy liberty, as in this reasoning: "Man
sees God, therefore man loves Him." Hence the Thomistic
dictum should be:

<

consequent destroys freedom= Concede

necessity of

consequence

necessary from an antecedent

<
supposition destroys = Deny 71

Ibid., n. 6.
Unam (necessitatem) vocat (S. Anselmus) praecedentem quae facit rem
esse; alterum subsequentem quam facit ipsamet operans et priorem dicit repugnare
libertati, non tamen posteriorcm. . . . Similique modo distingui potest duplex sensus
compositus. . . . Itemque dicendum est de alia duplici necessitate consequentis et
consequentiae quae sumitur ex divo Thoma ... nam prior necessitas dicitur contraria libertati quia est absoluta nccessitas rei, posterior vero dicitur non tollere
libertatem. . . . Secundum autem membrum solum negative et permissive seu
indefinite accipiendum est. . .
Aliqua enim necessitas consequentiae repugnat
libertati, qualis est haec: Homo videt Deum; ergo amat ilium. . . . Et ideo
membrum illud distinguendum est. . . . Nam si consequentia est necessaria ex
70

71

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These points, then, are admitted by all, Suarez states. As
to the application of the distinctions agreed on, there is no
unanimity. Some hold that no supposition inducing necessity
in the composed sense excludes active freedom except that by
which the will is intrinsically determined to one thing and to
exercise of the act. Any other necessity is compatible with
freedom. Thus in heaven the will is necessitated by the medium
of the Beatific Vision; but on this earth man can be necessitated
only when the mode of cognition naturally determines intrinsically, i.e., the judgment presents the object not as indifferent
but necessary. For the freedom of an act the power of not
eliciting it in the divided sense is sufficient, according to this
theory. 72
The Suarezian position is: 1) that a supposition inducing
necessity in the composed sense is not opposed to liberty provided it be such that it itself is placed through the use of
liberty; 2) any supposition is opposed to freedom which altogether precedes the use of freedom, and, in the composed sense,
induces necessity of the will's operating so that the simultaneous composition in the will of this supposition and of lack of
act, is impossible.
The first proposition is quite generally agreed upon. The
will in the very instant in which it is freely operating cannot
at the same instant lack the operation. Its necessity is the
necessity common to all things that they be while they are.
The same is true of God's concomitant concursus. Supposing it,
it is impossible that the will "be not acting, but this composed
necessity does not militate against freedom for the very supposition of such concursus involves a human, voluntary act. 13
suppositione antecedente, repug.11at libertati; si. . . ex suppositione consequente,
non . . . (Ibid., n. 7) .
•• Ibid., nn. 8-9.
73 Suppositionem inducentem
necessitatem in sensu composito si talis sit ut
per usum libertatis fiat vel illum usum liberum involvat sen comitantem habeat,
inducere tantum necessitatem consequentiae . . . et non pugnare cum libertate;
si vero ·. . . omnino anteYertat usum libertatis et necessitatem operandi in voluntatem inducat ... et in sensu composito ... talem suppositionem inducere necessitatem simpliciter et contrariam libertati .•• Voluntas in eo instante in quo libere

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The second and controverted proposition is, Suarez thinks, the
common opinion of all theologians who accept the definition of
freedom already given. 74 Under the preceding supposition the
will can only act or not act, it cannot do both. The position that
an antecedent supposition necessitates if it comes from a created
agent but not if it comes from God is called unacceptable. 75
For in the first place, it cannot be reconciled with the definition of freedom, since freedom demands that both act and
not-act be compatible with the pre-requisites to act. In the
second place it is unreasonable, for even God cannot move the
will by a previous motion which necessitates in the composed
sense and at the same time preserve the will's freedom; St.
Thomas' authority cannot be alleged for this position, Suarez
argues; but rather the Angelic Doctor holds with St. Anselm
and Suarez himself. He says, for instance, that the principle:
" It is necessary that everything that is, while it is, be," is
founded on -the principle: " It is impossible for one thing
simultaneously to be and not to be." " And," he adds, " this is
not absolute but suppositional." Later he says: " That which
is not absolutely necessary becomes necessary from the supposition of that thing." 76 It is clear that for St. Thomas the true
composed sense (excluding absolute necessity) should be
founded. on the supposition of that very thing to which necessity is attributed. Thus he agrees with St. Anselm that all
necessity which is not from the supposition of the thing, but of
operatur ... jam non potest in eadem instanti carere actu sed habet necessitatem.
de qua dixit Aristoteles res, quando est, necesse est esse (Ibid., n. 10).
"Cfr. Ibid., nn. 11-25 for Suarez' treatment of the opinion of Theologians on
this point.
75 Quoties suppositio omnino praecedit et inter praerequisita ad agendum ponitur
et talis est ut illo stante . . . tantum non agere compositive . . . illam suppositionem impedire usum libertatis (Ibid., n. 11}. (In doctrina) necessitatem
provenientem ex antecedt-nti influxu voluntatis divinae non impedire libertatem ...
sed causare' illam ... neque expositio verborum Anselmi nee doctrina ipsa probari
potest. . . . Ratione item id convinci potest, qua simul improbatur ilia doctrina,
etc. (Ibid., nn. 15-16) .
18 Et haec est necessitas non absoluta sed ex suppositione (I PerihtJT., lect. 15,
sect. 1). illud quod non est absolute necessarium fieri necessarium ex suppositione
ejusdem (Ibid., sect.

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some prior thing, is absolute and antecedent necessity, necessity simply speaking. Even more clearly in the Physics, 17 he
writes: " That necessity which depends on prior causes is
absolute," and " However, that which has necessity from something after it in being is necessary conditionally or by supposition." Some distinguish St. Thomas and say that which
depends on prior causes, the first cause excepted, is absolutely
necessary. This is unreasonable, Suarez repeats, it is also
against St. Thomas' own words, " necessity from an exterior
principle . . . if it is the efficient or moving cause brings
about necessity of coaction," 78 and under this he includes that
which comes from God. 79
Reason itself indicates that when a supposition is antecedent
to the act and the effect is connected necessarily with that
supposition the necessity is not rooted in the principle: " it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at one and
the same time," since what is supposed is not the same thing
as that which follows from the supposition. But necessity which
is not rooted in this principle is necessity simply so called,
necessity of consequent. Therefore a supposition which precedes actual liberty makes a free effect impossible. Given the
supposition the will can do only one thing that, namely, which
flows necessarily quoad exercitium from the supposition. Hence
it is not proximately disposed to act and not-act, as the use of
liberty requires that it be. 80
God's preknowledge and predestination of things for Suarez
77 Necessitas ilia quae pendet ex causis prioribus, est absoluta.
Quod autem habet
necessitatem ab eo quod est posterius in esse est necessarium ex conditione vel
suppositione (II Physic., lect. 15) .
•• Quamdam necessitatem ex aliquo exteriori quod si sit causa efficiens vel movens
facit necessitatem coationis (Summa Theol., III, Q. 46, a. I).
•• lntelligit sub ilia violenta necessitate proveniente ex aliquo exteriori princcipio includi etiam illam quae a Deo provenire potest (Prol Primum, cap. 6,
n. 24).
80 Quando suppositio est antecedens in sensu dicto ... si effectus est necessario
connexus cum tali suppositione, talis necessitas non est fundata in illo principio
... posita hujusmodi suppositione voluntas ... tantum potest unum agere, illud,
scilicet, quod ex tali suppositione sequitur cum necessitate quoad exercitium: ergo
non agit ut potens agere et non agere (Ibid., nn. 26-27).

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is not a precedent but a consequent supposition; foreknowledge
is not a cause of reason that a thing is future, but an intuition of
a future thing; and predestination supposes divine knowledge of
the future free use of the created will with divine concursus,
(if the other prerequisites to act are fittingly prepared for that
will.) God, in predefining, always observes this respect. Hence
the predefinition too is a consequent supposition. 81 Lastly
Suarez maintains that those passages in St. Thomas cited by
Thomists as opposing Suarez' notion actually favor it. Thus in
the Summa Theologica (1. q. 14, a. 1S, ad 2um), what he
actually teaches is that future free things are necessary by the
necessity common to all things that they be, while they are;
and this is consequent necessity. In the same article (ad sum),
St. Thomas says that God's knowledge is extrinsic to the thing
known, imprints nothing intrinsic to it, and so leaves it contingent. Everywhere in his works the Angelic Doctor teaches
that, because God is the first root of all free effects, the efficacy
of His will does not induce necessity in created free causes. 82
As
God's motion, in the Summa (1-11, q. 10, a. 4, ad sum)'·
St. Thomas is speaking of God's moving created wills by concomitant concursus, and not by a previous motion. 83 Again in
the Summa (I-II, q. 112, a. S), he proves only that God at
times efficaciously intends an effect, depending on man's free
<:ooperation, and that He has a way of moving man's will so
that He obtains human consent freely but infallibly. He does
not say how this is done; but Suarez explains that it is through
91 Scientia Dei involvit rem esse futuram, et ita . • . non est suppositio antecedens . . . praescientia haec futurorum, ut scientia visionis est, non est causa vel
ratio quod res sit futura, sed pura intuitio rei futurae .... Voluntas divina ...
praedestinans seu praedefiniens quatenus est de actibus liberis •.. supponit aliquam
praescientiam, saltern conditionatam ipsius liberi usus voluntatis futuri cum solo
concursu concomitante si caeterae . . . voluntati praeparantur ex hac parte
(praedefinitio) est suppositio consequens, et non antecedens (Ibid., n. 28).
•• Suarez cites Summa Theol., I, q. 19, a. 8, ad sum; q. 22, a. 8; q. 28, a. 6;
Q. D. de Vent., q. 6, a. 12, ad 7um, Cfr. Prol. Primum, cap. 6, n. 80.
•• Respondemus D. Thomam loqui de Deo movente per concursum concomitantem (Ibid., n. Sl). Thomists hardly agree.

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857

a supposition which induces consequent, not antecedent necessity; that is, through the mediation of God's foreknowledge. 84
8. The Relation of Human to Divine Freedom. 85 Suarez now
considers the relation of human freedom to divine freedom.
We can state the question simply: Can man act freely if God
does not? Now that question has many senses, so to avoid
ambiguity Suarez distinguishes them. The first sense is,
whether, if there is no freedom in the first cause, there can be
freedom in second causes. The answer is negative. Created
perfection supposes divine perfections since they are participations of the divine. 86 The second sense of our question is: if,
through an impossible supposition, God acted by natural necessity but creatures had a free faculty, would God, because of His
natural mode of acting, impede the creature's use of liberty so
that it would not have a free act, despite its free potency?
Some Thomists seem to think not, insisting that given a free
faculty and an indifferent object the act will always be free.
Suarez disagrees saying that God can efficiently produce in
such a faculty a necessary act with reference to such an object,
as we have seen. On the supposition, then, that God is acting
by necessity of nature none of our acts would be free, for God's
motion being always infinite (for every agent acting as a nature
acts with all its powers; only a free power can temper and
moderate its own act) would always overcome man's finite
faculty. 87
The third sense of the question is: if God acted necessarily
•• Solum pro bat Deum interdum efficaciter intendere efl'ectum pendentem ex
libera cooperatione hominis . . . quomodo autem id faciat Deus, D. Thomas ibi
non exponit (Ibid.) St. Thomas, however, in the place cited, appeals to God's
indefectible power, not to His knowledge; and the movement of the human will
through God's power includes a precedent supposition.
•• Cfr. Disp. Meta., disp. 19, sect. S.
s.i Ibid., nn. 5-6.
81 Fieri autem potest ut agens alioqui ex se indifl'erens, ita feratur vel determinetur ad agendum ab alio superiori agente ut ... non habeat potestatem non
agendi, . . . potest privari usu libertatis. . . . Deus potest per infinitam suam
potentiam ita movere voluntatem ut necessitatem illi inferat • . . sed si Deus
ageret ex necessitate naturae . . . ageret quanta efficacia posset; ergo semper ageret
necessitatem illi inferendo (Ibid., nn. 7-12).

6

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but nevertheless moved the will only as He now does by concursus, would He then take away our freedom of action? The
Suarezian answer is negative. Liberty requires not that every
cause ol the free act be able to act and not-act, but only that
the proximate cause be such 88 In the hypothesis, the proximate
cause would be such, for God's concursus does not now necessitate, so neither would it necessitate if the mode of its bestowal
were necessary and not free. The different mode would make
no real distinction because then (as now) the concursus would
be given dependently on the human will. It could not be placed
in reality without the will, without its cooperation; hence it
would not be absolutely necessary. It is a general rule that even
though some cause concurs by natural necessity to a given
effect (e. g., habits so concur), that necessity does not destroy
the contingency of the act so long as the cause with respect to
which the act is denominated free acts with indifference. 89
Here Suarez raises the difficulty that, even granted that
God's motion is freely given and not necessarily, it must
necessitate the will.90 He states the difficulty in the following
ways: "1) The second cause can do nothing unless moved by
the first cause. But, when the second cause is moved by God
it necessarily moves itself." " 2) A free cause is that which can
act and not-act, given everything necessary for it to act. But
one of the things necessary to its act is God's motion given
which it cannot act and not-act." Therefore under that motion
it acts necessarily. 91
His opponents, Suarez points out, will avoid the difficulty by
distinguishing the minor of the first syllogism: " When the
second cause is moved by God it necessarily moves itself: by
88

Ibid., nn. 15-15.

(Data ilia hypothesi motio) Dei solum enim esset necessaria, quantum esset
ex parte Dei; quia, tamen, simul penderet a voluntate creata nee posset in re poni
sine ilia, ideo non esset absolute necessaria (Ibid., n. 19). Huic colligitur generalis
obstare libertati . . . quod aliqua causa naturali necessitate ad
regula . . .
ilium concurrat dummodo aliqua cum indifferentia efficiat, respectu cujus effectus
denorninetur liber (Ibid., n. 20).
90 Ibid., sect. 4.
91 Ibid., n. 1.
89

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necessity in the composed sense, yes; in the divided sense, no.
But necessity in the composed sense does not militate against
freedom. Therefore .... " To the second syllogism, they
answer: " A free cause is that which can act and not-act given
everything necessary for its act must be distinguished in this
wise: it can still act and not-act given everything necessary on
the part of intellect and will, yes; but it cannot still act and
not-act given God's motion. 92 For they say indifference of the
faculty is not required for freedom, but indifference of the
object is sufficient. Suarez repeats that this position fails to
distinguish between radical and formal liberty. To have his
definition of freedom apply to a free act as well as to the free
faculty, the prerequisites must include God's motion, and not
merely the requisites on the part of intellect and will. In
answering the first objection the use of the distinction of the
composed and divided sense is termed unjustified. God can
necessitate the will by His motion. Now the act will not be
necessary in the divided sense (for apart from that motion the
will can not act), but in the composed sense. Yet this necessity
in the composed sense even destroys the free use for we are
supposing that God necessitates the human will by all His
strength. 93
In the answer to the second syllogism, the limitation of things
necessary to the act is termed arbitrary and unproven. One
could as easily say, Suarez argues, that given a celestial or dia•• Ibid., n. 2.
Tota haec doctrina ... non distinguit satis inter radicem libertatis et formalem
libertatem (Ibid., n. 14). Nee recte limitare descriptionem facultatis liberae ...
ad requisita ex parte judicii et ipsius voluntatis et existente . . . facultate de se
Iibera potest in ipso usu non esse Iibera. uncle . . . haeretici . . . aiunt nos
non libere operari eo quod ab ipso Deo necessitatem patimur. In quo quidem
errant . . . non erran.t tamen in illatione . . . quod si Deus infert extrinsecam
necessitatem actui non est de facto liber (Ibid., n. 5). Distinctio illa sensus, compositi et divisi . . . ita generaliter sumpta satis esse non potest. . . . Deus aliqua
motione potest inferre necessitatem voluntati et tunc actus non esset necessarius
in sensu diviso . . . esset necessarius in sensu composito quia posita ilia motione
non
non exerceri; et tamen ilia necessitas in sensu composito tolleret usum
libertatis quia supponimus Deum tunc necessitare voluntatem quantum potest
(Ibid., n. 6).
93

