THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

VoL.

The Thomist PreS!l, Washington 17, D. C.

XIX

JANUARY, 1956

No.1

DEVELOPMENTAL THOMISM

F

I.

THE PROBLEM

OR more than four centuries Thomism has been isolated
from the main stream of Western philosophy. The specifically modern philosophical impulse originated with
Descartes and ran through Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley,
Hume, Kant, Fichte,
Hegel, Comte, J. S. Mill,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Bergson. Scientific and sociological revolutions which parallel those of the Renaissance
seem to have occasioned in the present century a new philosophical impulse embodied in such movements as Pragmatism,
Philosophical Analysis (including Logical Analysis, Logical
Positivism and Scientific Empiricism; the latter two being
grouped frequently as Logical Empiricism) , Phenomenology,
Existentialism and Marxism, roughly describable as contemporary philosophy. Both modern and contemporary philosophy
have been largely uninfluenced by Scholasticism in general and

1

JAMES V. MULLANEY

Thomism in particular, and both have influenced Scholasticism
and Thomism only slightly.
This enduring separatism has generated more or less typical
attitudes. The flourishing inventiveness of modern and contemporary thought has led some Thomists to a smug selfsatisfaction, intransigence, and contempt. To what degree this
attitude, easy enough to document, of arrogant aloofness is
based on a combination of ignorance, and of fear that, in the
large philosophical enterprise, Thomism's day
over and has
been over for centuries, is difficult to estimate. On the other
hand, contemporary philosophers are apt to view Thomism as
the anachronism which is the official philosophy of the Roman
Church. It seems to lack the free, humble and inquiring mind
which is modestly persuaded that serious philosophical work
remains to be done in the present and in the future.
This separatism ought to concern the Thomist for three
reasons. (1) If one is seriously convinced that Thomism is,
in some sense, unique in the history of philosophy, that it is
philosophically true in a way that other philosophies are less
so, that it bears within itself the progress of philosophy despite
the failures of the last four centuries, then one ought to be
engaged in enriching it with every valid insight. Now one
cannot enrich Thomism with whatever may be true in modern
and contemporary thought unless one is thoroughly at home
in that thought.
(2) To the degree that one is a convinced
Thomist one will perceive that the only completely satisfactory
matrix in which the discoveries of modern thought find justification is Thomism. Gabriel Marcel, for example, has understood, after his earlier Idealism, that thought is an aspect of
being, rather than being an aspect of thought. This decisive
truth floats unsuspended in Marcel. But it receives vigorous
philosophical justification and enrichment in the AristotelianThomistic epistemology which analyzes knowing as a " becoming other as other." One of the most compelling features of
Thomism is this ability to validate the newly discovered truths
of recent philosophers. Only one who knows both Thomism
and contemporary philosophy is able to see that the deeper

DEVELOPMENTAL

3

THOMISM

one goes into the latter, the closer one is to the former. (3)
Philosophy is a common enterprise, the burden and the joy of
all who have given themselves to it. There is, therefore, prior
to all philosophical differences, a bond of comradeship, a shared
respect for fellow-workers, a sort of brotherhood, between
any two philosophers. It is simply part of human nature to
be interested in how another " pro " conceives his problems,
arrives at his method, explores the possibility of solutions. This
professional fellowship makes separation difficult to understand.
Granted, on the one hand, that separatism is a fact, and on
the other hand, that, from the Thomist viewpoint at least, it
ought not to be a fact, is there any way of conceiving Thomism
which predisposes it to that organic intercourse with contempoary thought which ought to replace separatism? Is there some
aspect of Thomism which establishes fruitful openness to
modern and contemporary philosophy as an implication of
Thomism itself?
To that question the present essay suggests the following
answer: Thomism is of its very nature organically related to
modern and contemporary thought because it is developmental; and further, that contemporary thought has a large
role to play in Thomism's development.

II. IT IS ANTECEDENTLY

PROBABLE

THAT THOMISM

Is

DEVELOPMENTAL

The view that Thomism is developmental rather than static,
open rather than closed, should surprise no Thomist. The
eminent contemporary Thomist, Jacques Maritain, drew attention to this characteristic of Thomism sixteen years ago, 1 and
several Popes have proposed it. 2
Maritain called attention to Thomism's need for growth and
self-renewal, and warned that contributing to that need meant,
in part, resisting those who would freeze Thomism at a given
1

Jacques Maritain, Preface to Metaphysics

(New York, 1940).

• Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris and Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis.

