THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EmToRs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

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

VoL. XVII

JANUARY, 1954

No.1

THE INCARNATION:
DE LA TAILLE VS. THOMISTIC TRADITION

ORE than twenty-five years have elapsed since Pere
Maurice de la Taille publicly proposed his fascinating
theory on "Created Actuation by Uncreated Act."
That teaching met a mixed reaction, but de la Taille's restatement and published defense of it lent it great vigor. The
intervening years have seen the influence of this very attractive
doctrine increase rather steadily; others having accepted his
teaching, applied it in yet further fields, and have judged it
most fruitful.
One cannot read de la Taille's own exposition of his position
without acquiring the conviction that the teacher himself lends
acceptability to the teaching. Three qualities mark his work:
true profundity, flavored with originality; wide theological
1

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

learning; and ease of presentation. These, the qualities of a
great teacher, one reverences in de la Taille.
Yet a new evaluation of his contribution to theology on this
point would seem opportune now. On the one hand, that
contribution is well understood, its meaning is clear; on the
other hand, aU danger of seeming to discuss a man is over.
Today, some ten years after his death, it is possible calmly
to evaluate the doctrine with no implication of judging its
author. We propose such a reappraisement in these pages. We
shall attempt three things: 1) a very brief resume of the teaching on created actuation by Uncreated Act with its application
to the light of glory, sanctifying grace and the Hypostatic
Union; 2) an appraisal of that doctrine; 3) an indication of its
general relevance to Thomistic tradition. This last step is
rather necessitated by de la Taille's assurance--even insistence
his teaching is traditional Thomism.
In brief we hope to establish from this short study that 1)
this doctrine of de la Taille denies by implication the distinction between the supernatural and the natural orders; 2) it
rests upon a confusion between being and becoming, between
formal and efficient causality; and 3) it is therefore inherently
unacceptable, and certainly un- Thomistic.
We proceed at once, then, to the short resume of de la
Taille's teaching, preserving so far as is reasonably possible his
own words. 1
1 De la Taille's presentation
and defense of this theory on created actuation by
Uncreated Act is contained in three articles. The first entitled " The Schoolmen,"
given in English as a paper at the 19'!5 Summer School of Catholic Studies, the
University of Cambridge, was published as part of the book, The Incarnation,
edited by Rev. C. I.attey, S. J. (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1926). The second
article entitled " Actuation cree par Acte incree," etc. appeared in Recherches de
Science Religieuse, XVIII (1928), 253-268. The third entitled "Entretien amicdi
d'Eudoxe et de Palamede sur Ia grace d'union," was published in Revue Apologetique, XLV, HI (1929), 5-26, 129-145. All three papers, the latter two translated
into English by Rev. Cyril Vollert, S. J., are now available in a single brochure,
The Hypostatic Union and Created Actuation by Uncreated Act, published at West
Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana. A most sympathetic discussion of
de Ia Taille's theory is the article by Rev. Malachi J. Donnelly, S. J., "The Theory
of R. P. Maurice de Ia Taille, S. J. on the Hypostatic Union," in Theological Studies,
II (1941), 510-526.

THE INCARNATION

I.

CREATED AcTuATION

BY UNcREATED

AcT:

AN ExPOSITION

OF DE LA TAILLE's TEACHING. 2

1. In General. 8

Actuation does not necessarily imply information. Act is the
factor in a being which makes it a being of such or such
perfection; actuation is the communication of the act to the
potency, or correlatively, a reception of that act in the
potency. It is a self-donation, a union. Actuation is called
information if the act is dependent on the potency; if between
act and potency there is mutual causality, mutual dependence.
Actuation which is not information is conceivable. If Infinite
Act-God-ever unites Itself to a created potency there cannot
be information involved, for no creature can cause the Uncaused
God. There will be actuation of the created potency, but no
information, no formal-material causality properly so called.
There will be a perfecting of the potency by Pure Act: a change
which is real, but which is neither the changeless Pure Act
nor the potency changed by the new reality, but a created
adaptation of the potency to Pure Act, an actuation of the
potency by Pure Act.
In three cases created actuation by Uncreated
is realized;
for in three instances Pure Act does unite itself to created
potencies, namely, to the created intellect in the Beatific Vision;
to the essence of the soul in justification; to the humanity of
Christ in the Incarnation. Consequently three created actuations by Uncreated Act are discernible: the lumen gloriae;
habitual grace; Christ's grace of union.
2 This exposition is taken chiefly from the second article by de la Taille mentioned
above. The thi1·d article, largely concerned with Thomistic tradition on the point
under discussion, we shall use more extensively when we come to that point. The
first article is considered in a separate, brief Epilogue. For purposes of convenience
the references to de Ia 'faille which we shall give will be to the brochure mentioned
above. Two reasons suggest this: first, the brochure offers a uniform and most
welcome translation; secondly, it is more readily available to American readers.
Hereafter we shall refer to it simply as The Hypostatic Union.
3 De Ia 'faille, The Hypostatic Union, pp. 29-30.

4

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

:i!. In Particular. 4

A) The Lumen Gloriae
Between God and the intelligence there will be a union
which is that of act with potency; for the intelligible is the
act of the one understanding. In order that the created mind
be united with God there must be a created adaptation of that
intelligence to Uncreated Act; an immediate disposition for it,
introduced by the Act. This adaptation will be the reception
of the Act in the potency, an association of the potency with
the Act. It is consequent to the Act, but antecedent to the
vital action which constitutes the vision. This is an actuation
which is not information by Pure Act; but it is a created actuation which informs its subject (the created intellect) and
which is dependent on that subject as on its material cause.
Clearly it is in the order of accident, not of substance; and
dearly it is supernaturaL It is the union of the created mind
with God as He is in Himself.
B) Habitual Grace."
The human soul, even in this life, is in potency to an accession
of divine life through an uncreated vital principle. This principle-God-cannot possibly inform souls; but communicating
Himself to them He equips them for the new life.
This new life consists properly in charity; but charity, as
friendship, supposes a certain community of life. Hence the
need for a oneness of life underlying even charity, a oneness
whereby the very essence of the soul will·be united to the divine
essence, associated with divine life, recipient of the divine
nature. This union is habitual, or sanctifying grace. The Act
which is divine life-God-comes " to actuate the receptive
capacity of the soul in order that the corresponding actuation
may arise in the souL"
Thus this actuation, or grace, is a created communication of
the Spirit of life. It is a quality which informs its subject; it
is a change in that subject, the potency's possession of the
4

Ibid., pp. 30-32.

" Ibid., pp. 32-34.

THE INCARNATION

5

Act, which entails the indwelling o£ God within us. It is a true
habit, a permanent accident; it, again, is obviously supernatural.
C) Christ's Grace o£ Union. 6
In Christ alone is realized substantial created actuation by
Uncreated Act. For Christ is one, not in nature, but in the
community o£ substantial existence among the composing
factors in Him. The humanity receives " a communication of
the act of divine existence as this Act is personal to the Word."
Again this is created actuation by Uncreated Act, this time of
the substantial order.
This substantial actuation is precisely Christ's grace of
union; a created grace, a substantial conformation of Christ's
humanity to the Word, yet not a substance, nor part thereof,
even as the substantial existence of creatures is not part of
their substance though it actuates that substance, substantially.
The human nature could not be the material cause of the
Word, but it is the material cause of the grace o£ union. The
Word is as perfective (but not as informing) act because He
alone is the term of the union. Since the created potency can
be only obediential with respect to this Act,-the Word-a
proportion between the potency and the act must be established; a substantial adaption which is, of course, the created
actuation.
The created actuation in question does not merge with
Christ's humanity: were the latter outside the theandric composite it would exist without such actuation. This actuation
is not merely supernatural as are the lumen gloriae and habitual
grace; the actuation proper to Christ is at the very summit of
the supernatural.
Here Pere de la Taille pauses to illustrate. He notes that
whenever an act of created existence is the actuation of its
substance no room is left £or distinction between existence by
way of act, and existence by way of actuation. But-and this,
he adds, helps to illustrate created actuation in the Incarnation
• Ibid., pp. 84-41.

6

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

-whenever the act of existence is independent, as regards its
duration, of the subject to which it is compared, then act and
actuation are distinct. Thus the act of existence proper to the
soul is the (existential) actuation of the soul, but it is not the
actuation of the body united to the soul. The act of existence
in man is one; yet it is proper to the soul and not to the body,
because the soul retains it when the body does not. Thus there
is in the body united to the soul a) the specific information of
the body by the essence of the soul, and b) a communication to
the body of that existence by which the soul exists. This latter
is other than the existence communicated; for the act of
existence survives when the communication to the body ceases.
The actuation of the body is perishable, corporeal; the soul's
existence is incorruptible and immaterial.
Similarly in Christ. The actuation of His humanity by the
Act (i. e. by the esse of the Word) occurs in time; the Act is
eternal. In Christ, then, we must say, adds de la Taille, that
there is but one existence if it is a question of the Act by which
the natures exist; but equally truly one must say that there
are in Him two existences, if it is a question of the actuations.
The actuation of the human nature is created, temporal; the
actuation of the Word-Who is the Act-is uncreated, eternal.
Community in the act of existence between the diverse natures
necessarily supposes in one of them an actuation quite different
from that which is found in the other.

II.

CREATED

AcTuATION

BY UNCREATED

AcT:

A

CRITICISM oF DE LA T AILLE's TEACHING.

I have suggested above that two difficulties are basic to
the whole theory proposed by Pere de la Taille. I shall attempt
to establish this by examining each of the three applications of
the theory, but I shall reverse the order he followed, considering his doctrine first, on the Hypostatic Union; secondly, on
habitual grace; thirdly, on the lumen gloriae. There are two
reasons for this. The first is that de la Taille himself considered
as principal his teaching on the grace of union; it would seem

THE INCARNATION

7

to have been largely for the sake of illustrating this that he
applied the teaching of created actuation by Uncreated Act to
the lumen gloriae and to habitual grace. Critical attention,
therefore, properly centers on the teaching about the grace of
union. The second reason, directly related to the first, is that
the basic difficulties of the theory seem easier to analyze in its
application to the grace of union.
A. The Hypostatic Union.
The grace of union in Christ is, for de la Taille, a substantial
created actuation by Unc:reated Act; the created communication to Christ's humanity of the Uncreated Act of the Word's
existence. This, as we saw, he illustrated by analogy with the
one act of existence in man. This act of human existence is
common to body and soul as the Word's existence is common
to Christ's divine and human nature; yet its actuation of the
body, since corruptible, is different from its incorruptible actuation of the soul; as the Word's actuation, in time, of Christ's
humanity is different from Its eternal formality as Act identical
with the Divine Nature.
The reader of de la Taille is sure to find this analogy of
soul to Word rather striking. It can seem a wonderful illustration in the natural order of what de la Taille teaches about the
supernatural order. It will be profitable, therefore, to consider
briefly the implications of this comparison, bearing in mind, of
course, that it is a mere example, but bearing in mind, too, that
misconceptions in the example can shed light on misconceptions
in the doctrine exemplified. First we shall consider the example,
then the doctrine it illustrates, i.e. the Hypostatic Union.
The judgment that in the human composite the act of existence is not the (existential) actuation of the body; the judgment that the communication from soul to body is some reality
other than the existence communicated-this is the whole point
of the example. Yet this precisely must be questioned. First,
it seems squarely opposed to Saint Thomas on whom de la
Taille claims always to base his teachings. Several times Saint
Thomas discusses this very matter of the one existence of the
spiritual soul and the material body. He writes, for example,

8

THOMAS Uo MULLANEY

In order that anything be the substantial form of matter two thing&
are required. One is that the form be, in a substantial way, the
principle of being to that of which it is the form; I do not mean an
efficient, but a formal principle by which something is and is
called ens. Whence follows the second requisite: namely, that form
and matter have (convene in) one existenceo
The fact that
an intellectual substance is subsistent does :not prevent its being
the formal principle of being of matter, as communicating its existence to matter. For it is not unfitting that a composite and its very
form subsist in the same existence since the composite is only
through the form ... 7
0

0

•

0

Again in the opusculum De Spiritualibus Creaturis SL Thomas
wrote: " (The soul) receives the body to a communication of
this existence; and thus there is one existence of soul and body
which is the existence of the mano For if the body were united
to it (the soul) according to some other existence it would
follow that the union would be accidental." 8 In the same article
St. Thomas teaches that the soul can communicate its own
existence to the human body; that it draws the body to its
existence; that the soul, though incorruptible, is not in any
genus o:r species, is not a person or hypostasis: all this is proper
to the composite. The :reason? In St. Thomas it is most evident and explicit-the soul is but a part of human nature and
" has the perfection of its nature only in union with the
The existential actuation of the body is the identical
(existential) actuation of the soul: for there is, as St. Thomas
:repeatedly teaches, but one human reality potential to existence, viz., the composite. It has but one actuation, viz., its
act of existence. This has always been the understanding of
the Thomists, and as a matter of fact St. Thomas would be
unintelligible if de la Taille's account were correct; for St.
Thomas in principle answered de la Taille's position long
before it was formulated.. He refers to the objection that " an
intellectual substance cannot communicate its being (exist11 Cont. Gent., c. 68.
De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a. 2, ad 3.
9 Ibid., ad 5; cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 75, a. 4; a. 2, ad 1.

7

8

THE INCARNATION

9

ence) to corporeal matter so that the existence of that intellectual substance and of the corporeal matter be one; for
diverse genera (of things) have diverse modes of existing, and
more noble substances, more noble existence." 10 This ancient
difficulty is roughly de la Taille's position: since the body is
corruptible its existential actuation must similarly be corruptible and temporal. But St. Thomas answered the difficulty.
This identical existential actuation is the existence "of the
corporeal matter as of a recipient and of a subject raised to
something higher; but of the intellectual substance as of a
principle." If de la 'faille is correct, if the existential actuation
communicated to the body is like the body, corporeal, corruptible, temporal, how can the body be said to have been raised
through that communication to something higher? Rather, as
de la Taille demands, its existence would be exactly like it,
corporeal, transitory, etc.
Thus St. Thomas (and his Commentators) insist on the total
unity of the existence of a composite, expressly including the
human composite. So we read:
beyond doubt the (human) soul has in itself perfect being (existence): nor through its conjunction to the body is there made any
other existence; that very being which is per se the soul's is made
the existence of the composite: for the existence of a composite is
only the existence of its form. . . . The composition which affects a
soul after, according to our way of understanding, its esse completum does not make another existence because without doubt
that would be accidental. 11

If de la Taille insists, then, on postulating an existential -communication to the body which communication is distinct from
the soul communicating, let him admit its nature as accidental:
and so deny the substantiality of man as such. It is the
constant teaching of Thomism that there is a single existence,
in every sense one, of any composite including man: though
this existence is received by matter thro'ttgh the form: and the
form is that " quo totum est." 12
10

12

11 I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 1?, ad 2 et ad 3.
II Cont. Gent., loc. cit.
II Cont. Gent., c. 54; cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosopkicus, II, pp. 60,

144-146, 379, etc. (Reiser edition).

10

THOMAS U, MULLANEY

Note how deep is the cleavage. St. Thomas teaches that the
soul communicates its own existence to the body, though that
existence is not dependent on the body; the new teaching is
that it does not for " the communication to the body will be
something other than the existence communicated." According
to St. Thomas the body is as it were elevated by its existence;
according to de la Taille the communication from soul to body
is no nobler than the body. For St. Thomas the suppositum is
that which properly exists; for de la Taille the act of human
existence is proper to the soul.
Perhaps there is no more profound explanation of the unity
of soul and body in one incorruptible existential actuation than
the Commentary of Fe:rrariensis on II Contra Gentiles, c. 68.
That commentary, a mere exposition of St. Thomas' thought,
is in strong contradiction to the new doctrine, for it insists on
one act (or actuation) of the composite as such; and on the
incorruptibility of that single act or actuation; for any other
actuation would, necessarily, be accidental.
But not only does de la Taille in this oppose St. Thomas:
he tends, too, to a denial of that real distinction between
created essence and existence, which distinction he explicitly
affirms.
He ascribes, for example, to existence functions which are
proper to the essential order alone. So from existential act of
the soul united to body as to potency there results a new
:reality, viz. the actuation of the body which by de la Taille's
own description is identical not with the act of existence, and
not with the body but which is, nevertheless, of the substantial
order. It is a quid novum, it is a third thing somewhat as
in the essential order the union of matter and form results in
the composite which though substantial is yet identical with
neither matter nor form. Thus from de la Taille's failure, in
his general metaphysics, to distinguish sharply between act
and potency there follows the ascribing to existence of the
proper function of essential principles, viz. to compose a
substantial composite.

THE INCARNATION

n

Note, incidentally, how the wedding of potency and act
involves the divorce of matter and form. For de la Taille the
substantial principles of essence do not make one essential
reality, actuated by one actuation. Potency (body) has its
existential actuation quite distinct as actuation from that of
the soul (act); the two actuations differ as the temporal from
the aeviternal, the perishable from the incorruptible, the
corporeal from the spirituat He holds against St. Thomas not
one nature, as potency to one existential actuation; but rather
two realities having different natures and predicates with correspondingly different "actuations." The unity of man disappears, though this de la Taille would hardly admit. Such a consequence is inevitable. When the distinction between act and
potency, between created essence and existence is obscured,
then the nature of created being escapes us in the shadows;
and with it all hope of accounting for that unity which is
:really identical with that being.
From the example-the act of existence in its relation to the
soul and to the body-we pass to a consideration of the thing
exemplified, viz. the existence of the Divine Word in relation
to the two natures of Christ. For the sake of continuity we
shall begin by applying here the criticism of the example,
namely, that de la Taille tends to a confusion of essence and
existence. To this, we shall add further, only a criticism of his
concept of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural orders.
For de la Taille, somewhat as the one act of human existence
communicates to the body an actuation different from itself,
so the Word communicates to the human nature of Christ the
created grace of
existential actuation, a created
reality which as informing the created nature is distinct from
that nature; and which as created is distinct from the uncreated existence. This created actuation de la Taille variously
describes as a certain amelioration of that nature; its tractio
to the substantial Word of God; a passio in the creature which
pas.no is the foundation of the created relation which is the
union itself. This tractio or passio Saint Thomas and theo-

12

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

logical tradition call the assumption of the human nature. 13 For
de la TaiHe it is a created reality distinct from the extremes
united and from the relation of union between them: it is the
union fundamentally.
At very least it can be said that this position is foreign to
Thomistic tradition. This de la Taille admits, or rather complains of,14 though he does, curiously, work hard to show that
some Thomists have held a theory somewhat similar to his
own-and relies heavily for this on Billuart. Yet Thomists in
fact agree with this same Billuart who says (in a passage found
in the very place de la Taille cites, but not included in the
citation) "exercitium terminandi (humanam naturam) non est
aliquid creatum." 15 Traditionally Thomists have spoken of an
assumption of the human nature, sometimes of a tractio of that
nature to the Word: but they have never understood it to be
a created reality other than the relation of union. Now how
can Thomists admit an assumption, or a tractio and not imply
the passio de la Taille describes as a created reality actuating
the human nature? Here two points are to be considered:
first, that even considering the efficient causality exercised by
God in uniting Christ's human nature to the Word any true
passio or mutatio of that human nature is impossible; and
second, that, in particular, the Verbum as terminating or
personalizing that human nature could not possibly cause in
it the passio or mutatio described by de la Taille.
As to the first point, Thomists conceive the uniting of Christ's
humanity to the Word to be without any true passio in that
humanity. Why? Because they understand the profound truth
so simply enunciated by St. Thomas: subtracto motu ab
actione et passione, non remanet nisi relatio. 16 Now in the
St. Thomas, Summa Theol., HI, q. 8.
Ibid., pp . .57-.58.
15 Billuart, Summa Sancti Thomae, t. V, Tractus de lncamatione, diss. IV, art. 8
13

14

(p. 418).
16 Summa Theol., I, q.
a. 8, ad 1; q. 41, a. 1, ad
q. 4.5, a. 2, ad
a. 8; 111
Physic., lect. 5, nn. 7-9; de Pot., q. 3, a. 8. The latter two places particularly make
evident the necessity and rich meaning of this axiom.

THE INCARNATION

13

uniting of Christ's humanity to the esse of the Word any true
motion is impossible. Motion, " the act of the being in potency
precisely inasmuch as it is in potency," presupposes an existent
subject and names in that subject its transition to new actuality.
But Christ's humanity did not preexist to its union with the
Verbum-to this we must all agree. Consequently there can
be no motion presupposed to that union; and where there is
no motion there can only be, again in St. Thomas' words,
"relatio-quaedam cum novitate essendi." 17 Hence in the Incarnation we must admit the extremes joined and in addition the
created relation of union inhering in the created human nature
of Christ-but no more. Analogously in creation we admit the
thing created together with its real relation to the Creator:
but, because motion is not involved in creating we admit no
more, i. e. no passio, no mutatio but only relatio quaedam cum
novitate essendi. 18 Thus by confusedly introducing into .the
Hypostatic Union concepts which have verification only in
most imperfect changes, Pere de la Taille implicitly renders
that union less ineffable, less dignified.
But the great theologian fell victim to an even more subtle
confusion in this matter. Note what is radically involved in
his position that the Verbum, terminating, personalizing the
human nature of Christ produces in it a certain passio or
mutatio which is the created actuation of that humanity. In
what order of causality is passio to be found? It is a reality,
properly speaking, only in the order of efficient causality; it
corresponds, in a recipient, to the actio of an agent. Thus it
can be and, in natural changes, is precedent to the inter-play
of material-formal causality between a subject and its new
form, because the agent through its efficient action induces that
form in the matter.
Passio, however, cannot, properly, be an element in the interplay of formal-material causality, or of quasi-formal and quasimaterial causality. :;.Y.[atter is informed by its form; we do not
say mate1·ia patitur a forma. Neither passio nor mutatio can
17

De Pot., loc. cit.

18

Summa Theol., q. 45, a. 3.

14

THOMAS U, MULLANEY

be as a quasi-formal effect. Yet Pere de la Taille conceived and
described passio and mutatio as the quasi-formal effect of the
Verbum in the human nature of Christ. Thus one real defect
in this application of the theory of created actuation by Uncre:ated Act-a defect which we shall, analogously, discover in
all applications of the theory-is positing as a quasi-formal
effect of Uncreated Act that which pertains to the efficient
order and not to the formal or quasi-formal order at alL There
is he1·e a confusion between change (the actio-passio exchange)
which is a becoming, and its term, a being. Passio is not a
quasi-formal effect because becoming is not being; because
imperfection is not pedection, because the conditions of potency
are not the conditions of act.
In metaphysical terms we can say that there is involved here
a confusion between potency and act. A quasi-formal effect is
a thing, a being, an act or actuation; passio and mutatio
pertain to motion which inherently regards, by definition,
potency.
One further point demands to be made. On de la Taille's
own principles his teaching on the created actuation by the
Word of Christ's human nature is inadequate. If the actuation
of the body by the soul is, in men generally, different from the
existence of the soul as this theory holds, then the (existential)
actuation of Christ's body is a different reality from the actuation of His souL Thus we should find in Christ, on de la Taille's
premises, three actuations rather than the two on which de la
Taille insists-and, of course, no one substantial actuation of
His humanity. I£ this theory be true, what of the existence of
the body of Christ during its time of substantial separation
from His soul? Given the reality of the death of the Lord His
soul could hardly have produced a passio in His body during
those days; for passio, the correlative of actio presupposes the
union of agent and patient. Hence eithH the entombed body
of Christ had no existential actuation at all, or it had that
actuation from a source other than His souL On the first
supposition there would have been no sacred body to entombwhich is mere nonsense. On the second alternative the body,

THE INCARNATION

15

actually existing by an existence unrelated to the existence of
Christ's soul, would have had a new existence different at very
least numerically from that of Christ's soul-thus that body
would not have been the existent reality born of Mary, but
numerically at least a new thing. There is but one escape, viz.
to suppose that from the first moment of the Incarnation the
Lord's body received its "actuation" immediately from the
Verbum and not through His soul-and this is contrary to the
law of nature succinctly expressed by St. Thomas caro humana
sortitur e8se per animam. 19
In the natural order, then, de la Taille through an unfortunate confusion of the efficient and formal (or quasi-formal)
orders misconceived the union of the human nature of Christ
to the Word as implying a passio as a positive created reality.
In fact true pas8io or mutatio is to be found in this union,
neither in the efficient nor in the quasi-formal order. Positing
such a mu,tatio springs from a confusion of all communication
with motion; it leads to suppositions which are untenable.
Our second general point of criticism is this: Pe:re de la
Taille misconceived obediential potency and consequently
denies, by implication, the real and vastly important distinction
between the natural and the supernatural orders. For, note
that the created actuation of Christ's human nature by the
Word is supernatural, indeed it is" at the summit of the supernatural." Yet this eminently supernatural reality informs the
human nature of Christ, according to de la Taille; conversely,
the human nature is its mateTial cause in the true meaning of
material causality.
Now a cause is a principle whence something originates, or
proceeds, with dependence in being. A material cause, in
common with other true causes, actually contributes to the
constitution and conservation of the effect. Thus, if de la
Taille be correct, the human nature of Christ positively contri19 This difficulty in the theory of de Ia Taille is peculiar to that theory, for its
demand of a passio in the potency as actuated requires a physical conjunction
between act and potency. Without such conjunction a true passio is quite impossible.

16

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

butes by its natural powers to the being of a substantial,
supernatural entity. But John of St. Thomas writes that the
opinion of some
that an obediential potency is inchoatively supernatural is false, if
it be understood that it is intrinsically and positively supernatural;
for thus something would be of the supernatural order naturally
and intrinsically. But this (opinion) is true if understood negatively, or denominatively from some supernatural extrinsic agent.
But this is to be obediential through non-repugnance with respect
to a superior power. . . . In order that something be moved by a
supernatural agent it should not have a positive proportion to it
but rather it ought to be far from it and deficient, as of a different
order, and so it cannot be positively coordinated with that (superior
agent) but only negatively or by non-repugnance; and this is a
potency's being obediential.Z 0

But in speaking of formal and material causality the same
authority writes: " Intrinsic proportion, so that matter and
form be of the same order, pertains not to a mere condition
but to the intrinsic ratio of these causes, because the ratio of
causing is that by which the cause is proportioned to the thing
caused." 21
Essentially the same account of obediential potency as distinct from true material causality is given by the Salmanticenses describing obediential potency on an order "of pure
capability ... not of any sort whatsoever but such that of
itself it does not have proximate efficacy for attaining them
(L e. supernatural :realities) nor is it due it that it attain
them." 22 And Garrigou-Lagrange in our own day writes: "the
obediential potency in a creature relative to God is not an
active faculty, but a passive aptitude, indeed this aptitude is
nothing other than mere non-repugnance." 23 In St. Thomas'
own phase: " supernatural principles suppose nothing positive
in man." 24
The point o£ difficulty is dear. Material causality involves
an intrinsic,
proportion between the material cause
2

° Cursus Philosophicus, II, pp. 94 .• 95.

21

Ibid., p. 237.

22

Salmanticenses, I, pp. 97-98.

De Revelatione, I, p. 353.
q. 9!, a. l.
•• II Sent., d.

23

THE INCARNATION

17

and its formal complement. The material cause is subjective
potency with regard to that form. Obediential potency on the
contrary involves no such positive proportion between it and
the form; there is only that objective capacity which is mere
non-impossibility, non-repugnance.
How, then, does a Tho mist conceive the function of an
obediential potency? To be sure, that potency (or, ultimately
its subject if the potency in question is not of the substantial
order) is the subject in which the supernatural form is, but
not a subject out of 'which it becomes, or is. Hence the substantial subject does have its existence, as it were, communicated to the supernatural form: but that subject in no sense
contributes to the intrinsic constitution of the nature or essence
of the form in question, 25 for it cannot. Could it do so there
would be no disproportion between the two, hence no supernaturality on the part of the form. Carefully, then, the Thomist
distinguishes between essence and existence, between the form's
esse tale and ine8se. By divine power the esse tale is constituted, constituted as resident in this existent: between the
existent and the form there is not repugnance-but neither is
there that procession of the latter from the positive potentiality
of the former, which constitutes the exercise of material causality properly so-called.
How different the outlook of Pere de la Taille! " The material
causality of the human nature has no reference to anything in
the theandric composite except the grace of union," 26 which is
" at the summit of the supernatural." Once we admit proper
material causality in a natural thing with respect to a supernatural form we have asserted proportion, and intrinsic correlation between the two orders.
It might seem that this criticism is weakened, if not destroyed, by the example of the human soul. The soul is in
the body; the body is not that out of which the soul is educed.
25 We are
here, obviously, supposing that the supernatural form is of the
accidental order. The special problem of a supernatural creature of the substantial
order we shall consider soon.
26 The Hypostatic Union, p. 35.