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

bolical influence our will could not not-operate and yet be free
since the judgment remains free, as does the· faculty in itself.
Indifference of the potency is,. in fact, just as necessary to a free
act as is indifference of the object. To argue that God is free,
yet determined to one thing, is not to the point. That determination is not natural, or God would not be free. Divine
determination is from liberty, an eternal self-determination.
The consequent necessity is a necessity not of nature but of
immutability, which does not take away the freedom which a
free thing has of itself. In God's will there is no efficiency of the
act, no composition of potency and act, the indifference which is
His liberty is not liberty with indifference of a power with
respect to acts. 94
To give the real answer to the difficulties raised above Suarez
says we must remember the definition of freedom. It contains
two elements: 1) it is an active faculty which, of itself, has
power both to act and to suspend action; 2) that faculty
while acting is, proximately, so disposed that given everything
needed for its act it can act and not-act. The second element,
which touches what is necessary to the use of freedom, must be
distinguished. A thing can be necessary to the placing of
an act:
antecedently: prerequisite to act; in the order of
first act.
concomitantly: intrinsically included in the second
act, and not distinct from it.
In his definition the phrase: " given everything necessary "
refers only to things which are antecedently necessary. 93 The
•• Pari ratione posset quis dicere posita quadam influentia coeli, vel adhibita
speciali daemonis motione non posse voluntatem nostram non operari sequendo
illam et nihilominus tunc libere operaturam (Ibid., n. 6) . Exemplum de voluntate
divina ... non est ad rem .... Voluntas enim divina ... vere tamen est
indifferens de. se ad volendum creata objecta. . . . et licet ab a.etemo se determinaverit ... ta.men illarnet determinatio ... est ex liberta.te; ejusque necessitas
non est naturae sed immutabilitatis quae non tollit . . . indifferentia.m. . . . In
voluntate Dei . . . ilia indifferentia est . . . in puro actu respectu objectorum
et ideo in hoc non est comparanda. indifferentia. liberatis creatae cum divina
(Ibid., n. 7) .
•• Cfr. Ibid., nn. 8-10. Dupliciter posse dici aliquid requiri ad actum: uno modo

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fact that indifference still remains, given these, is clear. If it
did not remain the non-position of the act would not be from
internal ability to not-act but (because of the deficiency of the
requisites) inability to act. On the other hand the term" everything required " as used in the definition cannot include those
things which are concomitantly necessary for they are included
in the very act as essential elements. Certainly the action itself
is required as that by which the faculty is formally determined,
and by which it is constituted as acting; therefore the act can
hardly be included among these things given which the faculty
remains indifferent to acting and not-acting. Neither therefore
can the essential elements of the act (those things concomitantly required for the action) be among those things in the
presence of which the will retains its indifference. 96
To the first syllogism, then: " Second causes can do nothing
unless moved by first cause. But when the will is moved by
God it moves itself necessarily." Suarez answers that God's
motion is two-fold: a) that which precedes actual concursus;
and b) concursus itself. The former (which is certain in
theology, but hardly known in philosophy), a motion which is
in the order of first act with respect to operation, but is after
the manner of second act with respect to the faculty itself,
leaves the power free to place or not to place the act. If it
did not do so it would, of course, determine the faculty and so
take away freedom. Thus Trent defines (with respect to supernatural acts) that given this previous motion the will can still
not consent. "If anyone shall say that the free will of man,
tanqunm praerequisitum ad actionem alio modo tanquam intrinsece vel essentialiter
inclusum in ipsa actione . . . prius dici solet
antecedenter; . . .
posterius ... requisitum concomitanter. "Positis omnibu3 requisitis ad agendum,
potest agere et non agere " . . . intelligendum est de praerequisitis antecedenter
... non de aliis (Ibid., n. 10) .
•• Quod ad usum liberum sit necessarium . . . dictam indifferentiam (patet)
... quia alias cessatio ... ab opere non esset ex intrinseca vi ... sed ex
defectu . . . non est posse non agere, sed est potius impotentia agendi (Ibid., n.
11). Definitio intelligenda non sit de requisitis conccmitanter ... est autem actio
requisita ut id quo formaliter determinatur potentia et constituitur actu agens et
ideo non potest includi in his conditionibus cum quibus potentia debetesse indifferens (Ibid., n. 12).

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

moved and aroused by God ... cannot dissent if it will, or as a
lifeless thing does nothing at all and is merely •passive, let him
be anathema." 97 Man can dissent, not because God is deficient
in power, but because He moves us wisely, providentially.
When He wishes to, He efficiently causes the will infallibly to
consent, though it can not-consent. Absolutely speaking it is
not repugnant that, granted this motion, the will does not
move. 98
The second motion, actual concursus (better known in the
natu:t:al order than the first motion, since it is, physically, more
intrinsically necessary to the created action) is that through
which the act of the second cause essentially depends on the
first cause. Granted it, the will cannot not-move. Freedom
does not thereby suffer, however, since concursus is not a
prerequisite to act, but an essential element included in the act. 99
To the second syllogism Suarez answers with the same distinction: " A free cause is one which can act and not-act, given
everything necessary to its act. But among the necessary things
is God's motion, given which it can no longer act and not-act,
but must act." God's concursus is not among the antecedent
requisites of which the definition of liberty speaks. Under
concursus the will cannot not-move, for it is already supposed
as constituted in act by its own determination. 100
4. The Relation of the Free Faculty to Intellect. 101 There
remains to consider the very important point of the relations
Trent, Sess. 6, can. 4 (Denz., n. 814).
•• Duplicem intelligi posse motionem Dei respectu voluntatis nostrae. Una est
antecedens actualem concursum . . . alia consistens in . . . concursu. Prior parum
nota est in metaphysics. . . . Tamen in Theologia est certa ... respectu alterius
actus propter quem datur ilia motio comparatur per modum principii . . . ilia data
adhuc potest voluntas non operari. . . . Neque hoc est contra efficaciam divinae
motionis . . . tum quia id non provenit ex impotentia sed ex sapientia, providentia
... tum etiam quia quando ipse vult etiam facit efficaciter ut voluntas infallibiliter
consentiat. . . . Per se et absolute non repugnat, stante hac motione, non moveri
voluntatem (Disp. Meta., loc. cit., nn. 18-14).
•• Posterior motio est magis nota lumine naturali. quia physice est magis necessaria nd actionem creaturae (Ibid., n. 18; cfr. also n. 15).
100 Ibid., n. 16.
101 Diap. Meta., loc eit., sects. 6-7.
97

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between intellect and will. We have seen that freedom is
formally in the will alone. How, then, is the free will determined
by the intellectual judgment? Some answer that there must
precede in reason a definite practical judgment, an imperium.
Until reason judges determinately, the will cannot elect; otherwise it would tend to an unknown object which is impossible. 1() 2
Suarez replies that if this were the case, if judgment were a
necessary cause of free acts, the will would not be free. The
judgment is either necessary or free. If it is necessary there is
no actual freedom in the intellect nor in the voluntary act
which follows; if the judgment is free it is so either elicitively
or imperatively (by imperation of the will.) It cannot be
elicitively free since the intellect is not a. formally free power.
Neither can it be free imperatively for then either we have
an infinite regress of will moving intellect a.nd intellect moving
will, which is impossible; or else the will is not determined in
every a.ct by the intellect, and this denies the original proposition. He concludes that the will is not determined in all
its free a.cts by an intellectual judgment, and that no subsequent judgment determines the will to any act except in
virtue of a previous free volition. 108
The position that will determines intellect efficiently and that
intellect determines the will finally, is quite unacceptable to
Suarez. It is: a) unfounded and unnecessary; b) hardly
understandable; c) impossible. In proof of the charge of its
impossibility he reasons that in every vital act the sufficient
application of the object antecedes the act, for it is impossible
that this application come from the act to which it is ordered.
But rational judgment is required for volitional acts because
that judgment is the application of the object. Therefore the
judgment cannot proceed efficiently from the act because that
judgment precedes the act of will.
Ibid., sect. 6, n. 1.
Si . . . J!lo judicio posito voluntas non potest non consentire illi ergo voluntas
... non est potentia libera (Ibid., n.
Voluntatem non determinari in omnibus
suis actibus liberis a judicio intellectus ... (et) nunquam sic determinari nisi in
virtute alicujus prioris volitionis liberae (Ibid., n. S) •
102
108

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

The major premise is shown by induction: among all natural
agents it is impossible that an agent which requires a patient
in order to act does not suppose absolutely the application of
the patient to such an act, for the agent is impotent except as
to applied matter. The minor premise is proved by this that
nothing is willed which is not already known. If one answers
that judgment is required for volition not merely as an application of the object but as an efficient principle with the will,
Suarez says that his case is stronger. The judgment cannot
then be from the volitional act as from its efficient principle,
since judgment is the efficient co-principle of the volitional
act. 104 The Suarezian position is shown a priori: "The intellectual judgment moves the will only through the medium of
the proposed object. But the object proposed does not always
induce necessity in the will, nor determine the will to one thing.
Therefore, such determination from the judgment is neither
necessary nor possible." The major premise is clear from this
consideration that the intellect cannot be an efficient principle: a) this would destroy freedom in the will; b) it would
be contrary to the intellect's mode of acting; c) only the will
can move the other powers as to exercise. Even the imperium
of reason of itself moves only objectively. If it seems at times
to move efficiently this is in virtue of a previous act of the will,
as when the will intends a certain end, or elects this means, the
intellect judges that it is to be a<lne. The will is determined,
however, by its own act, not by the imperium as such.
The minor is admitted by all, for it is the same thing to say
that the will is not necessitated by something other than itself
as to say it is not determined to one by that other. But it is
certain the will is not necessitated by all objects; neither, therefore, is it determined by all. Only in heaven is there determination to one object as to exercise; that determination is from the
infinite goodness of God clearly seen.105
1 .. In omni actu vltali sufficiens applicatio objecti necessarii ad actum simpliciter
. . . anteccdit talem actum . . . sed judicium rationis requiritur ad actum voluntatis
ut applicans objectum; ergo impossible est ut judicium rations . . . effective proveniat ab eodem actu (Ibid., n. 5).
1o• Judicium intellectus non movet voluntatem nisi medio objecto quod proponit;

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Suarez presumes as the root misconception of those who oppose him the position that the judgment must determine the
will to one thing. To say the intellect must first judge what
is to be elected is ambiguous. If the meaning is that intellect
must first judge what goodness, what utility, this means or this
election has, the statement is true. If it means that it must
first judge " this is to be elected " it is false, for that would be
repugnant to the will's liberty. It is enough that the object
be judged eligible, i. e., that it is sufficiently good, that it can
be loved. 106 We cannot say that God before He freely loves
some creature judges: " This creature must be loved, or
chosen." That would imply that something other than God is
necessary to Him. What God does judge antecedently is that
this thing is convenient and eligible. The same thing is to be
understood of the created will. Once the intellect has judged
a particular means to be eligible, even though it judges at the
same time that another means is also useful, the will can choose
one and it is not necessary for the intellect to judge beforehand that that one must be chosen, or that it is better than the
one not chosen. 101 When the intellect sees that certain means
are equally apt the will chooses one of them, precisely because
it is free. This is true of God; it is true also of men. In Suarezian
doctrine, such an election comes only from free voluntary determination. When the means are judged as unequal, the will,
more probably is not necessarily determined to the better means
by reason of the judgment. God could have made better things
than He did make, but He chose not to. If the will is, in virtue
of a previous intention, determined to choosing the more useful
sed objectum propositum non semper infert necessitatem voluntati aut determinat
illam ad unum. . . . Nam perinde est dicere voluntatem non necessitari ab alio
quod non determinari ad unum ab illo (Ibid., nn. 7-9).
106 "Necessarium
esse ut intellectus prius judicat quid eligendum sit " ambigua
esse: ... si vero est sensus prius esse judicandum absolute ... hoc esse eligendum
falsa est propositio. . . . Sufficit ergo illud judicium quo medium hoc judicatur
utile et ... aptum ut eligi possit (Ibid., n. 10).
101 Ergo si judicet intellectus hoc medium esse utile vel eligibile, etiamsi simul
judicet aliud esse utile potest voluntas unum eligere, neque est necesse ut intellectus
prius de altero determinate judicet esse eligendum, imo neque esse eligibilius alio
(Ibid., n. 11).

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

means (because that is necessary to attaining the end) that
determination is from the will's intention, not from the rational
judgment. 108
If it is true that the will can choose something contrary to
the judgment of reason, how, Suarez asks, can one admit the
common teaching of philosophers and theologians that there
cannot be a defect in the will unless it exist first in the judgment? 109 Scotus answered that there can be a moral defect
with no defect preexisting in the reason. Others answer that
whoever does evil always has a practical judgment which is
conformed to some predisposition, a judgment that" this is to
be done" supposing the disposition. Suarez rejects this on the
ground that the intellect, prior to election, need have no such
judgment. The judgment " this must be done " has place only
when there is a necessary connection between the object and
some preceding affection. 110
To arrive at the real answer Suarez employs the distinctions
between antecedent and subsequent judgment (or disposition,
or intellectual defect) and that between absolute (physical)
and moral necessity.
To do evil it is not absolutely necessary, according to Suarez,
that an error of judgment precede. This follows from the
principle that no judgment is, of itself, sufficient to determine
the will. Morally speaking, however, the will never is ensnared
unless a defect in judgment precede, at least the defect which is
inconsideration. It is not even morally necessary, however, that
the judgment be formally comparative; e. g., " this is to be preferred to that," or that it be formally of an object as something
which must be done. It is enough that it judge that this object
is, here and now, convenient. 111
108 Posse esse judicia de mediis aequalibus: et tune voluntas nee • . . necessario
est suspensa, sed haec est ejus libertas ut unum possit eligere, et aliud omittere
. . • quando objects vel media judicantur inaequalia censeo probabilius . . . non
determinari voluntatem necessario ad id quod est melius, ex vi judicii (Ibid., n. IS).
100 Ibid., sect. 7, n. 1.
; 10 Nunquam satis probatur esse necessarium hoc judicium ita absolutum . . •
non esse necessarium judicium de objecto amando sed de amabili (Ibid., nn. 6-7).
111 Non existimo absolute necessarium ad operandum malum per voluntatem ut

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It is probable, he thinks, that from the free consent of the
will about things to be done there follows, of necessity, in the
intellect the practical judgment by which it is judged absolutely
" This is to be done " in the sense that this judgment signifies:
a) the necessary following of one thing from another; and b)
a man's absolute resolution about the operation to be placed
or the object already willed. If this is so, then, sinners are
always in error, but by a consequent error. The necessity for
such a judgment is evident, for as soon as man consents to
something he must notify himself of that consent and, in some
cases, approve it. This consequent judgment takes the form
of imperium when the object chosen requires the use of the
executive faculties. 112
5. The Necessary Acts of the Human Will. 113 So much for
the relation of intellect and will. We must now consider this
difficulty: how can the will be called free, since it is not free in
its principal acts? Here two questions are involved: I) can the
will elicit some acts freely, and others necessarily? 2) if it can,
which acts are exercised freely, which necessarily? 114
In answer to the first question Suarez admits that the will
can love some things freely others necessarily. The divine will
loves God necessarily, other things freely. Proportionately the
same is true of the created will. One act cannot, under one
aspect and at one time, be both free and necessary; but it is
not repugnant that one potency be the principle of different
acts, some of which proceed necessarily and some freely, supposing that those acts are concerned with different objects or
through different media. Substituting the term " natural " for
" necessary " we can say that certain operations are natural to
the will, i. e., they are from an inclination of the will as it is a
praecedat defectus erroris in judicio ... (quia) nullum judicium intellectus per se
sufficit ad determinandam voluntatem (Ibid., n. 10). Moraliter loquendo, nunquam voluntatem labi quin praecedat in intellectu aliquis defectus (Ibid., n. 11).
112 Probabile esse ex consensu libero voluntatis
... sequi in intellectu judicium
illud practicum . . . quo simpliciter judicatur hoc esse agendum (Ibid., n. H!) .
u• Ibid., sect. 8.
1 " Ibid., n. 1.