4

JAMES

V. MULLANEY

point in its historical development because they failed to understand its progressive character. 3 Just as Thomas had the task
in the thirteenth century of renovating the earlier scholasticism, so the twentieth century Thomist must renew the system
of Thomas, despite the opposition of conservative Thomisti:L4
Ma:ritain described this developmental task in terms of the
metaphor of the organic development of a human body 5 in
order to suggest the dramatic difference there may be between
the earlier and the later phases of an identical Thomism.
This same spirit of developmentalism, of prudent openness
and discriminating assimilation, is found both in Pope Leo
XIII and in Pope Pius XII. Writing in Aeterni Patris the
former praised those philosophers who brought to their subject
not only scholarship, but also new insights, for, he said, this
assisted the development of philosophy. 6 Later in the same
document occurs his justly famous plea to make our own,
openly and gratefully, whatever of truth has been discovered
by anyone. 7 It would be fantastic to refuse to apply this
general prescription to contemporary thought.
In a similar spirit Pope Pius XII writing in Humani Generis
urged Catholic theologians and philosophers not to isolate
themselves from contemporary thought but to master it, not
only with a view to necessary criticism but also with a view to
assimilating whatever may be true in it, and to provoking more
profound discussions and evaluation of their own positions. 8
He added that so long as the study of contemporary thought
was undertaken in the spirit of profitably developing traditional
teaching there would be no ecclesiastical criticism. 9 Tangentially related, at least, to this developmentalism is the freedom
3 Preface, p. 2.
•[bid., pp. 12-13.
"Ibid., p. 13.
• Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris; A. C. Pegis (ed.), The Wisdom of Catholicism (New
York, 1949), p. 710.
7 Ibid., p. 718.
"Pius XII. Hnmani Generis (N.C.W.C. trans.; Washington, l!J50), par. 9, p. 5.
• Ibid., par. 10, p. 5.

DEVELOPMENTAL

5

THOMISM

of the Catholic who is a philosopher. There are many philosophical questions which do not touch matters of faith or
morals and in these matters each philosopher is free to adopt
his own position. 10 Even in those portions of philosophy in
which the Church does have a stake, the philosopher is free to
develop Thomism in the light of the results of intellectual
progress. 11
That. Thomism does develop seems to be the mind of these
two pontiffs. The problem remains, however, how intellectual,
and specifically philosophical, development occurs.

III.

NEWMAN's

ANALYSis

OF DEVELOPMENT

INTELLECTUAL

IN THE

ORDER

The classic study of how ideas develop is John Newman's
The Development of Christian DoctTine.12 The first chapter of
that epochal study, "The Development of Ideas" investigates
the process and the kinds of development to which an idea is
subject. The fifth chapter, " Genuine Development Contrasted
with Corruptions," lists and analyzes seven notes whereby a
true development of an idea may be distinguished from a corruption of it. The other chapters apply to Christian Doctrine
the general theory of development laid down in these two.
I propose to summarize here Newman's general teaching on
the development of ideas as found in his first and fifth chapters,
and to suggest that it supplies a methodology for determining
philosophical as well as doctrinal developments.

A. The Process and the Kinds of Development of Ideas tn
Geneml.
1. An idea may be said to have life, that is, to live in the
minds of those who receive it when, because of its human
significance, it becomes an active principle within those minds,
10

11
12

Ibid., par. 30, p. 13.
lbid.
(Harrold ed.), New York, 1949.

6

JAMES V. MULLANEY

leading to a continuing study of its implications and applications.
Such a humanly significant idea has many aspects and
will therefore mean different things to different men. No one
mind will, at first, grasp adequately the full comprehension
of the idea. There is a resultant agitation, confusion, conflict
as to its meaning, even among those receptive to it.
3. Gradually, definite sets of teachings cluster around the
new idea. These sets of teachings will conflict with, augment,
and interpenetrate each other until a homogeneous and rounded
teaching emerges which enables any one mind to grasp unitedly
all the diverse aspects of the idea, which distinct aspects
originally existed only in distinct minds.
4. This idea, now developed into a doctrine, is next judged
in relation to the other intellectual convictions of those who
hold it. It must find its place in the world-view of its recipients
and, in this respect, have an influence on their actual living. All
the consequences the idea now entails are, in fact, only what
the idea meant from the beginning. On the other hand, this
process is a corruption rather than a development if its final
status did not :really belong to it from the beginning.
5. In the process of development into a teaching, into a
part of the recipient's world-view and hence into a regulative
principle of his living, the given idea necessarily modifies other
ideas. It exists in a dynamic tension with other ideas to which
it gives new meanings, which it tends to assimilate to itself,
and from which it tends to cast o:ff what is inassimilable. Its
self-identity is predicated not on isolation, but on assimilation.
6. The developing idea is itself modifiable by surrounding
ideas. This testing process, this trial by competition, this
struggle of each significant idea to become the dominant idea
assimilative of others, or wrecking such others as are incapable
of being assimilated, may cause the perversion or even the
destruction of any given developing idea.
7. These risks of perversion and destruction must be run
if the idea is, in the full meaning of the phrase, to make a
difference, to be significant. It must be tested in fields of intel-