2

18

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

Yet the body is the true material cause of man. The same can
be applied, analogously, in the supernatural order, one might
argue.
The objection is merely superficial. Granted that the soul
is, in ratione substantialitatis, complete, it is nevertheless, in
ratione speoiei, incomplete; of itself it does not constitute a
complete nature but depends intrinsically and positively on the
body as on its material cause and only together with that body
does it constitute a human nature. Hence the body's material
causality involves not only that the soul is in it as in a subject,
but also that the effect-a man-is constituted out of it as out
of one of its intrinsic causes. Even here material causality includes the procession of the proper effect out of the matter.
Yet this latter is precisely what is impossible in the case of
an obediential potency.
Therefore, Pere de Ia Taille's position that Christ's human
nature is the material cause of the supernatural grace of union
invplves a denial of the proposition that that human nature is
merely an obediential potency with respect to a S'.Ipernatural
reality. Note that de la Taille himself never conceived this
material causality, of which he writes, as mere non-repugnance.
Writing of formal and material causality he says very clearly,
" There is a reciprocity of good offices, an exchange of resources
... there is mutual indebtedness and interdependence." 27 He
himself creates the difficulty: the difficulty of a supernatural
effect dependent for its being on the " good offices . . . the
resources " of a merely natural thing.
It must be noted that a special difficulty is involved in de la
Taille's teaching that the Word's "created actuation" of
Christ's human nature is of the substantial order. Surely the
good theologian, who so carefully cites Thomistic authorities,
ought to have known the clear Thomistic tradition that a
created, supernatural, substantial reality is impossible, intrinsically contradictory. 28 As Billuart argues (and his is but one
•• Ibid., p. 29.
•• For "sample " views see Gonet, Clypeua Theologiae Thomiaticae, t. V, Tractatus
VITI (de Gratia), disp. II, a. 8; Billuart, op. Lit., t. I, diss. IV, a. 5; GarrigouLagrange, De Deo Uno, pp. 294-295.

THE INCARNATION

19

voice in the long tradition: a voice which de la Taille echoes in
other things)
Supernaturality consists in a transcendental order to God, as He
is in Himself, and as elevated above all nature, as to the specificative object and the connatural end .... Therefore, a supernatural
being is constituted essentially through an order to something extrinsic, namely to God as He transcends every creature. But it is
impossible that there be given a created substance ... which is
essentially constituted by an order to something extrinsic because
substance is above all complete, a being in se et ad se and so it has
its constitutive within its own line (limits) in such fashion that it
cannot seek its species from something extrinsic. 29

Among Thomists there is unanimity on the proposition that
a supernatural, created reality of the substantial order is impossible. The clear words of Saint Thomas demand that
unanimity. He writes that in defining substance "nothing
extrinsic is included: every substance is defined in te:rms
merely of its material and formal principles. . . . The reason is
that a definition must express what a thing is ... and substance is something complete in its being and kind." Thus if
we suppose anything substantial, created, and supernatural,
then the supernatural-which is above all creatures-enters in
as an intrinsic constituent, as matter or form, of the creature.
One and the same substantial principle is and is not above the
created order.
Note again how deep is the cleavage. For de la Taille the
"created actuation" of Christ's humanity is" absolute as a substantial actuation, and it is relative, essentially :relative to the
Word's personal existence." Yet St. Thomas expressly held that
substance can be defined only in terms of intrinsic causes because substance " is something complete in its being and kind "
-it is not then "essentially relative." Clearly de la Taille was
quite free to imagine supernaturally relative substances if he
so chose; but accuracy demands that he desist from claiming
affinity,-and a fortiori-identity,
with Thomism.
20

so

Billuart, loc. cit., par. 4.
II de Anima, lect. 1. n. l!18.

20

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

This same accuracy forces one to the observation that de Ia
Taille's position is not merely contrary to Thomism-it is
contrary as well to the distinction, basic in all Christian
thought, between Creator and creature. (I do not imply that
this tendency is original, among Christian thinkers, to de la
Taille-very far from it. The tendency is basic to all Suarezianism, implicit in the very first proposition of Suarezian metaphysics). For what is "the supernatural" to which, according
to de la Taille, the " created substantial actuation " postulated
belongs? If "supernatural" signifies anything at all, as for
Christians it must, it signifies that which is above created
nature, and is proper to the Divine. "Those things are properly
called natural which are caused by the principles of nature.
But those things are supernatural which God reserves to
Himself." 31
Thus the supernatural exceeds created nature, and is proper
to the divine order: a created substance or principle does not
exceed created nature, cannot do so if it is created. Thus a
supernatural created substantial reality as supernatural would
pertain to the divine: as created to the non-divine. Hence
infinite distinction between the Divine Creator and limited
creature would be annihilated-there would be a medium. In
all restraint may we not say that de la Taille's supposition is
not alone un-Thomistic; it is, in addition, self-contradictory,
and perilous at least to one basic p0int of faith.
To all this one can object: the Sacred Humanity of Christ
does in fact exist by something which is proper to God in His
transcendence, viz. by the esse of the Divine Word. Hence His
humanity is in fact related to something divinely transcendent.
The answer is, that while Christ's humanity is related (by a
relation which is an accident, not a substance) to the
transcendent esse of the Word it is not related to a created
supernatural, substantial act-that is the point. For such
actuation as created would be, inherently, of finite degree or
perfection; yet as supernatural, i.e. of the divine order, it
81

St. Thomas, Suppl., q. 6, a. 1.

THE INCARNATION

would .be specifically of an infinite order of perfection. The
substantial actuation which de la Taille proposes involves both:
as supernatural it would be a specifically infinite substance; as
created, specifically finite.

B. Sanctifying or Habitual Grace.
Next vre consider de la Taille's exemplification in habitual
grace of his doctrine or created actuation by Uncreated Act.
These criticisms will be most brief; the criticism urged against
his teaching on Christ's grace of union need only be applied
here again.
Here, as in the teaching on Christ's grace of union, de la
Taille, whatever his intention, does implicitly deny the distinction between the natural and the supernatural orders. He
teaches that habitual grace is a created actuation produced in
the human soul by God's own essence. This Act-God-comes
that " actuation may arise in the soul"; habitual grace is a
reality " informing its proper subject," an " actuation of the
potency by the Act." 32 There is involved then, on the side
of the potency or the created nature, material causality in the
true sense, with respect to a supernatural entity; the natural
is a true cause of the supernatural, this time in the order of
accidents. The deplorable and untraditional misconception
inherent in this view has been indicated already. It implies,
as we have seen, a positive proportion between the essence of
the soul as a thing of nature, and the life of God as supernatural; it implies that the soul by its natural " resources " or
its "good offices" positively contributes to the essential constitution of a supernatural reality; for, according to de la Taille
himself, that is what a material cause does.
In the second place sanctifying grace is, according to the
French theologian, "the change of the potency" (i.e. of the
soul) , its amelioration, and also " its union ... with the subsistent Act." At one and the same time it is the change or
mutatio and the formal modification.
23

The Hypostatic Union, pp. 33-34.

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

Here again is the confusion about motion. The fact is that
the infusion of habitual grace is, as all admit, instantaneous:
a man cannot be partially justified and partially not justified.
The instant of justification can be and, in adults, normally is
preceded by a change of moral dispositions which change is
successive-yet the infusion of habitual grace is not successive.
Hence it involves no motion. Sublato motu ab actione et passione non remanet nisi relatio. The infusion of grace, then,
involves no real passio in the soul. In an instant there is life,
divine life, present in the soul, yes; but there is no process, no
passio whereby it becomes; and this precisely because grace is
supernatural, so that the soul cannot cooperate as patient in
its production. Grace can presuppose change (in dispositions);
but it itself is not a change.
Pere de la Taille, while admitting that habitual grace is a
certain formal modification of the essence of the soul, nevertheless conceived and described it after the manner of an
efficient modification. Quite apart from the truth that grace,
as an instantaneous infusion, cannot involve change in the
proper sense is the more profound truth that no formal modification is a change or passio. Change, and passio belong to the
order of becoming; formal modification to the order of being
whether substantial or accidental. Form is the act of being as
actual; motion which is implied in passion is the act of being as
potential. Being-in-potency is really distinct from being-in-act;
and therefore change is really distinct from formal modification"
Especially to be noted in de la Taille's consideration of
habitual grace is his teaching that grace is the quasi-formal
effect of the
united to the soul.
" This union of essence with essence is called sanctifying
grace. It, too, in addition to the created gift that constitutes
it, implies an uncreated Gift without which it would lapse into
nothingness. The Act of divine life itself must come to actuate
the receptive capacity of the soul in order that the corresponding actuation may arise in the souL" 33 First God indwelling;
33

Op. cit., p. 33.

THE INCARNATION

then grace as the communication from Him, as the created
actuation which, as it were, spontaneously arises.
But this is an inversion. Traditional theology and most
notably the Thomistic tradition teaches that God indwells
through grace; grace is the principle, not truly the consequent
of the indwelling; grace, that is, together with charity and the
gifts of the Holy Ghost. Grace is not God present to the soul,
as de la Taille teaches: rather it is the mediate cause through
which that presence is achieved.
As nature principles faculties, grace principles the theological
(and infused moral) virtues and the gifts: and it is in and
through the operation of these latter that God's special presence to the just is realized. " Besides the common mode
(according to which God is present to all things) there is a
special mode which is proper to the rational creature, in whom
God is said to be as the thing known in the knower, and the
thing loved in the lover. Because by knowing and loving the
rational creature attains ... to God Himself according to this
special mode God is said ... to be in the rational creature." 34
John of St. Thomas especially has developed in detail Thomistic
tradition on this point; but the tradition itself is clear. Grace
is a true principle of the Indwelling.
Note de la Taille's source of confusion. The thing principled
-the Indwelling--causes its own principle. The radical, subjective capability (grace) is the formal perfection. Capability
and its perfection merge.

C. The Lumen Gloriae
Lastly in this section-and briefly-we consider de la Taille's
teaching on " created actuation by Uncreated Act " in its application to the l·umen glm·iae. Here again we shall meet the two
basic difficulties already twice encountered, together with a
third proper to the Jesuit theologian's teaching on the lumen.
There is immediate evidence of de la Taille's breakdown of
the distinction between the natural and the supernatural
orders; for here, too, a mere creature is presented as being a
"'Smnma Theol., I, q. 48, s. 8.

24

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

true and intrinsic cause of an effect which is properly supernatural. " This created actuation [the lumen gloriae] of the
potency informs its subject: it is dependent on the latter as
on its material cause." 35 The unacceptability and non-traditional character of this proposition we have, I think, treated
quite sufficiently in considering its counterpart in de Ia Taille's
teaching on the Incarnation and habitual grace. This third
time a mere noting of the repetition suffices.
Secondly, there is most clearly involved here also the now
familiar confusion between diverse orders of causality. " This
disposition for both the Act and the operation [viz.-of seeing
God as He is] which at the same time is the change of the
potency and the union of the potency with the Act-all this
is in the light of glory." 36 And again de la Taille refers to the
lumen as" an amelioration" of the potency. The lumen, then,
is a certain change, amelioration, or passio in the intellect; and
at the same time its formal modification.
The answer to this position is, roughly, already evident from
what has been said above. First, the infusion of the lumen
gloriae is instantaneous (because a man cannot both be seeing
God as He is, and not seeing God as He is) and as such without any true passio or mutatio. Secondly, since the lumen
gloriae is a certain formal modification of the created mind it
could not in any true sense imply mutatio or passio for its
subject. The lumen must be one or the other: either an
efficient cause to whose action there corresponds passio in
the subject; or a form in the mind: but since becoming is not
being the lumen cannot be both.
One readily admits, of course, that theologians, St. Thomas
included, speak of the lumen (as indeed they speak also of
grace) as involving a change in the subject. But that is a
manner of speaking to which we are bound by our poverty of
vocabulary. Considering the efficient productio11 of the lumen
in the created intellect we must use the word change because
we have no word which accurately describes instantaneous
•• The. Hypostatic Union, p.

•• Ibid., loa. cit.

THE INCARNATION

25

modification. But the central point is this: when the lumen is
spoken of as involving a change it is not the lwmen as form
which is under discussion but the production of the lumen;
that is, the Agent who produces the lumen changes (in a broad
sense) or betters the intellect; but the lumen itself as form does
not do so. It is just this latter point which Pere de la TaiUe
did not grasp in his confusion of the efficient and the formal
orders.
Thirdly and lastly, under this point we note a confusion that
is itself proper to de la Taille's analysis of the lumen gloriae,
though similar to a confusion found in his analysis of grace. He
conceives the lwnen as efficiently proceeding from the very
presence to the mind of the beatifying object, i.e. God. The
lumen is " the communication of the Act to the potency or
the reception of the Act in the potency; an amelioration of the
potency by the Act": it is "consequent to the Act," i.e given
in and by the presence of the Divine Essence as the beatifying
intelligible. But this same lumen is a true principle of the act
of vision according to the tradition. Thus John of St. Thomas
writes that the lumen "gives it [the intellect] activity elicitive
of the vision; and this is the function of an effective cause,
namely the vision." 37 And Garrigou-Lagrange writes: " The
infused habit of the light of glory is a total principle proximately elicitive of the vision." 38
Now if both the Thomists and de la Taille be correct, then
the vision causes the lumen, which lumen principles the vision!
A Thomist, mindful of the distinction between the efficient and
formal orders ascribes the efficient causing of the lumen to God
as agent, not as object. As agent cause God produces the lumen
sub quo. 39 This lumen, to be sure, can also be described as the
last disposition to the object, which is therefore caused by the
object-but caused by the object as formal, specifying principle.
Hence Gonet could write, " The defect of power for seeing God
37
•3

Cursus Theologicus, I Pars, Disp. XIV, a. 1 (In Quaestionem XII).
De Deo Uno, p.
Cf. Gonet, op. cit., vol. I, Tract. H, Disp. lH, art.

•• IV Sent., d. 49, q. !i!,·a. 1, ad 15.

26

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

which [defect] is in the created intellect cannot be sufficiently
supplied for by the Divine Essence under the ratio of intelligible
species united to it," i.e. to the created intellect. 40 Yet this is
the very fashion in which Pere de Ia Taille would have that
defect remedied.
In each of the French theologian's exemplifications of his
theory we find two basic and constant defects, leading, naturally, to further difficulties peculiar to each case. These latter
we have, in this paper, merely suggested. What is more important is the gravity of the two basic misconceptions. These
are intrinsic to the theory itself: for any " created actuation "
springing from the union of God as Act and creature as potency
must be a hybrid of the uncreated and the created, the supernatural and the natural, the infinite and the limited. It would
be necessarily a medium between God and not-God. It is a
contradiction.
Again such a " created actuation," as an inevitable " response" of the creature to the presence of God as Act, must
be both formal modification (since the creature is described as
its material cause in the true sense of material causality) and
something which is becoming (since it is, precisely, a mutatio
of, or passio in, the creature, therefore an effect being made).
Thus merge formal and efficient causality; thus merge perfection-in-act and perfection-in-potency. And given de la Taille's
other confusion, is this to be marvelled at? If in the shadows
of confused thinking the distinction between God and creature
be obscured one cannot marvel that the distinction between
diverse orders of creaturely things grows dim.
These misconceptions are not new, nor especially subtle in
themselves though they may be obscure because they lie deep
among an author's unanalyzed suppositions. The tendency to
destroy or lessen the distinction between the natural and the
supernatural is older than human kind; and the tendency to
conceive all reality after the image of motion, in terms of
becoming is almost as old as the history of philosophy.
•• Gonet, loc. cit., no. 14.

THE INCARNATION

Ill.

27

DE LA TAILLE AND THE THOMISTS

This section, on the relevance of de la Taille's doctrine to
Thomistic tradition would be quite unnecessary were it not for
his use of Thomistic authors. In his teaching about the lumen
gloriae and habitual grace de Ia Taille advances no serious claim
to be Thomistic. He does, in those sections, quote from St.
Thomas; but only de Ia Taille's reading into the passages there
quoted can make them seem even to suggest" created actuation
by Uncreated Act." No follower of St. Thomas, no interpreter
of his system, is cited as ever proposing such an interpretation.
In defending his theory on Christ's grace of union, however,
the .Jesuit does strive, and mightily, to strengthen his position
by appealing to Thomistic authorities. 41 A superficial reading
of those pages gives the impression of considerable success;
an actual reading of the authors cited definitely dispells that
impression.
Thus in the article in Recherches one reads " on the part of
the Word as term, therefore, what we have to consider is not
only a causal activity but a function of perfective Act which
is not, for all that, an informing act." 42 Then Cajetan is
cited writing (among other things),
If there is a question of actuating and of being actuated within the
entire compass of conceivable ways. . . . God may actuate a created
thing. . . . Since therefore we admit that the human nature of
Christ is perfected by the divine existence we can also admit
without absurdity that it is actuated in some way by the divine
existence .... We may say that the potency to its own existence
is actuated, not by its own existence but by the divine existence
far more excellently and perfectly than it would have been actuated
by its own existence ....
u This "defense" is of course the article Entretien amical in Revue Apologetique
and in translation to be found in The Hypostatic Union, pp. 42-76. We haVf•
already referred to this occasionally; this section of our criticism is corncerned principally-though not exclusively-with this last of de Ia Taille's papers on created
actuation by Uucreated Act.
•• The Hypostatic Union, p. 85.

28

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

De la Taille comments on Cajetan's words," This one example
(viz. of perfective Act which is not an informing act) would be
enough to establish the possibility of a relation other than that
of efficiency between created actuation and uncreated Act." 43
But Cajetan in this place 44 is simply not speaking of a
" created actuation." The " created actuation " de la Taille
conceives is not divine, obviously, even in its proponent's concept; the actuation of which Cajetan speaks is divine, not
created. Cajetan says: " Because the perfection of potency is
called its actuation, therefore you can say that the potency [of
the human nature of Christ] to its own proper existence is
actuated not by its own, but by divine existence." Thus de la
Taille: The created nature of Christ is actuated by a created
reality. Cajetan: The created nature of Christ is actuated by
esse divinum. The propositions are quite different; they are
irreconcilable. In the context Cajetan insists that he
is using the word actuatio in a very wide sense; this, precisely
because he is speaking of esse divinum as an actuation. Were
he speaking
a created actuation his long explanation of
extended sense of actuatio would be very unnecessary; nothing
in his use of actuatio would require such explanation.
Interestingly in this very paragraph quoted by de la TaiHe,
Cajetan asserts the similarity between a potentiality's being
perfected by assumption to divine existence, and by assumption
to divine personality. Now if, as Cajetan-the authority of
de la Taille's own selection-expressly
says, these two are
similar; and if assumption to divine existence implies a created
existential actuation, as de la Taille says it does; should not
the second-assumption
to divine personality-similarly
require a created actuation in the line of person? De la Taille ,
concludes, as we have seen, to two existences in Christ, from
the point of view of actuation. He should have concluded. to
two persons also, from the point of view of actuationo 45
Op. cit., p. 36.
Cf. Cajetan in III, q. 17, a. fl.
45 This point has special force in view of the peculiar view of personality adopted!
by de Ia Taille and erroneously ascribed by him to Capreolus. He writes "of the
43

44

THE INCARNATION

29

It is, however, in the article in Revue Apologetique that
de la TaiUe more notably uses Thomistic authorities. A lineby-line indication and correction of his significant citations
would be possible but decidedly tedious. It seems preferable,
therefore, to group the citations under the main headings of
his own article. Under those headings we shall consider of the
authorities cited by de la Taille only those whom all sides
class as Thomists, omitting others cited who (like Suarez)
unhesitatingly depart from basic Thomistic theses.
1. The grace of union is created.

For this proposition de la Taille cites principally Billuart 46
saying that the grace of union taken either as substantial union
or as habitual grace is caused by the divine nature; and
Cajetan 47 saying that in some sense (which he clearly distinguishes) the grace of union is a created gift. This offers no
difficulty. Saint Thomas himself speaks of the grace of union,
under different aspects, as both uncreated (the esse given) and
created (the substantial joining of the human nature to the
Word and the consequent relation) . As to the formulas, there
is no question: disagreement arises only as to what we shall
understand by the unio substantialis which Billuart describes
as created; and the mutatio and substantialis compositio mentioned by Cajetan. Shall we understand them as realities either
in fieri (mutatio) or in facto esse (unio substantial is, and substantialis compositio) distinct from both natures united in the
Word? Are they actuations distinct from the human nature in
its newness of being, and with the relation of union, both of
two terms, humanity and existence, the one that holds the other is the person " and
again for de !a 'faille the whole problem of personality has a satisfactory solution
"drawn from one principle only: namely, the equation between created personality
and ownership of created being." See The Hypostatic Union, pp. 19, 30.
The whole point of de Ia Taille's theory is that the human nature of Christ does
have, or own, its existential actuation distinct from the esse V erbi as creature from
Creator. Thus in the same sense in which he predicates two existences of Christ
he ought to predicate two persons.
46
op. cit., Tractatus de lncarnatione, diss. IV, a. 5 (t. V, p. 4!il2).
47 Cajetan in III, q. 2, a. 10, n. 5.

30

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

which ·are admittedly created?
point.

This brings up the second

Besides the humanity and the Word, and the real relation
of the humanity to the Word another reality, founding the
relation must be admitted. This reality is created and consists
in the TRACTIO or MOTUS of the humanity to the Word which
MOTUS, of course, endures and which is the grace of union, a
true medium between the human nature and the Word. For
this de la Taille cites St. Thomas' speaking of the Incarnation
in terms of motu.'! 48 a passio 49 a tractio 50 a change 51 of the
human nature and secondly Billuart assigning as the foundation
of the real relation "a real change in the humanity, its passive
traction to the Word," which" is the permanent foundation of
the relation," and a " termination in the human nature." 52
Curiously Pere de la Taille does not quote some important
passages in Billuart. The latter writes, in the very article cited
by de la Taille: " The Word is united to the humanity in this
that it terminates and sustains the humanity . . . , actually
terminating is not something created by the power of terminating m· something distinct from His pe1'8onality... , as the Word
is immediately per seipsum united to the humanity, so the
humanity is conceived united to the Word immediately per
seipsam." And as to the meaning of the " change " of the
human nature Billuart notes " the human nature cannot be said
to be rigorously and strictly changed through the Incarnation.
. . . A thing said to be changed preexists to the reception or loss
by reason of which it said to be changed," and he adds that
Christ's humanity did not preexist to its assumption by the
Word. "It can, however, be said to be changed in a broad
sense of the word." And what is the passio in the human nature
of which Billuart speaks? He indicates that " it is nothing other
•• Ill Sent., d. 2, q. 2, a. 2, qcla. S.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 2, a. 8.
50 Ibid., a. 6, ad 2.
51 Ibid., q. 2, a. 6, ad 1.
52 Loc. cit., a. S.

THE INCARNATION

31

than the [human] nature passively made dependent on the
Word and communicating in Its being." It is the ancient truth:
sublato mot'it ab actione et passione non remanet nisi ens cum
relatione quadam. In the same place Billuar.t interprets St.
Thomas to exclude every medium " because he says that union
[is] . . . as a consequent effect, and because nowhere does he
even make mention of this mediate nexus."
As for St. Thomas' words he used them for the rather good
reason that we have no others. We can name things only as
we know them: and as we know things in the natural order
(whence all our words are derived) change or motus is always
involved when a reality is found outside its connatural condition. In attempting to describe the de facto condition of the
humanity of our Savior, therefore, we have to use words which
imply change or else refuse to discuss so transcendent a fact
at all.
But it is one thing to admit the limitations of our words:
another to assert in the supernatural order the verification of
the merely natural implications of those words. Thus while St.
Thomas had to use words like passio, he never conceived the
passio as something distinct from Christ's humanity and its
relation to the Word. Because that humanity did not preexist
to its assumption by the Word, and because that assumption
involved no gradual process but only " factum est: " therefore,
for St. Thomas there is not a distinct reality corresponding to
the pa.'!sio. The position of Pere de la Taille, that a passio or
mutatio is a reality distinct from the humanity and its relation
to the Word, a true motus, would imply that the humanity preexisted to the Incarnation, then gradually became united to
the Word for mottts as a distinct reality is, can only be, a
gradual process in a preexisting subject. No Thomist, nor any
Catholic, holds to such a conclusion.

3. The TRACTIO or MUTATIO which in Christ's Sacred Humanity founds the relation of union to the divine nature is a created
actuation by Uncreated Act. For this Cajetan is cited, saying
"the human nature is actuated by the divine existence ... far

32

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

more excellently than it would have been by its own existence," 53 and John of St. Thomas is quoted at length, in his
doctrine on the substantial sanctificatiDn of Christ's humanity. 54
From Cajetan no support for de la Taille can be· alleged: in
the place cited there is no implication of " created actuation "
distinct from Christ's humanity with its relation. Rather arbitrarily de la Taille interprets the actuation mentioned by
Cajetan as a passio, a created modification distinct therefore
from the changeless Person and the created nature modified.
Cajetan has no such concept: this has been amply shown
above. The following additional points (if any were needed)
tell rather heavily against de la Taille's interpretation of
Cajetan. 1) In the paragraph cited the great Cardinal expressly excludes any actuation per modum inhaesionis of
Christ's humanity; de la Taille's "created actuation" would
inhere in the Savior's human nature. 2) Cajetan, as we saw,
held that Christ's "potency for proper [created] existence is
actuated ... through divine existence"; according to de la
Taille it is not; for he teaches that the esse of the Word is as
Act, but not as actuation, to the Sacred Humanity. Cajetan
equates "actuatio" in this case with "potentia actuata per
divinum esse," -not so de la Taille. 3) The third point-that
logic should demand of de la Taille that he conclude to two
persons in Christ (in the same sense in which he concludes to
two existences) -has already been made.
Cajetan's teaching, however, de la Taille rather quickly
dismisses and insists that it is John of Saint Thomas who is
clearly on the side of the new doctrine. He quotes extensively
from the Joannine Commentary on Question Seven of the Third
Part of the Summa Theologiae. 55 The very number of quotations, the length of some of them, plus the fact that they are
directly concerned with Christ's sanctity, not His union, make
their analysis rather unwieldly. Yet I think that with complete
Cajetan III, q. 17, a.
n. 18.
John of St. Thomas, Cttrsus Theologictts, III, disp. 8.
66 The Hypostatic
Union, pp.
especially.
63
64

THE INCARNATION

fairness to de la Taille and his extended argumentation his
main points can be reduced to these two: 1) John of St.
Thomas teaches that the subsistence of the Word intrinsically
changes the humanity of Christ; and 2) that the humanity
neither subsists nor exists in an infinite manner. For de la
Taille the conclusion is clear: John of St. Thomas teaches that
the actuation of Christ's humanity by the Act (which is the
Person of the Word) is a created, finite effect-therefore
" created actuation by Uncreated Act."
But how deeply did de la Taille understand him whose
authority he quotes so lavishly? In the very article cited John
of St. Thomas writes that in the case of Christ " the sanctifying
form cannot be anything created for nothing created is a ratio
constitutive of the natural Sonship of God " which Sonship, of
course, is proper to the Man Christ. .A pari then-and de la
Taille's entire argument proceeds a pari-the form whereby
Christ's humanity exists is nothing created. And John of St.
Thomas continues that the form sanctifying cannot be " the
union by
the humanity is passively rendered assumed
because this is only the dependence of the humanity on the
Divine Person." A pari then, that by which the humanity is
passively rendered assumed is only a relation, viz. dependence.
This is traditional Thomism: it is not de la Taille's view,
:namely, that the union whereby the humanity is rendered
assumed is a created reality, a passi.o distinct both from the
humanity and its relation.
Why does John of St. Thomas speak, as he does, of the
humanity's having sanctity, (and a pari, subsistence and existence) modo finito? And why does he speak of sanctity, (and
a pari subsistence and existence) introducing as an effect some
real change in the humanity?
The answer to the first question is :not too difficult. Note
the very words of the authority in question " humanitas redditur sancta" and so forth. The great Thomist is speaking
not of the Man Christ but of the humanity of Christ. Now
whereas the Man Christ is the Son of God, Divine: the
humanity is a creature, and finite, The Divine Word ter3

34

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

minates, encloses that nature: the Word does not inform it,
or enter into its constitution. Hence we cannot say that that
humanity is infinitely holy, infinitely and necessarily beloved
of God; it is loved (and therefore holy) according to measure,
and in a free, not necessary mode. Why? Because that
humanity is not God: God necessarily and infinitely loves only
the unique, infinite God, Himself. So the sanctifying form in
Christ-the Verbum-is infinitely holy; but the sancity of the
humanity which is its conjunction to God is a union, a relation,
as John of St. Thomas teaches. That relation terminates at an
infinite sanctity but in its own being is a created thing: hence
the consistent teaching that the sanctifying form is not a
creature: yet the humanity is holy in a finite mode. Similarly
we many speak of the finite mode of existence of the humanity
o£ Christo
Why, secondly, does John of St. Thomas speak of the Word's
sanctity (and a pari His subsistence) as effecting some intrinsic
change in the Savior's human nature? In the context he is
arguing against Vasquez' teaching that the sanctity which
comes to Christ through the Hypostatic Union is something of
the moral order alone, consisting in" extrinseco respectu." John
of St. Thomas answers that the sanctifying principle or form
is not, as Vasquez thought, the divine nature as distinguished
from the Person but the Person Himself hypostatically united.
Hence the principle or form £s intrinsic as the term of that
created nature; but the sanctifying form, and the informing
form is the Godhead according to his dear words, not a
creature. 56 'Why, then, mention an intrinsic "effect"? Because
hypostatic sanctity is a formal, true principle of certain effects
intrinsic to the humanity, such as the exclusion of sin. This
the very words of John of St. Thomas indicate. But this effect
is not the sanctification of Christ any more than destruction of
sin in us is our habitual grace-though it is an effect of that
grace.
The great Thomist speaks also of an " immutatio " of the
56

John of St. Thomas, loc. cit., n.