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THOMAS U. MULLANEY

nature determined to one thing, for the will truly is a nature.
Even such operation, however, is preceded by knowledge. 115
To the question, which voluntary operations are necessary,
the usual answer is that man is free as to election of means,
but not as to the intention of the end. This answer, in Suarez'
view, needs both modification and explanation. The end can be
proximate (my private good loved for its own sake, e. g., health)
or ultimate (either some determined thing or beatitude taken in
general.) 116 Considering the will operating according to its own
nature, and especially in this life, it has no act which is simply
necessary as to exercise. This is the opinion of St: Thomas and
of Thomists generally, according to Suarez; but he adds that
St. Thomas arrived at the truth by false reasoning. 117
The position that the first act following the use of reason is
necessary as to exercise is quite mistakey. The will can never
be necessitated as to exercise unless the object, for its part,
sufficiently concurs to that necessitation and subjects the will
to itself. The object proposedvthrough the first cognitional act,
however, is often a particular thing which cannot concur to the
necessitating of the will.118 Neither is this act necessary as to
specification, for it need not be about a universal good. The
fact is, this act in question can be evil. That the cognitional
acf, in this instance, is necessary proves nothing with regard
to the will. The will is never necessitated unless the object,
and even the act, are proposed as altogether necessary (something which cannot happen in this life) .ue
Ibid,. nn.
Voluntate'III solum esse liberam in electione mediorum non vero in amore vel
intentione finis (Ibid., n. 7) . Sed haec sententia moderatione indiget et declaratione • . . supponatur distinctio duplicis finis scilicet proximi . . . et ultimi
(Ibid., n. 8).
117 In hoc sensu dicimus primo, voluntatem nullum habere actum simpliciter
necessarium quoad exercitium sive circa finem sive circa media (Ibid., n. 9) . Suarez
here cites Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 10, a.
118 Falsum esse quod Cajetanus ait, nempe primum actum voluntatis in homine
jam .utente ratione esse necessarium quoad exercitium (Ibid., n. 11).
110 Addo ilium primum actum ... non esse necessarium ... quoad specificationem
• . . hie primus actus in humana voluntate potest esse et bonus et malus moraliter
(Ibid., n. U) .
115

110

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869.

To an end proposed to a man as something universally good,
the will is necessitated as to specification. No man can hate
such a thing, although he can refuse to do anything about it.
With regard to particular ends the will is free even as to
specific::,ation,for in such good defects, or inconvenience, or
difficulty, can be found. 120 St. Thomas's statement 121 that such
things as being, knowledge, etc., are willed naturally does not
mean for Suarez that they are willed with necessity of specifi:.
cation; rather it refers to the mode of operating naturally
(that is, to be moved by a certain propensity of nature with
which natural propensity liberty is compatible), and not to
necessity of operating. Nevertheless (Suarez adds), with
respect to these goods some necessity of specification can be
admitted. 122
·
Freedom is most properly exercised in electing means, since
in that act the faculty is more fully moving itself than in
intending an end. Still, there is freedom in intending the end,
even though the intention proceeds from a natural inclination.
The very intention of ultimate happiness a.s here and now
exercised is a virtual election by. which that act is elected as
a means to beginning or to attaining happiness. Hence it
participates freedom. 123
THOMAS

u. MULLANEY. O.P.

Dominican House of Studies,
Waahington. D. C.

(To be continue a)

12 °Circa finem sub universalis boni ratione propositum voluntas feratur necessario
quoad specificationem (Ibid., n. 15) .
121 Summa Theol., I-ll, q. 10, a. I.
122 D. Thomam ibi non loqui de ne.cessitate
etiam quoad specificationem, sed
de modo operandi naturaliter (Disp. Meta., lac. cit., n. 18).
108 Liberatem voluntatis evidentius et perfectius exerceri in electione mediorum
. . . ad intentionem finis fertur voluntas et sola aliqua inclinatione naturali,
quamvis Iibere feratur (Ibid., nn.

BOOK REVIEWS
The

of Saint John. By R. J. LoENERTZ, 0. P. (Translated by
Hilary Carpenter, 0. P.) New York: Sheed and Ward, 1948. Pp. 156,
with index. $2.50.

The Apocalypse or Revelation of Saint John is a long letter, written to
seven Christian communities or churches of the Roman province of Asia,
in which the author sets down what he has seen, heard, and understood in
the course of his prophetic ecstasies during his exile on the island of Patmos
in the Egean Sea. The book, "The Apocalypse of Saint John," attempts
to analyse this letter and the result is uniformly good. The book is made
up of three parts, an introduction, a translation of the Greek text of the
letter, and a commentary. The introduction is brief and is concerned with
the scheme or plan of ·the literary structure of the letter. Pere Loenertz
has made use of the French translation by Bossuet but the English translation of the work reproduces the Douai version with certain modifications.
These modifications, as noted by the Translator, are four in number: (1)
the numbering of chapters and verses are relegated to the margin, (2)
divisions in the text have been introduced to serve as a basis for the
commentary, (3) certain words are enclosed in brackets because they
do not pertain to the original text, (4) occasionally, in view of some particular need, in a note, an alternative translation is given which is more
in con}ormity with the critical Greek text. The commentary, however,
follows the Greek text, and is brief but lucid. It is meant to appeal to the
ordinary reader as well as the expert and is based on the classical commentary of the late Pere Allo, 0. P. Without introducing the wealth of
detail which increases the bulk of the more technical works of this
kind, he has produced a valuable introduction to a little known but
very important book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse or Revelation
of Saint John. The work of Pere Loenertz comes to English readers through
a clear and pleasing translation made by the English Dominican Provincial.
Of all the books of the New Testament, the Apocalypse, perhaps, is the
least read; not, however, because it is the least interesting for it is not.
Indeed there are some passages familiar to everybody, familiar even to
those who have never heard of the Apocalypse. For instance, the scene of
Apocalypse 6: 1-8, describing the four horsemen, is one of the most popular
in the book. And the reason is because that vision is readily grasped by the
imagination and even easily transferred to canvas. It has in fact, inspired
many illustrious artists and among them, DUrer. And there are a few other
sections which are among the most widely known parts of the Bible. But
the book, as a whole, is neglected because of its extreme difficulty. In

370

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many of the visions we cannot visualize all the details that John describes;
they are intellectually but not pictorially comprehensible. Many details
appear fantastic and even grotesque, and it would seem that the ecstatic
experience of the Seer enjoyed the same liberty which the human imagination possesses in dreams. As soon as people begin to read the book as a
whole, they are perplexed by obscurities which confront them in almost every
verse. They may get as far as the end of the third chapter without much
travail but as soon as they attempt to penetrate further, the symbols of the
visions sometimes become so strange as to seem meaningless. And this
failure to penetrate the visions of the Apocalypse is not entirely due to
some ineptitude on the part of readers in modern times. Even in the early
days of the Church the book was considered obscure. Although few of
the Fathers have written formal commentaries on the Apocalypse, they
quote it frequently and from the references and commentaries which have
come down to us, they all agree, it appears, that the book is filled with
mystery; indeed, it itself is the sealed book of chapter five. For instance
St. Jerome (Ep. 58) says: " How many there are who imagine they are
educated; yet the book they hold is sealed! For they cannot open it unless
He unlocks it ' who has the key of David; He who opens and no man shuts,
who shuts and no man opens.'" And again, "John's Apocalypse contains
as many mysteries as words . . . in every single word lie many meanings! "
The difficulties, therefore, which surround the interpretation of the
Apocalypse are admittedly very great. But what is the source of the
obscurity? Some of the difficulties are, no doubt, the legacy of time. Others
are due to the prophetical contents of the book and to the symbolical
character of its style. But Saint Augustine points to a great source of
obscurity when he says (De Civitate Dei, XX) : " In the book called the
Apocalypse many things are said in an obscure manner in order to exercise
the reader's mind. And there are few passages so plain as to assist us in
the interpretation of the others; and this is especially due to this that he
repeats the same thing in various ways so as to lead us to think that he
is speaking of different things, when indeed he is trying to tell us the same
thing in different ways."
How then are we to penetrate the mystery of the book? For Pere
Loenertz the key to the Apocalypse is to be found in the mystical number
seven. And he is of the opinion that he discovered a septenary, in the
section on the fall of Babylon, which other commentators had overlooked
so that the whole Apocalypse is a septenary of septenaries. He sent the
result of his study to Pere Allo and received the reply (p. vi) ". . . you
press much further than I the use of the septenaries. It is a system that
must certainly be taken into serious consideration." Pere Allo does state,
however, in his introduction to the Apocalypse (ch. viii) that, from the
time of the Venerable Bede, the greater number among the commentators

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on the Apocalypse recognize that John has arranged the scenes of his book
in a sevenfold structure. For these commentators the action is depicted in
seven acts and each act is subdivided into seven scenes but all do not
agree in marking off the limits of each act or scene nor do all explicitly
number the subdivisions. But some do. For instance the Westminster
edition of the Apocalypse, published in 1931, divides the text into seven
septenaries and each septenary is subdivided into seven numbered sections
and, of course, this includes the septenary on the destruction of Babylon.
Does this help to solve the mystery of the Apocalypse? It certainly
enables an unprejudiced critic to determine that one mind conceived and
carried ClUt the plan of the Apocalypse. According to many independent
critics the book now bears the stamp of a single author, but according
to these critics, there are many indications in the book that this unity
has been imposed by some editor on a number of documents which were
originally .separate, and which were composed at different times and under
different circumstances. Of course, here and there, the Epistle exhibits
certain disparate phenomena which an honest critic would expect to find
in an Oriental record depicting Eschatological visions. But the manner
in which the septenaries are interconnected so that the last episode of one
septenary often forms a skilful transition to the next is beyond the power
of any editor to impose, no matter how well versed or trained he may be
in the art of editing. Thus the fact that the Apocalypse is a septenary of
septenaries proves that there is but one author who produced a unified
book and that it is not a compilation of two or more apocalyptic documents
by two or more authors or editors (p. xv).
But does a recognition of the septenaries enable a reader to penetrate the
meaning of the book? It certainly helps a reader to understand that John
is not writing -a continuous exposition of the Church's future history in
chronological order; he is setting before us various phases of that history
through different symbolical visions and one vision may be a recapitulation
and completion of a previous vision, as for instance, the vials complete what
has already been revealed by the trumpets (p. 106), or in the words of
Saint Augustine, cited above, " he repeats the same thing in various ways
so as to lead us to think that he is speaking of different things, when
indeed he is trying to tell us the same thing in different ways." Thus
through the recognition of the septenaries the reader can view the book
as a whole.
The main source of the difficulties or obscurities, however, in this letter
of Saint John, is not in recognizing the septenaries but in penetrating the
meaning of the visions contained in the septenaries. True it is that many
commentators or readers do not take the sevenfold division sufficiently
into account but the plan itself of seven subdivided by seven is so clear that
he who runs may read it. But the symbols are not so easily deciphered

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and there are a great many symbols. There are numerical symbols, many
mom than the mystical number seven. There are symbols of seals, of
trumpets, of signs and of vials, of horsemen, of witnesses, of women clothed
with the sun, of a beast of the earth and a beast of the sea, of angels and
plagues and a scarlet beast, of an earthly city called Babylon, and of a
heavenly city named Jerusalem. Around these symbols the prophet of
Patmos weaves the action of his prophetic drama. Will a recognition that
the prophecy is framed in a septenary of septenaries enable us to pell.etrate
the meaning of these symbols? This, indeed, would be too much to expect.
l•'or instance, the vision of the horsemen of chapter six seems simple enough
to grasp and yet commentators, who agree on the literary structure of the
Apocalypse, differ in their interpretation of the rider on the white horse
and therefore in the meaning of the vision. So too is it with many other
symbols in this letter of John. And Pere Loerentz (p. vi) states that in
following Pere Allo he sometimes differs from him and in rare cases
contradicts him, and yet both agree, at least in principle, on the septenaries
of the Apocalypse. So, while recognizing that the Apocalypse is a septenary
of septenaries will tell us much in regard to the book, we see it will not tell
us everything. We have to fall back on something else.
Pere Loenertz has done a good work in insisting on the importance
of the septenaries. His exposition is based on the sevenfold division
of the book and is after the manner of an analytical commentary, succinct
yet lucid, and sufficiently elaborated to enable a reader to grasp the general
import of the revelation of St. John which is the revelation of Christ.
It is worthy of mention that he points out the fact that the mystical
number seven is woven into the text by uniting on one page in a group
of seven certain things scattered through the book and which might otherwise escape the reader's attention: the seven apocalyptic beatitudes (p. 89) ,
the seven interventions of the twenty-four elders (p. 58) , the glorious
return of Christ in a cloud seven times ( p. 102), the seven appearanees
of Jesus in person (p. 128), the expression "behold, I come," seven times
(p. 146). Thel'e are some points in the commentary with which one might
disagree and all difficulties are not solved nor, perhaps, can they be in
the present state of our knowledge. Yet, it is a worthwhile addition to
the literature on a book that is veiled in mystery, but a very important
book to the Church since it is a prophecy of her tribulation and triumph,
the Apocalypse or Revelation of St. John.