DEVELOPMENTAL

THOMISM

7

ligibility which, at first glance, seem totally alien to it, for
adaptability is a mark of life. On this planet, for ideas, a.s for
all living things, to live implies to change, and robust life
implies marked capacity for change which is, paradoxically, the
condition for earthly self-identity.
Such is the process according to which an idea devclops. 13
The kinds of development open to an idea are: political, logical,
historical, ethical and metaphysicaJ.1 4 No doubt philosophy
would be interested primarily in the last two types, but probably it could not afford to overlook the other three.

B. Seven Notes Distinguishing the Development of an Idea
from its Corntption.
L Preservation of type.
Any organism varies considerably as between its primitive
and its adult stages, but throughout those variations it remains
specifically and even individually the same organism. Similarly.
considerable alteration in the aspects of an idea are perfectly
consistent with its abiding self-identity.
A given idea may
remain constant though the expressions of it vary. The mere
fact of variation in a developing idea is no evidence of corruption.
One can go even further and say that often enough an idea
which is being corrupted may bear a closer external resemblance
to its original than one which is genuinely living out the implications of its original. When, under Augustus, the Roman citystate ceased to be a republic and became in effect a monarchy,
there was very little superficial change but a profound constitutional corruption had occurred. On the other hand, when
Diocletian replaced the trappings of republicanism with the
outward show of kingship, the real constitutional change was
slight but the superficial change was great.
Not only can profound corruptions preserve external likeness
to the original but-and this is a cardinal point-the refusal
13

Development,

14

Ibid., pp. 38-50.

pp. 34-38.

8

JAMES V. MULLANEY

to permit the development of an idea is itself a corruption of
that idea. To freeze an idea at a given moment of its historical
development, to refuse to let it live out the implications it
bears within itself, to naysay its life, and obstinately to conceive it according to some past mode, is to pervert iL Sothis is my example, not Newman's-to arrest Thomism at any
point in its history is to betray Thomism. For Thomism is a
habit of thinking. Should one refuse to think, preferring instead
to remember what the master thought, then one is, of all men,
the least Thomistic. The letter-perfect conservative Thomist is
the most subtle, and, therefore, the most dangerous, corrupter
of Thomism.
2. Continuity of its principles.

Doctrines expand differently according to the differences in
the minds in which they fructify. That is, a common principle
may, in different minds, issue in conclusions which are diverse
without being contradictory. What is required of a true development is that the doctrine, that is, the teaching, the
conclusions clustered around the original idea, preserve that
principle or original idea intact. To adhere to a doctrine which
has lost contact with its animating principle is mere show, is
unenlightened conservatism, is a form of corruption. An idea
has developed only when the teaching surrounding it is animated through and through by the original idea. So, for
example, any mind which adheres to the conclusions of Thornism but is not animated by the sense of personal appropriation
of truth, and personal responsibility towards it, any mind which
does not acknowledge that intellectuality and freedom mean
that each philosopher must appropriate being itself within himself and deliver its utterance within him, has corrupted Thornism by accepting the doctrine while renouncing the principle.
3. Power of assimilation.

To live is to grow. To grow is to have assimilated. To assimilate is to take in and make one's own, selectively, of course,
that which i.s initially other than oneself. A living thing, or a

DEVELOPMENTAL

THOMISM

9

living idea, makes its way by interpenetrating that which is
foreign to itself, and develops by absorbing it. This capacity
for expanding is a measure of life. Development is precisely a
capacity for union, for assimilation, through which the many
become one. For an idea to incorporate the external into itself
is the reverse of corruption: it is development. Further, that
idea A tends to draw to itself ideas B and C rather than ideas
D and E is proof not that A is being corrupted by B and C
but only that it had a connatural sympathy with them all
along. If, for example, Thomistic political principles are especially congenial to those ideas and practices which are named
democracy, this does not mean that democratic Thomists are
corrupting Thomism into an apologia for democracy, but only
that, all along, unknown to Thomas himself, his political thinking was particularly at home in a democratic state.
4. Logicalsequence.
Logic is not the means through which ideas develop in the
minds of those who receive them, for the simple reason that
there is no one right method according to which an idea fructifies. This fructification process varies considerably, being
personal, meditative, rather than inferential.
But given a development as already accomplished, then logic
is a technique for testing the fidelity o£ the development to the
original. That is to say, the role of logic in the development
of an idea occurs not in the phase of invention or discovery,
not in the process of actually developing the idea, but in the
phase of evaluation or judgment, in the process of testing the
validity of the already achieved development. Logic arranges
what it could not discover. Development itself transcends logic,
without violating it.
5. Anticipation of its future.