THE INCARNATION

35

created nature by the suppositum, the Person. Again in the
context the meaning is clear. The immutatio is not a passio,
some reality distinct from both created nature and uncreated
Person: it is simply a strong assertion of the reality of the
termination of that human nature, outside the natural course
of events, by the Word. John of St. Thomas expressly
to de la Taille's admitted annoyance-of the divine esse and
subsistence informing the created nature; he says expressly, as
we have seen, that the union is a relation and nothing more. It
seems a bit arbitrary of de la Taille to insist that John of St.
Thomas means, not what he says, but what he does not say:
for nowhere does he speak of a created actuation, whereas he
does exclude such a reality. The " change " refers to the fact
that the intrinsic termination of Christ's humanity is extraordinary, and constitutes a condition totally outside the natural
order. But mch a use of immutare implies no passio whatsoever, no reality distinct from the nature "changed," i.e. united
to the divinity-except, always, the consequent relation.
4. In Christ there are, in some true sense, two existences.
Fo:r this St. Thomas' words in the De Unione Verbi Incarnati
are cited. 57 In that place the Angelic Doctor does teach that in
Christ there is one esse simply speaking, but two in a secondary
sense.
To the difficulty created by these words of St. Thomas we
shaH return in a moment. The point now is this: the Thomistic
school has unanimously taught the unity of Christ's existence.
so clear is this point in Thomistic teaching and tradition in
spite of the difficulty created by St. Thomas' words! Let us say
frankly that Pere de la Taille's attempt to show this point as
traditional Thomism is so inadequate as to be amusing. He
offers in favor of this teaching the great weight, the full
authority of Gregory Cippulus-then kindly identifies that
good friar as " Regent of the Minerva in the first half of the
seventeenth century." At least Cippu]us is not precisely on
everybody's tongue. Surely de la Taille who displays minute
57

St. Thomas, De Unione Verbi lncarnati, a. 4.

36

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

acquaintance with the works and words of the great Thomists
ought to have known that on the other side those great stand
together-Capreo]us,
for example, and Cajetan, John of St.
Thomas, Gonet, the Salmanticenses, and Billuart, and so on to
contemporary or near-contemporary authors-Billot, Hugon,
Garrigou-J ...agrange, Daffara, and the rest. One is saddened to
see employed a device which is not quite honest-the creation
of the impression that the teaching of John of St. Thomas leads
to this doctrine. of a two-fold existence in Christ, plus the statement: " True we do not find in him an explicit mention of two
existences." "8 Well, there is such mention: John of St. Thomas
mentions and classifies as erroneous the doctrine of a twofold
existence in Christ "9 (that stricture, of course, was directed
against this teaching in its classical form, not in the form
proposed by de la Taille. This latter never occurred to John
of St. Thomas) . Suarez, Tiphanius, and. their followers, and
now de la Taille: these have denied the unicity of existence
in Christ. The tradition of Thomism has been and is to the
contrary; even tremendous effort to obscure the fact ought not
to succeed.
Yet, amusingly, even the authority of obscure Cippulus could
not be said with certainty to be with de la TaiHe. One might
almost wish it were, so that that poor man might remain
undisturbed, as doubtless he has been these many years. The
fact is that his words as quoted by de la Taille do permit a
more traditional interpretation. And surely a Regent of the
Th.finerva deserves such a courtesy!
As to St. Thomas' words in the De Unione Verbi Incarnati
the tradition is-unless we make an exile of Cippulus-unanimous; St. Thomas' judgment in this one text is neither final
nor usual. In all his other works in which the question arises
he insists on one esse in Christ. Whatever be the date of
composition of this Quaestio Disputata (and Cajetan dismisses
that question far too gruffiy) , it certainly preceded the ComThe Hypostatic Union, p. 74.
•• Cursus Theologicus, III, q. 17, a.

58

THE INCARNATION

37

pendium Theologiae. In the Compendium, his last discussion of
this question, St. Thomas simply reaffirms the position he had
taught from the beginning, had taught in the Sentences, in the
Quodlibets and in the Summa Theologiae: in Christ there is
but one existence. 60
EPILOGUE

Besides the exposition and defense of his position thus far
considered, Pere de la Taille published an even earlier statement of his theory. 61 This earlier statement, while similar to
the ]ater one, differs from it in sufficiently important ways to
make necessary a brief consideration of it, lest we seem to
ignore the weight of argument advanced for this doctrine by
de la Taille himself.
The first half of this exposition is a statement in striking,
forceful terms of the dogmatic truth of the Incarnation; a
statement which is clarified, and given deep meaning by reference to the ancient errors on which the terminology of the
Incarnation was hammered out.
The second half is the speculative portion of the paper. Two
problems in particular are considered: 1) The condition of
Christ's created nature hypostatically united to the Verbum; 62
and fl) the conditions of the Hypostatic Union itself. 68
De la Taille's doctrine with respect to the first problem may,
I think, justly be summarized in the following fashion: a)
Absolutely speaking the union of Christ's human nature to the
Verbum could end; then would " the humanity remain; and
remain in all its essentials exactly what it is now; only instead
of being the Word's own it would be the nature of some mere
man ... that would spring up at once from the separation
between deity and humanity." 64 Hence there is some real
60 Ill Sent., d. 4, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 1; Quodl. IX, q. 2, a. 2; Summa Theol., Ill, q.
17, a. 2; Compendium Theologiae, c. 212.
61 This is of course the paper entitled "The Schoolmen " referred to above, footnote I. It is contained in The Hypostatic Union, pp. 8-25.
•• Op. cit., pp. 14-20.
63 Op. cit., pp. 20-24.
•• Op. cit., p. 14.

38

THOMAS

U. MULLANEY

difference between a humanity in Christ's dominion " and the
same humanity otherwise tenanted "-because " something in
the world of fact has changed; and something not merely
accidental" because personality is not an accident-yet, note,
there is no change in the substance of the nature. How to
account for a real change of the order of substance when the
substance in question remains essentially unaltered? b) The
different solutions advanced by Scotus, by Suarez, and by
Cajetan (i.e. their theories of personality) de la Taille dismisses
as, for various reasons, incapable of explaining the data of the
problem: <> 5 Hence he is left with Capreolus' theory. c) As
de la Taille interprets Capreolus "if the personal factor is
neither antecedent [against Cajetan] nor consequent [against
Suarez j to the substantial existence it must be found within
it." 63 Thus a created nature which possesses commensurate
and connatural existence is a created person ipso facto: if it is
maintained in being by the existence of the Word it is not
man, not a person because not the autonomous owner of being:
it is owned itself by One who imparts to it fellowship in being
with Himself. " Of the two terms, humanity and existence, the
one that holds the other is the person." One principle solves
all " namely the equation between created personality and
ownership of created being." 61
The second problem-the conditions of hypostatic union itself-we shall reduce to this question: how can an uncreated
existence be the existence of a created being? De la Taille
answers, " When it is said that the humanity exists by the
divine existence the meaning is that to humanity the divine
existerH?e is communicated- as- -an actual principle of being
instead of the formal principle of existence which normally
ought to be its own." 68 The actualizing principle is eternal,
uncreated; the communication on the contrary is not eternal,
65 I
shall not review here de la Taille's arguments against these theories of
personality, for those arguments, while very interesting in themselves are not of
immediate importance in facilitating the understanding of de la Taille's own
67 Op. cit., pp. HH!O.
position.
68 Op. cit., p.
66 Op. cit., p. 19.

THE INCARNATION

89

but is a mere creature. "There is a difference therefore between
the thing communicated and its communication. The one is
not the other .... The communication of the Word's own
being is something created . . . and there is the new element
introduced by the Incarnation." This communication, this new
reality is created, substantial, supernatural. Christ's esse, as
the actualizing principle is one; yet the existential actuation of
His humanity is not the divine existence. That created actuation " is absolute as a substantial actuation; and it is relative,
essentially relative to the Word's personal existence." 69 Human
personality is the ownership of existence; hence " between the
nature and its connatural existence there is no room for anything: Between the human nature of Christ and His divine
existence there is room for a communication of the latter to the
former: a created communication, which is in fact the hypostatic union ... the created grace of union." This communication is not the act of being but a created association of the
potency-the human nature-with Uncreated Act.
The criticism of this exposition can hardly be notably different from what we have already suggested; this earlier exposition
while differing from the other in setting, in context, implies
"-essentially the same elements. We shall therefore consider this
defense of de la Taille's theory most briefly.
We note at once the repeated assertion of a created substance
of the supernatural order-which as we have shown implies the
denial of tpe real distinction between the supernatural and the
natural orders. Against it we can only repeat St. Thomas'
words, echoed in the entire Thomistic tradition, in defining
substance: "nothing extrinsic is included: every substance is
defined in terms merely of its material and formal principles ...
the reason is that a definition must express what a thing is,
and . . . substance is something complete in its being and
kind." 7° For de la Taille the communication from the esse o£
the Verbum to the
(of Christ) is "absolute as a
•• Loc. cit.
70 ll de Anima, lect. 1.

40

THOMAS U, MULLANEY

substantial actuation; and it is .relative, essentially :relation to
the Word's personal existence." Thus it could not be defined
merely by intrinsic causes as St. Thomas says substance must
be defined " in terms merely of its material and formal principles," for " substance is something complete in its being and
kind." This teaching, then, is clearly contradictory to Thoroism; but what is worse it undermines, as we have sufficiently
shown above, the distinction between the supernatural and the
natural, the distinction between the divine and the created.
Secondly, this explanation of "created actuation by Uncreated Act," no less than the previously considered exposition,
takes for its very starting point, its central postulate, a confusion between diverse orders of causality. For here, too, we
find the teaching that to the humanity of Christ there is communicated from the esse of the Word an actual principle of
being which is created, substantially distinct from the Word (as
Act) communicating. This communication is not the act of
being but " a created association of the humanity with Uncreated Act."
Now according to what order of causality does this created
actuation proceed from the esse V erbi? De la Taille in this
article does not ask the question; nevertheless it clamors to be
heard. It is clear, of course, that this " created actuation "
ought to be conceived as proceeding from God as from an
efficient cause. It is created and all creatures depend on God
as on their efficient cause. But for a special reason it ought to
be conceived as proceeding from the Verbum by way of efficiency-because the Verbum is according to the new theory a
special principle of this actuation. The actuation as creaturely
would be adequately distinct f:rom the Verbum lncreatum: and
hence the Verbum could be its special principle only according
to extrinsic causality.
But let us probe this further. Obviously Pere de la Taille
would not be satisfied with assigning to the Word merely
efficient causality of this communication because all Catholics
admit the efficiency of any one divine Person is the efficiency
of the divine nature, common to all three Persons: if this were

THE INCARNATION

41

the Word's only causality of the actuation in question, Christ's
humanity would be that of all three divine Persons. Absit! No,
for Pere de la Taille the "actuation" must be a quasi-formal
effect of :the Verbum. Very well-what is a quasi-formal cause
in this theory? Is it an intrinsic or an extrinsic cause? The
divine Word can be an intrinsic cause of no creaturely reality.
or, stated the other way. no creature can be intrinsically divine,
or non-creaturely. For intrinsic causes are only two: formal
and materiaL It is according to faith that God can be the
intrinsic form of no creature; and it is according to faith that
He can be subject or matter of no compound. Thus the
dilemma: if the Verbum is an intrinsic cause of the " actuation," then God has entered into creaturely composition, and
a creature is intrinsically divine; if, contrarily, the Verbum is
only an extrinsic cause of the " actuation," then either that
actuation unites the humanity of Christ to all three divine
Persons-a dear heresy-or it does not. If it does not, then
the extrinsic causality in question is no different in kind from
God's extrinsic causality of any other creaturely effect, with
the result that the union of Christ's human nature to the
Verbum could not be different in kind from any creature's
" union " with God, for every created thing, is, in its creaturely
being, from God efficiently. On any reasonable supposition,
then, de la Taille's position offers :rather uncomfortable consequenceso
This same basic confusion is evident in other judgments
made by de la Taille. For example, he states that if the human
nature of Christ were to be separated from the Word " it would
be the nature of some mere man . . o that would spring up
at once from the separation between deity and humanity." Let
us presume that in conformity with his teaching generally de
la Taille is supposing that a new positive thing, viz. a new
personality would succeed: still his language manifests confusion between the orders of efficiency and formality, becoming
and being. For that new personality as a formal thing would
" spring up at once " and " from the separation." There simply

42

THOMAS U. MULLANEY

is no taking into account of the roie of any efficient cause, or
any producing of the new reality. The new thing as a formality
would, presumably be self-explanatory from the point of view
of efficiency: it springs-merely from the separation.
As a mere appendage it should be noted, I think, in justice
to Capreolus, one of St. Thomas' truly great commentators, that
de la Taille gives no evidence of having understood the theory
of created personality elaborated by the princeps Thomistarum.
On the contrary, de la Taille misrepresents that venerable and
vigorous theory; and Capreolus is not likely to gain in lustre
from association-however
unwanted!-with
this doctrine.
Adequately to expose the point would require a distinct and
general article on the Thomistic concept of created personality.
It can never be with pleasure that one concludes that a work
built by a great man, and at the cost of tremendous labor,
is seriously deficient. Therefore, one could not undertake a
rigorous criticism of de la Taille's theory of" created actuation
by uncreated act " merely for the sake of intellectual exercise.
But that theory, weak and objectionable
its very
tions, is being embraced and hailed today as" an introduction
to the purest scholastic tradition," " a fine supplementary text
for the De V erbo course," " an outstanding exposition of the
metaphysics of sanctifying grace and the beatific vision," and
so forth. Sadly, it is none of these things. It is no,vel, opposed
to tradition; it is doctrinally dangerous; it is, metaphysically,
rooted in and built upon confusion.
THOMAS

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

u. MULLANEY, 0. P.

ABSTRACTION AND THE DISTINCTION OF
THE SCIENCES

!\.

RECENT author 1 has treated of abstraction in regard
to its objective basis and to the division of the speculative sciences. He notes that moderate realism requires an objective basis for the abstractive process of the
intellect, and asserts that this basis can be found in the real
composition of distinct principles which are combined in sensory
things. There will be as many orders of abstraction as there
are of real composition in these things. Three orders of composition can be found in sensory things, namely, the composition
of substance with accidents, the composition of substantial form
with primary matter, and the composition of essence with
existence. In each of these three orders there is an act or
formal principle combined with a potential subject, although
both subject and form are diverse in the distinct cases, not
similar. It is asserted that in regard to each of these three
orders the intellect is able to grasp an act or formal principle
apart from this or that potency. Thus there are three ascending
orders of abstraction from sensory matter, each of which has a
basis in objective reality, and according to which there is an
increasingly deeper penetration of sensory being by the inquiring mind. It is suggested that the usual ordering of physical
and mathematical abstraction is defective and should be the
reverse. The real composition of substance with accident is
the basis newly proposed for the abstraction which should be
regarded as of the first degree. This composition is the more
superficial, and yet it is the basis for the abstraction by which
we attain the object of mathematical science. The real compo1 F. S. Connolly, "Science vs. Philosophy,"
The Modem Schoolman, XXIX
(1952), 197-209; " Abstraction and Moderate Realism," The New Scholaaticism,
XXVII, No. I, (1958), 72-90.

48

44

WILLIAM H. KANE

sition of the substantial form with primary matter is the basis
proposed for the second degree of abstraction, by which we
attain the object of the philosophy of nature. This science is
not very extensive, because there is only a small number of
natural species to be· known philosophically. Modern natural
science is distinct from the philosophy of nature, because it is
merely empirical and schematic knowledge, and is not science
in the Aristotelian sense of the term. The real composition of
essence with existence is the basis proposed for a third degree
of abstraction, by which we attain the object of metaphysics.
Finally, the author inquires why St. Thomas was unable to
correlate the three degrees of abstraction and the three kinds
of speculative science with the distinct orders of real composition in sensory things, a correlation which seems to be
demanded by moderate realism.
To the present writer it seems that St. Thomas has clearly
answered all of these and many other pertinent questions in his
explanation of the fifth and sixth questions of the work On
the Trinity by Boethius. 2 But because this doctrine which St.
Thomas explains and defends is not well known or well understood, we shall try to interpret it and apply it to the problems
raised above. In doing so we shall depart somewhat from the
order of the articles in the commentary by St. Thomas. The
Angelic Doctor first proves that there are three and only three
kinds or genera of speculative science, and then he proceeds to
defend; characterize and compare the knowledge attained in
each. For the present purpose we shall consider first what it is
to abstract, and why we abstract. Then we shall try to see
what is required for the validity of abstract knowledge, and
finally what it is that distinguishes the different sciences.
ABSTRACTION

To abstract, says St. Thomas, 8 is to consider separately things
which are not really separated but are conjoined in reality. We
abstract because we are not able to know things perfectly in
• In Boet. de Trin. (ed. Paul Wyser. 0. P.; Fribourg, 1948).
3 Ibid., q. 5, a. S; II Physic., lect. S.

ABSTRACTION

AND THE DISTINCTION

OF THE SCIENCES

45

their wealth of detail and intelligibility in a single act of knowing. What we cannot do in one act we try to accomplish in
many acts. We stop, look and listen. We consider separately
the different intelligible aspects of things in the hope of understanding things better.
We know that there is no hope of understanding the singular
sensory thing as such, because it :is material and contingent,
variable and corruptible. For this reason many thinkers have
held that scientific knowledge of sensory things is impossible.
There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between the particular
and contingent things presented to the senses and the objects
of scientific knowledge, which are immaterial, universal and
necessary. Plato believed that we can attain only opinions
about sensory things, and can give only a probable or likely
account of the sensory world. He thought that the objects of
scientific knowledge are not to be found in this mobile world,
but pertain to another world of universal and necessary forms
or ideas. Kant considered the same problem and decided that
the universal and necessary elements in our knowledge come
from the structure of our minds, not from the things known.
Thus the Platonic and Kantian solutions are poles apart,
Neither Plato nor Kant distinguished between the thing
known and the manner in which it is known. It was by means
of this distinction that Aristotle found a moderate and reasonable solution to the problem of universals and scientific knowledge. He realized that the natures or essences of sensory things
can be understood apart f:rom the individuals of the species.
The essential natures or reasons of things are separable in
thought from whatever is accidental or nonessential, and when
they are considered in this way, that is, apart from individual
and accidental differences, sensory things are intelligible and
can be known in a way that is universal and necessary. It is
the individual which is subject to change, and which is generated and decays. The essential natures or reasons of things
are not subject to change except inasmuch as they are found in
this or that individuaL Considered apart from the individual,
and apart from the here and now, the essential natures are

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immobile and intelligible in themselves, and they are the
principles by which particular things can be understood.
It is clear that the individuating notes are not of the essence
or essential nature, which is one and the same in the different
individuals of the same species, as human nature is the same
in all men. Because the individuating notes are incidental to
the essence, they are safely set aside when we wish to understand the essence. Moreover, the individual essence as such
is something material and opposed to our knowledge, and we
abstract from it in a merely negative way. Thus by abstraction
both positive and negative we attain knowledge of an essential
nature apart from individual differences which do not necessarily pertain to it. This essential nature is something which is
in many individuals, as human nature is in many men: it
exists in them; it is multiplied in them and somehow identified
with them. Hence it is validly predicated of each and all the
members of the genus or the species.
The possibility of many individuals of the same species
depends both upon the real distinction between essence and
existence in creatures and upon the distinction between primary
matter and the substantial form. More generally, all multiplicity depends upon the real distinction between potency and
act, because act as such is not multiplied save as a determination of a potency. This principle applies also to the composition of substance and accident. It is on these real distinctions
that the validity of our abstractions is ultimately based. In
particular the validity of our generic and specific concepts of
sensory things and the doctrine of moderate realism depend
upon the distinction between primary matter and the substantial
form. It is because the multiplication of individuals in a species
and their numerical distinction depends upon the division of
the primary matter, which is of itself purely potential, yet has
an order to quantity and position in place and time, and also
because there is only one substantial form or specifying principle in a primary unit, that an essential nature can be multiplied in many individuals and can be known in a concept which
is univocally predicable of each.

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4,7

Yet St. Thomas does not propose the real composition of
primary matter and substantial form as the basis for the abstraction which he attributes to physical science. We can and
do attain some valid knowledge of natural things before we
know what the proper principles of these things are. Hence St.
Thomas looks for a more evident basis for the abstraction which
is employed in natural science and which enables us to attain
a full and complete knowledge of natural things.
St. Thomas places the proximate foundation for any valid
abstraction not merely in the real distinction of one principle
from another, but also in the lack of essential order or dependence of one upon another. 4 We can abstract some things which
are not really separated from each other, and can understand
apart from others, but not alL We can understand some
things separately, but not everything. Things which depend
upon one another, or which have an essential order to each
other, can neither be nor be understood separately.
A thing is intelligible inasmuch as it is actual or related to
an act. Hence a nature or essence, in order to be understood,
must itself be an act, or must have an actual principle joined
to it, or must be related to something actuaL When this act
has some essential order to something else, or some intrinsic
dependence upon something else, then it cannot be abstracted
from the other or understood without the other. Parts which
are essentially dependent upon the whole can be understood
only in relation to the whole, as the hand or foot can be understood only in relation to the man. A substantial form is
essentially the act of its proper matter, and because it is
essentially ordered to its proper matter it cannot be understood
apart from the matter. An accident is essentially dependent
upon its proper subject, and cannot be understood apart from
its subject, as motion cannot be understood apart from the
mobile. A relation is essentially ordered to its proper term, and
cannot be understood without the term, as a son cannot be
understood without a father or mother.
• Ibid.

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H. KANE

But if the act by which a nature is understood does not
depend upon another, or is not essentially ordered to something
else, then even though it is combined with another it can be
abstracted from the other and understood separately, as a letter
can be understood apart from a syllable, an element apart
from a compound or an animal without a foot, but not conversely in these cases. Quantity can be understood without a
special subject such as an apple or an orange, but not without
some subject. A quality such as white can be understood
without a special subject such as a man, and conversely man
can be understood without the special quality.
In fact we distinguish or divide one thing from another in
different ways according to the different operations of our
intellects. There is a twofold operation of the intellect: one
by which we apprehend an essence or essential nature; the
other by which we judge that something is or is not. When
we distinguish by judging that one thing is not another or in
another, this knowledge is properly called separation, not abstraction. But when we apprehend an essence or essential
nature, and understand one thing without understanding another, then our knowledge is rightly called abstraction if the
things which are understood one apart from the other are
really together in the primary being. When we understand
things separately in this way we do not judge that they are
really separated. Hence there is no error in our abstraction, as
there would be if we were to judge that things which are
understood separately are really separated, whereas they
are not.
There are two ways in which things which are really together
can be understood separately, or abstracted one from the other,
and so there are two kinds of abstraction. The whole is together
with its parts, and the form with its matter or subject. Some
wholes can be understood separately, without some of their
parts, and some forms can be understood apart from some
matter or subjects.
The abstraction of the whole depends on the composition
of the essential nature, that is, the formal or essential whole,

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with its material or accidental parts. The formal whole is the
essential nature, generic or specific. The material parts are the
inferiors or individuals with all that is incidental or nonessential in them. In the case of man the formal whole includes
the organic body and the rational soul as essential physical
parts. It includes also, at least in a general way, all the integral
parts and powers without which a man cannot be or be understood. The material or incidental parts are the non essentials,
without which a man can be and be known, and aU that is
peculiar to the individual as such: this body and this soul,
this flesh and these bones. To consider the whole essential
nature apart from the individual and the incidental is to
abstract the universal from the particular. It is to consider the
essential nature of the whole apart from the non essentials,
that is, without the material or incidental parts not required
for the essential nature.
The abstraction of the form is based on the composition of
the subject or matter with the form. A form can be understood
without a certain matter if its essential nature does not depend
upon that matter. An accidental form cannot be abstracted
from aU substance, nor can any accident be abstracted from
its proper subject on which it has an essential dependenceo Yet
a common accident such as heat can be abstracted from a
special subject such as iron, and motion can be abstracted from
a special subject, but not from the mobile as such. Furthermore, accidents accrue to a substance according to a certain
order: first quantity, then the qualities, sensory characteristics
and motions. Sensory qualities and motion are dependent upon
quantity, and cannot be or be understood without quantity.
But quantity is not essentially dependent upon the sensory
qualities or motions, and can be understood in a substance as
something antecedent to the sensory qualities and motion without including them. A substance together with its quantity
and sensory qualities is called sensory matter. Quantity in its
essential nature does not depend upon sensory matter, but
upon the substanceo Hence quantity can be abstracted from
sensory matter and motion, and can be understood apart from
4

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H. KANE

sensory matter and motion, but not apart from the substance.
The substance as distinct from its accidents is called intelligible
matter, because considered without its accidents it is an
intelligible object but not sensible. Thus quantity can be
abstracted from sensory matter and motion, but not from intelligible matter. This is an abstraction of a form, quantity,
from sensory matter and motion, but not from intelligible
matter.
A substantial form is essentially the act of its proper matter,
and cannot be abstracted from its matter, although both matter
and form cah be considered in common, not as this or that
matter or form. Moreover, the complete substantial nature or
essence is realized in distinct individuals, and does not depend
essentially on this or that individual. Hence the substantial
nature can be abstracted from the suppositum or person not
only as the whole is abstracted from its material and accidental
parts, as man is abstracted from Peter and Paul, or animal
from cats and dogs, but also as the essential or formal part
is abstracted from the whole subject or suppcsitum in which it
occurs materially and incidentally, as humanity in abstracted
from man. This is an abstraction of a form or part, an essence
or essential nature, from the matter or subject, the suppositum
or person, on which it does not depend in order to be and to
be understood.
Thus in order to perfect our understanding of things we
divide one thing from another both by apprehension and by
judgment. 5 Division by judgment is called separation rather
than abstraction. Separationlooks to the being of things, and
our separation in judgment is true or false, valid or invalid,
depending upon whether the things are or are not really
separated or distinct. Division by apprehension is called
abstraction if things which are together are understood one
apart from the other. By abstracting we neither affirm nor
deny that the things are together. We simply consider one
without the other on which it does not essentially depend,
• Ibid.

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apart from which it is intelligible in itself. Hence abstraction
is a valid way of knowing things, and contains no falsity.
There are two kinds of abstraction, that of the whole and that
of the form or part. In abstraction of the whole the universal
is understood apart from the singular and apart from all that
is nonessential to the whole. In abstraction of the form an
essential nature is understood apart from the subject in which
it is realized materially and incidentally. A substantial form
cannot be abstracted from its proper matter, but a substantial
nature or essence can be abstracted from the suppositum or
person. An accidental form can be abstracted from other
accidents on which it has no essential dependence, but not from
its proper subject. A common accident can also be abstracted
from a special subject on which it does not depend essentially,
but not from every subject.
In his commentary on the work of Boethius. St. Thomas
clearly distinguishes between separation and abstraction, and
between the two kinds of abstraction. He says that separation
pertains to metaphysics; that the abstraction of the form
pertains to mathematics, and that the abstraction of the whole
pertains even to physics. In fact this latter abstraction is
used in every science, because in every science we leave aside
what is incidental and consider the essential. St. Thomas does
not say that the various sciences are essentially determined by
separation or abstraction. These are common ways of knowing
and perfecting our knowledge of things, and they do not specify
the sciences, although one way is more characteristic of one
science and another of another. What St. Thomas shows is
that through separation and the different kinds of abstraction
we can attain valid knowledge of things in the different sciences,
supposing that there are different sciences.
DisTINCTION

oF THE SciENCES

But how are we to distinguish the sciences? Are there
irreducibly different sciences, or are all divisions merely arbitrary, and all sciences really parts of one and the same science?