J. S. CoNsiDINE, O.P.
Dominican House of Studiu,
River Forut, Ill.

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Metafisica deU' easere parziole. By CARMELO OTTAVIANO. Padua: Cedam,
1947. (2nd. ed. revised and enlarged) Pp. 667, with index.
The author is known by several works, historical and others; he has edited
some treatises by Campanella, written on medieval philosophy, and publishes a philosophical review. The first edition of the present volume
appeared in 1942: it is not without amazement that one realizes that a
republication has been necessary and possible in the Italy of to-day.
I regret that it will prove hardly feasible to do full justice to this work.
If it is always difficult to render account of a lengthy work in philosophy
on the few pages of a book review, this task is even more difficult here,
partly b(.'Cause of the method of presentation adopted by the author, partly
because of the novelty of some of his ideas which cannot be appreciated
correctly unless exposed in greater detail and critically examined. The
author feels that he has restricted digressions on the history of philosophy
to the indispensable minimum; but even so, these digressions are of considerable length. They are indeed as important in the progress of the
author's exposition as they are interesting. But they are so much interwoven with the systematic discussion of the main problems and the particular points the author wants to make that it becomes impossible to
disengage the &ystematic from the historical. It is therefore inevitable that
this review must content itself with pointing out the intentions and the
fundamental views of the author.
With respect to Dr. Ottaviano's intentions, these are not less than the
presentation of a new all-comprising philosophy which, without ignoring,
least of all despising, the work of predecessors, would open the way towards
the " fourth age " in philosophy. This age will be equally aware of the
demands evolving from scientific and social progress, of the eternally
immutable truths contained in Revelation insofar as the supernatural is
concerned, and of the work by the great. thinkers of the past. This new
philosophy is consciously and thoroughly a Christian, a Catholic philosophy.
If it is to be related somehow with the great trends of Christian philosophy,
it is more in line with the thought of Augustine-Anselm than with that of
Thomas and the medieval Aristotelians; but not as if Dr. Ottaviano were
not an admirer of St. Thomas or disregards the achievements of other
medieval philosophers. The Augustinian-Anselmian heritage becomes visible
in a basic attitude strongly reminiscent of what some have called the
" Christian rationalism " of St. Anselm. Perhaps, our author does not go
as far as his great predecessor who wanted to prove by rationes necessariae
some of the fundamental tenets of the Faith, quasi nihil sciatur de Christo,
as he says in his Cur Deus homo. Dr. Ottaviano recognizes that speculation
would be lost in the tangle of multiform problems and approaches did it
not find a sure guide in:'revealed truth. But he apparently thinks that the

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mysteries, at lf·ast some of them, can be demonstrated, not in the quomodo
aint, but in the an aint, by speculative reason, which however needs for
surety the confirmation by Revelation.
The three preceding ages of human thought are those of Greek Antiquity,
of the Christian Middle Ages, and of the modem time, from the Italian
Renaissance to our own days. The author envisions the notion of the
eternity of matter as the fundamental tenet of Greek philosophy; in virtue
of this notion, Greek speculation could conceive of God only as a demiurge
or a physical mover of the material universe. This mode of approaching
the problems of reality and life ends in a deep pessimism as soon as matter
appears as the principle of death, imperfection, finiteness, of the tragic
aspect of existence. Medieval thought conceived of God, aided therein by
faith, as Creator and as the metaphysical principle of being, the summum
bonum and the true end of human existence. This view was, says the
author, essentially anthropocentric and hence implied the notions of God's
transC'endence on one hand, as origin and goal, and transcendence of the
material world on the other, as an obstacle to be overcome and a principle
to be transformed. These views, however, brought forth the great difficulty
of the gnoseological problem: how was man to attain knowledge of transcendent entities? The basic immanentism of the philosophies which followed is the inevitable consequence; therewith man again became the
" measure of all things." Subjectivism and· relativism in all their various
shades emerged necessarily, once Descartes had made inner evidence the
only criterion of reliable truth.
One cannot go back to the Middle-Ages; the world has advanced since
then and the philosophy it needs is not that of past centuries. Ottaviano
points out, in a concluding chapter, that the modem age has progressed
beyond the Middle-Ages mainly in virtue of three great conquests: the
juridical equality of all human individuals, the achievement of scientific
domination over the physical world, the freedom of philosophical, generally
speaking scientific, conscience. Thus, our times differ so profoundly from
those of medieval centuries that to solve the problems of to-day within
the framework of any of the past philosophies is a hopeless enterprise.
A new philosophy arises when a new standpoint is discovered from which
to re-evaluate and re-examine the age old problems. The importance of
Descartes or of Kant is this, that they have-as did any other of the
truly great thinkers-placed themselves on a new standpoint, that they
believed themselves to have discovered a new principle in the light of
which the obscurities of past systems seemed to disappear and the whole
of human speculation, the practical needs of man's life and destiny, the
meaning of all that is presented appeared as a consistent, intelligible
context. The author of the present work has such a new vision; he too
believes that he has discovered a new principle, a new interpretation of
being.

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By means of this basic principle be undertakes to erect a system which
comprises all parts of philosophy. His work is divided into seven sections
labelled "inquiries": methodological, logical, gnoseological, metaphysical,
physical, religious, moral. Since I cannot venture to analyse and criticize his
ideas, .a brief report on the fundamentals and some few indications of the
way he uses his basic intuition in the various " inquiries " must suffice.
It has to be -admitted that he manages to present a consistent system and
to find a place for each one of the great problems of philosophy. If his
basic thesis is granted, one will, of course, still object against one or the
other of the author's views, but one cannot deny the coherence and
systematizing power of his work.
· One of the main criticisms he raises against the philosophy of Aristotle
aims at the notions of potency and act. Ottaviano considers the former as
utterly impossible because he cannot concede that there be anything in
between being and non-being. Hence, it becomes one of his foremost tasks
to render account of change and becoming. Now, becoming has been considered always as an increase in " beingness "; the act is more than the
potency; perfection, achieved by actualization, better than the state of
imperfection. Being, insofar as it is actual, is considered as "given." To
this thesis Ottaviano opposes a wholly different one; he rejects the Greek
position, viewing being ns given or matter as eternal, as well as the modem
conception of being " making itself " or as " autocreative." His thesis
reads: "Being is, but nullifies itself, and this self-nullification of being is
the essence of becoming." Being was bound to vanish into nothingness, if
not preserved in being by God, Who is beyond all becoming and Creator.
The " melancholy and tragedy " of existence has its roots in this basic selfnullification of being. This notion implies that other of a " quantity of
being "; being, either of the universe or of single individual beings, is not
a constant magnitude. Hence, there are not two individuals, however much
they appear to be
same; which possess the same quantity of being. The
differences in this quantity of being appear as such of quality.
The author is not at all blind to the fact that with this notion of
quantity is introduced the other of continuous gradation of beingness.
"Matter," he declares in the preface, "is nothing but being on the lowest
degree and therefore fundamentally spirit, although it possesses totally
different properties or qualities arising from the diversities of gradation."
It is highly interesting to see how this metaphysical proposition determines the author's views on logic. This is one of the points where the
inner consistency of Ottaviano's reasonings becomes most apparent (the
other is his philosophy of religion and his speculations on the relations of
philosophy and theology.) The inquiry on logic starts with a critical study
of the views of Aristotle and of Kant to show that by assuming analytic
and synthetic judgments one gets involved in insoluble problems. There

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are however, analytic judgments implying ac necessary connection between
diverse terms, such that from a given concept and its definition, or nature,
or essence, arises a different concept with necessity because the first concept
can be thought in coherence with itself only in regard to the other. The
two notions of diversity and necessity underlying such judgments find their
expression in the name devised by the author, who calls such judgments
"syneteric" (from syn and heteros.) These judgments are defined as
those in which an identical something, to be itself, is linked necessarily with
something diverse. Thus, the passage of heat into a metallic body (remaining self-identically the same heat) is possible if and only if there follows
the effect of distension of the heated body. Cause is possible only insofar
as it implies, to be itself, the effect as different from itself, the cause. Such
syneteric judgments have been used extensively without the various
authors being aware of the peculiarities of their reasonings. Thus, the five
ways of Aquinas rest all on such syneterie judgments insofar as they imply
a connection between diverse elements. The discovery of the syneteric
judgments also furnishes a solution for the problem of the nature of mathematical reasoning; the latter's judgments are neither synthetic, as Kant
claimed, nor analytic, as many moderns pretend, but syneteric; they are
analytic in one sense, but nonetheless lead a step forward and thus allow
the mind to attain new insights. In these judgments we become aware of
necessary relations of two different intuitions. Having thus achieved a new
approach to the problems of logic, the author proceeds to a new theory of
reasoning on which however nothing can be said here. Of a greater
importance is the use he mal;;:es of his idea in the chapter, " A new theory
of principles." The notion of individual is, so he states, the result of a
syneteric judgment, because the existence of one individual necessarily
presupposes the ell:istence of other individuals without which the individual
would be incomprehensible and even self-contradictory. If, indeed, one
defines the individual as divisnm ab aliis, the alii are presupposed. In the
words of the author: the other individual is a condition of the essence
and the definition of the individual and a concomitant cause of its being.
Since an individual demands, to be itself, the existence of other individuals,
the general conception of reality is an " organic " one.
The basic logic principles, too, are revealed as of syneteric nature: the
principle of identity, that of non-contradition, of the excluded third. The
passage from logical to metaphysical argumentation is indicated in the
summary of the logical principles: those of homology or formal being
comprise that of the excluded third or of the "primogenity of being ";
" there is no middle way between being and non-being or Being is the
absolute prius." Hence the rejection, mentioned above, of the notion of
potency. Likewise, under the heading of principles referring to being as one
we find that of" metaphysical organicity. A is a, if there exist b, c. d .... "

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Each individual points at and is related to, even dependent on, other
individuals; they together constitute a system or an organism, and their
relations then appear as an hierarchical order.
Dr. Ottaviano sides with realism, immediate realism that is, because the
"splitting" into an intentional and objective being and therewith the
subjectivistic turn and the emergence of a " screen " between subject and
object must be avoided. Knowledge must be considered as a true attaining
of the object and not as a " modification " of the subject. The author
proceeds by way of a penetrating analysis and criticism of the idealistic
tenets, including those of Kant; he holds that neither Descartes' nor Kant's
conception suffice to prove the existence of reality. One has to conclude
that it is the real object which is itself present to the subject; this is
achieved by the object conferring on the subject some additional being:
the quantity of being increases.
The metaphysical inquiry states the problem of becoming as it appeared
first with Parmenides, and considers the various solutions in Aristotle and
others up to Hegel. It is here that the notion of " quantity of being " is
systematically introduced, as the only possible conception of becoming not
guilty of the nonsensical assumption that there be a third between being
and non-being. Becoming is interpreted as a " progressive annulment of
being, as a subtraction of a definite quantity of being." The sum total of
being in the universe is not constant, but decreases steadily. There are
four modes by which the quantity of being may change: creation, increase,
and annihilation. Because of every individual having its own, unique
quantity of being, there is no such thing as an universal nature common to
all individuals of one species; genus and species are but " approximations."
So are, incidentally, the laws of physics. The absolute non-identity of
individuals renders it impossible that anyone of these behave in exactly
the same manner; there must be insensible differences even in the velocity
with which one and another body fall. (The author refers here, of course,
to modern " statistical " physics; one might question whether he is therein
justified.) Not only has every individual its own quantity of being,
different from that of another, but this quantity changes by addition and
subtraction. (It then becomes difficult to see, how the uniqueness of individual quantity can be maintained; it seems that if there is one individual
possessing the quantity of being a at one time and of a+ c at another,
that then it had to pass through a stage a + b, b being smaller than c;
the only way out would be, it seems, that one conceives of " unities of
being," in analogy of the quanta in physics, a conception, however, presenting difficulties not easily overcome.)
I cannot report, however briefly, on the author's ideas concerning mathematics aild physics the criticism of which sciences leads him to new theories
of time and space.

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The next section deals with theology, from the philosophical angle of
course, and in the taking account of revealed truth. The author is convinced that the falsity of other religions (pagan, Moslem, Protestant,
pantheistic, etc.) can be demonstrated by reasoning. He discusses the five
ways of Aquinas, the conclusive value of
he recognizes, not however
Particularly, he insists that these proofs can be
without some
reduced to four; two are fundamental, namely the proof from part to whole
and that from becoming to that which is beyond all becoming; two subordinated to the second: the caused presupposes the uncaused, the possible
the necessary. Dr. Ottaviano asserts that these proofs and what others
there may be, answer only the question an sit, but leave the mystery of
quid or quomodo sit as dark as ever; for, although we may arrive at certain
" attributes " of Divine nature, these are only by way of analogy. This
" religious inquiry " contains a long chapter on the " tragedy " of reality;
the sense of futility, emptiness, of a life devoid of meaning can be overcome
only if one realizes that " the supernatural is, so to speak, the milieu
(ambiente) in which nature becomes perfectly itself, thoroughly nature."
Now, for the supernatural raising the natural to the plenitude of the latter's
being, two conditions must be fulfilled: the finite creature must not reject
the additional being which comes to complete it by
itself in its
isolation; and this concerns the aspect of ethics; and, ,$econdly, it is
indispensable that the supernatural descend to the level of the natural;
and this is the question of Grace on one hand and of the mystery of
Incarnation on the other.
It would lengthen this already long report unduly, were I to comment on
the last parts of this work, dealing with problems of ethics and the
metaphysics underlying the science of morals.
As it may have become clear, there is much in Dr. Ottaviano's work
which appeals to the philosophical reader; at least, it is highly provocative.
It gives testimony of a sincere and inquisitive mind, one deeply concerned
about man and the " human situation " and equally anxious to ensure to
faith in the supernatural the place it has to occupy. On the other hand,
there are many points which arouse doubts and questions. It would be
of no little interest were one to try to locate, as it were, this work within the
framework of philosophical speculation as it evolved in the Western world
since Plato. I have remarked before that Dr. Ottaviano is more a disciple
of St. Augustine and St. Anselm, and hence somehow of Plato and Plotinus,
than of Aristotle and St. Thomas. But it would seem that one can discern
other influences too. One of them might be that of Hegel. Although the
author is extremely critical of Hagelianism in its original and its derived
form· (e. g., as in Gentile or Croce), he nevertheless seems to have fallen
somehow under the spell of the great idealistic systematizer. The notion of
the " syneteric judgments " may be envisioned as an attempt to do justice

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to certain tenets fundamental in Hegelianism and, at the same time, to
eliminate the self-contradictoriness of these theses.
Yet, even though there are many reasons for not agreeing with the author
on many points, even for disapproving his basic notion of a changeable
" quantity of being,'" it must be admitted that in studying his work the
reader makes the acquaintance of an original and powerful mind, with ideas
well worth attention and consideration.
RuDOLF ALLERs
Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

The Shaping of the American Tradition. By Lours M. HACKER.
York: Columbia University Press, 1947. Pp. 1271. $6.50.

New

Earlier in the present century, before the devastation of two wars had
demonstrated the flimsiness of the widely-expressed hopes for international
amity, tlle United States had begun to examine the contributions its citizens
had made in various genres. Where was the great American novel? the
typically American drama? the peculiarly American poetry? the specifically
American philosophy? Each of these questions offered fascinating prospects
for investigation, yet each presented a stubbornly insoluble question early
in the investigating process. Could one speak of a typically American
production in any line, in the absence of any well-defined American
tradition?
It had for so long been generally held that the United States was too
new a country to have solidly established patterns of thought and action,
that to contend for the existence of an American tradition would have
been simply to. invite ridicule. Since that period, however, there have
been a widespread re-examination of the position of this country, a critical
appraisal of its history, a series of attempts to organize its regional and
cultural aspects into understandable fields for study, and a quickening of
interest in the fundamentals of what we are pleased to call the American
way of life. Out of such attitudes, on the basis of preliminary studies
made by other scholars, Professor Louis M. Hacker has written, compiled,
and edited-all three activities were involved in his task-a volume titled
The Shaping of the American Tradition. It is not his contention that this
tradition, if it really exists, is now complete, but rather that it is in the
proces; of becoming an integral part of American life.
Inasmuch' as this is his thesis, it seems proper to ask what we should
expect to find in such a volume. This is unquestionably the day of the
anthology, and the convention has grown up that the anthologist's tastes
may not be questioned. His productions are to be judged on the merits

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and the arrangement of the contents; one may deplore the inclusion of this
work, lament the exclusion of that, but one must always qualify such
expressions with the observation that the work under consideration is,
after all, the anthologist's. The weaknesses of such an attitude in a reviewer
are self-evident, but the convention has been so long accepted that it is a
relief to observe that Professor Hacker is not just an anthologist, but a
text writer as well. He has courageously exposed himself to criticism by
organizing his selections to illustrate his text, and it is therefore quite in
order to examine the thesis upon which the text is based.
Among the constitutive elements of the American tradition, then, one
would ex:pect to find an emphasis upon freedom, upon the written guarantees of freedom, upon individual enterprise and its concomitant assurance
of rewards to the specially fortunate, upon external activity rather than
upon introspection, and upon democracy as that term is used here. If
all of these concepts were examined and elaborated in the Shaping of the
American Tradition, there would certainly be no cause for complaint on
the score of inclusion or exclusion. This is not to say, however, that neglect
to consider any one, or several, of these concepts would damage the book
irretrievably. The concepts are basic to American life, but it would indeed
be difficult to contend that they are the only ones which are so. Here there
is room for legitimate difference of opinion, and certainly Professor Hacker
would not agree upon the inclusion of all of these concepts, nor upon an
arrangement of them which separates the notion of freedom from that of
democracy.
In beginning his task, Professor Hacker was embarking upon a course
not radically different from that which has preoccupied so many American
writers recently. Re-examinations, re-appraisals of figures like Henry James,
Henry Adams, Emily Dickinson, indicate that serious efforts are being made
to determine what is the specifically American feature of their productions.
To put it another way, as Hacker would perhaps do, attempts are being
made to discover the extent to which these articles conform or contribute
to the American tradition. Since this tradition has been so amorphous, so
tantalizingly elusive of definition, Hacker's first task is to set some
standards for himself, and then to observe the extent to which they are
applicable.
The dangers inherent in such a procedure are, of course, very great. A
writer who places his conclusions first, and then proceeds to justify them
may well experience violent reactions from those who read his work.
Hacker, however, is saved from a pretense at omniscience by the fact that
his conclusions, stated at the beginning of his work, are the result of a
consiqerable amount of experience derived in teaching a course in Contemporary Civilization at Columbia College. Tried and tested on successive
groups of students, these ideas have proven their value and may therefore