A development of an idea is a bringing out, an explication
of what is in it from the beginning. Hence it is not surprising
that it sometimes happens that early in the history of an idea's
development there should be fragmentary anticipations of ful-

10

.JAMES

V. MULLANEY

fillments which will be achieved in a systematic way only later.
There is no discovered law according to which the different
phases of a given idea must be developed in the consciousness
of men. Hence early gropi.ngs toward late achievements are
natural. Such early anticipations of subsequent developments
are a sort of assurance that the later developments were Implicit in the idea from the beginning.
6. Conservative action upon its past.

When it happens that a later historical phase of an idea
contradicts the earlier phases, that is corruption and not development. A genuine development always conserves prior
stages of the development and adds to them. Development is
not necessarily in a straight line, but it is certainly not a line
which undoes itself. So, for example, any attempt to " develop " the Thomistic notion of being by assimilating to it the
Sartrean notion of existence would be a corruption because the
latter notion undoes the character of essence, of intelligibility
in the existent, which is central to the Thomist notion.
7. Chronic vigor.
The development of an idea is, lastly, characterized by
enduring vigor. The duration serves to distinguish development
from rapid corruption, whereas the vigor serves to distinguish
development from slow decay. So, for example, the late nineteenth century notion of the inevitability of progress corrupted
quickly before the onslaught of the facts of twentieth century
living. Corruption is quick, development is slow. On the other
hand, decay is gentle, even genteel, unlike development which
has a certain lustiness. So the notion that liberal education
ought to be reserved to a given sociological class is unobtrusively dying out in America.
Such are the seven notes which differentiate development
from corruption in the realm of ideas. One may be sure of
the self-identity of a given developing idea if its progress includes all seven characteristics. 15
1"

Ibid., pp. 157-191.

DEVELOPMENTAL

IV.

THOMISM

THE KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT

11

IN PHILOSOPHY

A. Systematic Development.
By a " systematic " 16 development in philosophy I mean an
apparently sudden deepening of the human grasp on philosophy
in all its parts, a development of philosophy as a whole. Such
over-all developments are relatively rare, but they do occur.
So I should, for my own part, judge that the philosophy of
Plato is a systematic development over that of the Sophists
and Parmenides; that the philosophy of Aristotle is a systematic
development over the materialism of the Pre-Socratics and the
formalism of Plato; that Plotinus represents a systematic development over both Roman Stoicism and Greek metaphysics;
that Augustine's thought is a systematic development over
both Plotinus and the Christian Apologists; that Thomism is a
systematic development over both Augustinianism and Aristotelianism; that Kantian criticism is a systematic development over both empiricism and rationalism; and that Bergson's
vitalism is a systematic development over both idealism and
positivism. 17 In such cases philosophy moves forward as a
whole and, more or less, in all parts.

B. Fragmentary Development.
These dramatic over-all developments are infrequent, and presuppose another, more primitive type of development, the development of a single philosophical idea. So the idea of matter
in the Pre-Socratics is the idea of the abode, the subject, of
the various contraries. This develops in Plato into the idea of
a non-being which in a certain way exists, that is, into the idea
of the existing non-being. This in tum develops in Aristotle
into the idea of first matter, that is, into the idea of pure
potency in the order of essence of corporeal substances. This
16 The meaning of "system " in philosophy, and of "open" and "closed" systems
needs exploration, but this is not the place for it.
17 Such examples of systematic
development are not an implicit commitment to
the Hegelian triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis endlessly repeated.