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H. KANE

In solving this question St. Thomas points out in the first
place that there is a profound difference between the speculative and the operative sciences.6 These differ by reason of
their respective ends. The end of the speculative sciences is
simply the knowledge of the truth about things, or the satisfaction of the intellect in the knowledge of the truth. But the
end of the operative sciences is some action or operation of
ours to which the scientific knowledge is directed, and for the
performance of which our knowledge is used as a means. Hence
the operative sciences are concerned with something which can
be made or done by ourselves, that is, by our own work or
effort, and so the scientific knowledge of these things is not an
end sought for its own sake but a means employed to direct
our work. But the speculative sciences are concerned with
things which are not made by man, and so the knowledge of
these things cannot be ordered to another operation as its
end, but is an end in itself and is sought for its own sake. The
operative sciences are distinguished according to the things
which can be made or done by us but which require irreducibly
different principles for their accomplishment. For example,
music, painting and architecture require different principles and
are distinct arts; the knowledge of one art does not suffice for
the work of another. The speculative sciences are distinguished
according to the things which are not under our power or
control but which can simply be known in a speculative way.
But how many distinctions are there among the things which
can be known speculatively, and can one and same thing pertain
to different speculative sciences? J"ust as we have more than
one sensory power, but not as many powers as there are sensory
things in the world, and the same thing can be known by
different senses but not in the same way, so it is also with the
speculative sciences. The senses are distinguished according to
the different kinds of sensibles as such, for example, color and
sound, not according to the different kinds of things, such as
cat or canary. It is merely incidental to the sensible as such
• In Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. 1.

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to be a cat or a canary, whereas the essential differences of the
sensibles are those of color, sound, odor, etc. These are irreducibly different things which act in irreducibly different ways
upon the senses, and according to these the senses are distinguished. In like manner the speculative sciences are distinguished according to the essential differences of things w4ich
can be known speculatively .7
A thing which can be known speculatively is an object not
merely of sense or imagination but of intellect and science. As
such it must be something immaterial, universal and necessary.
But that which is necessary is immobile, because the mobile
is contingent and capable of being or not being. Hence the
thing which can be known speculatively and which is the object
of the speculative power is something both immaterial and
immobile. Consequently it is according to the order or degree
of removal from sensory matter and motion that the speculative
objects and the speculative sciences are distinguished. This
removal from matter and motion is accomplished by abstraction and by separation, and the object attained is further
refined by precision.
There are some things which can be known speculatively and
which cannot be apart from sensory matter and motion. Some
of these things depend upon sensory matter and motion in
order both to be and to be understood. These can neither be
nor be understood without sensory matter, and so they are
defined with reference to sensory matter, not indeed to the
particular, but to common or general sensory matter. In the
definition of man we include flesh and bones, but not this
flesh and these bones, because in defining sensory things we
abstract from the singular as such and consider the universal
and essential. Things of this sort are objects of natural science
or philosophy of nature.
There are other things which depend upon sensory matter
in order to be, but which nevertheless can be understood apart
from sensory matter, and so sensory matter is not included in
7

lbid.

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their definitions. Lines and numbers are things of this sort,
and they are objects of mathematics.
There are things which do not depend upon sensory matter
in order to be, but can be without matter, whether they are
simply immaterial, for instance, a spiritual substance or a
:>eparated human soul, or may be either material or immaterial,
as substance, cause, quality, being, potency, act, one or many.
These are objects of metaphysics, that is, of a science beyond
physics. These things must be investigated after physics has
been acquired, because our knowledge proceeds from sensory
things to the supra-sensible. There is nothing which is independent of matter in its being but dependent upon matter in order
to be understood and defined, because the intellect itself is
immaterial and can grasp the immaterial in terms which are
immateriaL Hence there is no fourth kind of speculative
science, but only three kinds.
Logic is distinct from the other sciences and does, indeed,
pertain to speculative science; but rather as an instrument of
speculation than as a principal part, because it provides the
rational instruments required for speculation. Logic and mathematics are both speculative sciences and liberal arts. They
perfect us not only in knowing but also in making, yet their
work is a work of reason itself, as in the formulation of arguments, geometrical construction, measuring, numbering, composing melodies, computing the courses of the stars. Other
liberal arts are directed to the work of the imagination, such
as poetry. Medicine, agriculture, etc., are technical arts, not
speculative sciences. The moral sciences are neither speculative
nor technical, but practical. They are ordered to operation, but
this operation is an act of moral virtue or :right choosing, not an
act of knowing or making. Although the moral sciences are
not arts, still the moral virtue itself takes the place of art, and
may be called the art of right living, because its act is the
principal thing in moral matters, wherein knowledge counts
for very little. Natural science and metaphysics have no work
at all, but only consideration of the truth, at least as the
term of study.

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PHYSICS

It is clear that we do not make natural things such as
elements and compounds, plants and animals, and so our knowledge of these things is speculative, not operative. Even the
so-called synthetic elements and compounds are really produced
in some unknown way by the action of a natural agent, not by
human art, which merely brings the natural reagents together
so that they can act one upon another.
But is there only one natural science, or many? And is
mathematics really distinct from natural science? The fact
that natural bodies have points, lines, surfaces and volumes
which are· of interest to both the physicist and the mathematician seems to indicate either that there is no distinction
between physics and mathematics or that one is part of the
other. Moreover, the marvelous growth of modem science and
the development of many specialized researches seem to indicate that there are many distinct sciences of natural things.
Yet when we realize that the naturalist as such desires to
attain a scientific knowledge of natural things, and when we
realize that the requirements for genuine science are very
strict but not impossible of fulfillment, we may be disposed to
see that there is and can be only one speculative science of
natural things, and that this science is distinct both from
mathematics and from mathematical physics.
Scientific knowledge is an orderly understanding of things
through their principles, causes and elements. A single science
has a single kind or genus of subject matter, which has its
own basic principles and causes, and includes all the species
within the genus, 8 with all their proper principles, causes,
elements, properties and relations.
It might seem that natural things comprise various genera,
each of which could admit the development of a distinct science.
For instance, there are the elements and the compounds; the
inorganic and the organic bodies; plants and animals; inverte• I PO/ftet., c. 28.

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brates and vertebrates; sounds and colors. Can there be distinct
sciences of these various genera, or of others like them?
If the basic principles from which these things proceed and
on which our knowledge of them depends are irreducibly different, then they pertain to different sciences.9 But if their basic
principles are the same, then they pertain to the same science.
Such is the case with all natural things. The basic principles
on which colored things depend and by which they are intelligible are the same general principles on which sounding things
depend, and on which living and non-living things, compounds
and elements depend. All natural things pertain to one supreme
genus, and the basic principles c.f all these things are the same
general principles, just the basic principles of all geometrical
figures are the same, namely, points and lines. All natural
things are parts of one and the same sensory world; all are
investigated by the naturalist for the single purpose of understanding the sensory world; all are intelligible and definable in
the same manner, that is, with reference to common sensory
matter. Therefore, there is and can be only one science of
natural things as such.
Natural things are presented to us as sensory, changing,
mobile things which have in themselves the primary and proper
typical motion and rest. The naturalist
principles of their
as such endeavors to determine the proper principles, causes,
properties and relations of all natural things, and he investigates
every natural change or process. All these things are intelligible
and definable in relation to common sensory matter, that is,
in the same minimum degree of removal from individual matter
and motion.
The nature and extent of natural science is not determined
by the special interests of particular naturalists. Natural
science includes the special interests of all naturalists, and also
the general principles and properties of natural things. These
are often neglected by the specialists, or simply taken for
granted, and sometimes they are even surrendered to the phi• Ibid.

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losopher or metaphysician. Yet these general truths about
natural things are the proper and solid foundation on which
all natural science rests, and on which the wealth of detail
depends for logical unity and intelligibility. Nothing is perfectly intelligible save in the light of its first principles, and
this is as true of a natural thing as it is of a geometrical figure.
The naturalist is concerned not only with the fundamental
principles or natures of natural things but also with their
sensory properties, because it is through the sensory properties
of things that we come to know their natures and define them,
and conversely we explain the sensory properties of things
in terms of their natures. The sensory appearances of things
sufficiently manifest the natures, 10 and in relation to the natures
of things natural phenomena are intelligible. Of course, we
cannot grasp the natures of things as clearly and distinctly
as we know mathematical essences, which are understood apart
from sensory matter. Yet we do not say that the natures of
things are hidden from us, but rather that they are manifested
to us through their sensory properties and effects. The shape
of the teeth, for example, is causally and ontologically related
to the nature and behavior of the animal, and is intelligible in
relation to the nature and the behavioro In like manner all the
typical structures and functions of natural things have natural
principles and causes, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, material,
formal, efficient or final, all of which should be investigated by.
the naturalist. Hence natural science can and should extend
to the ultimate species with all their typical properties and
relationso In fact, it is this knowledge which constitutes the
perfection of natural science, just as the rich variety of specific
detail constitutes the perfection of the natural worldo
In natural science we abstract only from the individual and
incidental differences of things in order to consider all that is
proper to the genera and species: their proper principles, causes
and elements, their material and formal natures, their properties and relations. The naturalist employs chiefly the abstraction of the whole, because he is interested in the primary
10

ln Boet. de Trin., q. 6, a. 2.

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natural units or wholes, such as horses and men: things which
have their own principles and causes of their mobile being and
observable behavior in themselves. He desires to understand
these natural wholes according to their proper species, with
their properties and interrelations, all of which are intelligible
through their fundamental principles or natures.
The naturalist is interested not only in the essential parts
and functions of things, but also in those which are regularly
present even though not essentiaL The arms and legs of man
are not essential parts, nor are they merely contingent parts.
They are integral parts with important functions which are
normally present and proper to the species. These are true
physical properties of man, separable only by accident in particular cases, but required for the proper perfection of man and
his operations. All the various types of natural things have
physical properties such as these. Properties of this sort are
groups of sensory accidents rooted in integral parts which are
characteristic and distinctive of the various natural types, at
least in the regular ways in which they vary accol'ding to
circumstances. These properties are sufficient to distinguish
many different types of things, and are usually considered to
be signs and effects of specific differences. The only sufficient
reason for their regularity is a constant, intrinsic factor which
is called the specific nature. In some cases it is difficult even
for the expert naturalist to distinguish a variety from a difference in species, but there are thousands of other cases which
offer no such difficulty because of the clear differences in structure and function, e. g. the horse and the dog.
To say that there are only a few natural species and to hold
that the many clearly distinct natural types are only varieties
of a small number of species is to admit a host of regularly
recurring and dearly different effects without a sufficient
natural cause or reason. Natural causes are determined in their
essential natures, and these are known through their effects.
The sensory appearances of natural things sufficiently manifest
their natures, and appear sufficient to manifest a great number
of specifically different natures. The constant internal factor

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.5!)

by which the lion differs from the lamb is not a mere accidental
difference, but a difference in specific nature which is manifested by different and regularly recurring physical properties.
Thus we see that the physical object is not especially
abstract, and unlike the mathematical object is not called
abstract. It is the natural whole considered in its essential
nature apart from the individual and the merely incidental.
This is the least abstraction required for theoretical understanding. Any knowledge which is less abstract is not speculative science, but may be operative knowledge, or mere
sensory knowledge from which the universal has not yet been
attained.
Our empirical and non-mathematical knowledge of the
sensory appearances of natural things is scientific in the Aristotelian sense only inasmuch as it is related to the natures of
things. Sensory accidents can neither be nor be understood
without dependence upon their subjects, and proper accidents
are rooted in the natures of things. Nor can the natures be
known except as they are manifested through and defined by
their sensory properties and effects. Experimental knowledge
of natural things which is not related to the nature of things
is not science in the strict sense, but at best is merely a
dialectical scheme or construction.
MATHEMATICS

St. Thomas states that the abstraction which is employed
in mathematics is that of the form. 11 This abstraction is based
on the composition of the corporeal substance with its accidents. The substance or primary being is really distinct both
from its quantity and from its qualities, sensory appearances
and motion. The sensory accidents and motions depend upon
quantity and upon the corporeal substance, and cannot be
abstracted from them. But quantity does not depend upon the
sensory qualities or motion; it is independent of sensory matter
as such, although it does depend upon the substance. Hence
11

Ibid., q. 5, a. 8.

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quantity can be considered apart from sensory matter and
motion, but not apart from intelligible matter or substance.
Quantity can be considered also without reference to actual
existence, but with respect only to imaginable existence. Considered in this way quantity is the object of mathematics, and
it is truly an abstract object. Like the object of natural science
it is abstracted from the singular essence in a merely negative
way, because we do not know the singular corporeal essence
as such. Furthermore, it is abstracted from all sensory matter
and motion and is referred to merely imaginable existence. The
quantity which is considered in mathematics is not the common
sensible quantity which is known through color, sound or the
other proper sensibles, but is quantity considered without
reference to the proper sensibles and as something intelligible
and imaginable, at least in its principles and elements. The
abstraction employed in mathematics is that of the form or
part, not that of the whole, because the mathematician as such
is not interested in the natural whole, but only in certain
parts. 12 The mathematician as such considers quantitative
parts and forms: lines, angles, figures, numbers and their
relations of equality or inequality, similarity or difference, not
natural wholes composed of sensory matter and form. The
mathematical object is more abstract, more removed from
sensory matter and motion, more immaterial and necessary
than the physical object. Hence it is said to enjoy a higher
degree of abstraction than the physical object, and indeed is
simply called abstract, whereas the physical object is not
simply abstract, but is the naturally mobile, sensory world
considered as intelligible through its principles of sensory
change.
The mathematical object has its own basic principles: points,
lines, units. These are· considered by the mathematician not
as in se,nsory matter, but as abstra_cted or separated from
sensory matter and motion, and as enjoying ideal or imaginary
existence. Considered in this way quantities with their prin"Ibid.

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ciples and peculiar properties and relations are intelligible
speculatively, and their principles are irreducibly different from
those of sensory matter and physical science. Hence pure
mathematics is distinct from natural science.
Mathematical physics also is distinct not only from natural
science but from pure mathematics as welL Natural things
have measurable parts, and their motions and their active
qualities, too, are measurable, at least indirectly. Hence besides
natural science, which treats of natural things as such, that is,
as naturally mobile and intelligible through their principles of
sensory change, and besides pure mathematics, which treats of
quantitative determinations as such, that is, as imaginable and
intelligible through their own peculiar principles, there are also
mixed sciences in which mathematical principles are applied to
the measurement of sensory quantities. These sciences are
similar to mathematics by reason of their principles and their
means of demonstration, which are borrowed from mathematics.
Yet they resell).ble physics also, because in them mathematical
principles are applied to sensory matter in order to determine
at least approximately the measurable aspects of sensory things
whether natural or artificial. Because of the contingencies of
sensory matter, these determinations are not so certain as those
of pure mathematics. Modern mathematics is particularly
adapted to these applications which are made in mathematical
physics.
METAPHYSICS

In regard to metaphysics, St. Thomas speaks of separation
rather than of abstraction. The important initial question is
whether all beings are sensory and material or whether there
are also immaterial beings. If all beings are material, then
physics or natural science is First Philosophy, and there is no
need for metaphysics. 13 Sciences cannot be multiplied without
sufficient reason, and there is no reason for a science if there
is no subject matter for it. If the subject matter is lacking
there are no special difficulties to be solved, and no special
,. Ill Metaphys., lect. 6; Vl Metaphys., lect. l; Xl Metaphys., lect. 7.

WlLLIAM

H. KANE

principles with which to solve them. The principles of a
science are the principles of the things which are considered in
the science, because things are and are understood through
their principles. If all reality is material, then all questions
about the whole must be solved by physical principles. They
cannot be solved by mathematical principles, because these are
not principles of the whole but of the part only. But if there
are immaterial beings, then physics is not the whole story, nor
even the chief part.
In physics we prove that there is an Unmoved Mover, and
that the intellective soul is a principle of immaterial operations,
and so we know that there are beings which are not material
things. The metaphysical object is not attained by abstraction,
and presupposes a preliminary separation or distinction of
immaterial beings from material beings.14 After this we can
grasp both in the unity of single concept of being, whether
material or immaterial, which is intelligible through its owu
principles of act and potency, essence and existence, and having
its own properties and relations, all of which are considered
in their purely intelligible aspects as modes of being. This
concept of being has objective validity because it is founded
on the real distinction of material and immaterial beings. Because this aspect of things, namely, that of their very being,
is purely intelligible and most removed from sensory matter
and motion as such, it is often said to be most abstract. But
this concept of being is not attained by simple abstraction, as
the physical and mathematical objects are attained. By abstraction we understand things separately, and leave something
out of consideration which, nevertheless, could be considered
from some other point of view. But the metaphysician leaves
nothing out of consideration. His is the view of the whole, of
everything which is or can be, both material and immaterial,
insofar as it is open to the human mind. His view is supremely
universal, extending to everything without exception, but in
an orderly and speculative way. He considers everything as
14

In Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. S.

ABSTRACTION

AND THE DISTINCTION

OF THE SCIENCES

63

related to being, and under the aspect of being, not as mobile,
nor as quantitative or operable.
If we grant the existence of beings both material and immaterial, then there is a valid foundation for the objective
precision by which a sensory being is conceived either as
naturally mobile, or as an extended unity, or simply as a
being. Considered as a mobile being, man pertains to physical
science. Considered merely as an extended unit, man pertains
to mathematics. Considered simply as a being, he pertains
to metaphysics. In this way the same thing can pertain to
more than one science: it is the same thing really, although it
is not considered in the same way, but in ways which are
irreducibly different, because they exemplify basic principles
which are diverse and which determine different speculative
sciences.
This is clearly the doctrine of St. Thomas. He says that the
physicist and the mathematician study the same things, but
not in the same way/ 5 and that the metaphysician considers
being. 16
everything under the aspect
REPLy TO DIFFICULTIES

In view of this dear and moderate :realism, we may wonder
what is the source of all the confusion about abstraction and
the division of the sciences. Confusion arises from many
sources, some of \vhich are merely verbal, while others are real.
St. Thomas himself says that some philosophers did not understand the difference between abstraction and separation, 11 and
so they fell into the error of admitting that mathematical and
universal things exist apart from sensory things, because they
supposed that the manner of being must correspond exactly to
the manner of being known.
Since the time of St. Thomas the problems concerning
abstraction and the division of the sciences have been discussed
'" 11 Physic., lect. 3.
'"Proem. Metaphys.; IV Metaphys., lect. 5; Xl Metaphya., lect. 7.
17 In Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. 3.

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WILLIAM

H. KANE

from different points of view. and many new questions have
arisen. It is sometimes asked whether the doctrine of Cajetan 18
and John of St. Thomas 19 is the same as that of their master.
In particular, is the total abstraction of which Cajetan speaks
the same as the abstraction of the whole of which St. Thomas
speaks, and is formal abstraction the same as the abstraction
of the form or part? The present writer thinks that these
great teachers agree in these matters, but that they do not
always speak about the same things, or from the same point
of view.
St. Thomas speaks for the beginner in terms which the
beginner can understand. He speaks of the physicist and the
mathematician, and of the things which they investigate. He
says that the physicist considers the whole, whereas the mathematician is not interested in the natural whole, but in certain
forms or parts, and so employs the abstraction of the form.
He says that the speculative sciences are distinguished according to the order of removal or separation of intelligible objects
from sensory matter and motion, or application to these, as
in mathematical physics. In physics we leave aside only the
singular and the incidental as such, in order to consider the
universal and essential aspects of natural things both in general
and in specific detail. In mathematics we set aside sensory
matter and consider quantity, not without its subject, and with
its own basic principles through which its determinations, parts
and relations are intelligible. He says that the metaphysical
object is not attained by abstraction, but by separation, because
it presupposes the knowledge of immaterial beings, which are
not immediately evident to us.
The Thomistic commentators, for their part, often speak of
the sciences rather than of the scientists. They speak of physics
or metaphysics, and of mathematics whether pure or mixed,
and they ask how the various sciences are distinguished. Their
point of view is that of doctrine rather than that of discipline.
18

19

Cajetan, In "De Ente et Essentia," Proem. 1.
John of St. Thomas, Logica II, P. Q. XXVII. Art. I.

ABSTRACTION

AND THE DISTINCTION

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65

They presuppose that there are different sciences, and they ask
how these are specifically determined. They point out that we
perform two conceptualizing processes, and that the second
gives us an object which is more formal and more intelligible
than the first. But they speak from the point of view of the
knowable object rather than of the mental act. What they
call total and formal abstractions are objects which can be
known by different mental processes. These objects do not
exactly correspond to those attained by the abstraction of the
whole and of the form of which St. Thomas speaks. Every
abstraction of the whole attains an object which may be called
a total abstraction, but not every total abstraction is simply a
whole, because things which are not primary wholes, for instance, the hot or the colored, the round or the square, may be
taken as examples of total abstraction. Moreover, the abstraction of the form attains an object which is really distinct from
other forms or parts in the whole, whereas a formal abstraction
is an object of mental predsing, and is a formality which is
not really but only
distinct from
formalities
which are distinguishable in the whole.
The sciences are not distinguished by abstraction o£ the
whole, as St. Thomas admits, nor by total abstraction, as
Cajetan admits. St. Thomas says that they are distinguished
according to the order of removal from sensory matter and
motion. Cajetan says .that they are distinguished according to
the distinct modes of formal abstraction. What St. Thomas
calls an order of removal from sensory matter attains to an
object which Cajetan calls a distinct mode of formal abstraction. Within these different points of view and under these
different vocabularies, we see an agreement in doctrine. In
order to distinguish the sciences we must pay attention to the
formality under which things are considered. This formality
must present to the mind a distinct scientific object, one which
admits of development into a distinct science.
The sensory world is the reality which is immediately evident
to us. If we consider it as naturally mobile, that is, under the
aspect of natural mobility, we attain a scientific object which
5

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WILLIAM

H. KANE

admits of logical (but not simply deductive) development from
its first principles of natural motion to an explanation of the
specific details of all natural things and processes. In this
case we investigate sensory matter and motion in a speculative
way, and we remove only from the singular and the incidental
as such, in order to consider all that is proper and essential in
common sensory matter or the universal.
If we remove not only from the singular but also from all
sensory matter as such and consider things under the aspect
of intelligible and imaginable
we discover another
scientific object different from that of natural science, namely
the object of mathematics. Indeed, the mathematical object
is twofold, 20 not precisely because there are two kinds of
quantity (total abstraction) but because discrete quantity can
be understood without considering the order of parts in space,
and when considered in this way it is more immaterial, more
removed from sensory matter (a higher mode of formal abstraction) than is continuous quantity as such, which cannot
be or be understood without the order of its parts in space. A
triangle, for instance, has three sides and three angles which
are spatially related, and it ca1mot be understood without
considering the order of its parts in space. But the number
three can be understood without considering the spatial relations of its parts. Furthermore, the principles of continuous
quantity as such are irreducibly different from the principles
of discrete quantity as such, and each set of principles admits
of development into a distinct science, namely geometry and
arithmetic or algebra. Analytic geometry is an application of
algebra to the objects of geometry, which is legitimate inasmuch
as continuous quantity has numerable parts.
In order to attain the object of metaphysics we must have
previous knowledge of both material and immaterial beings.
The knowledge of immaterial beings is not attained by abstraction, that is, by the process of considering separately
things which are really distinct and together, but by separation,
and it is only after we know that there are such beings that we
10

Ibid.

ABSTRACTION

AND THE DISTINCTION

OF THE SCIENCES

67

see the need for another science beyond physics. This knowledge enables us to grasp the formality of being as such (formal
abstraction) , that is, being whether material or immaterial,
substance or accident, and gives us another scientific object
with its own principles, which admits of development into the
science of metaphysics. Thus we see that in spite of the difference in point of view and terminology, St. Thomas and his
great commentators are in agreement concerning the division
of the sciences.
But what about the modern problem? Why do so many
modern writers disagree with the doctrine of the ancients?
Perhaps it is because they presuppose that modern non-mathematical science of natural things is distinct from the philosophy
of nature, and they are seeking to justify this presupposed
distinction.
It seems clear that there cannot be a speculative and nonmathematical science of natural phenomena, in the Aristotelian
sense of science, distinct from natural philosophy, because
natural philosophy itself results from the minimum removal
from sensory matter and motion, and because the principles of
natural phenomena are the natures of things, and these are the
proper principles of natural philosophy. Those who claim that
non-mathematical science of natural phenomena is distinct from
natural philosophy do not say that it is science in the Aristotelian sense. The fact that it is not science in the Aristo-.
telian sense is not its glory but its weakness, because it is
thereby restricted to merely dialectical constructions. Furthermore, to distinguish the science of phenomena-whatever this
may be-from the philosophy of nature is to reduce this science
to a mere fraction of its stature as conceived by Aristotle and
St. Thomas, and as permitted by its own principles and proper
methods. Through the sensory appearances of things, and only
in this way, the specific natures of things can be known and
defined. Without a detailed investigation of natural things such
as is undertaken in modern science only a few general truths
about their principles and properties can be known, whereas
with the aid of modern experimental techniques a great deal

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WILLIAM

H. KANE

can be known and understood in a genuinely scientific way
through the proper principles and causes of physical science.
It is merely arbitrary to abbreviate natural philosophy, and to
restrict it to a few general truths. It is unnecessary and
unnatural to leave a gap between natural phil9sophy and
natural science and by that very gap prevent the latter from
being science in the strict sense of the term.
To distinguish the sciences it is not sufficient to point out
the real distinctions between the substance and its accidents,
between matter and form, essence and existence. A distinct
science requires a subject with its own first principles through
which it is intelligible in itself and in its parts with their
properties and relations. The :reason why there is a definite
number of speculative sciences is because there are certain ways
in which things are intelligible speculatively, distinguished
according to the order of removal from sensory matter and
motion, or application to these, by which scientific objects
enjoying distinct degrees of immateriality are attained, or
distinct modes of formal abstraction, which are
through irreducibly different basic principles,
WILLIAM

Albertus Magnus Lyceum
for Natural Science.
River Forest. Ill.

H. KANE, 0. P.

ST. ALBERT AND THE THEOHY OF
ABS1'HACTION

I

N thirteenth-century Europe the Platonic philosophical
system, which had held sway almost uncontestedly from
the time of Plotinus and St. Augustine, was challenged by
its irreconcilable rival, Aristotelianism. While St. Albert is
given credit for endeavoring to preserve and disseminate the
writings of Aristotle, St. Thomas ordinarily receives all the
acclaim for extricating the true Aristotle from the centuriesold accretions of neo-Platonism. That is, Albert, although he
admired the Stagirite, was a Platonist at heart, or an eclectic,
or one of those dreamers who hoped to synthesize a Peripatetic
Academy. At any rate, he was certainly not the first of the
medieval Aristotelians. This, in general, is the judgment
historians of philosophy seem to have made.
While science has not yet devised a litmus paper for separating thirteenth-century Aristotelians from Augustinians, there
are certain properties which are taken as characteristic of each.
First of all, an Aristotelian will place a very miserly limit of
one on the substantial forms any being may have; the
Augustinian neo-Platonist generously concedes any number of
forms. The Aristotelian reserves his hylomorphic theory for
corporeal beings; the Augustinian extends it to all beings
except the Divine. Although these two characteristics constitute the binarium famosissimum, the modern preoccupation
with epistemology makes a third property perhaps even more
important. Augustinians are divine
Aristotelians are abstractionists.
It is with respect to this last criterion that we propose to
examine St. Albert, to ascertain as nearly as possible whether
his theory of knowledge was one of divine illumination or one
of abstraction. Despite the fact that even a completely satis-

69

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ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

factory settlement of this problem would not of itself turn
St. Albert into either a Peripatetic or an Academic, our investigation should serve to demonstrate to some degree how
Academic a Peripatetic or how Peripatetic an Academic he was.
Even a cursory inspection of the available summaries of St.
Albert's thought makes it evident that the interpretation of
this philosopher is far from being something upon which everyone agrees or something about which anyone should presume
to make many unqualified statements. 1 The quantity of
material to be read, the difficulty of determining when Albert
is simply expounding the thought of another and when he is
setting down his own conclusions, and the present state of his
works contribute toward making the study of the Albertine
corpus difficult and not notably fruitful thus far with respect
to any definitive interpretation. 2
However, one can hope to attain some degree of certitude in
investigating one minute phase of the problem. The question
to be considered in detail, then, is St. Albert's attitude toward
the theory of abstraction, and even more precisely, whether
his abstraction theory accounts for all natural knowledge or
whether he has recourse also to a theory of illumination.
The principal sources of information are St. Albert's paraphrase-commentary on Aristotle's De anima, the Summa de
creaturis, the commentaries on Dionysius, and the Summa
theologiae. That his De unitate intellectus and his De intellectu
et intelligibili are not included is due to their seeming to
contain nothing which clea:rly indicates an illumination theory
-except insofar as the soul receives a natural light which
enables it to perform abstractions-or which directly supports
a theory that the natural light of the intellect is sufficient for
all natural knowledge.
1 See F. J. Thonnard,
Precis d'histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Desclee et Cie,
1945), pp. 315-818.
2 Perhaps
Albert himself is not entirely blameless with respect to the state of
the present Albertine studies, for, according to De Wulf, "Sa langue est inculte,
souvent embarrassee et imprecise." La philosophie medievale au XIII• siecle, !'!nd.
ed. (Louvain, 1905), p. 820.

ST. ALBERT AND THE THEORY OF ABSTRACTION

71

In De anima, 3 the following subjects relative to abstraction
are treated: the nature of universals, the distinction between
forma partis and forma totius, the manner in which the soul
is known, knowledge of mathematicals and corporeal things,
whether the soul has operations which are independent of the
body, the soul as separable from the body, and the distinction
between agent and possible intellects.