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be used to initiate this inquiry. Whether they are the only ideas which
could have been so derived is a question the author does not undertake
to answer.
The ideas he concludes are basic are these: American uniqueness,
religious freedom, freedom of enterprise, the weak state, equality of
opportunity, the strength of the American middle class, the democratic
institutions of the United States, and parties and pressure groups. Once
these are posited, the history of this country can be divided into eleven
chronological portions, in each of which these concepts will be observed to
appear, to a greater or lesser extent. Thus far there can be no quarrel
with Mr. Hacker's method of procedure, unless it be on the ground that
his concepts are repetitious and overlapping. Why could not parties and
pressure groups, for example, be considered as phases of democratic institutions? What is the notion of American uniqueness but one of begging
the question of the title of this book? Why should not the notion of
freedom be so expressed that it could apply to several aspects of life? With
these observations made, there still seems to be no legitimate major
grievance against Hacker's thesis, and, indeed, he supports it ably throughout the remainder of the book.
In each of the eleven sections, which cover periods of unequal length,
Hacker writes an introduction which would constitute, if the eleven were
published separately, an admirable American history text on a small scale.
These introductions reproduce the tone of each era, and are followed, in
every case, by four divisions of documents and contemporary materials,
in which again Hacker comments briefly in prefatory fashion. With the
exception of the first division, which is concerned primarily with English
background in American history, the four sub-topics are the American mind,
the American scene, American problems, and the United States and the
world. Following this sort of presentation, any teacher could give his
students a more nearly complete picture of American life and would have
opened to him, in extraordinarily convenient fashion, more and betterchosen material than he would ever find in an average text. From this
point of view, therefore, Hacker is surely to be congratulated, and it may
be hoped that his text will secure wide use.
On two counts, however, the volume may be criticized adversely. The
first count involves the acceptance of the second concept assumed above
as one of the elements of American life: the emphasis upon written guarantees of freedom. It is hardly arguable that such a concept is not basic in
our system; the period of English colonial history is studded with compacts,
instruments of govenment, declarations, and protests,
charters,
not to mention legislative enactments, executive pronouncements, and
judicial decisions. All of these were not only written, but reproduced and
published throughout the colonies. The whole course of English consitu-

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tiona} history had formed in the minds of the colonists an ineradicable
distrust of merely verbal assurances, and an implicit and complete faith
in the binding power of the written word.
After the colonial governments experienced the failure of the British
government to abide by the terms of such written guarantees, and had
made such failure one of the chief grievances in the Declaration of
Independence, they continued to insist upon the importance of these inscribed assurances in the new state which they were founding. The
Declaration itself, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, all attest
this. Later ages of American history repeat the lesson over and over again.
To anyone who has studied the connection between British colonial beginnings and American history proper, the conclusion is inescapable: this has
always been a nation which has placed extreme reliance upon the written
word.
To take up this text, then, and find in it the Articles, but not the
Declaration nor the Constitution, is to experience a distinct shock, and
to initiate some further examination of inclusions and exclusions. Deficiencies of an amazing type begin to appear. In the era of John Marshall,
for example, there ·is not a single one of that famous jurist's decisions given.
Yet surely he contributed forcefully to the formation of the American
juridical pattern, and is not this part of our tradition? If Hamilton's views
on the bank are to be included, why not Marshall's on the sanctity of
contracts?
Admittedly this is not a constitutional history of the United States, nor
should it he condemned for failing to be what it does not want or pretend
to be. It is, nevertheless, a book which essays the ambitious task of presenting a history of the shaping of our tradition, and ignores in that shaping
the part played by the Constituiion. If the constitution of any state is its
fundamental organic law, how can consideration of the organism or its
activities ignore the nature of its vital principle? If this procedure is
possible, then words are meaningless, and to call a constitution fundamental
or organic is simply to pay it a pretty, meretricious compliment.
Exclusion of John Mllrshall might be objected to on other grounds; his
style, for example, is not only beautiful in itself, but was long influential
in American courts. Even if he were rightly excluded, however, what of
other jurists? In this volume, as its excellent index so revealingly notes,
there are three judicial opinions given. Two of these are majority opinions,
one in Munn vs. Illinois, one in In re Debs. The dissenting opinion of
Holmes in Lockner vs. New York ends the list of judicial decisions, and
there is no attempt to mention the formative opinions of such able men as
Story, Taney, Field, White, Hughes on the supreme bench, or Kent, Shaw,
Hand, or others in the lower courts. The only feature of this sad lack of
discussion of the courts which can be commended is the inclusion of

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Holmes. Probably no justice since Marshall has been so influential in our
system; probably no justice has used his influence so irresponsibly and with
such evil results. But the influence is always present in our system, and
it is an influence of which Mr. Hacker seems blandly unaware.
The· second, and ultimately more serious, defect in the volume is its
conformity to the American scholarly tradition of objectivity. This tradition, which becomes on occasion a peculiarly pernicious means of avoiding
issues, insists that one merely present facts, and allow the reader to draw
his own conclusions. To the extent that he ignores this tradition, in
presenting his reasoned conclusions and the means by which he arrived at
them, to the extent that he admits selectivity and subjectivity in the choice
of his materials, Mr. Hacker is successful in evading this American snare
for scholars, and is again to be commended. To the degree, however, that
he fails to criticize or to measure the results of the phenomena he notes
as exercising a formative effect upon our tradition, he is to be censured, at
least mildly. The mildness of the censure must be based partially upon the
difficulty encountered by any American scholar who attempts to evaluate
his country's position in time of stress. It must also be based partially upon
Hacker's avowed intention merely to present materials, for, though such an
attitude is to be deplored, it must be respected as having formed the
volume presented to the reader.
Censure is therefore to be applied because this is the volume which had
the opportunity, from the instant its title was conceived, of pointing out the
amorphous, the nebulous, the inchoate character of the American tradition.
This is the volume which could have pointed out what influences must
shape our tradition, must really infuse it with life, must integrate its
scattered,. often mutually rebellious elements, must make it the tradition
which Mr. Hacker now thinks he sees, but which is really not there. The
prime weakness of this book is that it is actually admiring a potentiality,
instead of pointing out the means by which it may be actualized. It is
idle to pretend that we have an American tradition; traditions, yes, and
traditions which could chisel and carve away all the superfluous materials
from the figure which Mr. Hacker displays to us. For displaying that
figure, he has our gratitude; for informing it with life we must look to our
appreciation of an ideal of which far too many of us are completely
ignorant and unappreciative.
Sister MARIE CAROLYN, 0. P.
Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

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La Synthese Thom.iste. By REGINALD GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE. Paris: Desclee
de Brouwer, 1947. Pp. 739.
This book is the synthesis of a synthesis.
What stamped the genius of Aquinas more than any other intellectual
seal was his power to pierce to the very ultimates in the soil of experience,
finding there l'Oots that could account for the whole of reality from the
trunk to the tiniest oi twigs. It is no over-statement to say that a thinker,
philosopher and theologian alike, is not a Thomistic realist until he begins
to cultivate a similar piercing, simplifying, and synthetic spirit. To be a
Thomist means, in some measure or other, to be another Thomas.
Father Garrigou-Lagrange is eminently qualified to write a sum.ma of
St. Thomas' own thought. He is entitled to first rank among living
theologians by his success as a teacher and writer, his simplicity of style,
his frank facing of contemporary issues in the spirit of his master, and his
fidelity to Thomas because he can rediscover him through his own thought.
Even his opponents in the Thomistic school, for example Marin-Sola and
Charlier, would have to acknowledge his excellence in general, with respect
to the great challenge of making Thomism available to the twentieth
century. If this book is opened in the spirit of docilitas which the author's
past expressions would encourage, such a spirit is richly rewarded by the
vast sweep of scholarship, explanation, proof, and sublimity which the long
tract includes.
The major portion of the work is taken from the article on Thomism
which the author contributed to the Dictionnaire de Theologie catholique.
This material is supplemented by a largely philosophical epilogue on the
realistic and contemporary character of St. Thomas' thought. There are
several pages of bibliography, according to the various divisions of the work.
Unfortunately there is no index either of topics or of names. Considering
the reference character which this work may well boast for itself, the
lack of indexing is especially notable. To some extent, the loss is compensated by the copious subdivisions of the work, all of which are listed
in the table of contents. If this book is translated into English, and it is
hoped that this work can be quickly undertaken for both the classroom and
more general purposes which the book can serve in this country, perhaps
this highly desirable indexing of the work will be done.
After a discussion of the work of St. Thomas and a cursory evaluation
of his· classic commentators, Father Garrigou-Lagrange naturally begins his
more formal discussion of theology by a concise statement of the metaphysics which is its handmaid. This chapter is important not only for
its contents but for its emphasis on philosophy as the ancilla theologiae at
a time. when it is perhaps over-stressed as the rectrix scientiarum. In
actual practice, the better it performs the latter office the better it will

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measure up to the former. It is well known that courses in philosophy and
religion are so separated that the ancillary function of the one is sometimes
forgotten and the other remains unintegrated with the rational disciplines.
In the order in which man lives, a fully real and rich integration can come
only through theology. It is one of the merits of the present book, assuming
a purely philosophical foundation, to take a student through all the high
points of Thomistic theology.
After the opening metaphysical section, there follow the treatments of
God as one and as triune; on the angels and man; on the Incarnation; on
the sacraments; on moral theology and spirituality; and finally on the
realistic basis of the Thomistic synthesis. An appendix is added on the
so-called new theology, dealing chiefly with such thinkers as Bouillard,
Fessard, Teilhard de Chardin, and to a certain extent Blonde} (who has
been previously treated in the work.) These authors Father GarrigouLagrange accuses of undermining the realistic foundations of theology,
compromising it through the attempt to reach a modus vivendi with contemporary thought and life. It is known, for example, that Fessard would
" baptize " Hegel in the way in which it is often said that Aquinas
" baptized " Aristotle. There is no mention in the book of the efforts of men
like Pryzwara and Haecker in Germany and Troisfontaines in France to
relate the Kierkegaardian theme to traditional theology.
As a compendium, largely explanatory in character, this book includes
no notable controversial material that has not been previously put into the
forums of theological discussion. It would seem to be more or less a
summary of the great number of books-nineteen are listed opposite the
title page-which the author has previously published. This fact alone
makes the present volume distinctly worthwhile for reading and for
reference. That the author has not delved deeply, in the past, into the
area of moral theology explains perhaps why the treatment of this subject
here does not measure up to the completeness and clarity evidenced in the
sections on dogma. A fuller version of the prima secundae and its sequel
would require companion volumes like, for example, the recent commentary
of Ramirez.
The difficulty with the moral section of the present work is not, of
course, one of misrepresentation but one of not developing the subject in
a manner commensurate with that of the foregoing sections on dogma.
Such a difficulty, however, is to be minimized by comparison with the high
standards set and almost constantly maintained by the book as a whole.
Considering the synthetic, clear, and consecutive character of the work
which ranges for its subject-matter through the whole of St. Thomas, this
treatise may well become rated as the best statement of Aquinas' thought
in the present century. In includes a vast amount of positive theology and
defends Thomism against the Scotists and Suarezians, clearly exposing the

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views of the adversaries despite space limitations. This book differs greatly
from Gilson's recently revised Le Thomisme by its theological rather than
philosophical dimensions. The two authors neatly complement each other,
Father Garrigou-Lagrange is at his Thomistic best in the problems of
sufficient and efficacious grace which divide Thomism from Molinism. To
judge by recent literature, this controversy seems now fortunately on the
wane. But the death of the battle in the Scholastic field may only mean
that it is living elsewhere, with both of the traditional opponents now
lined up together against the effects of Newtonian and Renaissance Deism
that are the logical fruits likewise of Molina's principles. When Nietzsche
concludes that God is dead or the existentialists that man is abandoned,
they simply express the denial of God's universal causality which was
Molina's unfortunate achievement in Scholasticism at a time when Deism
was being born in more secular circumstances. Deny God's causality in the
faintest action of the smallest atom, and it may be consistently denied in
the swing of the largest star. Without God's efficacious premotion, man
is abandoned, and only with it can there be preserved that freedom which
the Molinists laudably aim to defend.
In his just verdict against contemporary theologians like Fessard and
de Chardin, Father Garrigou-Lagrange points up the danger of attempting
to convert the modem mind by learning its language only to end the
adventure by being converted instead to contemporary philosophy, abandoning St. Thomas. Truly this is a peril, but it is one that must be faced
realistically, faced as Aquinas faced the suspected Aristotle. It may be
wondered whether the danger may not be more in the method of study
rather than in the purpose of the scholarship. Just as the positive must
be known before the non-being or the negative, so a measure of truth must
be known in order to understand and evaluate error.
But there is the danger of simply studying St. Thomas without recourse
to the reading of his modem adversaries who clarify him by contrast and
thus make his principles more meaningful and alive. Converts make good
apologists in many cases, and the gifted among them often write books on
their spiritual odysseys. They have to struggle toward the truth rather than
receive it ready-made. Confronted by problems and objections, the genius
of Aquinas matured through its searchings for the answers to disputed
questions. In his own example lies a good lesson for becoming Thomistic.
The point of it all is that adversaries should not be studied in old age
after a youth concentrated only on St. Thomas. The two should be
studied side by side before habits become case-hardened to an intolerance
of opposition or at least to a total apathy to all views other than our own.
The errors of adversaries mean nothing unless a standard 'of truth is known
to evaluate them. But Thomism also means nothing or correspondingly
little until we see the problems that it answers, see them as our answers

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to our own problems 118 if discovering the truth for the first time not from
Aquinas' authority but from our own rellSoning. This opinion does not
imply
Thomism is one among many other philosophies, each being
equal to the other. An appreciable probing of its principles is required
before it comes into its role as a yardstick for dealing with thought that,
as far as it is alien to Thomism, is also contrary to experience. But there
is a danger of waiting too long before entering into other philosophies
which contain a great deal that can actualize the potentialities of the
Thomistic synthesis and make it more conscious of itself. The wider the
bllSe of the pyramid, the stronger the pinnacle will stand.
Father Garrigou-Lagrange devotes a chapter of his work to show the
llSsimilating power of the Thomistic synthesis. In its vast folds there may
be included all the truth in such opposing doctrines as mechanism and
monadology, while avoiding all of their errors. It is related to truths in
other philosophies not as particular to particular but 118 universal to particular. Meyerson echoed Tertullian's phrase when he said that rellSon is
naturally catholic. Reason is also naturally synthetic. Yet tragically
enough, the most universal method of thought, practically since the time
of Aquinas himself, has been an analytic one. The only notable exception
on the modern scene is in dialectical materialism, and here the employment
of synthesis is a rather arbitrary and postulational epilogue to analysis.
Such a thought engraves again the reflection that Thomism and realism
can neither be analytic nor synthetic. These are methods applied after the
philosophical edifice hilS come to rest on a previous foundation, that of
being itself, and after being is seen to demand their introduction. Aquinas
is comprehensive only because he is depth-sounding and intensive. He is
synthetic only because he discovers the basis of the hierarchy which permits
and even requires synthetic treatment. The principle of contradiction is
neither analytic nor
in content sir.ce being is not a genus. Being
is what it is. Things are what they are. The ultimate realism and synthesis
of St. Thomas consists in his recognition of that simple fact which volumes
have since been written to deny. Against the background of experience,
the full probing of this principle of identity or, in its negative form, the
principle of non-contradiction, gave to Aristotle and Aquinas the insights
into potency and act, the twin realisms that organize the Thomistic
universe, making it a synthesis not of monism or of logical relations but a
synthesis of hierarchy.
VINCENT Enw ARD SMITH
Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

BOOK REVIEWS

Essays in Science and Philosophy, By ALBERT NoRTH WHITEHEAD.
York: Philosophical Library, 1947. Pp. 348, with index. $4.75.