12

JAMES V. MULLANEY

notion of potency is developed by Aquinas into the notion of
essence as potency in the order of existence and substance as
potency in the order of operation.
Again, the Stoic idea of natural law as the Divine Logos
immanent in the universe is developed by Aquinas into the idea
of the Eternal law as immanent in created things; Eternal law,
in turn, being an aspect of the Divine Providence. This essentially theocentric conception of natural law is developed on the
level of operation in turn by Adler and Maritain into the idea
of normality of functioning, of natural tendency as it emerges
into the realm of the free spirituality of man. Similarly the
idea of knowledge develops from a theory of corporeal images
in the Pre-Socratics, to reminiscence of pure forms in Plato, to
"becoming other as other" in Aristotle.
This modest type of development is more common than the
systematic. To it men of mere ability, as distinguished from
philosophical genius, may and do contribute. It is the fie]d of
operation of those philosophers who, on the one hand, must do
their own thinking (how else shall they be philosophers?) but
who, on the other ,hand, cannot seriously envisage themselves
as the culmination of the history of philosophy to date. Their
work is problem-centered rather than system-centered, and
they leave to the rare genius whom Providence occasionally
provides the synthesis into systematic development of their
separate, fragmentary developments.

v. THE STATUS OF THOMISM RELATIVELY TO DEVELOPMENT
A. Thomism Has Been Subject to No Systematic Development.
That there have been systems of philosophy, in some sense
of the word " system," since Aquinas is clear enough: Cartesian
rationalism, Lockean empiricism, Kantian criticism, Hegelian
idealism, Comtean positivism, Nietzschean voluntarism are examples. What is alleged here is that none of these systems is
a decisive, over-all development relatively to the system of

DEVELOPMENTAL

THOMISM

13

Aquinas, despite the fact that each of these systems, very
probably, contributed fragmentary developments to Thomism.
The documentation of the judgment that Thomism is philosophically superior to any of the systems which followed it is
a lengthy historico-comparative process which cannot be undertaken here. There is only one way to reach such a judgment,
and that is to acquire a first-hand knowledge of Thomism and
of all the major subsequent systems of philosophy, and then on
the basis of explicit criteria, to institute a comparative investigation into the merits of each. The man who commits himself
to Thomism on any basis other than this comparative evaluation may very well be a Thomist but he is no philosopher. (If
this implies that there are relatively few Thomist philosophers,
and that these few become such only towards their middle
years, I should not be inclined to shy away from either implication.)
The position that Thomism is, on demonstrable grounds,
truer, closer to reality as experienced, more fertile, its parts
more perfectly integrated, vaster in its scope, profounder in
its principles, more open both to lower and to higher sources
of truth, more readily assimilative of new knowledge, yet more
surely preservative of ancient and medieval knowledge, more
humble in its approach to being, more respectful of it, yet more
successful in its metaphysical structure-this conviction, which
is my own, must not be pushed too far. It is one thing to say,
on the basis of the evidence as we see it, that Thomism is the
most satisfactory system of philosophy to date. It would be
quite another thing to say that it is the last word in philosophy.
We can never close our minds to the possibility that, in the
Divine Providence, Thomist philosophy is, in the future, to be
surpassed. In that event the very love of truth which today
makes us Thomist would tomorrow make us philosophers of
that surpassing school. But, on the other hand, we should not
exaggerate, either, this mere possibility. Our obligation is to
live in the present, not in the future. And to many of us, at
least, it appears that the only present way of reaching the
depths of being is through Thomism.

14

JAMES

V. MULLANEY

B. Thomism has been Subject to Fragmentary Development.
The actual demonstration that a given philosophical idea
has in fact developed is a detailed historical study which would
include at least the following steps:
a) the isolation of the precise content of the idea in question
at the two moments between which development is alleged to
have occurred;
b) the charting of the most significant advances in the development of the idea between the two terminal dates;
c) a determination that those advances did nor did not substantially coincide with the process of development depicted
by Newman and summarized earlier in seven steps;
d) to be sure that the change in question was a development rather than a corruption it would, lastly, be necessary to
test that change by the seven notes which distinguish a development from a corruption.
Such a study is not undertaken here. Rather, there is simply
listed at random a group of ideas in which it appears likely to
the writer that the contemporary phase of these ideas is an
development relatively to their status in the writings of
Aquinas.
L The philosophy of nature. The very concept of a philosophy of nature as distinct from the empiriological sciences of
nature is an advance, a development by way of purification,
over the Thomistic notion-I do not say for a moment that it
was a specifically Thomistic notion-of " Physics " as the single
study, simultaneously scientific and philosophical, of changeable being. This development is, as a matter of fact, manysided, full of ramifications, most of them occurring in Epistemology, specifically in the philosophy of science. It advances even
the Thomist teaching on the degrees of abstraction, 18 which
Aquinas had already developed notably relatively to Aristotle.
'l.
18

Epistemology.