The Nature of Universals
If animal, as a universal, is anything of the quiddity of a
particular and real animal, it must be posterior to the individual
and not prior. The same holds good for anything common
which is predicated of a being. That is, the (formal) cause of
animal, which is the principle of this or that animal, is in the
animal itself, and is particular and does not precede the particular animal in time, as Plato said. If it were true that the
universal preceded the particular, then we could have knowledge of the particular only through the universal, as if natural
things could be known only by knowing their causes.
Therefore, the nature---whether it is a form of genus or dif• Just as it was formerly held that St. Thomas' own thought could not be
sifted from his Aristotelian commentaries, so it has been objected that Albert,
in his De anima, is simply setting down Aristotle's ideas and does not necessarily
assent to them himself. However, the fact that Albert expounds in this work the
theories of so many other philosophers on numerous questions and then· proceeds
to demolish their arguments, leaving only the Aristotelian position intact, would
be very difficult to explain if Albert did not himself favor in each case the position
of Aristotle. Secondly, a reading between the lines of De anima does not give
the impression that this is simply an exposition of someone else's thought; and
such expressions as Haec autem ideo dico (Lib. I, tract. I, c. 4; t. V, p. US), do
not lend themselves to such an interpretation. Thirdly, it was necessary that St.
Albert choose among the various current interpretations of Aristotle, and his
rejection of this or that interpretation is always based on truth rather than any
textual fidelity. Finally, the writer has not been able to discover in the other
works of St. Albert any contradiction of what is said in De anima relative to the
abstraction theory, but rather, much that affirms or supports it. While the fact
that St. Thomas, a student of St. Albert, held an Aristotelian view of abstraction
is not a premise from which one can conclude that St. Albert held the same view,
it does add some weight to the above reasons for taking De anima as a sincere
expression of its author's own thought.

72

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

ference-which is in a particular thing in esse naturae is in
that one thing and not in anything else. It is when the intellect
receives the intentions of a being's essential principles (potency
and act) and abstracts these intentions from matter and whatever else may individuate them that the intellect universalizes
the nature. Therefore, the universal is posterior to the particular when it is taken as a universal; there is no truth to
Plato's assertion that the universal precedes secu,ndum esse
all the particular beings which participate in iL4

Distinction between Forma PaTtis and FoTma Totius
Just as Avicenna said, forms are of two kinds. One kind of
form is that which is considered as the act of a thing and a
part of its esse. This foTma partis cannot be predicated of
beings; e. g., it is not true to say that man is a soul. The
other kind of form can be predicated, for it is the intentio rei
abstracta a Te, the intention of the whole being, the forma
totius.
The specific foTma totius is composite; it includes genus and
difference, genus being as matter and difference as form. That
is, genus is not matter, but is a forma totius abstracted, not
from just any matter, but from the proper matter which is
proportionate to the differential form. However, because the
whole being is signified by the name of its proximate matter,
genus can properly be said to be abstracted from the whole.
For example, because man is signified as an animated sensible
body, the generic form, animal, which is abstracted from the
proximate matter (animated sensible body) can be said to be
abstracted from the whole.
Et si proprie velimus loqui, dicemus quod (forma generalis) est
abstracta non a materia, sed a toto, secundum quod significatur
totum nomine materiae
sicut si dicam significa:ri hominem
secundum quod est animatum sensibile corpus: sic enim est materia
• St. Albert, Opera Alberti Magni (ed . .Abbe Borgnet, 38 vosl; Paris: Vives,
1890); De anima, lib. I, tract. I, c. 4; t. V, pp. l'illl-24. The Borgnet edition has
been used throughout because, although it is inferior to the Jammy edition, it has
been more widely circulated and is, therefore, more readily available for consul.-

ST. ALBERT

AND THE THEORY

OF ABSTRACTION

73

proxima homini: et quod abstrahitur ab eo secundum quod sic
significatur, est forma generis quae est animaL (This passage is
interesting also as indicative of the Albertine relation of soul to
body in man.) 5

The Manner in which the Soul is Known
In some things the nature of the whole is more knowable to
us than the parts, and the powers of these things more knowable than the acts or objects of these powers. This is true of
corporeal things, which are subject to the senses. That is,
we know, for example, the nature of fire as a whole, and
through knowing the whole, we learn the powers of its parts,
their O:J?erations and objects.
Certain things, however, which are not attainable by the
senses, are hidden from us with respect to their substance
and parts. Nevertheless, their objects are manifest to us;
through the objects, we know the operations; through the operations, the powers. Finally, it is through knowing the powers
that we are able to conjecture concerning the whole. In this
way it is that we investigate separated substances and the
human souL6
Active and Passi:ve Intellects
In those things which are spiritual and so not subject to our
senses, there are two kinds of powers, active and passive. The
active potencies are the makers of forms and the powers of
movement. Such are the active intellect and the powers which
move the heart and the organs of locomotion. The passive
potencies, however, a:re :receivers of forms, as are the senses
and the possible intellect. The potency of an active power is
caused by the essence of the form. Operation does not effect
any species in such a power; :rather, the operation is specified
by the form of the power itself, just as we say that the opertation. Lest the :reader be annoyed at the somewhat awkward language of the
above passage and what follows, let it be said that the writer has sacrificed elegance
of style to exactness in stating neither more nor less than what St. Albert has said.
"Ibid., c. 7; p. 182.
• Ibid., c. 5; p. 125.

74

ROSEMARY ZITA LAUER

ation of light is to illuminate. Whenever an active power acts
upon something which is its object, it imprints upon that
object its own species and form; e. g., light in illuminating
gives the species of light to those things which are illuminated.
Passive powers, on the other hand, lack a per se species; their
objects produce their species in them. For example, the eye
has no species of color until a colored object changes it by
impressing its own species upon the eye. For this reason, in
considering passive powers we must proceed from object to
operation and thence to the power itself.
If we take the example of light which St. Albert gives as an
instance of an active power and translate it into terms of agent
intellect and intelligible objects, we can conclude that the agent
intellect makes its objects intelligible by " imprinting " upon
them the " form " of intelligibility. That is, the agent intellect
is not a receiver of forms, but a maker of them. 7

Knowledge of Mathematicals and Corporeal Things
In mathematics those things which are prior in natura et re
are also more knowable; therefore, mathematical knowledge is
most certain. In physics, however, frequently those things which
are prior secundum naturam et rem are hidden from us; their
accidents are more evident, and so we must begin our knowledge from what is posterior and proceed to what is actually
prior. Therefore, the science of physics does not have in some
cases the certitude of mathematics,
When knowledge begins with accidents, it is necessary that
these accidents be per se knowable to us and proportionate to
our senses, phantasy (phantasia), and imagination, for it is
into these-sense, phantasy, imagination-that we first receive
corporeal things. Therefore, whenever we are able to transmit
the ratio of accidents into the phantasy and imagination, then
we are ab]e to abstract the ratio of the substance, the quid est,
from the thing whose accidents have been received in the
senses. It is through the knowledge of accidents, then, that
we come immediately, not by way of demonstration, to a
7

Ibid., p. 126.

ST. ALBERT

AND THE THEORY OF ABSTRACTION

75

knowledge of the corporeal substance to which the accidents
belong. (Knowledge of the soul is not immediate, but mediate,
for, as was seen above, we are able only to conjecture concerning the souL) 8

Whether the Soul has Operations which are Independent of
the Body
An operation which is not in any motion or passion of any
part of the body may yet be inexplicable without some operation which is in some bodily motion or passion. The understanding of sensibles and mathematicals is such an operation;
that is, one depending upon a bodily motion or passion for its
explanation. Although such understanding is not completely
explained by what occurs in the body, it cannot take place
without the reception of sensible forms in the phantasy. The
phantasy, it is to be noted, is in direct communication with the
body inasmuch as its organ is a part of the cerebrum. The
sense forms are impressed upon the spiritus (a very subtle
kind of gaseous substance which permeates the body) and
carried to the cerebrum.
It is possible that an incorporeal substance existing in the
body as the act of the body should communicate with the body
directly; this is true of the soul as the principle of vegetative
and sensitive functions. On the other hand, such an incorporeal
substance may communicate with what communicates with the
body; such is the soul as the principle of the possible intellect.
Finally, it is possible that such an incorporeal substance communicate with the body in neither way, that it have operations
which are in no way dependent upon the body. This last
possibility is fulfilled in the soul as the principle of the agent
intellect.
To understand is an operation which is properly separated
from the body, for it deals with what is simple and denuded
of matter. Therefore, understanding is not explained by forms
impressed upon any corporeal organ. Rather, it is a simple
• Ibid.

76

ROSEMARY ZITA LAUER

mental concept without any hie et nunc, but always and everywhere the same. 9

The Soul as Separable from the Body
There is nothing to make it impossible that a soul should be
separated from the body with respect to certain of its parts,
parts which are not acts of that body because they do not
exercise vital actions in it as in an organ. Such separable
parts are the agent and possible intellects. It is evident,
moreover, that not only the intellectual part of the soul is
separable, but the whole intellectual soul. This follows from
the fact that the agent and possible intellects are the soul's
natural powers and it is impossible that separated powers
should flow from an essence which is conjoined with a body.
On the other hand, it is possible that from what is essentially
separated there should flo'Y powers which operate in the body.
That the above reasoning is correct follows from the axiom
that every superior power can do whatever an inferior power is
capable of doing; for example, from the first mover, which is
the most separated of all essences, there flows the virtus motiva
of the first moved, and this virtus motiva cannot operate without a body. 10
The Distinction between Agent and Possible Intellects
The agent intellect has two operations: to abstract intelligible forms, which is nothing but to make them simple and
universal, and to illuminate the possible intellect, as light
illuminates something which is transparent. It is necessary that
the universal species, as long as it is universal, remain in the
light of the agent intellect; even when it is received in the
possible intellect, it must be received in the light of the agent
intellect. Consequently, in any act of understanding, the possible intellect must be illumined with the light of the agent
intellect. 11
' Ibid., c. 6; p. US.
10 Ibid., lib. II, tract. I, c. 4; p. 198.
11 Ibid., lib. III, tract. II, c. 19; p. 866.

ST. ALBERT

AND THE THEORY

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77

Because the soul is a kind of reflection of the light of a
separated intelligence, there will necessarily be in the soul
the form of light and that in which the light is received. From
this esse of the soul there flow two powers: the agent intellect,
which is caused by the received light; and the possible intellect,
which is caused by that in which the light is received. In these
two, then, there will be a perfecta substantia which will always
endure and not be corrupted through the death of the body. 12
During life the possible intellect is in the process of becoming
actualized by the agent intellect. As the possible intellect proceeds from potency to act, there is use of reminiscence (conve1·sio ad particularia quae sunt in phantasmatibus), of sense,
imagination, and phantasy. From sense, experience is received;
from experience, memory; from memory, the universal. Once
the possible intellect has knowledge it is called the intellectus
adeptus, and then it no longer has need of the sensible powers
of t]}e soul, just as one who needs a carriage to travel to his
country no longer requires it once he has arrived. (Avicenna's
example.)
Therefore, we can say that the separated intellect, which
already has intelligible forms and does not need to turn to
anything other than the agent intellect and itself, has attained
to truth, for that is most true which is denuded of matter and
the appendages of matter (figura, situs, et hujusmodi) . Matter,
because of its privation and mutability, obscures the true
esse of things.
The intellectus adeptus, then, which consists in simple understanding, is immortal and perpetual; in it there is no use of
reminiscence or any sensible power. The intellect which uses
reminiscence or some other sensible power is passible and
mutable, and therefore, corruptible. However, considered not
as a power of the soul, but as the soul itself, such an intellect
is not corruptible.
Notwithstanding the corruptibility of the possible intellect,
nothing is understood without it, for our knowledge arises from
12

Ibid., c. 18; p. 365.

78

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

the senses. Still, the possible intellect's understanding after
death-when it has become completely actualized-is independent of the senses. Therefore, we cannot speak univocally of
the understanding of the possible intellect in this life and after
death; it is equivocal To understand after a habitus of knowledge and with only a turning to the agent intellect is equivocal
to understanding by receiving knowledge through experience
and memory. The agent intellect is the form of the possible
intellect, and these two are one as a composite, but with
diverse operations. 13
In the Summa de creaturis, two questions are especially
pertinent: what makes an intelligible species intelligible and
how God is known.

What Makes an Intelligible Species Intelligible
Everything which is intelligible is so because it has the
simplicity of being abstracted from matter and the appendages
of matter. (It is the matter of individuation, and not the
matter which substat universali, from
abstraction is
made: man is abstracted from this body, but not from body.) 14
Moreover, we have no knowledge, secundum naturam, which
has not in some manner arisen from the senses, either immediately or mediately. When we perceive sensible forms, such as
colors, we immediately perceive that \Vhich is the subject of
those sensible forms, but when we perceive such a thing as
motion, we come mediately to a knowledge of an unmoved
mover. That those who are blind and deaf are all but
able is evidence that we have no natural knowledge except
that which is received through the senses. 15

How God is Known
God is understood by means of sensibles (ex causis quae
faciunt phantasrnata in anima), but because He is infinitely
Ibid., c. 19; p. 367.
Summa de creaturis (contained in tomes XXXIV and XXXV of the Borgnet
edition), Pars II, q. 58, a. 1, sol.; XXXV, p. 501.
15 Ibid.
18

14

ST, ALBERT

AND THE THEORY

OF ABSTRACTION

79

distant from such sensibles, He is not understood perfectly. We
cannot even speak of God except by making use of secondary
causes, which are illumined by the light of the first cause.
(This illumination by the first cause seems to refer to the
giving of intelligible forms to the things known, not to the
knower.) 1'6
The Summa theologiae discusses the cognoscibility of God
through natural reason, and also the manner in which angels
are knowu.

Cognoscibility of God
There are two kinds of knowledge of God: positive and
privative. By positive knowledge it is known that God is and
even what He is. Privative knowledge reveals what God is
not. That God is is knowable ex solis naturalibus, and even
what He is can be known in the same way, but imperfectly
and confusedly, by an intellectum lippientem, a bleary-eyed
understanding. We know God by a negation of limits; we know
God is an incorporeal substance which cannot be
by genus, species, difference, or number. By privative understanding, we know that God is not a body, not measurable, not
temporal, etc. 17
Since this knowledge is on the natural level, God can be
known by the wicked as well as by the good. If the good
actually do have a better knowledge of God, it is attributable
to grace:
Longinqua enim visione et confusa potest Deus cognosd a malis,
propinquiori et minus co:nfusa a bonis per gratiam, propinqua
autem et immediata et :non co:nfusa cognoscitur per gloriam, a
nullo tamen comprehenditur. 18

In this present life, God cannot be known except through some
medium, either the things of nature or grace. 19
Ibid., q. 56, a. 1, ad 5; p. 479.
Summa theologiae (contained in tomes XXXI-XXXIII of the Borgnet edition),
Pars I, tract. III, q. 14, mem. 1; t. XXXI, pp. 69-70.
18 Ibid., mem. 2; p. 72.
19 Ibid., q. 15, mem. 1; pp. 79-80.
16

17

80

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

Whether God is known through the things of nature, through
grace, or through glory, the intellect must be illuminated. If
this illumination makes possible the knowledge of natural things
through which God is known, it is a natural light which
illuminates. (This light is given to the possible intellect and
appears to be the natural light of the agent intellect itself.)
If the illumination makes possible belief in revealed truths, it
is grace; if it enables the intellect to receive the beatific vision,
it is glo:ry.20
Knowledge of Angels
In dealing with the question of how angels are known to
men St. Albert considers the objection that man has no intellection except that which arises from phantasms. Since angels
are not a source of phantasms, it would seem that man cannot
know them. St. Albert answers that it is true that the understanding of things of nature and of mathematicals arises from
phantasms, but, if that were the only source of knowledge for
man, he would never know divine things. (Divina seem to be
separated forms and God Himself.) Now it is the very nature
of the intellectus adeptus, also called the intellectus divinorum,
to understand forms directly and not through phantasms, sed
in quantum elevatur in lumine agentis intellectus ad speciem
luminis divini. 21 The intellectus divinomm, then, is capable of
knowing angels despite their being non-sensible. However, as
was noted above, man has no intellectus divinorum in this life,
but only after the possible intellect has become completely
actualized and the soul has been separated from the body.
H there were to be found anywhere in the writings of St.
Albert any leaning toward an illumination theory of knowledge, certainly it would be found in the commentaries on
Dionysius. It is impossible, however, to find any passage in
these commentaries which is certainly indicative of a neo20 Ibid., q. 16, mem. 3, a. 3; pp. 110-lll.
• St. Albert, Opera Alberti Magni (ed Abbe Borgnet, 38 vols.; Paris:
21 Ibid., pars II, tract. 4, q. 14, a.
particula 4, ad 1; t. XXXII, p. Hlli.

Vives,

ST. ALBERT

AND THE THEORY

OF ABSTRACTION

8!

Platonic or Augustinian theory of knowledge. On the contrary,
there are more passages definitely expounding an Aristotelian
abstraction.ist theory than one would expect to find in a work
which is devoted to an exposition of mystical theology.
In the De coelesti hierarchia St. Albert again takes up the
question of our knowledge of angels: Without divine revelation
it is impossible to arrive at a knowledge of angels, fo:r all our
knowledge, according to the Philosopher, arises from sense.
Therefore, our knowing does not extend beyond the proper or
common sensibles, or those things which are sensible per
accidens, that is, by being conjoined in some way to the sensibles. Our intellect is in potency only to what can be received
through the senses, but it becomes capable of knowing spiritual
beings through the addition of the light of grace or glory to
the intellect's natural light. 22
The De mystica theologia yields many passages referring to
a knowledge of God through divine illumination, but these
must be interpreted in context; that is, they refer, not to an;v
natural knowledge of God, but to
divinely infused knowledge of mystical contemplation: sed cognoscimus quadam
supernaturali cognitione sub quadam confusione. 23 In such
prayer God is not known per se, as a principle, nor propter
quid, for He has no cause, nor quia, for He has no proportionate
effect, sed mens nostra suscipit quoddam lumen divinum, quod
est supra naturam suam, quod elevat eam super omnes modo.<;
visioni.<J naturales, et per quod venit ad visionem Dei, confuse
tamen et non determinate cognoscens: et ideo dicitur, quod per
non videre videtur Deus, scilicet per non videre naturale. 24
The Commentarius in Epistolam IX, in distinguishing
between theological and other kinds of knowledge, makes clear
that St. Albert does not consider even the principles of .reason
to be infused by any kind of illumination other than that
which follows upon the very nature of the intellect. That is,
while the principles of theology are those of faith, principles
D(') coelesti hierarchia, c. 6, §
t. XIV, p. 143.
De mystica theologia, c. l, § 6, dub.
ad 3; t. XIV, pp. 834.
•• Ibid., 'c. £, § £, dub. l; t. XIV, p. 840.

22
23

6

82

ROSEMARY

ZI'l'A LAUER

which are known through an infused divine light, the principles
of reason are those which are known through the natural light
of the agent intellect. 25
The same commentary is interesting as a source of St.
Albert's theory of knowledge with :respect to the knowledge of
God by analogy. While analogical knowing is not the same as
abstraction, it is a necessary adjunct to an abstractionist
theory if man's natural ability to know God is to be safeguarded. The particular passage to be considered concerns
St. Albert's answer to an objection against Scripture's use of
symbolic language. The objector states that such language
obscures the truth because the symbols are sensible things, and
what is sensible cannot give knowledge of the spiritual.
St. Albert's answer is that such symbols do hide the truth
inasmuch as they are sensibles, but inasmuch as they are
related to spiritual beings, they manifest the truth. These
sensibles are related to spiritual beings by an inspectio of
similitude. This does not mean that the sensibles participate
in some quality of spiritual beings, for corporeal and spiritual
qualities are entirely different; nor does it mean that there is
a proportion between the corporeal and the spirituaL What
this similitudinis inspectio means is that there is a similitude
of proportionality
which there are necessarily four factors
involved. That is, one considers a property of some sensible
thing in comparison with its act and then discovers a similar
relationship existing between a property of some spiritual being
and its act. For instance, a property of lions is a certain
ferocity through which they overpower other animals which
resist them; similarly, God, by His power, puts down the proud
and those who resist Him. It is not to be concluded from this
that either the power or the victorious act of God and of the
lion have at all the same nature; rather, there is only the
possibility of a certain comparison between them. As the power
of the lion is to it,<? victory, so the power of God is to His
victorious act; there is, then, a similitudo proportionalitatis. 26
•• Commentarius in Epistolam IX, § 7, ad 6; t. XIV, p. 997.
•• Ibid., § 1, C, ad 4; p. 989.

ST. ALBERT AND THE THEORY OF ABSTRACTION

83

In summarizing St. Albert's position on the question of
abstraction, the following conclusions seem warranted:
1) All natural knowledge in this life begins with sense
experience.
2) The agent intellect, which is a virtus of the soul,
abstracts the intelligible species from the phantasm.
3) When the possible intellect has been completely actualized by the agent intellect, the resulting inteUectus divinorum
is capable of receiving intelligible species without any sense
mediation; but this complete actualization of the possible intellect does not occur before death.
4) Knowledge obtained through grace must be distinguished
from purely natural knowledge; the former is not obtained
through abstraction while the latter is obtained in no other way.
5) There is no illumination theory on the natural level,
except insofar as the agent intellect enjoys a kind of illumination due to its very nature, one which makes it capable ol
abstracting intelligible species from sensible things.
RosEMARY ZITA LAUER

Rosary College,

River Forest, Ill.

ARISTOTLE ON MATHEMATICAL
CONSTRUCTIBILITY

T

HE cultural atmosphere in which Aristotle spent his
studious years at the Academy and the early period
of his independent thinking was characterized conspicuously by the prominent part mathematics played in the
speculations and investigations of his contemporaries. Many
of them were certainly known to Aristotle; and their discussions
1nd inventions have doubtlessly deepened his knowledge of
tne exact sciences and influenced his mature views on the
methods a:..d the significance of mathematics. A proper interpretation of these views requires more than a superficial understanding of Aristotle's references to mathematics. 1 All these
texts must be confronted for this
with the scientific
theories and practices of his time.
This is particularly important for a proper estimate of
Aristotle's doctrine on the nature of mathematical notions.
The problem to be discussed here is whether these objects are
obtained by simple abstraction from the material world, or by
1 Most of Aristotle's
references to mathematics have been gathered by the late
Sir Thomas Heath in a posthumous work Mathematics in Aristotle (1 vol. Q91 pp.
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949). These texts are given in translation from
the successive Aristotelian treatises, namely from the Categories to the Eudemian
Ethics, with few comments and only a partial effort to correlate them or to expand
their interpretation. Obviously, this collection was not meant to be published as it
is now by its distinguished author. If Heath had been spared long enough, he
would have enriched it with the type of scholarly commentaries one admires in the
Thirteen Books of Euclid's Eleme:nts and in his other publications. As it is, this
excellent work will prove most handy and inspiring to those interested in Aristotle's
views on mathematies; for without it, they would have to search in the bulk of
the Aristotelian Corpus for the significant mathematical passages at a great cost
of time. As such, it is most valuable and proves to be worthy of the eminence of
its author, for whose memory a fresh debt of gratitude will be owed by the
historians of ancient Greek culture.

84

ARISTOTLE

ON MATHEMATICAL

CONSTRUCTIBILITY

85

construction as required by the modern mathematician. This
question is the more decisive as the traditional answer usually
emphasizes abstraction, without giving much thought to the
process of construction, and tends to cast reflections on the
mathematical ability and acumen of the Stagirite as opposed
to his master.
Now, Aristotle taught that extension and number are involved in sensible things, without being the stuff out of which
these things are made; while Plato treated the formless space
(x.pwa) as the material element or substratum of sensible
things, as the stuff out of which they are moulded by the
penetration into it of shapes which are like the numbers. 2 On
the other h.and, Aristotle separates from sensible matter those
notions only which do not require it actually; while Plato
abstracts from matter not only mathematical objects but also
entities in whose very nature matter is involved. And finally,
figures and numbers are not identified by Aristotle as they are
by Plato; though both are aspects of quantity they are the
objects of different sciences. Geometry deals with figures, that
is, with continuous or extended quantity and arithmetic with
numbers, that is, with discrete and unextended quantity.
Aristotle goes even as far as to maintain that the specific
postulates of either of these sciences cannot be applied to both.
Mathematical objects are obtained by the same process
which results in the apprehension of the universals.
The mathematician investigates abstractions; for, before beginning
his investigation, he strips off an the sensible qualities, weight and
lightness, hardness and its contrary, and also heat and cold and
the other sensible contraries. He leaves only the quantitative and
the continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in two, sometimes in
three dimensions; and the attributes of these as quantitative and
continuous also, as he does not consider them in any other respect.
He examines the relative positions of some of the attributes of
these, and the cornmensurabilities and incommensurabilities of
others, and the ratios of others. 4
• Timaeus, 50 C-52 A.

• Met. 1061 a 28.

• An. Post. 75 a $5-b 17.

86

THOMAS

GREENWOOD

This is confirmed by the statement that " the mind, when
thinking the objects of mathematics, thinks as separate elements which do not exist separate. In every case, the mind
which is actively thinking, is the objects which he thinks." 5
Aristotle would even say that it is by a kind of induction from
perceptual things that the universal notions of mathematics
can be elicited and known. " It is possible to familiarize the
pupil with even the so-called mathematical abstractions only
through induction, because each subject genus possesses, in
virtue of a determinate mathematical character, certain properties which can be treated as separate, even though they do not
exist in isolation." 6 Consequently, mathematical objects have
no separate existence; they are not independent of and prior
to experience. As they are abstractions suggested by physical
objects, they cannot be found without them and they have
not in themselves a source of motion and rest.
These views are obviously governed by a strong dependence
upon sensible and logical evidence, and
an aversion to
extrapolation beyond the powers of sensory perception. They
lead to the doctrine that mathematical objects are characteristics of natural things, which have been merely separated from
their context in the external world. For example, " geometry
investigates physical lines, but not as physical." 7 Hence, the
objects of mathematics are not those of sense experience, but
they have an adjectival existence as qualifying substances.
Moreover, the figures or symbols used in demonstrations are
for illustration only and do not enter as such into the reasoning.
In short, the relation between mathematical objects and sensible
things is one of cognizable difference rather than of factual
separateness.
These remarks are amplified with references to figures and
numbers separately. Thus the mind apprehends geometrical
objects by applying its power of abstraction to actual bodies
• De Anima, 431 b 15.
• An. Post. 81 b 1.
7 Phys. 194 a 10.

ARISTOTLE

ON MATHEMATICAL

CONSTRUCTIBILITY

87

whether terrestrial or celestial until the only qualities left are
the quantitative and the continuous with their attributes as
such. By removing the secondary qualities of the former and
the capacity for motion of the latter, they are still left with their
shape and size. These bodies can be considered then as nothing
more than three-dimensional solids. We can proceed further
and think in succession of plane sections of the solids, and of
linear sections of the surfaces, though solids, surfaces and lines
have no separate existence. 8 An additional operation is needed
in order to reach pure geometrical forms capable of definition,
for a particular solid, surface or line is embedded in a particular
extension; the abstraction of that particular extension is required before the form is reached. 9 Only then individual differences vanish and all that remain are universals, which are
the proper object of science.
With number the process of generation is slightly different,
though fundamentally based on abstraction. While Plato conceives it as a combination o£ the limit and the infinite, Aristotle
adopts the mo:re conservative view of number as a collection
of units, a discontinuous plurality. The notion of a unit is
obtained by abstraction, and it has its foundation in the: ontological character of the unity of being. Numbers are obtained
by adding one unit to another, and then by adding one unit to
the preceding number; 10 so that number are nothing beyond the
units of which they are essentially formed. For the synthetic,
dynamic and formal conception of number, Aristotle substitutes
the notion of a whole formed of partitive elements juxtaposited
in succession. Hence he thinks of numbers as an integral and
discontinuous quantity. 11 He does not follow the Platonic view
of conceiving it as continuous and almost geometrical.
This essential distinction between figures and numbers is a
particular elaboration of the Peripatetic philosophy and has a
far-reaching result in another direction: it points to what may
be called the qualitative aspect of mathematics. Many mathe8 Met. 1060 b
• Met. 1035 b 33-1036 a

10
11

Met. 1080 a 30.
An. Post. 76 b 10.