889
New

A new book by Professor Whitehead is always approached with a certain
interested curiosity and anticipation. The individual chapters in Essays
in Science and Philosophy, however, are not new. All have appeared in
print at various times since 1912. The jacket tells us that these essays
represent a cross-section from the career of the late distinguished philosopher. Mr. Whitehead's selection of material for the book indicates very
well that his great contribution has been in the field of science and
mathematics. He tells us that in 1924 at the age of sixty-three he joined
the faculty of Harvard University in the department of philosophy. His
philosophic writings were begun in London at the latter end of World
War I. Thus it is not surprising to find that he devotes half again as
much text to science and mathematics as to each of the other topics
which are entitled: "Personal,'' "Philosophy,'' and "Education." The
fact that three of the essays in science-" Axioms of Geometry,"" Mathematics,'' and "Non-Euclidean Geometry "-first appeared in the Encyclopedia Britannica is an indication of the author's excellent reputation in the
field of mathematics. The essay on non-Euclidean geometry is especially
interesting to the ordinary reader because of its historical approach to the
subject.
It would be eminently unfair to attempt a critical analysis of Mr. Whitehead's philosophy on the basis of this series of essays. His claim to fame
as a philosopher rests on his Process and Reality, published in 1929. In
the present series, the most representative are the essays on " Immortality "
and "Uniformity and Contingency." The latter, by the way, is not listed
in the table of contents.
The reader's interest is immediately aroused when he notes the title,
" Immortality." More specifically he is told that the immortality of
human beings is the subject of discussion. Most of us would expect the
word, as applied to man, to involve a personal, individual immortality in
a life after death. Such a use of the word is meaningless in this philosophy.
First of all, any immortality possessed by man is not essentially different
from that of any other being in the universe. Men and matter are the same.
This immortality consists in the "Evaluation" of the whole World of
Action or Activity. Immortality means that the World of Activity, which
is passing, is transformed in God's nature. "This nature (of God) conceived as the unification derived from the World of Values is founded in
ideals of perfection, moral and aesthetic. It receives into its unity the
scattered effectiveness of realized activities transformed by the supremacy
of its own ideals." (p. 94)
In terms of the doctrine as expressed in Process and Reality, any entity

8

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achieves its immortality in its character of " subject superject " when it is
ready to be an object of prehensive unification in a higher entity. No
entity ever is, it is always becoming. It passes without any state of being,
into the next higher step in the process of unification. This is called the
process of concretion. Eventually, immortality is attained by transformation (union) in the Consequent Nature of God. The whole process of the
universe of things is merely a constant becoming: each entity positively
unites in itself other lower entities. The process of prehensive unification
is guided, after a fashion, by God, the Principle of Concretion, until all
entities are united in his Consequent Nature. This is their immortalityeach entity is immortal insofar as it is an element in the constitution of a
higher entity.
Such immortality is by no means personal in the Scholastic sense of that
word. Rather, it is a pantheistic continuation of the being in God. As
Mr. Whitehead says, things simply are not alone. They are always in
process, a process which involves the unification of personality in coordination of the becoming of all Active Entities in God. This pantheistic type
of immortality leaves the reader definitely unsatisfied. If that is all human
immortality invokes, why should it be discussed?
The author's ideas on Education are far more interesting. Although his
practical suggestions for education are by no means justified by his principles, they are, nonetheless, practical and valuable. He holds that it is
the business of the study of any subject " to transmute thought into an
instinct which does not smother thought but directs it, to generate the
feeling for the important sort of scientific ideas and for the important ways
of scientific analysis, to implant the habit of seeking for causes and of
classifying by similarities." (p. 193) We might criticize this statement of
aims on the basis of an overemphasis upon science or because of i.ts failure
to emphasize a relation of study to life, but we might more properly
indicate here one or" the great weaknesses in the system of philosophy which
underlies this notion of education. As was pointed out above, there is a
weakness, and even error, in the principles of this system. In the above
quotation we rejoice to see that the student should form the habit of
seeking causes. Yet, in his essay on the value of induction, "Uniformity
and Contingency," Mr. Whitehead first notes that the validity of the
doctrine of causality is most fundamental. He quotes from Hume: " But
there is nothing in a number of instances, different from every single
instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar; except only, that after
a repetition of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the
appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to believe
that it will exist." (p. 140) Induction, we know, is valid provided our
Whitehead poses the problem of the
notion of causality is valid.
validity of the one (and, therefore, of the other) but he does not give us

a

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any answer. Nevertheless, education is supposed to implant in the student
the habit of seeking causes. In practice such a habit is excellent but one
should have a valid foundation in philosophical principles for developing
such a habit.
The author sees, as we all see, that in education there is a problem. In
liberal education there is a special problem. Concentration in subject
matter is necessary, yet there are so many fields of investigation which
ought to be considered. Mr. Whitehead evidently approves of the classics
as an element of liberal education but finds them inadequate, when taken
alone, as a center or core of such education. We all know that it is rapidly
becoming impossible to study the Greek and Latin originals. The accuracy
and disciplined power of definitely controlled thought which could come
from such· study cannot now be obtained in classical education. How then
obtain such discipline? Mr. Whitehead very wisely suggests that mathematics be given a greater part in liberal education. Certainly accuracy and
discipline are attained in mathematical investigation. Would he then agree
to the study of the classics in the vernacular for their cultural content
which now enriches our literature and life?
The series of essays has some value. Those about the author's personal
life are charming,. with the charm to be found in the life of a cultured
gentleman of the old school. The greatest weakness in this series, as well
as in the whole system of philosophy of Mr. Whitehead, lies in the almost
incomprehensible terminology. He coins new words and uses old words in
an entirely new meaning. We know the difficulty in writing philosophy in
English. The accepted English words are often deceptive as well as
inadequate. At one time it was suggested that Mr. Whitehead's language
might be the foundation of a new English medium for the transmission of
sound philosophical knowledge. It now seems quite evident that there is
not sufficient solidity and uniformity in his use of words to warrant its
adoption for such a task. In addition to that, his influence in contemporary
philosophy is not powerful enough to guide the majority of present day
philosophers. It would be a great service to readers and much fairer to his
own ideas if Mr. Whitehead had accomodated his writing to the older usage
of words and submitted himself to a consistent use of new terms throughout his philosophy.

Enw ARD J. LINTZ
Nazareth College,
Rochester, N. Y.

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Nervous Disorders and Character. By JoHN G. McKENZIE. New York:
1947. Pp. Hl6, with index. $1.50.
Medicine For Moderns. By F. G. SLAUGHTER. New York: Julian Messner,
1947. Pp. 254, with index. $3.50.
These are lectures delivered at Manchester College, Oxford. The subtitle
states them to be: "A Study in Pastoral Psychology and Psychotherapy."
The author teaches Social Science and Psychology at Paton College, Nottingham. The four lectures are concerned with: Character Structure and
Personality Disorders; Psychology, Psychotherapy and Pastoral Psychology;
Mental Mechanics; The Nature, Origin, and Resolution of Conflicts. Books
on pastoral psychology are not numerous and every new one arouses
expectations. The present volume is written from the viewpoint of a
Protestant minister who is well conversant with the problems of daily life
and various mental disorders. There is, perhaps, as is the case with most
works of this kind, too much emphasis on the abnormal aspects. What is
really needed is a psychology of moral and religious life within the boundaries of normalcy. Again, the author's views are somewhat too much
indebted to psychoanalysis, although he definitely prefers Jung to Freud.
Dr. McKenzie's position, however, is in many respects perfectly sound.
It is commendable that he does not side with those who believe that
"frustration" explains all neurotic troubles. Rather, says the author, it
is the incapacity to deal with erotic deprivation which causes the disturbance. He distinguishes the fields of pastoral and of medical psychology;
they overlap, yet neither -comprises the whole of the other. The former,
especially, has the prerogative to convey a definite philosophy of life, a
problem the medical psychologist can approach, if at all, only with
diffidence and caution. One will agree with the author that in many cases
there is a greater need of such a philosophy than of a thorough sweeping
of the unconscious. The digging out of so-called unconscious factors is not
all that has to be done; the main thing is that a man assume a rational
attitude in regard to himself and his world.
There are many clever and even wise words in this little book. It deserves
attention. It is objective and based on large experience and wide reading.
The author has friendly words to say on the confessional and the Catholic
notion of morality and religious life. He wonders, however, that contrary
to the salutary effect Catholics experience through confession " many
members of the Catholic persuasion of the Anglican Church go regularly
tc confession ... but some of the worst sufferers from morbid guilt . . .
were practicing .members of Anglo-Catholicism." Is this so amazing after
all? Several reasons might be given as, the sacramental character of confession; and, on the psychological level, the somewhat different attitude in

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393

regard to the sinner. It was Kierkegaard, a Protestant, who said that it
is part of the Church's wisdom that she never forgets one thing: that all
men remain ever naughty boys playing in the streets.
While one point and another will of necessity be envisaged differently
by a Catholic, on the whole the treatment accorded the subject in this
little work is well worth reading and study.
The value of a book popularizing some science is always a matter of
debate. Such books are needed, but they are also difficult to write; some of
them, when written, prove to be dangerous or, at least, misleading. Not
everything in science lends itself to a popular presentation. Not every
topic can be discussed in total avoidance of technical language. It is
particularly in the field of medicine that such books may become harmful.
Yet, there is an interest in things medical; there is a need to inform the
public and to make the average person realize what medicine may or may
not do for him.
In recent times there has been much talk concerning psychosomatic
medicine. It is hailed as a new discovery which, in fact, it is not. It may
be justifiable that the author of the present work refers almost exclusively
to recent American studies; yet a good deal of what he presents as novelties
has been known for more than a quarter century. The great discovery is
one which might have been made at an even earlier time, if the medical
world has not separated itself altogether from philosophy. There the
physician might have found the doctrine of the basic unity of the human
person and his attention might have been directed towards the mutual
_dependency of somatic and mental factors. It is on this group of problems
that the author reports. He does so ably, insofar as the mere mode of
presentation is considered: his text is readable; his explanations intelligible.
Nonetheless, this is a bad book. Not only is this so because of the author's
preference for
Freudian interpretations, which sometimes are utterly
fantastic, some times highly hypothetical, often far from convincing; but
there are further many statements which appear as factually erroneous.
Particularly in the field of psychiatry, in his remarks, for example, on
schizophrenia, the author presents as assured knowledge ideas that, to
say the least, are very controversial. While it is recognized that other procedures than those of " orthodox " psychoanalysis are recommended, the
basic views are strongly influenced by a rather materialistic outlook. On
the whole, the work cannot be recommended.
RunoLF ALLERS
Catholic University of America,
W118hington, D. C.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Ethics. By RADOSLAV A. TsANOFF. New York: Harper, 1947. Pp. 899,
with index. $8.50.
This work of Professor Tsanoff is proposed as a textbook for American
Colleges. If the publishers are to be believed, it marks a new high in the
field and is certain to be widely adopted. From the viewpoint of the perennial philosophy it has many appealing features. Though not Scholastic,
it is Aristotelian in orientation. The arrangement of matter is good. Mter
an introduction which considers the nature and range of morality and the
problem of value, there follow four parts in which first comes a treatment
of the main types of ethical theory, then a consideration of the problem
of personal morality, next a section on social ethics, and finally a fifth part
which takes up the questions of moral freedom, progress and civilization
as well as the relations of ethics and religion.
The introduction reveals the Aristotelian direction of the author. "When
Aristotle set out to achieve a science of the good on functional lines, defined
virtue as a habit of the will, studied man's nature and behaviour in
relation to those of the animals and plants; and the various situations of
our life when directed and when not directed by reason, he set an example
in ethical procedure which has not been sufficiently followed, but to
which many contemporary moralists incline in their method and outlook "
(p. 20). In this part, too, tJ:te author's tentative proposal of a hierarchy
of goods follows the same tenor of thought.
The study of the main types of ethical theory which follows seems to
this reviewer the best part of the book. Ethical formalism and its great
exponent Immanuel Kant, Hedonism and Evolutionary Ethics come in for
strong, withal balanced criticism. Tsanoff himself demands " rational intelligence, decisive in human conduct and values " (p. 96) and gives admirable
example of its functioning in his judicious and rigorous rejection of the
above named errors. He concludes by a choice of goods arranged and
subordinated in terms of man's end--self-realization or fulfillment of
personality.
Problems of personal morality are the concern of the next part. A
dangerous flaw in Professor Tsanoff's thinking reveals itself here. Ethics
is a practical science but it has its roots deep in speculative philosophy
with its summit on the First Cause, God. Because of a faulty metaphysical
foundation Professor Tsanoff is betrayed into a statement such as this:
" there is no single principle supreme and encompassing all. moral value "
(p. 182). Of a part; with this fault and flowing from
is a totally
mistaken notion of Christian morality. For instance, there is the mistake
of holding that " the repression of all appetites found a religious utterance
in Christian asceticism " (p. 187) . Their sublimation for a higher good,
yes; their total repression, no. Nor is it true that "whether temperance
tends to emphasize moderation or abstinence depends upon the partial or

BOOK REVIEWS

895

utter depreciation of the passions generally, and especially of the sensual
appetites" (p. 188). Professor Tsanoff can be assured of this: in Christian
ethics the temperance which asks abstinence is on a much surer and much
more positive base than "utter depreciation of the passions generally."
Yet in this section there is emphasized a profound insight, dear to Saint
Augustine and often cited by St. Thomas: " Bona spiritualia possunt simul
a pluribus possideri, non autem bona corporalia" (S. T. III, q. 28, ad 8.)
Because of the above mentioned flaw Professor Tsanoff is vague on the
highest spiritual good and the means to attain that good. In the year of
our Lord 1948 one cannot be just an Aristotelian.
The following division treats of social ethics and says much that is
worthwhile on marriage and family life, character training, culture in work
,11Jld play, vocation, economic and social life. Tsanoff is to be commended
for insisting, that divorce is a moral problem (p. 198) ; but in holding
" divorce may sometimes be justified " (p. 210), he must define just what
he means ir!. such a case. Does he mean the dissolution of a valid marriage
with the ability of one or both of the partners to contract another
marriage? Nor has he distinguished enough. As a consequent his dichotomy
between those who hold an unbending opposition to the disSolution of
marriage and those who demand frankly that dissolution be made easier
with the removal of the least vestige of social stigma does not correspond
to fact. Tsanoff also would have moral training as part of education. He
is opposed to " released time " for religious instruction in our public schools.
F'or him the fact that " multitudes of young people are growing up without
any religion or morals " is a serious problem " which only the public school
can meet, for it alone reaches all classes of boys and girls " (p. 216). It
seems he does not know how Catholic thinkers and leaders faced that
problem in our country over a century ago, and took practical steps to
oombat it by the school system they inaugurated. On the strength of its
principles and their practical application that solution merits at least the
appraisal of the ethical thinker. Too, Tsanoff looks to human piety as
the main ingredient in the solution of modern economic problems (p. 291).
Could divine pity be any help? Not in the strict Aristotelian scheme of
things. The·god of Aristotle remains remote from this passing and pitiful
show.
A consideration of the ultimate problems of moral philosophy closes the
work. Human freedom and moral progress Professor Tsanoff holds and
hopes for in the recognition and achievement of the hierarchy of values
after Aristotle. Significantly, as he points out: "the solid rationalistic tradition in the history of thought has been in the main optimistic in spirit, or
at any rate resistant to basic negation. But irrationalism involves a collapse
of spiritual morale" (p. 850). Yes, to call philosophy and theology, as he
does on the next page, "monumental edifices of man's self-outreaching
zeal, sublime but pathetic," is an all too sweeping indictment, akin to a