The critical

assessment

on the "De Trinitate" of Boethius, q. 5.

of knowledge

DEVELOPMENTAL

THOMISM

15

necessary for a complete metaphysics exists in Aquinas, notably
in his examination of the judgment. But it has received in the
post-Kantian period a unity and roundedness, a scientific
explication which it does not enjoy in Thomas. What has
developed here is the very idea of Epistemology itself-what
Epistemology is.
Another development in this area is the statement and critical examination of the principle of sufficient reason which
contemporary Thomists are accustomed to undertake. This
principle, listed :in Humani Generis 19 as one of the fundamental
truths of philosophy was, so far as I know, first proposed by
Lebniz. Undoubtedly the principles of identity and causality
as found in Aquinas can be so understood as virtually to contain
the principle of sufficient reason. But the explication of it, and
its indirect defense by reduction to the principle of identity
is an advance.
It is possible-I claim no more than possibility-that, quite
unconsciously, a man who was no Thomist developed one
Thomistic idea during the last century. Thomas draws a distinction between the sensio-intellectual knowledge of existent
singulars and the merely intellectual knowledge of abstracted
essences. The first is more perfect than the second, and indeed
the second exists only for the sake of the first. 20 Now Newman's
distinction between real and notional knowledge 21 may, despite
the imperfection of Newman's terminology, parallel and enrich
the Thomistic distinction.
3. Ontology. What is now the standard Thomistic way of
explaining the central metaphysical teaching, the analogy of
being, would seem to be a development, due largely to the work
to Cajetan, over Thomas' own handling of this problem.
Similarly, recent discussions of being and existence growing
out of the Thomist evalution of Existentialism may have
deepened the existentialist dimension of the Thomist notion
of being.
19

Par. 30, p. 13.

20

Summa Theologiae, I, q. 84, a. 7.
Grammar of Assent (Harrold ed.; New York, 1947), pp. 29-34.

21

16

JAMES V. MULLANEY

4. Moral philosophy. It was suggested above that the idea
of natural law has received a specifically philosophical development at the hands of Mortimer Adler 22 and Jacques Maritain ..23 Aquinas treats this idea in a manner that is formally
theological and only materially philosophical. Adler and
Maritain, who begin their study on the level of law operationally viewed, actually work out in part a philosophy of
natural law.
Closely related to this new angle on natural law is a development in the idea of natural rights. New attention has been
given to man's rights in such fields as his work, his citizenship,
his education and, more generally, in the economic, political,
social and cultural orders. 24
5. General. Yves Simon's discussions of authority, of the
moral problems posed by technological society, and of general
Thomistic political notions; 25 JVL C. D'Arcy's study of love 26
and his attempt to fuse Newman's philosophy of religion with
Thomas'; 27 Maritain's extension of the Thomist notion of connatural knowledge from theology to philosophy, and especially
to the philosophy of art/ 8 as well as the sarr.e author's philosophy of culture 29-all of these would seem to be developments of Thomistic ideas.
Such a list is suggestive only. It seems highly likely that
developments have occurred in additional areas, particularly
in logic, which are not here discussed. It seems certain that
each alleged development would need careful documentation,
as indicated at the beginning of the present section, before it
could be unhesitatingly accepted as a genuine development.
A Dialectic of Morals (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1941), pp. 47-69.
Man and the State (Chicago, 1951), pp. 84-95.
•• Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (New York, 1947).
25 Nature and Functions of Authority
(Milwaukee, 1948); but more especially
The Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chicago, 1951).
26 The Mind and Heart of Love (New York, 1947).
See especially pp. 292-304.
27 The Nature of Belief (New York, 1931).
28 " On Knowledge
Through Connaturality," The Range of Reason (New York,
1953), pp.
see also Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York, 1953).
•• True Humanism (New York, 1938).
22

23

DEVELOPMENTAL

VI.

THOMISM

THE RoLE oF OTHER PHILosoPHIES

17

IN THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THOMISM

As long ago as 1940 Prof. Maritain called attention to the
great part modern and contemporary philosophies have to
play in the development of Thomism. To the degree that such
philosophies lack a proper metaphysical grounding they may
be described as potential philosophies. The task of Thomism
is to actualize them by assimilating them to itself. Thomism
thus has the task of bearing within itself the development of
philosophy as such. But it can fulfill this task only to the
degree that it has made its own the truths possessed by the
potential systems existing in the various periods of its own
duration. 30 That is to say, one condition of its present development is the assimilation of modern and contemporary philosophy.
A few years later Maritain turned his attention to the
problem of the relations between Thomism and contemporary
thought in a more detailed way. 31 There are, he pointed out,
two different ways in which Thomism can develop relatively to
non-Thomistic philosophies. The first is the way of assimilation
or, as Maritain called it, of doctrinal exchanges. This means
that the Thomist first makes a detailed, sympthetic study of a
given non-Thomistic system of philosophy, e. g., of Pragmatism;
second, that he isolates the basic ideas of that system from the
total complex, e. g., verification, process, evolution; third, the
comparative study of these ideas relatively to the relevant
Thomist ideas, e. g., verification relatively to truth; process
relatively to immutability; evolution relatively to substantial
form; fourth, the enlargement by the Thomist of his own conceptual system through assimilating to it such ideas from the
other system which, as a result of this process, are seen to
be true.
This development by way of assimilation is similar to
Preface to Metaphysics, p. 14.
"Philosophical Cooperation and Intellectual Justice," The Modem Schoolman
(Nov. 1944). Reprinted in The Range of Reason (New York, 1958), pp. 80-50.
30
31