88

THOMAS GREENWOOD

matical notions are defined qualitatively in the Aristotelian
treatises: in the Physics/ 2 the notions of contact, contiguity
and continuity are defined in a positive way without any
reference to number or measure. In the Metaphysics, we read
that" a circle is a figure of a certain quality because it has no
angles, which implies that a differentia of essence is a quality.
This is one sense in which quality is called a differentia of
essence, another sense is that in which immovable mathematical
objects are qualities: thus numbers have a certain quality, for
example, numbers which are composite and not of one dimension only." 18 Such passages have been diversely interpreted
by various commentators.
Yet, the attitude of mind they reveal is technically justified
by the mathematical theories known to Aristotle's contemporaries. To be sure, the Greeks could have grouped together
in a qualitative system a mass of mathematical properties they
had discovered, especially in the field of geometry, if they had
the help of an adequate symbolism. As it is, they were more
interested in systematizing their geometrical and other discoveries, by combining qualitative and quantitative considerations. Subsequent generations of mathematicians continued
to use this fertile method, which reached its highest fulfilment
with modern mathematics. In fact, the success of the analytical
and infinitesimal methods was such, that even capital projective
discoveries by Ceva, Pascal and Desargues kept a marginal
position until Poncelet · laid the foundations of projective
geometry. Meanwhile the Aristotelian attitude proved closer
to facts in stressing the qualitative as well as the quantitative
aspect of mathematics. Indeed, there is a deep filiation running
right through the development of the exact sciences, which
links together this Aristotelian point of view with what may
be called qualitative mathematics, namely projective geometry,
axiomatics, topology, theory o£ sets, modern algebra and mathematical logic.
12

Phys. 226 b 21-227 a 20.

18

Met. 10020 a 85 sq.

ARISTOTLE

ON MATHEMATICAL

CONSTRUCTIBILITY

89

These considerations throw some light on the epistemological
approach to the real significance of mathematics. But the final
determination of the Aristotelian views about the nature of
mathematical objects demands a considered answer to the
question whether or not they are constructible. Most of the
quotations from the Aristotelian works about our knowledge of
mathematics seem to imply that our mind draws its elements
from experience, whereas the modern mathematician always
constructs the notions and the systems which make up the
science of mathematics. Yet, if one looks closer into the matter,
one finds that Aristotle combines abstraction and construction
in order to give to mathematical objects their being, their
necessity, their coherence and their applicability to natural
phenomena. For one thing, only the most general mathematical
concepts, such as volume, surface and line or number are
mentioned as results of abstraction. More technical concepts,
such as squares, triangles, pyramids, cylinders or polygonal
numbers would have been specified, if abstraction were the
only operation involved in their generation. Consequently,
though Aristotle asserts rightly that mathematical notions in
general result from an abstraction from sensible data, this
statement should not be understood to mean that all mathematical objects as such are obtained from experience by abstraction exclusively.
The mathematical practice in the Academy and in the
Lyceum manifested obviously the const:ructibility of mathematics, and several Aristotelian texts prove that the Stagirite
was aware of this fact and accepted it as a matter of course.
None of the ancient texts referring to Greek mathematics hint
or assert that the figures or numbers used or discovered were
ever obtained by a simple abstraction. On the contrary, they
entail that such mathematical elements were imagined, or
invented, or constructed by giving to lines and surfaces in
general, abstracted from experience, certain particular conditions imagined or stated in order to solve specific problems. The
fact of the const:ructibility of mathematical notions is confirmed

90

THOMAS GREENWOOD

by the canonicity of the proof by means of the ruler and the
compass. Moreover, the treatment of the infinite obviously
required processes of construction rather than exclusive abstraction; for there is no actual infinite in mathematics from which
any specific elements could be drawn by simple abstraction.
Finally, the systematic exposition of mathematics clearly entails
factual processes of construction. Indeed, the theory of proof
or demonstration required the construction of precise mathematical notions, by submitting the most general concepts obtained by abstraction to a set of hypotheses imagined for
specific technical reasons.
In the Posterior Analytics (I, 2 and I, 10), Aristotle says
clearly that the definitions of such prhnitive notions as surfaces
and lines, even of such technical concepts as straight lines or
triangles or definite combinations of lines and surfaces, are
justifiable only with reference to an hypothetical existence.
Furthermore, all the other concepts obtained with the help of
the primitive notions must be proved to exist. Now, both the
proof of existence and the hypothetical existence entail a
construction in all cases, and this construction may be either
a mental or a technical combination of elements.
It is by demonstration that we prove the existence of everything,
save being itself.... That a thing exists is matter for demonstration;
and this is the actual practice in the sciences. What a triangle is,
the geometer assumes; but that it exists, he proves.... The fact
is that definitions do not include any proof that the thing defined
may exist, or that it is the thing of which they claim that it is the
definition. It is open to anyone to ask why it is so.14

The same view is expressed in other passages. Thus, " we
must assume of a triangle that it means a certain thing, whereas
of a unit we must know both what it means and that it exists." 15
More precisely, we are told that
the things peculiar to the science, the existence of which must be
assumed, are the things with reference to which the science investigates the essential attributes, namely arithmetic with reference to
10

An. Post.

bU.

16

An. Post.

76 b 5. 71 a 11.

ARISTOTLE

ON MATHEMATICAL

CONSTRUCTIBILITY

91

units and geometry with reference to points and lines. But, with
regard to their essential properties, what is assumed is only the
meaning of each term employed; thus arithmetic assumes the
answer to the question what is " odd " or " even," a " square " or
a " cube," and geometry to the question what is the " irrational "
or " deflection " or the " verging." But that there are such things
is proved by means of the common principles and of what has
already been demonstrated. 16

Now, the usual way of making a demonstration forceful was
the construction of the notion in view; this was the actual
practice in Greek mathematics, which Aristotle knew well and
which he must have taken for granted. To be sure, Aristotle
could not think that abstraction alone sufficed to establish
mathematical notions as such. This is plainly indicated in this
text: " It is clear that even if it had been possible to perceive
by sense that the triangle has its angles equal to two right
angles, we should nevertheless have looked for a demonstration,
and we should not have possessed knowledge of the fact as
some assert." 17 For an explicit mathematical truth, Aristotle
refers explicitly to demonstration and not to abstraction.
With regard to the interpretation of demonstration in the
sense of mathematical constructibility, three texts may be
quoted most effectively. One is given in the Physics (II. 9)
where Aristotle illustrates a certain resemblance (not an
identity) between the necessity in mathematics and the necessity governing natural phenomena. " Given that the ' straight '
has such-and-such a character, it is a necessary consequence
that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right
angles. But it does not follow that given the latter (assertion),
the former is necessarily true; we can only say that if the
triangle has not the property in question, the ' straight ' as
we understand it does not exist." 18 The second text comes
from the De Caelo (I. 12) , where Aristotle discusses mathematical truth with reference to an hypothesis. " It is impossible,
if certain assumptions are made, that a triangle should have
11

An. Post. 76 b 5.

nAn. Post. 87 b 35.

18

Phys.

a 15.

THOMAS GREENWOOD

its angles together equal to two right angles; or that, on certain
assumptions, the diagonal should be commensurable." 19 These
remarks are corroborated and expanded in the third text, taken
from the Eudemian Ethics (II. 6) , where Aristotle insists on
the relativity of certain principles and in particular of mathematical hypotheses.
Immovable principles such as those of mathematics do not possess
absolute authority (r6 Kvpwv), although they are admitted as having
similar force. For even in mathematics, if the principle were
changed, almost all the propositions proved by it would be altered;
whereas, if one of these is destroyed by another, they will not all
be changed mathematically unless by the destruction of the hypothesis and the proof by means of that. Now ... if because a triangle
has its angles together equal to two right angles it necessarily
follows that a square has its angles together equal to four right
angles, it is manifest that the fact that the triangle has two right
angles is the cause of the other proposition. Whereas, of course,
if the triangle changes in this respect, so must the square. If the
sum of the angles is equal to three right angles for the triangle,
then it will be six for the square; if four, then eight. On the other
hand, if the triangle does not change but has the said property,
so must the square have the corresponding property. The necessity
of the inference, which we are trying to show, is clear from the
Analytics; at present it is not possible either to omit reference to
it or to treat it with precision, except to the extent indicated. 20
Taking all these texts together, one notices that they insist
mainly on the necessity of the inferential process rather than
on the relativity of the mathematical principles. Nevertheless,
the incidental reference to such a relativity and the significant
examples given as illustrations, add their weight in favor of
the constructibility
of mathematics.
For if mathematical
notions were the results of abstraction alone, there could not
be any relativity in their apprehension or in their meaning. 21
19 De Caelo, 281 b 3.
•• Eud. Ethica, 1222 b 23 sq.
21 We might draw attention
to the unconscious prophecy entailed in Aristotle's
view on the relativity of some properties of the triangle. At the time when he
wrote his remarks, he could not foresee however dimly the possibility of a nonEuclidian geometry as the best factual illustration of his doctrines.

ARISTOTLE

ON MATHEMATICAL

CONSTRUCTIBILITY

93

Furthermore, there are no real mathematical objects to which
abstraction could be applied simply; there are no squares, no
cylinders, no actual polygonal numbers in nature, to induce
the mind to separate their essence from empirical data. "We can
only experience things having certain familiar mathematical
forms; but these forms are seldom if ever identical with their
mathematical definitions. It follows that mathematical objects
and mathematical truths require the basic process of construction as the additional and unavoidable operation which gives
them being, necessity, and a definite position in the orderly
exposition of a systematic science.
If Aristotle had been against this practice of construction,
which was current with the mathematicians of his time, he
would have said so undoubtedly. On the contrary, his doctrines
imply this process as a matter of course. Their flowering and
most convincing illustration came with Euclid, who always
constructs the notions required before using them in a demonstration, though he may have defined them previously in accordance with the Aristotelian theory of prooL Thus, the Elements
use straight lines at :right angles to one another only after the
construction (I. 11, 12) of a perpendicular to a straight line.
Similarly, the square which is defined in Def. 22 is used only
after its construction (I. 46) . And the same remark holds for
all the specific notions which make up the body of geometry.
It remains to say that there is no incompatibility whatsoever
between abstraction and construction with regard to the resulting value of the mathematical notions. For construction is
not arbitrary and absolute; but carried out with elements
tained by strict abstraction and with the help of exemplary
causes suggested by the external world. That is why the perfect
mathematical notions used by Greek mathematics can be
applied effectively to natural phenomena; for these notions are
always in potency in the external world which provided their
elements. In other words, though there cannot be a perfectly
circular object in nature, there are perfect circles potentially
in the material world. The mind can abstract a useful but

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THOMAS

GREENWOOD

imperfect notion of the circular from a circular object; but
the perfect mathematical notion of the circle has to be constructed from empirical data stripped of their sensible matter,
in order to fit into a systematic body of mathematical knowledge.
This interpretation of the Aristotelian texts concerning the
nature of mathematical objects, coupled with the irreducible
distinction between magnitude and number, result in the destruction of the ontological unity of mathematics which Plato
tried to establish by means of his generalized conception of
number. But Aristotle established the methodological unity of
mathematics on the formal foundations of his theory of demonstration, which finds its justification in the ontological principles
underlying his fundamental doctrines. Modern mathematics
prove themselves to be closer to Aristotle's conceptions than to
the Olympian intuitions of his master.
THOMAS

University of M ontreul,
Montreal, Canada

GREENWOOD

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
TnoMAS U. MuLLANEY, 0. P., S. T. D., is professor of dogmatic theology
at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D. C. He is the
author of Suarez on Human Freedom.
WILLIAM H. KANE, 0. P., S. T. M., is professor of philosophy at the
Dominican House of Studies, River Forest, Ill., and director of the
Albertus Magnus Lyceum of Physical Science.
RosEMARY ZrTA LAUER, M.A., is instructor in philosophy at Rosary College,
River Forest, Ill. She has also written for The New Scholasticism.
THOMAS GREENWOOD, Ph. D., teaches in the department of philosophy at
the University of Montreal, and is a frequent contributor to THE
THOMIST.
JoHN McCARTHY, S. T. D., J. C. D., professor of moral theology and canon
law in the Pontifical Faculty of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth,
Eire, is the theological correspondent for the Irish Ecclesiastical
Record.
MARTIN GusiNDE, S. V. D., Ph. D., is a member of the department
anthropology at The Catholic ·university of America.

of

FRANCIS X. MEEHAN, Ph. D., is a professor at the Archdiocesan Seminary
of St. John, Brighton, Mass.
JAMEs VAN DER VELDT, 0. F. M., Ph. D., Agrege en philosophic, of the
department of psychology and psychiatry at The Catholic University
of America, is co-author of Psychiatry and Catholicism.
HENRY VEATCH, Ph. D., author of Intentional Logic and frequent contributor to THE THOMIST, is a member of the department of philosophy,
Indiana University.

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BOOK REVIEWS
Metaphysica Generalis. By GERARD EssER, S. V. D. Techny, Ill.: St. Mary's
Mission House, 195£. Pp. 884 with index. $4.00.
This book is a second edition, greatly enlarged and modernized, of
Father Esser's now twenty year old work of the same title (editio altera
emendata et aucta). In point of fact it appears to be entirely re-written.
It is a thorough, substantial and workmanlike treatment of the broad
and basic phase of scholastic philosophy that deals with reality in its
most general, even transcendental aspects. This second edition takes an
honorable place along with the several philosophical works that have already
come from the scholarly and prolific mind of Father Esser. It is somewhat
regrettable, incidentally, that these works have appeared in Latin, for their
market is by that fact severely limited. Though intended " ad usum
scholarum," the only schools they are likely to be used in are seminaries.
In his Metaphysica Generalis the author touches upon the matter traditionally treated in scholastic manuals on ontology. He does so, however, in
a rather refreshing manner, with the touch of a master quite at home in a
difficult field, quite well versed in modern attitudes, trends and developments-all this with the sure hand of a pedagogue long experienced in
teaching. After a brief introduction to metaphysics there is the customary
division of the book into the nature of being as such, its major modes, its
transcendental properties, being as found in the predicaments (again with
the usual restriction to substance, accidents in genere, and among the accidents in specie, quality, relation, action and passion) and finally the consideration of being with respect to its causes. This matter is dealt with in
some twenty-seven articles, each of which concludes with detailed recommendations of pertinent collateral readings, including not only ancient
writers, but modern and recent as well. These listings of authors to be
consulted alone attest to the extensiveness of the author's familiarity with
the field-borne out as well by the selected bibliography on metaphysical
subjects set forth in the beginning and by the copious footnotes throughout.
An extremely detailed table of contents as well as an index of authors and
subject matter at the end enhance in great measure the usefulness of the
book.
A few specific comments are in order. Very gratifying is the brief but
sound resume in the early pages of the book of the understanding of the
notion of being by various modern and particularly recent schools of
thought (including idealism, pragmatism, empiricism, nco-positivism, phenomenology, nco-realism, Bergson's philosophy of action, Heidegger's exist-

96

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97

entialism and Jasper's philosophy of existence). The author is to be heartily
commended for his introduction of a treatment of the prime principles of
being immediately after the consideration of the notion of being itself.
Where more naturally should such principles as those of contradiction,
identity and the excluded middle, be handled than at this point? Yet one
finds so often manuals of metaphysics where these principles are relegated
with appendix-like detachment to some other part of the structure or else
-worse still-completely excised so as not to be found in metaphysics
at all!
It is good, too, to find one's attention directed early in the book to the
consideration of mutable and immutable being, potency and act, especially
the principle of the limitation of act by potency-all this before taking up
the question of the relations between essence and existence. So many
authors plunge into the consideration of the distinction between essence
and existence without having touched upon the potency-act couplet and the
limitation of act by potency. In such cases they find themselves using
terms and arguments that presume the knowledge of the relations of
potency and act or they omit the most cogent arguments for the real
distinction between essence and existence drawn therefrom. Father Esser
has prepared the way in orderly fashion for the consideration of essence
and existence by his introductory article on mutable and immutable being.
It is, however, for this reason that it is something of a disappointment to
find that he has failed to make capital of this more acceptable order; for he
has given a strange Suarezian twist to the Thomistic principle that act cannot be limited save to the extent that it is received into a passive potency
by the surprising statement: " ... non ... requiritur ut actus a suo
subjecto realiter distinguatur sed sufficit praecisio objective adequata"!
(p. 85) This statement certainly nullifies St. Thomas' understanding of the
principle as connoting a real distinction between the act and the intrinsic
passive limiting co-principle. Small wonder that in Father Esser's viewpoint (again following Suarez) the argument for the real distinction between essence and existence drawn from the limitation of act by potency
It is this reviewer's opinion that in this
should lose its force. (cf. p.
matter of the distinction between essence and existence the author has not
done full justice to the Thomistic arguments for the reality of the distinction and indeed has omitted some of the strongest arguments (such,
for example, as are found in Quodl. II, q.
a. 3; Quodl. III, q. 8, a. £0;
Opusc. LXH, In Lib. Boetii de Hebdomad., Vives, VoL XXVHI, p. 471 b).
At any rate it is rather strange to find in a book that is presumably
Thomistic (d. author's preface, p. iii: "Ipsa (doctrina) ... est metaphysica
thomistica . . .") , the following statement: " . . . distinctio realis inter
essentiam et existentiam rei contingentis . . . argumentis evidentibus non
probatur." (p. 114) A final point in this regard: the author's use of the
expression distinctio metaphysica as opposed to real distinction is rather

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confusing. It seems unfortunate to use this expression to describe that kind
of logical distinction that goes by the traditional term distinctio rationis
ratiocinatae major. (cf. p. 151) If metaphysics deals with real being, then
it seems the term metaphysical ought not to be used to describe a merely
rational or logical distinction.
Disconcertingly enough the same expression is used later on when he
sets forth the view (which he himself finds quite attractive--and here
again one notes the predilection for Suarez over St. Thomas) that accidents
are not really distinct from substance (cf. p. 9!49: "ln hac igitur sententia
accidens a sua substantia metaphysice differre dicitur ") . Here in this connection he quotes with apparent approval-certainly with no adverse comment-the statement of Descartes that whatever is real can exist separately from every other subject, that the only thing that can so exist is a
substance, not an accident, 'and consequently " omnino repugnat dari
accidentia realia." (cf. p. !i!49-and footnote 115) Presumably then,
separability is necessarily required for real distinction (a view that is
exceedingly questionable, if not definitely false) . Presumably too, contrary
to St. Thomas' insistence that in the Eucharist the accidents of bread and
wine do not cease to be accidents in transubstantiation, the quantity of
bread and wine must after consecration acquire substantial stature!
The author thinks there is additional support for the denial of the
reality of accidents as distinct from substance in what seems to be the
finding of modern science that inorganic bodies are in motion (something
generally understood to be accident) with physical necessity. (The reference here is undoubtedly to the theory that electrons are constantly
revolving in orbits about their atomic nuclei) . From this " data " of science
the author concludes: " unde motus est proprium corporum naturale," (p.
9.!48) and, we are to gather, hence cannot be an accident that is really
distinct from the corporeal substance. Apparently, then, if a characteristic
necessarily flows from a being's essence and so is related to the latter as a
predicable property, it cannot be an ontological accident. Is it possible
that Father Esser is confusing the predicable of accidens with an ontological
accident? Can it be that because something is not a predicable accident
(that is, related to its logical subject by way of the predicable accident)
it cannot be a predicamental ontological accident? There seems to be an
obscurity of thought here that is regrettable.
It should be dear that this attitude towards accidents in genere with the
denial of their real distinction from substance affects the author's understanding of accidents in specie, particularly quality and relation. Thus, in
regard to quality, with more consistency than Suarez, who on the question
of the distinction of potencies from substance at least here admits the
reality of distinction, the author declares the arguments are not sufficiently
evident (cf. p. £60, 9!61); and in regard to relation he denies there is any
reality to relation that is distinct from its foundation. (cf. p. '1,77 ff.) In

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99

the light of what has been said thus far it is no surprise that the author
disagrees with St. Thomas and supports Suarez in the matter of the principle of individuation as well. (cf. p. 227-285) The continuing surprise,
however, is that this purports to be a work on Thomistic metaphysics
when, truth to tell, we find clear-cut abandonment of the Thomistic position
on at least four major theses (cf. the twenty-four fundamental theses of
St. Thomas, theses HI, V, VI and XI.) There is definite consistency on
these four points for Father Esser maintained the same position in these
matters twenty years ago in his earlier work.
This reviewer has been curious to know what might have been the
emendations introduced into this later work that justified its being called
an " editio altera emendata." Two such changes occur to him, one relative
to the principle of contradiction, the second relative to the principle of
sufficient reason. Apropos of the principle of contradiction and its relation
to the principle of identity, in the earlier work the author unequivocally
asserted the absolute priority of the principle of contradiction, though he
alludes to it as "clarior et aptior enunciatio principii identitatis." (lst
edition, 1982, p. 87) In this later work the author assigns to the principle
of identity a primacy over the principle of contradiction in the ontological,
psychological and logical orders, though he allows to the principle of contradiction a primacy as a critical principle in respect to its own evident
certainty and the certainty it affords other principles. (p. 47-48) In spite
of the latter judgment he speaks unequivocally of the principle of contradiction as depending on the principle of identity, ... ideo principium
contradictionis nititur in principia identitatis."
The second striking difference between the two editions is in the treatment of the principle of sufficient reason. In the earlier edition we find the
unqualified thesis: Principium rationis sufficientis est analyticum et maxime
. . . est objectivum . . . et nwtaphysice ceTtum et necessarium.
(cf. pp. 256-257) In this later edition we find the opposite thesis unequivocally stated: " Verumtamen principium rationis sufficientis neque esse
universale neque per se ipsum evidens ... probatur." (p. 355 £!'.) This is
very confusing especially when the " proof " takes the form of rejecting
the arguments which in the previous work were used to defend its analytic,
universal and necessary character and which then appeared so evident.
It hardly saves the situation to say that, while the principle is not " per
se ipsum evidens," nevertheless "evidentiam ex aliis principiis mutuatur,"
(p. 358) the other principles being those of identity, contradiction and
what the author designates (by an expression of his own coinage) as the
"principium rationis realis." (cf. p. 99) By this latter principle he means
nothing more than that the essence is the real reason (therefore, adequately
accounts for, is the sufficient reason) for the properties that flow therefrom.
(ibid.) The author recognizes that he is limiting the term "ratio realw"

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to a special sense here and admits it is a species of a much more generic
use of the term. If one investigates his explanation of this more generic
use of " ratio " one finds it comes pretty close to what is generally understood to be the principle of sufficient reason as applied to the quidditative
order. (ibid) At any rate it would seem more correct to say that the
" principle of real reason " understood in this sense is a derivation or limited
application of the much broader principle of sufficient reason. The latter
then could hardly "borrow" its evidence from the former, as is maintained.
In neither of these cases is it clear to this reviewer that these changed
attitudes towards the principle of contradiction and the principles of
sufficient reason are emendations over the earlier views.
These observations are not intended to minimize the many excellencies of
the book, the splendid marshalling of matter, the orderly presentation, the
precise thinking and sound argumentation, the objective analysis of opposing opinions that it otherwise displays. It was felt necessary, nevertheless,
to take special exception to those views that obviously depart from strictly
Thomistic thinking. For while the major theses of St. Thomas have been
merely proposed, not imposed (since it is philosophy, not faith which is
concerned) in all Catholic schools of higher learning " veluti tutae normae
directivae," according to the ruling of the Sacred Congregation of
and while a man is free to disagree with them, still they ought not lightly
to be set aside. And if they are set aside only after serious thought, then
their opposite surely ought not to be proposed as " Thomistic " doctrine
even in the sense (that Father Esser speaks of) "quo ipse St. Thomas
monet veritatem esse explorandam." (Praefatio auctoris, p. iv) For while
St. Thomas would indeed honor a man who differed with him with good
but not convincing reason, even he would object to such differences
being represented as his own under the specific description " thomistica
metaphysica."
FRANCIS

X. MEEHAN.

St. John's Seminary,
Brighton, Mass.

Principles of Medical Ethics. By JoHN P. KENNY, 0. P., Ph. D. Westminster: Newman,
Pp.
with index.
The present century has seen a tremendous development in surgical and
medical science and techniques. It is unnecessary to remark that all right
thinking men must rejoice in any legitimate scientific developments which
can bring relief to the many ills of suffering humanity. Unfortunately, however, not all modern procedures in the sphere of medicine and surgery have
kept within the framework of the moral law and, to this extent, have not
been truly scientific. For it is an irrefragable principle of the Christian

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101

ethic that an end, however excellent and desirable in itself, cannot justify
unlawful means and techniques of attaining it. So, to cite the obvious
though often misinterpreted example: it is never lawful directly to kill the
unborn child even when this is the sole means of saving the life of the
mother. The modern development in the medical and surgical spheres has,
therefore, posed new problems for the moralist. It is not that the moralist
of today has to search out new ethical principles. The principles have been
there from the dawn of human history: they are derivatives from the
natural law which is the participation of the external law in the rational
creature and is, accordingly, universal and immutable, reaching out to and
governing the conduct of all men of all time. The task of the moralist today is to apply the principles of the natural law to the new factors. Or,
to put it slightly the other way round, his task is to assess the new developments and techniques in the light of the old and perennial principles. These
remarks have been to some extent suggested by the title of the work under
review. The emphasis is on principles-The Principles of Medical Ethics.
And that emphasis is good and timely. So many today think or seem to
think or at least would like to suggest that an authoritative pronouncement-such as a Papal Address--on a point of medical ethics is a merely
positive enactment of ecclesiastical law binding only on Catholics, whereas,
in fact, it is an exposition of the universal and immutable natural law
written on the fleshy tablets of the human heart.
In the past decade or so a fairly considerable literature on medical ethics
has appeared and there have been many papal pronouncements on particular
medico-ethical problems. All this indicates that there is a clamant need
and demand for discussion and direction in this important ethical sphere.
The subject is by no means exhausted. There is ample room for further
elaboration and clarification. We welcome Fr. Kenny's book which, to our
knowledge, is the most recent contribution in this direction. Though, inevitably, the ground covered is much the same as that covered by other
present-day writers on medical ethics, we think that Fr. Kenny's book
deserves a special word of welcome, for several reasons. His approach is
fundamental, ordered and logical. There is an admirable emphasis on principles. The assessment of the various particular problems is sane and
balanced and in general very fair to those who might, on controverted
questions, prefer a conclusion other than that adopted by the author. The
discussion is comprehensive. Very few medico-ethical problems are left untouched. Perhaps more than anything else we might single out for commendation the human and pastoral atmosphere which pervades the discussions. All ethical problems are essentially human problems but few lie
closer to the heart of the human personality than those which arise in the
medico-ethical sphere.
In the early chapters Fr. Kenny sets out clearly the fundamental moral

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principles which are relevant to an assessment of the particular problems of
medical ethics. We should have liked to have seen there a more explicit
reference to the concept of the human person-the concept which underlies
the whole Christian ethical economy both in its individual and social
aspects. The dignity, value and inviolability of the human person are vital
considerations.
In his analysis of the morality of lying our author (p. 19) describes this
sin as " an act of injustice by means of speech." This notion is repeated on
the following page. But surely, as St. Thomas points out, lying, in se, is
opposed to veracity not to justice. While there may be lies which are unjust, pernicious lies, not all lying is unjust. Nor can we accept, nor would St.
Thomas accept, the author's facile statement that " a jocose lie ... is not
a lie at all."
In the discussion of the nature of marriage we found some rather loose
and confusing sentences. For instances (p. 57) : " The consent must be
absolute; i. e. the parties must not stipulate any condition which would
affect the validity of the marriage." But conditional consent may be given
in certain circumstances. The law allows it and provides for it. (cf. canon
In the next sentence of our author's work we read-and he is dealing
with the requirements for a valid marriage-that " this contract must be
externally manifested by word of mouth and clearly pronounced." But
verbal expression of consent, and still less clear enunciation, are not necesAgain we read (on p. 58) that "the
sary for validity. (cf. canon 1088 §
Catholic Church considers all marriages of baptized persons . . . not only
valid but sacramental." This is highly confusing. The correct statement is
that " all valid marriages of two baptized persons are sacramental." On
p. 59 we are told that " some psychologists maintain that the function of the
reproductive organs is not only to generate the ova and spermatozoa but
also to secrete substances which impress male and female characteristics on
all the tissues of the body." We have two queries here: why psychologists?
and why some psychologists? Is it not accepted biological teaching that the
reproductive organs have an endocrine function? It is implied, in the principle stated on p.
and in the subsequent discussion, that every single
refusal of the debitum to a spouse who seriously and reasonably asks for it
is a grave sin of injustice. This is a hard saying and we would not accept it.
Of course, the obligation to render the conjugal debt is grave ex genere suo
and is an obligation of strict justice. On page 75 our author notes that some
moralists maintain that a doubly vasectomised man is not impotent "because he is capable of carnal relations even though his semen is lacking the
fecundating element." The reference to the fecundating element is confusing
and does not serve either side in the controversy regarding the potency of
the doubly vasectomised. The reference suggests that other authors would
require for potency the presence of the fecundating element in the ejaculate.