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BOOK REVIEWS

basic negation. In this part, too, there are a pair of contradictories one of
which is open to question. Tsanoff would have an integral and adequate
ethics which is a mean between a distortion of moral conduct to make it fit
into the conceptual mold of the factual sciences and the earlier dogmatictheological view of morality as somehow exalted above the daily actual
lives of men and women. The exclusion of theological influence on ethical
science is justified if the above is the earlier view. But is it? In conclusion
the author offers as moral grounds for belief in God the arguments of the
necessity of sanctions and the desire of happiness. The metaphysical
arguments for the existence of God he would seem to waive on the
strength of Kant's criticism of them p. 368) .
It is good to find a textbook on ethics that goes counter to the
relativism and what might be called the " zoocentric " character of much
modern ethical inquiry. Here zoocentric is understood as confining man's
activity and perfection mainly to the properly animal level. The direction
Professor Tsanoff takes its anthropocentric in the sense that the perfection
of man is in terms chiefly of the functioning of higher faculties, intellect
and will. But is that enough? Must not ethics be theocentric in a strict
and metaphysical sense?
The dangerous flaw in Professor Tsanoff's thinking, mentioned before,
shows up in the lack of that last orientation. So strict an Aristotelian is
he that the criticism leveled at Aristotle in this regard strikes him too.
For ethics to be theocentric there must be a personal relationship between
God and man. Such could really never be the case for Aristotle because of
his erroneous idea that God's knowledge of anything other than himself
would argue imperfection in the divine nature. With no knowledge of
creation, not even creation from eternity, it is understandable how he
inclined to that position. Yet one of the greatest Aristotelians could not
accept such a conclusion. "Nee tamen sequitur quod omnia alia a se sint
ei ignota; nam intelligendo se, intelligit omnia alia" (In Meta. H!, II).
With that premise there is a strong bond between natural theology and
ethics sadly lacking in Aristotle. In the last analysis a high-minded humanism is the best the Stagyrite can offer to man. What it amounts to is the
religion of a pagan philosopher which cannot but appear to us cold and
distant. Professor Tsanoff does not get much further.
Thtm, too, on Professor Tsanoff's testimony: " the good life is conceived
as obedience to God's will. This is of the utmost importance to the moral
factor in religion. Men's view of the good and the godly life change when
their ideas of God and God's will are altered " (p. 362) . Much of the
criticism of the book under review is due to the fact it reflects an unawareness of how great the alteration has been. The work is an impressive
example in action of the impossibility of an adequate ethics autonomous
and independent of Christian revelation.
ALAN McSWEENEY, C. P.
St. Mary's M01U!.stery,
Dunkirk, N. Y.

BRIEF NOTICES
Man and the State: Modern Political Ideas. Edited by WILLIAM EBENSTEIN. New York: Rinehart, 1947. Pp. 797, with index and bibliographical note. $6.50.
Man and the political unit in which he lives have from the remotest
ages engaged the attention of political theorists, and the present age has
remained true to this tradition at least. There could probably be no more
all-inclusive title than the one chosen by Professor Ebenstein for this ably
edited volume, although it is necessary to add the subtitle for delineation
of the period covered by the excerpts included in the book. It should
certainly be noted, in these days of many anthologies, that the integrating
force of the editor's thesis lifts this work out of the anthology class, and
transforms it into a vaiuable tool for the student or the researcher in
politics.
By limiting himself to modern political ideas, the editor has eliminated
from inclusion in this collection any ideas which appeared earlier than the
last four centuries. .While the usefulness of the volume for earlier periods
is completely nullified by this procedure, its value for the later period is
considerably increased because of the larger number of selections which
may be given. Since many of these selections are from the works of practicing politicians, or from the scarce political writings of persons usually not
associated with politics at all, Man and the State offers much more than
similar volumes can contrive to do.
Within its chapters appear such diverse thinkers as John Locke and
Harold Laski, expressing varied opinions on the right to rebel; Jean Jacques
Rousseau and Jacques Maritain, writing on the subject of freedom; Thomas
Carlyle and Adolf Hitler, on the necessity of leadership. Similarly stimulating and entertaining contrasts are to be noted throughout the eighteen
chapters of the volume, which is divided into four roughly equal sections,
each considering some large subdivision of the book's general theme. The
final division, for example, contains writings on the subject of the supranational community, and the chapters are evidently arranged to show that
the transition from nationalism to world order is desirable, if not inevitable.
Each series of selections has been chosen, according to the editor's preface, on the basis of readability and freshness of expression; each is
preceded by one of the outstanding features of the book, a chapter by the
editor which sets each selection in its historical perspective, and does so in
a delightful fashion. These introductory chapters, abstracted from the
remainder of the book, would constitute an excellent review of recent

397

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BRIEF NOTICES

political thought, presented in well-chosen, highly skillful terms, and with
a minimum of apparent subjectivity.
It is precisely here, however, that the one objection to this book must
be expressed. The truism that prefaces must be read if books are to be
understood is particularly applicable here, and a reading of the preface
discloses l\Ir. Ebenstein's intention of presenting selections chosen on the
basis of "great issues." How these great issues are determined we are
never told, and the whole volume is therefore arranged according to a
predetermined plan of which the reader must necessarily remain ignorant.
The procedure may be valid or invalid, but only the editor can determine
the extent to which either judgment would be true.
Since this is the manner in which he has chosen to proceed-and of
course one cannot quarrel with the procedure as such-Ebenstein's objectivity is only apparent, and the discussions in the chapters introducing
each section are objective only in what they present, since exclusion of
other materials must have followed some subjective decision. Furthermore,
these chapters are victims of the usual delusions of the determinedly objective writer: in their effort to preserve objectivity, they carefully refrain
from noting differences in values. An example of the absurdities into which
this attitude may lead one is given in the choice of a title for Part II:
Antidemocratic Thought. Since Ebenstein had insisted earlier that democracy is not only institutions, it is men (an obscure and muddled concept in itself} , he need not have accepted this label of antidemocracy from
other writers; only his ill-considered wish to preserve objectivity, or his
failure to realize the extent to which old liberal traditions still bind him
could involve him in such contradictions.
Used properly, as a means of determining quickly what important
theorists or practitioners of politics have had to say about man and the
state, or as a means of reviewing rapidly the history of recent political
thought, this is an invaluable addition to tools available in political philosophy. Accepted as an authoritative reference and guide, its seeming
merits may involve the reader in many difficulties and inconsistencies. To
the credit of the editor it should be noted that the latter course was not in
his mind as a motive for his labor. The labor and its presentation deserve
the heartiest praise.

Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando. By the Rt.
Rev. HUBERT JEDIN. (Trans. by F. G. EcKHOFF). St. Louis: Herder,
1947. Pp. 720, with index. $7.50.
When this work, the fruit of some ten years of work on the part of the
archivist of the archdiocese of Breslau, appeared in 1937 in German under
the title Girolamo Seripsndo, Sein Leben und Denken ... , its scholarly

BRIEF NOTICES

899

tone and extensive documentation, particularly from unpublished manuscript sources, met with warm approval. The appendices and, to a large
extent, the documentation have disappeared in translation, but the ponderous air of German scholarship remains in spite of the change of title.
Hence its appeal is chiefly to historians of the Counter-Reform, and possibly to Augustinians of whom Seripando was General from 1589 to 1551.
The general reader, however, will close the book with mixed feelings of
admiration, irritation, bewilderment and discouragement, and a firmer conviction that the Church cannot but be divine when for the guidance of
her Councils and the formulation of her doctrines she has to turn to such
as Seripando. Admiration for the skill and objectivity with which Seripando's deficiencies and shortcomings are presented alongside his talents
and virtues to give a balanced picture is qualified by a certain looseness
in the manner of presentation. One gets the impression of a sheaf of notes
hastily shuffled together. Probably because Msgr. Jedin's knowledge of
this period of history is so extensive and his acquaintance with his characters so perfect, he is inclined to omit the explanatory data which will
put order and coherence into the vast crowd of personalities and events
among which Seripando moved. Passing allusions to things like the scandal
in Venice, the " catastrophe," the Vatican librarian, the " affair with
Staupitz " are significant to close students of the period, but leave the
ordinary reader baffied. The author also has an irritating, and somewhat
pompous, trick of announcing that he is going to determine the place
occupied by Seripando, or identify his influence, or define his position, yet
the complacent declaration a few paragraphs later that he has done so
comes as a surprise; what has intervened is a few vague generalities, true
of most of the men of the period, or worse, a frank statement that documentary evidence is too meager to warrant a definitive statement.
The attempt to correlate-one would not dare say, identify-Seripando
and Thomism is particularly deplorable and betrays a very imperfect idea
of the latter. Seripando's acquaintance with the doctrine of St. Thomas,
and even his personal regard for Cardinal Cajetan, do not make him a
Thomist; anymore than his acquaintance with the ideas of Martin Luther,
or his relations with him, make a Lutheran of him. As a matter of fact,
while some theologians at Trent suspected Seripando of Lutheranism, few
accuse him of Thomism. His leaning toward Neo-Platonism and his open
avowal of voluntarism place him at the opposite pole from Thomists.
Scion of a good Neapolitan family of career bureaucrats, and therefore
by birth and breeding a diplomat and a politician, Seripando entered a
congregation of the Augustinians, the comparative fewness of whose members promised preferment sooner; becoming a protege of the General of
the Order almost immediately and ordained without any theological training after a course of reading the classics privately, he was attached to the
Curia of his Order. His reputation for eloquence was based on his skill

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in exemplifying Christian doctrine by pagan antiquity; his sources and
spiritual guides were
Plutarch and the Neo-Platonists. His reputation for learning rested chiefly on a knowledge of St. Augustine and
St. Paul, admittedly peculiar and at times suspect, acquired long after he
left the Studium of his Order at Bologna. He began the study of philosophy after his ordination; the highest academic honor, the title of master,
was conferred by order of the General seven years later, in 1519. Yet it
is only around 1538, according to Msgr. Jedin, that he began to study the
problems posed by the heretics on original sin, faith and justification.
Ecclesiastical studies must have fallen to discouraging levels when a man
with a background so defective was outstanding for eloquence and learning.
And yet, warm-hearted, generous to his enemies and rebellious subjects,
loyal to his friends, kind to all, Seripando was certainly, if not perhaps a
great man, a good man, and how his Order and the Church at large profited
from this goodness is the burden of this book.

Aux Sources de la Pensee de Marx: Hegel, Feuerbach. By FRANZ GREGOIRE.
Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1947. Pp.
204, with index.
Hegel and Feuerbach are the inJellectual parents of Karl Marx. From
Hegel, as it is well known, Marx took his dialectical method. On Feuerbach he drew for his materialism.
As Hegel had idealized matter,
Feuerbach materialized the ideal, bringing Hegel's system earthily to the
earth, where instead of interring it Marx pumped into its dead body the
dead blood of his economics and sociology. As such an artefact, Communism has descended to our own day-a crass philosophy of matter that
could not live without the dialectical spirit promulgating it. Without the
synthesis achieved by spirit, transcending time to discuss the origins and
the destiny of society, supporting the machine of dialectics and materialism--:-for art is only possible with reference to nature,-Communism
could not even be conceived. What is only economic cannot dominate its
economics, either conceptually or in action.
Hegel and Feuerbach, who contributed to Communism its ambivalent
forces that can only be held together by the pressure of iron curtains,
form the subject-matter of this highly interesting study by Professor
Gregoire. He excuses himself from the study of the British economic and
French sociological doctrines, that go to make up Marxism, on the ground
that the two German figures form the philosophical backdrop of Marx.
To a certain extent, and wholly in appearances, this is true. But the doctrines of men like Adam Smith and Saint-Simon, as in the case of modern
science when it passes for an ultimate, are of genuine philosophical stock
and could have been included for the more general reason that economics
and philosophy are synonymous in Marxism. Hegel and Feuerbach have

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401

been repudiated by the typical Latin and Anglo-Saxon mind. If Communism wins further theorists in these cultures, it is likely that economic
and sociological dogmas will prompt their views.
But this book is not to be disparaged for its exclusions in the face of
the riches which it has actually assembled. Hegel, denying that being is
simple and too often the victim of his own dialectical virtuosity when
attempting to unravel the complexity, is always·a problem to explain with
both brevity and fidelity. Whoever may be so baffied over this, perhaps
the most typical and synthetic of modern philosophers, is likely to look
long and in many languages before finding a clearer presentation of Hegel's
thought. After a short introduction to Communist philosophy, Professor
Gregoire launches into the considerable effort .of exposing Hegel's triadic
dialectic. As any philosopher should proceed, he studs his exposition with
rich examples that both explain Hegel and challenge the Thomist to bring
the riches of his own thought to bear upon not only Hegel's problems but
Hegel's solutions. That Hegel caught glimpses of great truths, much more
so than any original development since the middle ages, is hardly a matter
for question. For instance, he envisioned the world as moving toward
the Absolute and not centered on a meaningless treadmill. How does his
dialectical method square with the established realisms of potency and act?
These are not equal to each other since the equality of action and reaction, notwithstanding what the physicist says, would form a static universe. Novelty results from the clash of active and passive potencies. In
a deep sense, there must be more act than potency in the world to account
for motion and yet, because there is novelty, the potential must somehow
win out. Hegel's principles may well evoke Thomists to develop more of
the potentialities in their doctrine of nature and its finality.
Gregoire also has chapters on the pantheism of Hegel, his axiology, and
his philosophy of history. There follows a short chapter on Hegel and
Marx.
Feuerbach's philosophy is almost forgotten in the twentieth century.
Gregoire recalls it in the second part of his work, a statement of Feuerbach's philosophy of religion and his influence on Marx. If the second
part of this book is not as interesting as the first, the fault is not in
Gregoire but in Feuerbach who was a much grosser thinker than Hegel, his
master.
The work ends with two appendices, one a recasting of the famous
dialectical argument on the master and slave, the other containing extracts
from the works of Feuerbach. There is a copious index and a handily
subdivided table of contents.
One question will remain perhaps in the reader's mind after seeing Hegel
and Feuerbach side by side. The former held that there was an end to
dialectical development, the resorption of all into the Absolute. The latter
viewed the process as essentially infinite. How could Marx justify his

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BRIEF NOTICES

choice of Hegel's answer, holding as he did that the tensions of society
would end in the utopia of Communism? If the process ends it is not
dialectical; if it does not, it is not material. It is this finis operis which is
one of the most batHing puzzles in understanding Communism. Yet this
tenuous and enigmatic leap of the imperfect to the perfect is the central
principle of Communism. It is what makes it Communistic.

ll Devenire in Ariatotele. By CARLO GucoN.
202, with index.

Padua: Cedam, 1947. Pp.