2

18

JAMES

V. MULLANEY

Aquinas' own procedure relatively to the then suspected Aristotle. It is an exacting process because it implies a persistent
conquest of newly discovered truth. It requires a certain
pliability of mind, the ability to go readily from one frame of
reference, one system of conceptual signs, to another; it requires
judgment to be able to determine which ideas are characteristic
of the given system, and which accidental and, with regard to
the characteristic ideas, to determine comparatively in what
sense each is true, and in what sense false; it requires, lastly,
some synthetic ability to see how each new acquisition modifies, enriches, is organically related to the Thomist ideas previously entertained. All this means that the Thomist simply
cannot go to sleep.
When the Thomist who is intellectually awake, and therefore
assimilative, has completed this process with respect to any
given philosophy, .he will, very likely, find himself faced with
a residue of philosophical propositions in the other system
which being false, cannot be assimilated. At the end of assimilation lies irreducible opposition. What then?
Development is still possible, but development of a new kind,
called by Maritain .. mutual intelligible envelopment." This
kind of development of Thomism leaves the non-Thomistic
system intact, does not dismember it to appropriate what is
true in it. The first step is to lay hold of the central intuition
behind the philosophical system in question. This intuition
may be wrongly conceptualized and systematized by the very
system it animates, and yet be in itself, simply as an intellectual
intuition, a valid and a true insight into some aspect of being.
So-it is my own example, not Maritain's-one might say that
the central, valid intuition behind the pantheism of Plotinus
and of Spinoza is the connectedness of being, the unity of being,
in some sense of the word " unity." The second step is to allot
to that system as a whole its place within Thomism, to locate
it, for example, as pertaining to the philosophy of nature, or to
metaphysics, or to practical philosophy (morals). It may well
be necessary, in this second step, to locate the system in a

DEVELOPMENTAL

THOMISM

19

purely hypothetical manner. So, for example, one would locate
the pantheism of Plotinus or Spinoza as pertaining to metaphysics; but not to metaphysics simply speaking, but rather
to metaphysics as metaphysics would be if contingent being
proceeded from God by way of emanation rather than by way
of creation. This second step, then, is one of seeing the opposed
system as a whole in its relation to Thomism; of seeing the
point of contact even in opposition; of seeing the hypothesis,
however -false, on which opposition would vanish. The third
step is one's return to Thomism with a deepened insight into
Thomism itself; with a new understanding of what Thomism
does not mean, as well as what it does mean; with an enlarged
grasp of the ramifications of one's own position. This is development, not by assimilation, but by deepening. It is
Thomism seeing more deeply into itself precisely through seeing
into the alternatives, from the standpoint of the
themselves. One sees Thomism in an entirely new depth
through approaching other systems at the point of their highest
intelligibility, which is also the point of the purest intellectual
justice. It is through being tem.porarily and hypothetically a
non-Thomist that one develops, in this second way, Thomism
itself. It might be inelegantly said that, from this point of
view, the study of non-Thomistic philosophy is the back door
to Thomism.
This second, and somewhat more subtle, form of development
points most sharply the lesson that, even where irreconcilable
opposition is discovered, still there is nothing but profit for
Thomism in constant intercourse with contemporary thoughtthe specific profit of development.

vn. CoNCLUSION
It is essential for the Thomist never to confuse development
with mere eclecticism, never to confuse the pursuit and the
acquisition o£ truth with merely being " informed." Any sacrifice, any compromise, of the ruling categories of the true and
the false \vould be corruption, not development.