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lOS

But this is not true. The semen of those who are recognized as merely
sterile may be aspennatic.
We are not dear as to our author's use of the terms "direct" and "indirect effect." Does he completely identify a "direct effect" with one that
is directly willed or intended, either as an end or as a means? In other words
does the " directness " or " indirectness " of the effect depend entirely upon
the act of will? We read on p. 114 that "sterilization is tenned direct when
it is intended as an end in itself, or as a means to an end. Indirect sterilization is the direct result of some action but follows indirectly from the act of
will." These same terms, direct and indirect, are defined again later (pp.
131-Q) in reference to abortion-but not quite univocally. "Direct abortion
is that which is procured as an end or as a means to an end. Abortion is
called direct when the operation is of such a nature that its purpose can
only be the expulsion of the fetus. . . . Abortion is termed indirect when
means are used which immediately and directly are ordained to some end
other than the expulsion of the fetus but which may unintentionally and
indirectly cause an abortion. . . . " It seems to us that the tenns direct and
indirect effects cannot be adequately defined merely in relation to the act
of will which accompanies their causation. And when our author deals with
abortion he appears to be with us. Pope Pius XII, in a passage quoted by
Fr. Kenny on p. ll8, describes direct sterilization as " that which aims at
making procreation impossible." The phrase "aims at" refers to the object
of the act rather than to the intention of the agent. We freely admit that
this question of the definition of direct and indirect effects is difficult. We
further admit that it will be relevant sometimes to invoke the intention of
the agent but only when an action has two equally immediate effects. It is
difficult to formulate entirely satisfactory definitions. Fr. Kenny has not
overcome the difficulty. He seems to waver. But we hasten to add that this
wavering does not in any way militate against the validity of his practical
conclusions.
There remains, however, the rather distressingly elusive corollary regarding the liceity of punitive sterilization. On page 116 Fr. Kenny writes that
sterilization, as a punishment for more serious sexual crimes, is not, in
itself, unlawful; that since the State can inflict the capital penalty it may
inflict the lesser punishment of mutilation. This is the old argument qui
potest plus potest minus-the universal validity of which we would venture
to challenge. Fr. Kenny does not, however, regard sterilization as a suitable
punishment. He says (p. H 7) that the Popes have been vehement in
their condemnation of eugenical and punitive sterilization. And in proof he
quotes a passage from the Encyclical Casti connubii. But in this very
passage Pope Pius XI seemed to prescind from the question of punitive
sterilization. "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of
their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no

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cause present for grave punishment they can never directly harm or tamper
with the integrity of the body either for the reasons of eugenics or for any
other reason." Indeed, many writers who uphold the liceity of punitive
sterilization make much capital out of this statement. Yet the Pope seems
to have, implicitly at least, described punitive sterilization as a direct
interference with bodily integrity. And if punitive sterilization is direct it
would fall under the condemnation of the Holy Office which in 1931 declared
that direct sterilization of man or woman, whether perpetual or temporary,
is contrary to the natural law. Is
sterilization direct or indirect?
Does it not, to use the words of Pope Pius XII, aim at making procreation
impossible? What is the object of this sterilizing act? And even if we must
make a gesture in this context to the intention of the State authorities in
imposing sterilization as a punishment-must we not say that: they intend
to make procreation impossible, at least as a means?
We have queried a number of points in Fr. Kenny's work. But we would
wish that our doing so should be interpreted as an expression of our belief
that the work is a valuable contribution to the literature on medical ethics
and of our hope that there will be further editions in the preparation of
which the objections we have raised may be kept in mind. And if it is not
unpardonable to end on a slightly facetious note we, of this eastern hemisphere, should love to know what the " skedger wegers " (p. 4) really are!
JoHN McCARTHY

St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth, Eire

Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Edited by
PETER GEACH and MAX BLACK. New York: Philosophical Library,
1952. Pp.
with index. $5.'75.
Mr. Geach and Mr. Black have rendered a signal service in translating
and editing, and the Philosophical Library in publishing, these scattered
fragments from the works of the great German mathematician, Gottlob
Frege. For it was Frege who exercised a profound and decisive influence
on men like Russell and Wittgenstein, and of whom it may be said that
his was perhaps the most profound and seminal influence leading to the
development of modern mathematical logic. And yet despite his greatness,
essays such as these which are indispensable for an understanding of the
semantical and even logical import of Frege's work, "have," in the words
of the editors, "long been buried in various German periodicals (mostly
now defunct)."
Nevertheless, merely bringing these essays to light, and even bringing

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them to light in such remarkably clear and smooth translations as these,
will doubtless not in itself guarantee that Frege will come to be readily
understood and appreciated. For like so many great seminal thinkers,
Frege is a man whose thought would seem to be quite as ponderous as it is
important, and quite as crabbed and involved as it is suggestive.
Accordingly, in attempting to survey and appraise this somewhat difficult material, this reviewer wonders if it might not be illuminating, even if
somewhat unorthodox, to try to bring out the contrast between Frege's
notion of logic and some of the dominant ideas that might be said to be
operative in a more traditional, Aristotelian type of logic. That such an
approach is unorthodox may be seen from the fact that it is not Frege's
own approach. Instead, his initial concern is with mathematics and with
providing an adequate account of basic mathematical concepts; and it
would always seem to be from some such point of departure that he moves
on to logical and semantical questions. Thus in none of the selections
here given does Frege attempt anything like a direct or developed account
of how his view of logic differs from the traditional one.
Nevertheless, suppose for purposes of argument that we project a possible
interpretation of Aristotelian logic and then consider some of the points of
contrast between it and Frege's view of the subject. Thus on the Aristotelian view it might be supposed that logic is concerned with the tools or
instruments of knowledge. Moreover, as the instruments through which
the real comes to be known, logical entities such as concepts, propositions,
and arguments are not held to be real in the same sense as that which
comes to be known through them. They are mere beings of reason. Not
only that, but they are wholly adapted to being of or about the real
which it is their function to enable us to come to know. Thus through
concepts, we are enabled to intend the " whats " or essences of things,
through propositions the " whether " or existence of things, and through
arguments the " whys " or causes of things.
Now in contrast to this sort of thing, one does not have to read very
far in Frege's logical writings before such typically mathematical notions as
function, argument, and value come starkly to the fore. In fact, one might
say that it was Frege's desire to take just such fundamental, but loosely
used, mathematical notions, give them a precise and accurate meaning, and
then generalize them for use outside their original more narrowly mathematical context.
For instance, consider the notion of function. Frege uses the following
mode of illustration to bring out what he means:
People . . . recognize the same function again in

u"+I
u"+4

!U"+o

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only with different arguments, viz. I, 4, and 5. From this we may discern that
it is the common element of these expressions that contains the essential peculiarity
of a function; i. e. what is present in
2.x•
x
over and above the letter ' x.' (p. 24)

+

Turning, then, to the notion of argument, Frege tends to contrast this
with function in a way somewhat analogous to the way in which content
might be contrasted with form:
I am concerned to show that the argument does not belong with the function, but
goes together with the function to make up a complete whole; for the function by
itself must be called incomplete, in need of supplementation, or ' unsaturated '
[ungesiittigt]. And in this respect functions differ fundamentally from numbers ....
We now see how people are easily led to regard the form of the expression as what
is essential to the function. We recognize the function in the expression by
imagining the latter as split up, and the possibility of thus splitting it up is
suggested by its structure.
The two parts into which the mathematical expression is thus split up, the sign
of the argument and the expression of the function are dissimilar; for the argument
is a number, a whole complete in itself, as the function is not. (pp. 24-!!5)

Finally, as to the notion of value, Frege says:
We give the name "the value of a function for an argument" to the result of
completing the function with the argument. Thus, e. g., 8 is the value of the
x for the argument I, since we have: 2.I 8
1 = 8. (p. 25)
function 2.x8

+

+

Having thus introduced a certain order and precision into those current
mathematical notions, Frege then proceeds to generalize them in such a
way that not just numbers and their relations but also concepts and
propositions can be understood and analyzed in terms of the notions of
function, argument and value.
Statements in general, just like equations or inequalities or expressions in Analysis,
can be imagined to be split up into two parts; one complete in itself, and the other
in need of supplementation, or "unsaturated.'' Thus, e. g., we split up the sentence
" Caesar conquered Gaul "
into "Caesar" and "conquered Gaul." The second part is "unsaturated "-it
contains an empty place; only when this place is filled up with a proper name, or
with an expression that replaces a proper name, does a complete sense appear.
Here too I give the name "function" to what this "unsaturated" part stands for.
In this case the argument is Caesar. (p. 81)

Moreover, if one wishes to know what the value is of such a function
as "--conquered Gaul" for the argument "Caesar,'' the answer is simply
the True, just as for the argument " Ghengis Khan,'' the value would be
the False. Indeed, any functional expression which has for- its value either

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107

the True .or the False is said to have the peculiar kind of value known as
a "truth-value." Accordingly, on this basis any concept might be said to
be simply " a function whose value is always a truth-value." (p. 30) For
example, for the concept " being fat," the truth-value would be the True
for the argument, "Falstaff," say, or the False for the argument, " Cassius,
etc." Or again, a function requiring for its satisfaction or fulfillment not
just one argument, but two or more, Frege would call a relation. For
instance, for the arguments 3 and
respectively, a function like x >y
would have for its value the True.
In short, relations as well as concepts may be regarded as examples of
Frege's generalized notion of mathematical functions. Likewise, when
arguments are given for these functions, what one comes out with are
presumably nothing more nor less than propositions possessing the values,
True or False. Indeed, Frege's scheme of function and argument would
appear to provide a device of analysis not only alternative to, but, as
many would think, far superior to the traditional analysis of categorical
propositions in terms of subject and predicate.
Nevertheless, when one reflects on the matter somewhat further, one
begins to wonder whether these devices of function and argument are
really adapted to serve quite the same function as the more traditional
logical instruments of the concept and the proposition. For as we suggested,
a concept by its very nature is ordered to the intention of the "whats"
of things, just as a proposition with its structure of " S is P " is ordered to
the intention of whether something is or of what it is. In contrast, just
how or in what sense is the sort of thing which Frege calls a function
ordered or adapted to the same purpose or purposes?
Thus when we ask what these functions do or how as functions they
function, Frege's answer would seem to be that they serve as factors of
combination or correlation that bring together diverse objects into an
ordered unity or whole. (cf. pp. lfl and llfl) Or again, he will liken his
functions to elements of form or structure (cf. the passage quoted above
from p.
within an ordered whole. And superficially it might seem that
this is not so different from the sort of thing one encounters in Aristotelian
logic. For certainly such a logic is a formal logic, and in the study of it
one certainly does consider the form of the proposition or the structure of
the syllogism or what not.
And yet the difference between the two types of logic begins to become
apparent the minute one recognizes that the forms and structures of Aristotelian logic are intentional forms: Through them one comes to intend
something else---e. g. through the form," S is P," one comes to intend that
something is thus and so in fact and in reality. But as for a Fregean
function, when one asks just what one comes to intend through it, or
through its use as an intentional instrument, there just does not seem to
be any answer.

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For one thing, Frege seems quite unaware that concepts and propositions
might conceivably have different intentional functions to perform, the
ones being ordered to the intention of essences, the others to that of
existence. Instead, concepts are simply functions in the Fregean sense.
That means that when completed by the appropriate arguments, they
come to have truth-values for their values. But that the concept considered as an uncompleted function might have a different intentional use
from the proposition considered as a completed function, Frege seems not
to have considered at all. It is as if he were concerned solely with the
correlating or unifying function of his so-called functions, to the complete
exclusion of any intentional function that they might presumably have.
Likewise as further evidence of Frege's disregard of intentionality, in so
far as this might pertain to his so-called functions, is the fact that he
considers not only concepts to be exar:tples of what he calls a function, but
relations as well. But clearly, if a relation such as "greater than" can be
a Fregean function, then such a function cannot possibly be an intention.
For while a relation of one thing's being greater than another may well be
something that is intended, it certainly is not anything that itself intends
something else.
But finally and most decisively, in Frege's whole scheme of functions,
arguments and values, there seems to be no recognition of any sort of
distinction between logical entities considered as mere beings of reason
and instruments of intention, on the one hand, and real beings considered
as objects of intention but as not themselves intentions, on the other.
Instead, they all seem to be regarded as equally beings or entities. (cf.
Rulon S. Wells. "Frege's Ontology." The Review of Metaphysics, June,
1951.) True, Frege does make a sharp distinction between his functions
and what he calls objects. Yet on closer scrutiny it becomes obvious that
this is in no sense a semantical distinction between intentions and objects
intended, but rather an ontological distinction, apparently between different kinds of entities. Not only that, but when Frege undertakes to state
exactly what he means by " object,'' he confesses to being somewhat
at a loss and finally comes out with a mere negative definition: " An object
is anything that is not a function, so that an -expression for it does not
contain an empty place." (p. 32) In other words, a function is by definition
something that is ungesiittigt-i. e. " unsaturated " or not completed. Consequently, any expression for a function is bound to contain empty places
-e. g. " -conquered Gaul " or " x >y ." In contrast, an object is by
definition simply the opposite of a function. But note that both are alike
entities, nor is the one related to the other as intention to intended object.
Nevertheless in our effort to point up the contrast between the intentionality of Aristotelian logic and the lack of intentionality in the Fregean
scheme, we have unhappily fallen into what to many may seem a serious

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oversimplification. For Frege's scheme is certainly not without what would
appear to be properly semantical categories, notably those of " sense "
or "meaning" and "reference" (Sinn. and Bedeutung). Just how, then,
do these fit in?
In answer, it should perhaps be remarked first of all that Frege tends
to think of the mathematician or logician as dealing with spoken or written
signs ("expressions").
Nevertheless, as
the so-called formalists
in mathematics, he insists that these signs or expressions are to be regarded
as meaning or signifying real entities. For instance, function expressions
signify functions, argument expressions signify real arguments or " objects,"
in Frege's sense. Accordingly, let us consider the simplest and most obvious
type of such argument expressions, viz. proper names, or perhaps definite
descriptions (in Russell's sense). Just how and in what sense do such
expressions signify objects?
For instance, to bring the matter to a head, consider some of Frege's
own examples. Thus suppose one says " a = b." Just how does this
statement differ from the statement " a = a."? Or again, since what people
call The Evening Star is the same thing as what they call The Morning
Star, one can say, "The Evening Star is the Morning Star." But just
how does this statement differ from " The Evening Star is the Evening
Star "? Frege's answer is that every such proper name or definite description must be regarded as having both a sense or meaning and a
reference. It is as if there were a kind of double signification here. For
obviously, " The Evening Star '' has a different sense or meaning from the
expression, " The Morning Star "; yet both expressions refer to or designate
the same thing.
Apparently, then, argument expressions are such as to have both a sense
and a reference, whereas function expressions merely signify functions and
nothing more. Moreover, since neither the meaning of an argument
expression, nor its reference,. may be regarded as ungesiittigt or " unsaturated " after the manner of a function, one must conclude that neither
meanings nor references are functions. But if they are not functions, then
by definition they are "objects." In other words, the sense or meaning
of an expression such as " The Evening Star " must be regarded as an
" object " quite as much as its reference, although, to be sure, they are
quite different objects.
Nor is that all. For just as an argument expression differs from a function
expression in not being "unsaturated," so also 'a complete statement or
sentence differs from the function expression that is a constituent part of
it in not being "unsaturated." Accordingly, just as argument expressions
have both a sense and a reference, so also whole sentences will have both
a sense or reference. And what is the sense of such a whole sentence? One
might say that it is simply the proposition, in so far as one may consider

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the proposition to be a sense or meaning distinct from the oral or written
sentence which has this meaning. On the other hand, when one asks what
could be the reference of a sentence, Frege's answer is that its reference is
its truth-value. And from this there follows the rather startling consequence that " all true sentences have the same reference and so, on the
other hand, do all false sentences. From this we see that in the reference
of the sentence all that is specific is obliterated." (p. 65)
Undoubtedly, this is a very remarkable set of conclusions that we are
here presented with-remarkable both ontologically and semantically. For
ontologically, what is involved would seem to be a truly amazing proliferation of decidedly queer entities. Thus we have already noted how Frege
regards what he calls " functions " as being no less real entities than what
he calls " objects." And now it would appear that these Fregeau " objects "
in turn comprise a most variegated assortment of entities. Besides the
so-called references of proper names, there are also the truth-values of
propositions. And alongside these, go the meanings or senses of both
argument expressions and sentences, as further "objects." Nor do these
items by any means exhaust this veritable grab-bag of" objects." (cf. Wells,
op. cit.)
And on the other hand, semantically one gets the impression that
despite its panoply of meanings and references this Fregean scheme has
somehow left out any such thing as intentionality. Indeed, we earlier had
occasion to remark on how Frege's functions never seemed to function
intentionally. Instead, they were treated simply as things or entities,
which, though they might serve to correlate or unify elements into a whole,
were not themselves of or about anything else. And so here it would seem
that somewhat the same thing had happened to Frege's meanings and
references. It is as if his senses or meanings had somehow got hypostatized
into actual " objects " or entities. And once they are thus set up as
" objects," they don't seem to mean or intend anything or to be of or about
anything; they just are. This accounts for the fact that the meaning of
an expression is regarded as being one object or entity, and its reference
as another; and one then has no idea what the connection is between them.
Meanings and things meant, references and what is referred to, yes, even
the different facets and aspects of the real that comes to be intended
(e. g. essence and existence) -all these seem either to be confused with one
another, or, if separated, to be hypostasized into so many independent and
unconnected real " objects " or entities. In short, from the Aristotelian
point of view, it would seem that in Frege's scheme there is no clear or
adequate provision made for the all-important distinction between beings
of reason, on the one hand, which function as mere intentions, and real
beings, on the other hand, which are the primary objects of such intention.
Unfortunately, it may perhaps be thought that because of our concen-

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111

tration upon Frege's notions of function and object and sense and reference,
there is nothing else in this volume of selections worth noting. But such
is not the case. For it is packed with all sorts of insights, analyses, distinctions etc. which have become the veritable common coin of much
modern logical and semantical discussion--e. g. Frege's brilliant attack on
formalism in mathematics, his suggestive treatment of negation as a function, his criticisms of the class calculus as a proper part of logic, his
ingenious recommendations for the handling of modal sentences in indirect
discourse. Also the editors of the volume call special attention to the last
selection in the volume, in which Frege undertakes to deal with Russell's
paradox. It is often said that Frege was completely non-plussed by this
challenge from Russell. But this selection would appear definitely to establish the contrary.
Be aU this as it may, the really dominant ideas in Frege, this reviewer
feels, are those which he has discussed. Also he hopes that his contrast
between Frege's general scheme and the Aristotelian logical scheme is not
too wide of the mark. In any case, he would like to enter a plea that
logicians in the Scholastic tradition address themselves to a serious study
of Frege. Only so can the whole vast area of modern logic and semantics
be made really intelligible. Indeed, to take but one instance, the current
dispute that is raging between the so-called Platonists and nominalists in
semantics has to be viewed as taking place entirely within an arena that
was set and defined by Frege. One might even hazard the opinion that
neither Professor Ryle nor Professor Quine, in their recent attacks on the
" platonism " or the Fregean tradition, has really succeeded in breaking
out of its confines. That is why it may be hoped that Scholastic thinkers,
approaching this type of logic and semantics from what would seem to be a
profoundly alternative position, would be able to come forward with something in the way of a really telling appreciation as well as critique;
Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana.

HENRY VEATCH

Errors of Psychotherapy. By Sebastian de Grazia. New York: Doubleday,
195f.!. Pp. 288 with index. $3.00.
This book shows a considerable amount of information which, however,
is not always digested; it contains a number of unreserved statements which
will make some readers smile and others, especially psychiatrists, indignant.
Some of the author's judgments border on superficiality; he writes well, but
many a reader will probably find his poetical and visionary effusions a
little unconvincing. He himself calls his book " fiercely partisan," and
indeed the almost emotional tone of the book leaves one with the impression
that the author seems personally involved in the issues he is dealing with.

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The author considers his book a "lengthy polemic." The quintessence
of his argument is the following. Mental disorder is moral disorder. But
if that is so, the secular psychotherapist has no right to heal, because he
has no knowledge of morality; neither can the religious therapist, the clergyman, claim authority for healing, because religious leaders " fear to practice
forgiveness." Who, then, is entitled to help the mentally ill? Moral disorder
is an estrangement from the community. This concept leads to a new
theory of psychotherapy: the salvation of mankind to free itself from
rampant mental disease depends on the social scientist. Social Sciencethe field in which the author works-should give us the therapist of the
future.
This brief outline shows that the author takes a dim view of psychotherapy as it is practiced today and his view turns very dark when he
speaks of psychoanalysis. Examining the various therapeutic schools and
methods of the present and the past, he passes judgment on the psychoanalysts, the Adlerians, the followers of Jung and Stekel, the Rankians,
the psychobiologists, the hypnotists, the counselling procedures, the therapeutic endeavors of primitive, ancient and medieval healers, the pastoral
and confessional therapy of priests and ministers, and the work of quacks.
He arrives at the conclusion that we have no reliable or trustworthy
statistics to show which are the most successful therapies; none of these
therapeutic endeavors work at all times and all of them, even the therapy
of quacks and primitive medicine men, work sometimes. Since all score
success at times, there must be some common elements in the various types
of therapy. The elements which all of them somehow recognize are: neurosis
is a moral disorder; the psychotherapeutic relationship is one of authority;
the therapist gives moral direction. The author then sets out to analyze
these common elements.
The backbone of his argument is that neurosis is a moral disorder. The
author has an almost demoniacal concept of neurosis. Neurosis is the
price of sin; people get sick because their conscience plagues them. According to the author, the moral concept of mental disease is supported by the
conviction of the ancients and by present-day practice and theory.
The second common element is that all therapists speak with authority
which the author defines as rightful power. This authority shows its effects
in transference--which is the result of pre-existing authority and augments
authority already existing.
The third element is ·that the therapist should give moral direction.
However, here is where all modem therapists are at fault, according to
the author. Secular therapists (all of them, the author seems to think)
profess moral neutrality, calling moral what the patient feared was immoral. Especially psychoanalysis has turned much of existing ethics upside
down; the analysts are the " new confessors " who consider nothing sinful.
Because the secular therapists have accepted this theory of tolerance, they
have not authority and have forfeited their right to heal.

BOOK REVIEWS

us

Religious therapy has lost that right, too. What the patient needs is
not tolerance, but forgiveness. However, the therapy of forgiveness is no
longer found in religion. Protestantism, never having the authority to
forgive, has embraced the theory of tolerance of the secular therapists. As
for Catholicism, the author admits that confession could be an instrument
of forgiveness, but feels that confession " even in the Roman Catholic
Church is on the wane."
After having theorized in this manner, the author complains that" today
there is no healing "-apparently forgetting that he conceded in the beginning of his book that all therapy works at times. Here is the author's
advice on how to remedy this lamentable condition. Since the ultimate
responsibility for healing rests with the community, the psychotherapist
should be the representative of the community. The patient through his
moral misbehavior has sinned against the community; therefore only its
rightful representative can absolve him, because " forgiveness is the unique
possession of the community." The community should set up schools and
" councils of conscience "; the psychiatrist in charge of these councils should
not be an M.D., but a consultant in adjusting procedures, an interpreter of
reality who should not only absolve but also teach "what men's relations
should be to each other." With such a procedure, if we are to believe the
author, successful healing seems to be secured.
This is the author's vision of the future which may prove to be the
future of an illusion. His book contains many sagacious remarks which the
psychotherapists would do well to consider, but it is also full of generalizing,
exaggerated, unsubstantiated statements, half-truths and downright errors.
Basing his definition of psychotherapy on its etymological derivation, the
author confuses healing of the mind with healing of the soul, cura animarum
with mental care; he confuses mental and spiritual, natural and supernatural. One may say that confession is" essentially religious therapy," but
that does not mean that confession, as instituted by Christ, is meant for
the healing of mental disease. Sacramental confession forgives sin but does
not take away all possible consequences of sin.
The author confuses religion with morality. And his concept of morality
-"the ideal of right living "-is relativistic, because for him the ultimate
judge for distinguishing between right and wrong is the community.
Morality and what the author calls natural law change when the community changes. " What is immoral for one person may· not be that for
another. What is immoral is not the same for all men."
In view of such fundamental errors, it is questionable if this book is of
much help to correct " the errors of psychiatry and religion."
JAMEs VANDER VELDT,

The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. 0.

8

O.F.M.

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The Nature of Culture. By A. L. KROEBER, Chicago: University of Chicago
Pp. 447 with index. $6.50.
Press,
The scope of this monograph can best be understood from the author's
own words in the Preface (p. VII) : " This book is an effort to put into
one volume those papers and selected parts of my professional writings that
might be of most general interest. . . . I have selected here only passages
that bear on culture . . . those possessing some novel element of method
or approach .... [The whole is my] theory about the kind of thing culture
is: about its properties and typical manifestations, its relation to other
kinds of things, and how it is most fruitfully viewed and investigated."
This collection of writings represents the quintessence of the lifework of the
dean of American anthropologists; it covers the last fifty years and consequently the development of modern anthropology in this country. These
" fifty separate papers obviously cannot possess the continuity and overall
organization of a systematically planned work executed at one time." (p.
VIII) The essays are only loosely tied together by introductions and comments; some of them have not been published previously. But, nonetheless,
from the whole series emerges a cmisistent theory of culture which provides
a genuine norm for the interpretation of social and historical data. For
all that, the task of a reviewer is not eiisy; he can only hope to point out the
leading principles and the main facts from which they were derived.
The essays are grouped in five sections, the largest of which deals with
the " Theory of Culture " in eighteen articles. In each of the five parts
the order of selection is chronological beginning with the year 1901.
As is well-known, the author has dedicated his life to the study of the
main problems of cultural anthropology, with preference given to the culture
and languages of the Indians of California. Since this is the case, it is but
natural that the manifold economical institutions, the development and
grouping of the various types of culture complexes and cultural life, especially the social organizations and phenomena of these and other illiterate
peoples have provided him with abundant material for his construction of
the concepts of culture and culture life, of social structures and kin systems.
He presents himself to the reader in the Preface of his book as a person
who is " by nature a worker with concrete data." (p. VII) That means,
among other things, that he has relied upon the evidence of the facts, without the a priori tenets of crass evolutionism which acted as a spell upon the
majority of scientists some decades ago. As everybody kllows, this now
obsolescent theory supposes the necessary and unilinear development from
lower to higher forms, from the most simple to the more perfect, et cetera.
Dr. Kroeber himself in his Anthropology (New York, 1948; p. 6) describes
that so-called " scientific " method as follows: " It became common practice

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in the older anthropology to ' explain ' any part of human civilization by
arranging its several forms in an evolutionary sequence from lowest to
highest and allowing each successive stage to flow spontaneously, without
specific cause, from the preceding one. At bottom, this logical procedure
was astonishingly naive. In these schemes we of our land stood at the
summit of the ascent. Whatever seemed most different from our customs
was therefore reckoned as earliest, and other phenomena were disposed
wherever they would best contribute to the srtaight evenness of the climb
upward. The relative occurrence of phenomena in time and space was disregarded in favor of their logical fitting into a plan." Then he presents some
" fair samples ofthe conclusions or assumptions of the classic evolutionistic
school of anthropology of, say 1860 to 1890, which still believed that primal
origins or ultimate causes could be determined, and that they could be discovered by speculative reasoning. The roster of this evolutionistic-specuIative school was graced by some illustrious names .... Today [such
methods of reasoning] are long since threadbare; they have descended to the
level of newspaper sciences or have become matter for idle amateur guessing.
They are evidence of a tendency toward the easy smugness of feeling oneself superior to aU the past. These ways of thought are mentioned here
only as an example of the beclouding that results from bad transference of
biologically legitimate concepts into the realm of the history of human
society and culture or viewing these as unfolding according to a simple
scheme of progress."
In all his work of anthropological and sociological analysis-to be" understood as of Cultural Anthropology or Ethnology-Dr. Kroeber has followed
in this regard a real historical and unbiassed approach. Thus, in principle,
he agrees with the anthropologists of the Ankermann-Graebner-Schmidt
school of Germany and Austria, whose principles of anthropological or ethnological research have been made public in Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt's Historical
Method of Ethnology, published in New York in 1939. In the first chapter
of that book, an analysis of Dr. Kroeber's interpretation of the historical
method and its results has been made accessible.
I want to emphasize that in evaluating the work of an anthropologist
we must clearly distinguish between the method as such followed by him
in his investigation or research on the one hand, and the real results which
have been worked out by him with this method on the other. Obviously,
the multiplicity of the cultural complexes of the many entangled social
institutions, of the religious and mythological phenomena in the field of
prehistoric man and actually existing primitive tribes-because of the incompleteness of our information, especially their origin and their coherencestill admits various interpretations. No wonder, therefore, that even the
leaders of the Historical School of Cultural Anthropology do not at aU agree
in their valuation of many details. If a specia:l branch of this school, under