The problem of motion may not be the principal axis in modem philosophy, but there is no. doubt that post-Renaissance thought, either in
fact or by flagrant omission, has always involved the issues that confronted Aristotle, the cosmologist. Thus Descartes and Leibniz, in the
company of modem scientism, never got down to motion; Hegel and Marx
never got beyond it; the existentialists never get up to it. Kant could only
reduce it to the static character of categories, substituting for the scholastic
tradition of nature as m,obile the Newtonian regard of matter as mass. For
all these reasons then, a basic statement of Aristotle's views on motion is a
welcome addition to the realistic philosophical literature of our day. Such
a statement is the aim of this book.
By steering completely clear of some of the larger controversies which
the texts of Aristotle present, the author has managed to organize his
subject-matter in a simple and straightforward manner, showing the historical setting that provoked the Aristotelian principles of potency and
act into their classic expression and then building on this clarifying foundation the whole edifice of Aristotle's cosmology on the intrinsic character of
motion. Time and quantity, the measures of motion, are not considered.
But such an omission is no serious set-back to the modem Aristotelian
reader's enthusiasm. Time and quantity: though victims of the natural '
inadequacies of empirical science, are constantly mentioned in the contemporary approach to reality. It is the intrinsic character of motion that
the modem period has forgotten, or badly misunderstood.
Such a book as this is a genuine contribution. It should be a potential
stimulus to Italian thought, suffused with the idealism of men like Croce
and Gentile and by Fascist propaganda on motion and its kindred topics
like work and war. But the book should also have value elsewhere. The
manuals of cosmology in both English and other languages give the impression, too often, that it is cosmological to begin with quantity, the continuum. Such an approach is one of the reasons for the scholastic failure
to make an accepted stand against the claims of modem physics. In such
a cosmology, motion cannot be treated at all. One. may well move from
motion to quantity, its measure. But one cannot move from quantity to

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408

motion. Aristotelian cosmology moves up the hierarchy of abstraction,
not down it.
The author points out in a clear and convincing language the necessity
of a substrate in motion, the reality of matter and form, the facts of
finality in nature. He gives an excellent defense of the maxim, omne quod
movetur ab olio movetur, propped up by an incisive analysis of the principle against the infinite regression. The exposition ends with a treatment
of Aristotle's doctrine on the Prime Mover and the second, eternal movers.
An interesting feature of this book that would recommend it as a convenient reference manual is the subdivisions of the chapters which identify
all of the larger topics in Aristotle's cosmology on motion as such. Those
who have read the Physics of Aristotle know that it is a difficult book
and that St. Thomas' commentary is necessary as a companion volume to
clarify Aristotle. The Physics, at least at first sight, seems to move
abruptly from one topic. to another and to involve questions like the arguments against Heraclitus and the Eleatics which are not properly cosmological but dialectical and pre-scientific. In fact, Jaeger has even argued
that the Physics was not written continuously but at various stages in
Aristotle's life.
There is one aspect of Aristotle which is perhaps not duly emphasized k
this book. Would the doctrines of potency and act suffice to define motion
of themselves? Aristotle apparently did not think so. He held that
motion must be known by induction, a fitting rebuttal to those who claim
to follow Aristotle but do not accord inductive primacy to motion. In
fact, when St. Thomas formulated his first argument for God's existence,
he called it the manifestior via, conceding to motion a primacy in discovery.
This book is the fifth volume in a series generally entitled " Problems of
Today" and edited by Ottaviano and Flores d'Arcais. Coming from Italy
which has supplied so much to Thomism in the past, including of course
St. Thomas himself, this book can well be a sign of the continued vitality
of wholesome thought in that country where material conditions of the
post-war world make it difficult to fulfill the maxim: primum vivere,
deinde philosophari.

Philosophy: Its Significance in Contemporary Civilization. By HmscH
LAZAAR SILVERMAN. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1946. Pp. 36.
The somewhat crowded format of this little essay allows Prof. Silverman
to say much more than appears at first glance. The table of contents lists
such interesting topics as the need, purposes, basic tasks, attitudes, types,
psychological character, constituents, definitions and a subjectivistic interpretation of philosophy. Philosophy is then considered in relation to
democracy, systematic thought, science, creative spirit, the good life, and
human nature. The essay ends with philosophy in contemporary civiliza-

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tion and some fundamental conclusions. Yet when one puts the book
down and attempts to complete the sentence: " the significance of philosophy is ... ,"one experiences a sense of puzzlement and frustration. It is
as if one were following the laying of a lovely mosaic, reveling in the
beauty of each exquisite bit, but when stepping back with anticipation
to view the completed picture, found no picture there.
Prof. Silverman uses many traditional expressions in exposing his ideas,
but the meaning he attaches to them varies from page to page. After a
not too flattering portrait of a philosopher as a different, anti-social being,
with more than normally intense inhibitions, incapable of practical affairs,
and the assertion that philosophy's greatest gift is skepticism with which
to meet every dogmatic assertion, he demands that philosophy be " useful
and of value," and that philosophers help mankind pass from verbal dialectics to a profound understanding of our communized production and distribution methods in technology and industry, and bring to light our true
objectives in life, conceived not in terms of abstractions but in terms of
the functions, the needs, the possibilities of life itself. Perhaps a philosopher could swallow that, but to a layman it looks like a contradiction
to expect from philosophers the practical answers it was agreed they were
incapable of by nature. Prof. Silverman also uses the term abstraction
loosely, to the extent at times of using it as a term of opprobrium, yet he
confesses he is an idealist. Another example of the topsy-turvy world in
which he dwells is his assumption that· abstractions and universals are the
cause and principles of multiplicity and division, and consequent confusion,
while the material and the concrete is the principle of unity, order, simplicity. "A changing civilization necessitates a simplification of worldly
concepts, a reduction to concrete terms." Mindful of his observation, that
" philosophers should display constantly the attitude of enquirers rather
than of expositors of absolute knowledge; ... the most confident affirmations must not be expressed in a tone that shows that they are regarded
as final," we should take him· at his word, and leave him to further reflection, for the philosophy that he gives us here is neither " useful " or " of
value " when viewed against the assured richness and completeness of the
Thomistic synthesis.

Why I Am For Tke Church. By CHARLES P. TAFT. New York: Farrar,
Straus, 1947. Pp.
The clarion tones of this apology for the Church by the distinguished
layman who is the President of the Federal Council of Churches in America
have the sound of brass and cymbals. Mr. Charles Taft bewails, in a
series of papers, the confusion of the world today, and offers " the church "
as a solution, but only leaves us worse confounded than before. It is
incredible that anyone, presumably trained as a lawyer in the niceties of

BRIEF NOTICES

405

logic, could present so slovenly a case based on private prejudices, unwarranted assumptions and amoebic definitions.
One looks in vain for a definite statement as to which, if any, of the
258 denominations is "the church" of Mr. Taft. However," the church"
that he is "for "-a barbarous expression-will have these marks. In
place of apostolicity, it must put God into politics, a thing, says he, the
primitive churches failed to do. Instead of sanctity, it must stand for the
dignity of the human personality, an idea which he believes first appeared
among the nonconformists in England. It is catholic only in the sense that
the better people, the nicest people in any community are members, in
whom one can have confidence. And finally, it must fight "secularism,
nationalism and the abuses of industrialism," and also Marxism and Hitler.
Mr. Taft is "for" a church which does these things.
He urges his readers again and again to adopt and develop a philosophy
of history, and yet his own naivete, or ignorance-the line between them
is sometimes difficult to draw-is astonishing. A warden of an Episcopalian church, his most lavish praise is spent on the discordant elements
and the discontents, the Methodist and Baptist revival. As he points with
pride to his Irish ancestry with one hand, he exalts Oliver Cromwell with
the other as a model of respect for human rights and the dignity of the
individual, the patron saint of toleration and compromise, the father of
democracy, worthy to stand beside Abraham Lincoln. Aside from the fact
that no one seems to have had an idea between the time of St. Augustine
and Oliver Cromwell, Hegel is credited with first conceiving the idea of
progress and perfection in human affairs. Even a glance at Somervell's
Toynbee might change some of his conclusions if he is a fair-minded man
since most of his premises are historically indefensible. For it is precisely history that enables Catholics to be uncompromising and absolutista heritage from the founder of tke one true Church, Jesus Christ.
One soon suspects that Jesus Christ, who incidentally "distilled his
philosophy from the Old Testament," would be uncomfortable in Mr. Taft's
church; for, however amorphous it might appear, it still excludes stubborn
Romanists and all who refuse to accept the political principle of compromise
and includes non-Christian groups, for " I am not proposing a destruction
of the other great religions, but their inspiration to join and help the
Christian church in fighting . . . the abuses of industrialism." Thus the
goal is not supernatural, but quite natural. Evangelicals are welcomed in
" the church " because " they believed in baptism and the Lord's supper
and these sacraments were neither sacerdotal nor sacrificial, but deeply
emotional and recreating." Imagine the plight of any minister Mr. Taft
might obtain for his Episcopal church who still cherished a belief in the
validity of his orders and a love for the liturgical beauty of his Prayer
Book.
Thus "the church" Mr. Taft is "for" resembles a cozy country club,

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BRIEF NOTICES

"emotional and recreating," where one will feel good and meet nice people who will help in solving the problems of labor and local government at
home and attacks on democracy abroad, all the while avoiding a definite
stand on anything, ready to compromise, and wearing a specious mask of
democracy by loudly proclaiming its undying respect for the individual
conscience, right or wrong.

The Encyclopedia of Psychology. Edited by P. L. HARRIMAN. New York:
Philosophical Library, 1946. Pp. 905. $10.
To compile an encyclopedia is admittedly a difficult task that none
can perform to the satisfaction of all readers. Choice and arrangement
of articles are open to all sorts of objections; even careful editing cannot
avoid altogether overlapping, repetitions, and contradictions. Nonetheless,
however difficult for the editor the task be, he is expected to achieve some
sort of harmony and consistency. These one sorely misses in this work.
The editor has set himself a threefold goal, in itself a hazardous enterprise when the goals differ widely. Dr. Harriman wishes to "meet the
requirements of the serious investigator " desirous of special information,
to furnish to students supplementary data and explanations, and also to
emphasize some of the trends of contemporary psychology.
The book can hardly be said to have accomplished these aims. The
choice of topics is questionable. The articles, save one, deal with problems,
as concept formation, motivation, intelligence tests; the exception is entitled
"G. C. Jung." Why not also "Freud" or "James?" Further, there are
articles which have nothing to do with psychology as such; they discuss,
for example, questions of organization, personnel, teacher (fifteen pages
reporting mainly on efficiency selection) . Too much space is given to the
purely anatomical and physiological. Eye and ear are thus minutely described; yet there is no treatment of the central nervous system while the
autonomic system is detailed. There is an article on colors, but none on
sounds. The apprehension of space and time is not mentioned. Instinct
is not considered (although there are many pages on the white rat in
psychology); nor is the unconscious, adjustment, and several others, all
important notions of modern psychology.
A final criticism could be directed at the bibliographies, a feature which
should enhance the value of an encyclopedia. The present work displays
no uniform policy; some bibliographies are missing entirely, the others of
unequal length, some appended, some in footnotes. A few of the articles
are, of course, excellent and highly informative. Too many are incomplete,
and some rather more difficult and technical than a student will find useful. The general impression is one of dissatisfaction; it may be true that
such an encyclopedia is needed, but this one will not fill the gap.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Ab Abarzuza, F. X. Manuale Theologiae Dogmaticae: Vol. III: De Sacramentis in genere et in specie. Chile: Apud Padre Las Casas, 1947.
(Marathon, Wis.: Capuchin Fathers.)
Pp. 530, with index.
Albert the Great, Saint, Of Cleaving to God. Oxford: Blackfriars, 1947.
Pp. 59. '2j-.
Bizet, J. A. Henri Suso et le Declin de la Scolastique. Paris: Aubier, 1946.
Pp. 393, with bibliography and index.
Suso et le Minnesang. Paris: Aubier, 1947. Pp. 18'2, with
bibliography.
Bourke, V. J. St. Thomas and the Greek Moralists. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948. Pp. 70. $1.50.
Boylan, E. M. The Mystical Body. Westminster, 1:ld.: The Newman
Bookshop, 1948. Pp. 130. $1.75 (paper $ .90).
Brennan, R. E. The Image of His Maker. ):[ilwaukee: Bruce, 1948.
Pp. 348, with index. $3.25.
Champagne, J. E. Manual of Missionary Action. Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press, 1948. Pp. 748, with charts. $6.00.
Cimetier, F. Breve Synthese de Theologie Morale Sociale. Tournai, Belgium: Desclee & Cie, 1945. Pp. 140. 35.00 francs belges.
Cotter, A. C. Natural Species. Weston, 1Iass.: Weston College Press,
1947. Pp. 280, with index. $3.00.
Couch, W. T. It Costs Us Nothing. Hinsdale, Ill.: Henry Regnery, 1948.
Pp. 17. $ .25.
Doronzo, E. De Eucharistia. (Tom. 1: De Sacramento; Tom. II: De
Sacrificio.) Milwaukee: Bruce, 1948. Tom. 1: Pp. 864, with indices.
$10.00. Tom. II: Pp. 496, with indices. $7.00.
Dunham, J. H. The Religion of Philosophers. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press (for Temple University Publications), 1947. Pp.
314, with index. $4.00.
Fortuna, A. G. P. Logica. San Miguel, FCP, Republica Argentina: Colegio
1947. Pp. 490, with index.
Frank, L. K. Society as the Patient. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1948. Pp. 409. $5.00.
Frankel, C. The Faith of Reason. New York: King's Crown Press, 1948.
Pp. 173, with index. $3.00.
Gilson, E. History of Philosophy and Philosophical Education. :Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1948. Pp. 68. $1.50.
Grabman, M. Die Theologische Erkenntnis- und Einleitungslehre des heiligen Thomas von Aquin. Freiburg, Switzerland: Paulusverlag, 1948.
Pp. 392, with index.

407

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Harding, M. E. Psychic Energy: Its Source and Goal. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1948. Pp. 510, with index. $4.50.
Joannes a S Thoma. De Certitudine Principiorum Theologiae; De Auctoritate Summi Pontificis. Quebec: Laval University, 1947. Pp. 881,
with indices.
Langer, S. K. Philosophy in a Neu• Key. New York: Penguin Books, Inc.,
1948. Pp.
with index. $ .85.
Loenertz, R. J. The Apocalypse of Saint John. New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1948. Pp. 171, with index.
Lottin, D. 0. Psychologie et Morale aux XIIe et XIIIe Siecles. Louvain,
Belgium: Abbaye duMont Cesar, 1948. Pp. 597. 400 fr. belges.
March, H. The Two Worlds of Marcel Proust. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1948. Pp.
with index. $8.50.
Maritain, J. and Cocteau, J. Art and Faith. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1948. Pp. 187, with index. $2.75.
Masure, E. The Christian Sacrifice. New York: Kenedy, 1948. Pp. 288.
Mauriac, F. Saint Margaret of CortomJ. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1948. Pp. 248. $8.00.
McDougall, W. H. Six BeUs Off Java. New York: Scribner, 1948. Pp.
iii, with index. $i.75.
Mercier, L. J. A. .American Humanism and the New .Age. Milwaukee:
Bruce, 1948. Pp.
with index. $4.00.
Merton, T. Figures for an .Apocalypse. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions,
1948. Pp. 111.
Mitterer, A. Die Zeugung der Organismen Insbesondere des Menschen.
Vienna: Herder, 1947. Pp. 240, with index.
Murray, R. The Forsaken Fountain. New York: Longmans Green, 1948.
Pp. 185. $U5.
Newman, J. R. and Miller, B. S. The Control of Atomic Energy. New
York: Whittlesey House, 1948. Pp. 447, with index. $5.00.
O'Neill, A. M. Ethics for the Atomic Age. Boston: Meador Publishing
Co., 1948. Pp. 411, with index. $8.00.
Petrin, J. Connaissance Speculative et Connaissance Pratique. Ottawa,
Ontario: Editions de l'Universite, 1948. Pp. 186.
Reetz, B. Ostern der Kiinigliche Tag. Wien: Verlag Herder, 1947. Pp. 208.
Schrecker, P. Work and History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1948. Pp. 850, with index. $5.00.
Stenonis. Opera Theologica. (Tomus I-II.) Copenhagen, Denmark: Skt.
Annae Skole, 1948. Vol. I: Pp. 526; Vol. II: Pp. 584, with indices
and editorial notes. $20.00.
Stolz, A. L'Ascese Chretienne. Chevetogne, Belgium: Iconographe, 1948.
Pp. 280. 65.00 fr. belges.
Thiel, M. Philosophieren: Eine Anleitung . Freiburg, Switzerland: Paulusverlag, 1947. Pp. 100.