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the leadership of Father W. Schmidt, S. V. D. has been successful in grouping into "culture circles" (Kulturkreise) the immense diversity of culture
types and cultural developments in the vast world of the illiterate peoples,
this school has also always been aware of the fact that " culture circle " as
such must be considered and used only as a working tool; similar to the
concept of "culture areas" presented by Clark Wissler. New discoveries,
precise information, more accurate analyses of the social systems and culture
types will lead to a better grasp of their origin and significance, so that
gradually anthropologists may be able to find out all the factors which
have contributed to build up the whole of human culture and which have
originated so many diverse culture stages.
It must be understood that humanity, from its first beginning, did not
depend on, nor was it guided by the same laws of nature arid instinct as is
the whole animal kingdom. Even the first prehistoric man had the full use
of all human faculties especially free will and intellect, which conditioned
him to create adequate living manners and all regulations which the concept
" culture " comprises. Many of the most important inventions have been
made by pr'"historic man or by illiterate peoples. But, denying the evolut.ionistic theory, we insist on the fact that the unfolding of the human
-lture was not and is not forced to an unilinear and necessary development:
but, on the contrary, that many ·and manifold factors, visible and invisible,
strong and insignificant, have worked unitedly and have contributed to new
culture forms or culture types. The totality of human culture types-as
we see it today-is the, result of a very long process of evolution subject to
continuous changes. Every culture type which has come into existence
represents a harmonious complex of different parts. It is also an obvious
the same
fact that not all its sections develop simultaneously or
direction; i. e. one section may develop to a higher stage and j;)thers may
retrogress. A very distinct example can illustrate easily what is meant. The
technical or economical status of earliest primitive man was and is even
today the simplest which can be imagined. He does not even use stone or
metal for his tools and weapons, but his religious concepts as well as his
moral laws and behavior belong to a higher level than that of many peoples
in higher economical conditions. Such wonderful religious ideas as revealed
in the creation myths of the Yuki Indians, discovered by Dr. Kroeber, have
never been found in illiterate agricultural peoples. The Yuki with some
other tribes in North-West Central California are ethnologically the oldest
groups of natives in North America; they are still very primitive foodgatherers.
During the very long existence of humanity, of about 600,000 years,
many peoples have disappeared without leaving any trace of their eXistence.
The connection of the prehistoric man-who has left us so many findings,
such as tools, art objects, magic articles, skeletons, etc.-with the actually

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living tribes has very often been interrupted. The continuous evolutions of
all sections of the manifold culture complexes followed their own way, and
finally there is the total absence of written sources. These facts and many
others make it understandable how difficult any analysis is.
The main characteristic feature of the Historical School in Cultural
Anthropology is that it approaches the origin and evolution of the whole
culture of humanity and especially of illiterate peoples exclusively by the
same methods which the historians employ in their studies of the so-called
civilized peoples. The Historical School does not make any other assumption than this one that, concerning the natural disposition of mental
faculties, illiterate and civilized peoples do not differ in any essential way.
The anthropologists of the Historical School are still constantly at work,
because not all phenomena and institutions of illiterate peoples have been
sufficiently explained. For some facts-since Dr. Kroeber had mentioned
them or analysed them-the Historical School is able today to present better
explanations or more accurate descriptions. Every new discovery in the
vast field of native life is a contribution for better understanding of the
many factors which are active within each human society and have contributed to its rise and fall. Much serious work still lies ahead. It will not
be easy to throw sufficient light on the origin and the first stages of the
complex development of human culture. In any case this will only be
possible if the research is based on the historical method.
Very recently at the Symposium on Anthropology of the Wenner-Gren
Foundation in New York, from June 9 to June 20, 1952, the problems of the
Historical Approach of Cultural Anthropology have been discussed by some
eighty outstanding scholars, under the presidency of Dr. Kroeber. The
results will be of highest importance for further anthropological activity in
the whole scientific world.
Dr. Kroeber has followed the Historical Method for several decades with
good success, and is responsible for its increased acceptance and esteem
in American ethnological and sociological circles. This is one of the outstanding and lasting merits of our distinguished author. His credit is in no
way lessened if some of his interpretations have been superseded by improved interpretations or more precise expression. Progress will always be
the underlying law of unbiassed scientific research.
MARTIN GusiNDE,

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

S. V. D.

BRIEF NOTICES
Whitehead's Theory of Reality. By A. H. JoHNSON. Boston: Beacon Press,
1952. Pp. 276 with index. $4.00.
Professor Johnson is no neophyte in the philosophy of Alfred North
Whitehead. Since he knew the English thinker personally, he has devoted
himself to the study of his philosophy of organism, and over many years
given the readers of philosophy the fruits of his interpretation in many
learned articles. The present work, which is the most complete and
definitive available on the basic concepts of Whitehead, will certainly be
the standard and classic text.
Doctor Johnson himself claims nothing more for his book than an introduction to Whitehead's theories on actual entities, but in this study he
rightly sees the explanation of Whitehead's entire concept of reality. By
his theory on actual entities, his interpreter shows in the first chapter,
Whitehead hoped to reach and explain reality, but more especially to
use reality as a norm for human experience, since he conceived philosophy
not simply as a corpus of ideas and theories, but as a faithful mate for
action. In the following two chapters, Professor Johnson derives from
the words of Whitehead a summary of his theory of reality based on the
doctrine of the actual entities. This summary is the product of many
clarifications on the part of the interpreter, since Whitehead himself had
no such dear notion, or at least never expressed it.
In this summary, the problem of the relation of efficient and final causes
constantly emerges, though Dr. Johnson never seems to come to grips
with it. He does indeed faithfully repeat that Whitehead combined these
two causalities in any actual entity. The actual entity is striving for a
purpose; such striving being an actual desire for an end, and, at the same
time, an efficient cause is operating on the actual entity itself. But certainly there must be some relation between the aim of the actual entity
and the end intended by the efficient cause if there is not to be a conflict.
Doctor Johnson says that God arranges the eternal objects, but "God"
and " eternal objects " remain elusive and vague concepts in both master
and disciple. God, it is said, while an actual entity, yearns for some actuality. The word " some" modifying actuality indicates the vagueness of
God's yearning. Which has priority-God or the subjective aim of the
actual entity? Neither Whitehead himself nor his commentator provide a
solution. Some readers might be tempted to provide their own interpretation from the Judaeo-Christian doctrine on Divine Providence. God gives
each thing its own nature, and one of the properties of human nature is

118

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119

the free will. However, such a proposed solution would contradict other
phases of Whitehead's thought. And thus the problem of the relations
between the actual entity, the eternal objects and God remains unsolved
even by this very helpful commentator.
In the chapter on the mind, Professor Johnson says that Whitehead:
" seems to reject personal immortality in the usual sense." (p. 77) An
even more important problem for the psychology of Whitehead is the
possibility of person even in this life. Although other types of philosophy
might say that the fact of personality is so obvious that it needs no proof,
Whitehead's theory of actual entities seems to make the continuity required
for personality impossible.
The chapter on value sets out to consider truth, good, beauty, evil and
morals, and while there is the usual vagueness and shifting meanings
customary to Whitehead, Dr. Johnson's skillful analysis causes to emerge
the supreme value in the philosophy of Whitehead. This supreme value
is seen to be truth which is promoted to this position even as beauty is
demoted.
In some ways, the seventh chapter, which is devoted to Whitehead's
relation to other philosophers, is the most enlightening part of the book.
Whitehead himself had the habit of imagining that his philosophy had
affinities to many other systems, especially to those of Alexander and
Bergson. Professor Johnson who undoubtedly knows Whitehead points
out that these similarities to previous and contemporary philosophies are
more apparent than real, and that Whitehead is unique. This chapter will
certainly show the careful student of Whitehead the falsity of establishing
philosophical forbears or brethren for Whitehead.
The last chapter of the book which contains the author's evaluation
of the philosophy of organism comes as somewhat of a surprise. Although
Professor Johnson in the earlier chapters is sometimes critical, he is always
sympathetic, indeed to the point of conducting a defense. In this last
chapter there is severe and devastating criticism, criticism which makes
necessary a careful reconsideration of the rest of the book. Doctor Johnson
in his final words does not hesitate to point out the contradictions in
Whitehead's system. Even though Whitehead himself claims that no
perfect system is possible, Johnson does not allow a disavowal of perfection
as an excuse for many contradictions. However, he remains convinced in
spite of his criticisms that Whitehead's philosophy is the hope of the century. The reviewer in the light of these criticisms as well as his own
does not share such a conviction of hope.
In fact, the real Whitehead as revealed in these pages is somewhat
pathetic, for Whitehead is a philosopher trying to explain nature with an
a priori persuasion that there is no supernatural. Accordingly, while he
does at times approximate a profound divine truth, he is not near enough

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and his concepts of God and morality remain almost totally unacceptable.
His interpreter is fond of stressing the humility of Mr. Whitehead. It is
really a sad thing that this humility did not lead him to accept Divine
Revelation, for, if he had, he might have made a great contribution to
human thought and have escaped the fate of becoming in due time a
footnote in the histories of philosophy.

De Poenitentia. By EMMANUEL DoRONZO, 0. M. I. Milwaukee, Bruce.
I De Sacramento et Virtute, 1950. Pp. 560. $7.50. H De Contritione
et Confessione, 1951. Pp. 1044. $10.00. HI De Satisfactione et
Absolutione, 195£. Pp. 74£. $10.00. IV De Causis Extrinsecis, 1953.
Pp. 19.!08. $19.00. All with indexes.
In his first publication in this series of dogmatic tracts, De Sacramentis in
Genere, Fr. Doronzo set himself the task of exposing the theology of the
sacraments according to the method of St. Thomas and under the guidance
of his philosophical principles and theological conclusions. He noted rightly
that the speculative character of theology must always be principal in
theological endeavor. At the same time a balance· of proportion can and
should be struck with the positive studies and methods in this field. The
constant and intimate adherence of Fr. Doronzo to the principles and
method of St. Thomas together with the admirable proportion and subordination maintained between the speculative and positive functions of
theology have continued throughout his subsequent works, De Baptismo et
Confirmatione, De Eucharistia (2 vols.) , and now with the completion of
his most extensive tract, De Poenitentia. Besides ample employment of the
sources of theology, faith, tradition and the teaching of the Church, a
respect for the value of the positive side of theology is obvious and a major
contributing source of the size of the printed tracts. Love for the teaching
of the Angelic Doctor is evident in such elegant statements as that on p.
£43 of vol. IV; "If in a matter of opinion one is permitted freedom to
proceed, even with danger of erring, he will act with more prudence who
tries to obtain the truth according to more certain principles, and it will
be safer to err with St. Thomas than with six hundred other masters."
Fr. Doronzo has followed the traditional assignment of the sacraments to
dogmatic theology. The current multiplication of manuals and vademecums,
and the many significant pronouncements and instructions pertaining to the
sacraments which have been emanating from the Holy See, create a
tendency to consider sacramental theology as properly the ken of practical
moral theology or of canon law. Nevertheless, in these volumes there is no
neglect of the more important moral problems and implications, especially
those still controverted by Catholic theologians. Particularly enlightening
and useful for the student of the sacraments are the treatments of the

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121

related Protestant and Orthodox theologies, extensively criticized in the
volumes under review. The selection of theological sources is judicious and
the assignment of a definite theological note to each conclusion is an invaluable guide. The clear outlines of materials to be treated, the bibliographies and indexes are distinct contributions and aids.
The tract, De Poenitentia, is prefaced by the one-time professor of the
author, Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, 0. P. The latter singles out for commendation, among other points, the explanation and defense of the Church's
penitential power and jurisdiction particularly with reference to Protestant
notions. We might mention, in addition to the splendid treatment of satisfaction and- merit in vol. III (p. 361 f.), another question which has received careful investigation by the author in several places in this tract.
In vol. I Fr. Doronzo clearly distinguishes the various theological opinions
respecting the essential matter and form of the sacrament of Penance. He
labels the opinion of Ballerini and his followers temerarious and the Scotistic
opinion lacking any solid intrinsic probability. He censures some moralists
for being too indulgent in their judgment of these teachings. (p. 175)
The absolution of unconscious moribunds, generally approved by modem
moralists and involving the discussion above, is a question of the
of the present-day practice, since the validity is guarded by the conditional
administration, as Fr. Doronzo states. In vol. IV (p. 598 f.) the author
discusses at length the bases of this modern practice, very keenly setting
forth the presumptions or probabilities which commonly underlie the theories attempting to justify it. However, in the difficult cases, e. g. of those
who lapse into unconsciousness after refusing the last sacraments, it is quite
hard to see how these presumptions or probabilities are more than possibiiities, upon which one may not lawfully proceed to administer a sacrament.
Fr. Doronzo promises further treatment of the question in his tract on
Extreme Unction.
The dogmatic tract, De Poenitentia, is in the tradition of the Sch,1lastic
summae. The student of theology who is not acquainted with this comprehensive treatment of the sacrament of Penance denies himself the full
breadth of view of the subject; the professor of sacramental theology will
find among modern manuals no more satisfying source-book.

The Continuum of Inductive Methods.
The University of Chicago Press,

By RuDOLF CARNAP. Chicago:
Pp. 92 with index. $3.50.

This monograph is part of a two-volume work entitled Probability and
Induction which is to comprise Carnap's researches in the field of inductive logic. The first volume of the set, Logical Foundations of Probability, has already appeared and the present monograph is to become part
of the second volume. Within the total view that Camap is offering in this

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study, the work to be reviewed here has its own particular aim which can
be given a brief, critical summary; other reviews are available for readers
interested in the previously published parts of this study. (Cf. American
Journal of Science,
June, 1951, pp.
Journal of Symbolic Logic,
16 (3)' pp.
Carnap believes that there is rather general agreement on the nature
and methodology of deductive logic which he accordingly leaves out of consideration, concerning himself only with inductive logic. The latter is negatively described as including all non-deductive forms of inference. What one
expects of inductive logic is that it supply a method for determining the
degree of confirmation (or probability in the inductive sense) of a given
hypothesis on the basis of a given body of evidence. Two views of this
problem of inductive logic and probability are distinguished. The first· is
the logical view, in which probability denotes a logical relation between
two propositions or sentences, expressing the degree of confirmation or
strength of support that is given a hypothesis by a body of evidence. In
this sense, probability is a quality of propositions or sets by which they are
reliable. Carnap suggests that this logical type is found in inductive logic
and methodology of science, and is the view on this problem adopted by the
classical authors. In its second meaning, probability is viewed empirically
as some measure of objective predictability which is verifiable, even with
difficulty, through observations. This type has its place in mathematical
statistics and its applications, and is used in this sense by many contemporary authors.
It is readily granted that a variety of procedures is possible in inductive
inference, and that many of these procedures may appear, or may be
incompatible. In this monograph, Carnap offers the view that the system
of possible inductive methods is a continuum, and he aims to arrange all
possible inductive methods into a system so that the nature of any particular
method determines its place in the. system. The procedure followed is to
compare various inductive methods with regard to their success in various
possible universes, thus aiming to get the optimum method in any given
possible universe. A reader unfamiliar with the techniques and procedure of
mathematical logic will find some difficulty in following the proof of Carnap's theory, for it is principally done through symbolic construction.
Carnap has long labored in the field of probability and inductive logic;
and, with the publication of his complete researches in this field, will have
entrenched for himself a firm and authoritative position in the realm of
logical analysis. But as is pointed out in the reviews referred to above, the
whole field of induction logic, as well as Carnap's views on these matters,
have not at all been closed. More logical analysis and refinement, as well
as metaphysical consideration and reflection, seem to be needed in order to
solve this apparently simple but complex problem: granted that there is no

BRIEF NOTICES

123

absolutely certain method of induction, can we determine, from the
continuum of inductive methods, which will be the best a..'ld most perfect
procedure that should be followed?

Religion in 20th Century America. By HERBERT W. ScHNEIDER. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press,
Pp. 254 with index. $4.25.
This is the third volume of an important series sponsored by the Library
of Congress, under the general editorship of R. H. Gabriel, on American
civilization at the mid-century. Its author is Professor of Philosophy and
Religion at Columbia. In a foreword he states his purpose: " The past
50 years have so transformed our habits, ideas and institutions that it is
peculiarly: appropriate and important for us to recall the changes we have
endured and to explain as best we can. This sketch of our religious revolution cannot go far into the problems of explanation .... " (p. v) This is
certainly a difficult purpose to attain, given the tremendous variety in the
religious life of America; nevertheless, the author has been eminently successful in presenting the facts, though everyone will likely disagree with one or
another of his explanations.
The success of the work is due in a large measure to the orderly presentation of the facts, starting from the more external features of the various
religious· groups and ending with the internal. The first chapter " Religion
in a Revolutionary Age " is a preliminary survey of the field, intended to
establish the fact that changes have taken place. There follow chapters on:
" Institutional Reconstruction in Religion "; " Moral Reconstruction in
Religion"; "Intellectual Reconstruction in Religion"; "Trends in Public
Worship and Religious Art"; "Varieties of Religious Experience since
William James."
In his concluding remarks Mr. Sclmeider states: "This has been primarily
Quite true, yet the author has
a narrative, not a judgment." (p.
managed to indicate his judgment in many ways; discussing a group of
religions under the heading " Varieties of Stubborn Religions " is one way
he does it.
The Catholic Church is alloted adequate space in this survey. Most of the
facts are accurate enough, but not all the explanations. Speaking of the
observance of Sunday among Americans, he adds: "Even among Catholics,
who in Europe made less of the Sabbath, this kind of observance soon became customary." (p. 7) The author seems to forget that Ireland and
Germany belong to Europe.
The author gives a sympathetic presentation to aU those accidental
changes in Catholic life that are more or less paralleled in other religious
bodies-such as social action, the liturgical revival, etc. The closer he gets
to the essentials, the more critical he becomes.

U4

BRIEF NOTICES

One remark is quite uncalled for. Recalling a sermon he heard delivered
by an Episcopalian to a group of children, he relates that: " He explained
that the Ascension is a very important feast of the ecclesiastical calendar
and concluded by saying, ' Children, the lesson which the Ascension teaches
us is that there is always room at the top.' No doubt it was such modernism which the Pope had in mind when he condemned it. But the popes are
not in a much stronger position when they explain that it is important that
the body of the Virgin should be with her soul in the heavenly presence of
God, while leaving the idea of' bodies in heaven' a complete mystery." (p.
158) To what sort of Christian is "bodies in heaven" a complete mystery?
Has the author not read St. Paul recently? "But if there is no resurrection
of the dead, neither has Christ risen; and if Christ is not risen, vain then is
our preaching, vain too is your faith.'' (I Cor. 14: 13) Or the wonderful
passage in Romans, where he refers to the eager longing of all creation, and
adds: " And not only it, but we ourselves also who have the first-fruits of
the Spirit-we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting the adoption as
sons, the redemption of our body." (8: 23) Is it, then, a complete mystery
to declare that the Mother of Christ has attained this hope already, the
redemption of her body, the anticipated resurrection?
Despite these strictures, we wish to recommend this volume. It contains
much information about phases of religious life, especially among Protestants
that Catholics would find difficult to obtain elsewhere. Certainly while
reading it we will be unable to keep the words of Isaias out of our minds:
"Strayed sheep, each following his own path.'' (53: 6)

Society and Sanity. By F. J. SHEED. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952. Pp.
274 with index. $8.00.
The central theme of this companion-volume to Mr. Sheed's Theology
and Sanity is quite simple. In fact, it is so simple that readers may at first
glance put ·down the book as a laboring of the obvious. However, as the
author points out, " our generation has acquired an extraordinary skill in
muddying the obvious." Certainly a clarification of something obvious in
itself, but obscure to many, is no small thing when the obvious thing is an
ultimate of crucial importance to man and society. An ultimate principle
of crucial importance is the theme, obvious in itself, but obscure to many
which Mr. Sheed has chosen for his clarification, namely, this: an operable
human society must be based on the reality of p.uman nature.
Mr. Sheed first devotes himself to a study of human nature and human
operation: Man Essential and Man Existential. Three ideas about man are
stressed in the section of Man Essential: the image of God, the immortal
spirit, redemption by Christ. These ideas are seen to be the dominant elements of the fundamental concept of our civilization. From these elements

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125

flow man's freedom of activity, his permanence in being and his destination
to a union with Infinite Good. Although something of man's condition could
have been attained by self-analysis, merely rational evidence has su:ffered inevitable misinterpretation and men without faith have ended with distorted
images of themselves. The Christian alone, by listening to God, accepts all
the evidence and knows that man is a rational creature composed of matter
and spirit with an eternal destiny. In the section on Man Existential the
definition of man is unfolded to reveal his activity of knowing and loving.
The fact that a wounded nature has its effects on these operations is
wisely emphasized. The fact is not without importance for the builders of
society, for, .as the author states, (p. 78) both the material and the engineers
of society are defective. However, the total view of man's nature is not
all on the dark side; for instance, it corrects the fallacy of conceiving law in
terms of restriction and substitutes a happier outlook on law as an enlargement of freedom through free cooperation with the will of God.
The second portion of the book considers the institutions of marriage
and the family in the same light, that of the reality of the subject which
composes them. The explanation of sex in relation to marriage is in keeping
with the dignity of human nature, since it restores a strong natural urge
to its proper setting which is the union of personalities. Since the author's
purpose is to treat principles of solution rather than actual solutions, he
devotes a lengthy consideration to the natural and sacramental character
of marriage. However, there is likewise a concrete look at marriage itself
with self-giving, the fruit of love sounded as the keynote to successful union.
The final part of the book discusses the necessity for the state and its
nature as something consequent upon rather than a cause of the social fact.
In the study of the relation of the governed to the rulers, emphasis is placed
upon the Western democracies. It is inevitable in this section as in the
previous section that principles point to solutions, and that some solutions
involve criticisms of the existing order of things. However, these criticisms
do not detract but rather add inasmuch as they clearly demonstrate the
necessity for Christian morality in a state founded upon the Christian
concept of man.
The analysis is conducted in Mr. Sheed's vigorously clear and eminently
readable style. In this worthwhile discussion of a Christian social order
based on a Christian idea of man is a worthy companion to the likewise
precise but non-technical Theology and Sanity.

De Prudentia. By PETRUS LuMBRERAS, 0. P. Madrid:
de Cultura,
Pp. 131.

Ediciones Studium

This is the ninth in a series of short commentaries on various treatises of
the second part of the Summa presented by Father Lumbreras as guides to
a more profound study of the treatises themselves. As in his other com-

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BRIEF NOTICES

mentaties the author by the use of outlines and brief explanations offers a
lucid and direct introduction to the text itself, an introduction which should
prove of great utility to the students. Since brevity and clarity are the
objectives throughout the work, all minute discussion is avoided. However,
one might wish that there were a more thorough discussion of the relations
of conscience with prudence. Father Lumbreras himself says that a right
conscience is the judgment of prudence and favors the moral system of
Equiprobabilism over Probabilism, without, however, entering into a full
discussion. He does quote Father Thomas Deman's article on Probabilism
from the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique; readers who wish a more
profound discussion of these problems may be referred to the same Father
Deman's commentary on Prudence in the editions of La Revue des Jeunes.
These omissions, however, in view of the purpose of the work, do not at all
detract from its value as a clear, solid and direct exposition of the teachings
of the Angelic Doctor.

Geschichte der Philosophie, II Teil. By JoHANNES HmscHBERGER. Freiburg:
Paper,
DM. Bound,
DM.
Herder,
This is the second half of a two volume history of philosophy. The first
volume, published in 1949, covered the ancient and medieval periods; the
present volume traces the development of philosophical thought from the
Renaissance to the contempo.rary period. A clear and readable exposition
is given of the characteristic and essential thought of each philosopher, but
the author is not content with a mere chronicle. He attempts, and on the
whole succeeds rather well, to show the real history; of thought, that is, a
certain pattern of continuity between the various schools and systems.
The first and larger section of this second volume l.s devoted to the philosophy of the Renaissance down to Hegel. Of special interest to scholastic
philosophers will be the short but substantial exposition on the revival of
scholastic philosophy and its relations with Descartes and the German
philosophers. The second and much smaller section of this second volume is
given over to a discussion of contemporary philosophy. As in the first section, the philosophers are classified in various schools of thought.
While one might expect a German work to place special emphasis on
German philosophers, there is likewise some disproportion in the space given
to the scholastic revivals. There is one paragraph about neo-Aristotelianism
and neo-scholasticism and one other on Catholic philosophers in the entire
second section. The list of Catholic philosophers is not only brief; it is incomplete. However, these omissions do not detract from a well-written history of general philosophy.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Augustin, San Aurelio. LalnmortalidaddelAlma. Textoy Traducci6n. Eva
Peron: Universidad Nacional de Ia Ciudad Eva Peron, 1953. Pp. 87.
Beron, 0. S. B., Richard. With the Bible Through the Church Year. New
York: Pantheon, 1953. Pp. 243. $4.95.
Boulogne, 0. P., Charles-Damien. My Friends the Senses. New York:
Kenedy, 1953. Pp. 215. $3.00.
Cajetan (Thomas De Vio), Cardinal. (tr. by Edward A. Bushinski, C.SS.P.)
The Analogy of Names and the Concept of Being. Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 1953. Pp. 103 with index. Paper, $1.50.
Cloth, $2.25.
Chesterton, G. K. A Handful of Authors. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1953.
Pp. 221. $3.00.
Collins, James. The Mind of. Kierkegaard. Chicago: Regnery, 1953. Pp.
318 with index. $4.50.
Copleston, S. J., Frederick. A Hutory of Philosophy, Vol. III. Westminster:
Newman, 1953. Pp. 288 with index. $5.00.
Cunningham, C. S.C., William F. General Education and the Liberal College. St. Louis: Herder, 1953. Pp. 304 with index. $4.00.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.
New York: Pantheon, 1953. Pp. 677 with index. $5.50.
Feibleman, James K. & Others. Tulane Studies in Philosophy, Vol. II. New
Orleans: Tulane University, 1953. Pp. 122.
Fothergill, Philip G. Historical Aspects of Organic Evolution. New York:
Philosophical Library, 1953. Pp. 444 with index. $6.00.
Frees, Madeline de. Springs of Silence. New York: Prentice-Hall. 1953.
Pp. 188. $2.95.
Fridrichsen, Anton. The Root of the Vine.
Library, 1958. $4.75.

New York: Philosophical

Grace, Frank. The Concept of Property in Modern Thought. Social Studies
Vol. 84. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958. Pp. 182 with index.
Paper, $8.50. Cloth, $4.50.
Graubard, Mark. Astrology and Alchemy. New York:
Library, 1958. Pp. 898 with index. $5.00.

127

Philosophical

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Guibert, S. J., Joseph de. (tr. by Paul Barrett, 0. F. M. Cap.). The
Theology of the Spiritual Life. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1953. Pp.
with index. $4.50.
Heim, Karl. Christian Faith and Natural Science. New York: Harper, 1953.
Pp.
with index. $3.50.
Henry of Ghent. Summae Quaestionum Ordinariarum. Reprint of
edition. St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: The Franciscan Institute.
Jacobi, Jolande (ed.) Psychological Reflections. An Anthology from the
Writings of C. G. Jung. New York: Pantheon, 1953. Pp. 369. $4.50.
Langmack, Holger C. God and the Universe. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1953. Pp. 173. $4.75.
Laucks, Irving F. A Speculation in Reality. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1953. Pp. 154t with index. $3.75.
Levinson, Ronald B. In Defense of Plato. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1953. Pp. 686 with index.
MacCallum, Reid. Imitation and Design. Toronto: University of Toronto,
1953. Pp.
with index. $5.00.
Marie-Eugene, 0. C. D., P. I Want to See God. Chicago: Fides, 1953. Pp.
571. $5.75.

Miller, Sr. Mary Janet (ed.). Building the Integrated Curriculum. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953. Pp.
178.

Moreau, 0. P., L. J. Dieu Est-Il Mort? Paris: Lethielleux, 1953. Pp. 77.
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Vol.
XXVIT. Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1953. Pp.
207. $3.00.

Rimselis, M. I. C., Victor. Natura et Peccatum. Private Publication, 1953.
Pp. 195.
St. John Damascene. (ed. by Owen A. Colligan, 0. F. M.). Dialectica. Version of Robert Grosseteste. St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: The Franciscan
Institute, 1953. Pp. 71.
Schlitzer, C. S.C., Albert L. Redemptive Incarnation. Notre Dame: Notre
Dame University Press, 1953. Pp. 347 with index.
Smith, Norman K. New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes. New York:
St. Martin Press, 1953. Pp. 381 with index. $5.00.
---. (tr.) Descartes' Philosophical Writings.
Press, 1953. Pp. 224. $5.00.

New York: St. Martin

BOOKS RECEIVED

The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Hafner, 1958. Pp.
265. Paper, $1.25. Cloth, $2.50.
Van Laer, P. Henry. (tr. by Henry J. Koren, C. S. Sp.). PhilosophicoScientific Problems. Duquesne Studies, Philosophical Series 8. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1953. Pp. 179 with index. Paper,
$2.50. Cloth, $3.25.
Von Hildebrand, Dietrich. The New Tower of Babel. New York: Kenedy,
1953. Pp. 243. $3.00.
Von Speyr, Adrienne. (tr. by Alexander Dru).
McKay, 1953. Pp. 159. $2.50.

The Word. New York:

Woods, Ralph L. A Treasury of Catholic Thinking. New York;
1953. Pp. 395. $5.00.

Crowell,