JAMES Vo MULLANEY

In a remarkable article published two years ago, Prot James
Collins called attention to the fact that ""
a philosophy can
be comprehensive, either in the sense of embracing a variety of
systems about :reality or in the sense of embracing a wide sweep
of real traits of experience. The former sort of inclusiveness
does not necessarily entail the latter"
Conversely, a philosophy can claim to include all the factors in our experience of
being, regardless of whether this philosophy attempts to adjust
several systems of metaphysics to each other" Philosophical
adequacy does require that an explanation pass the former test
but not necessarily that it pass the latter one!' 32 That is to
say, Thomism is philosophically true and adequate; as a result
it is developmental and comprehensive relatively to other systems" But it is its relationship to being that is primary, and its
relationship to other philosophies that are secondary" " The
unity of philosophy is rooted immediately in this joint reference
toward being as that which has the act of existing, rather than
in the second-level relations· among systems concerning being!' 33 Thomism, then, is comprehensive relatively to other
philosophies precisely because true, not true because comprehensive"
Truth and comprehensiveness relatively to reality; developmentalism, and resultant comprehensiveness relatively to other
systems of philosophy-such is the right ordero Provided this
order be observed, the notion of Thomism as developmental is
of value" Through it, one can retain his intellectual center, his
philosophical integrity, his Thomism, and yet move freely,
openly, in the world of thought, having a profound concern
with, and a first-hand involvement in, contemporary philosophy" :For it is by Divine Providence that we are men, and
philosophers, of this time, this place" Hence the fellow men,
and the fellow philosophers, of this time, this place, have a
unique claim upon our love, our brotherhood, our intelligence. 84
0

0

0

••

32 James
Collins, " The Problem of a Philosophia Perennis," Thought (vol.
no. 3), p. 588.
33 Ibid., p. 593.
"• A recent exchange between a Pragmatist (Van Cleve Morris) and a Thomist

DEVELOPlviENTAL

THOMISM.

But even the most ardent developmentalist must acknowledge that the role of the conservative Thomist, of the antidevelopment Thomist, is legitimate though irritating. Only
the very incautious will despise proper warnings of genuine
dangers to Thomism in assimilation, development, comprehensiveness. In human affairs-and philosophy is emphatically
human-any one tendency, such as development, requires :restraint emanating from the opposite tendency, such as conservatism. Yet it is not the spirit of conservatism which will
develop Thomism. It is rather the spirit to which Newman
gave expression a little more than a century ago.
" The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more
powerful hold it exercises on the minds of men, the more able
is it to dispense with safeguards and trust to itself against the
dangers of corruption. As strong frames exult in their agility
and healthy constitutions throw off ailments, so parties or
schools that live can afford to be rash, and will sometimes be
betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by their
inherent vigor. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or articles of religion
are indispensable when the principle of life is weakly." 35
Thomism has the toughness of the living. It can take the
rough and tumble of the very unpretty development process
and yet retain its self-identity.
JAMES V. MuLLANEY
;}Ianhattan College
New York, N. Y.

(Robert F. Harvanek) in Thought (vol. 30, no. 117), pp. 119-230, reminds us once
more of the claim which our contemporaries have upon, at least, our attention.
35 The Development
of Christian Doctrine, p. 175.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE QUARTA VIA
OF ST. THOMAS

I

T may seem that the demonstration of the existence of
God has been treated so often that very little remains to
be exposed by students of natural theology. By the very
fact that these arguments lie in the realm of demonstration we
recognize that every normal adult using his power of reason
can discover, in one way or another, the necessity of God in
the universe, In general, the words of St. Paul to his Greek
converts, " The invisible things of God are made known to us
through the created universe," 1 can be admitted by all.
Though granting this unquestionably, we must concede that
the formal logical process for the complete demonstration is
beyond the ability of many ·people untrained in logic and
philosophy. The five demonstrations employed by St. Thomas
to reach a first mover, necessary being, first efficient cause,
absolute maximum perfection, and first intellect or designer of
the universe are powerful accomplishments in the fields of
logic, philosophy of nature, and metaphysics yet to be surpassed
by the philosophers of any era. St. Thomas was gifted with a
mind that seemed to have no difficulty in grasping clearly the
relation of the proper to the common, the specific to the generic,
the single aspect to the whole. He was able to reconcile extremes and contraries within what is common or total. He
resolved those problems which for more limited minds constituted paradoxes and seeming contradictions because he knew
how to distinguish, analyze, compare, identify and unite better
than most minds. Above all he recognized and admitted where
mystery enters, marking the boundary line for mere reason.
There is a medieval saying, "Omnia exeunt mysterium,"all things pass into mystery,-which seems to have been given
more consideration by St. Thomas and many of his contem1

Romans 1: !tO.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

23

pora:ries than it has by most modern and contemporary philosophers. It is actually the quasi-mysterious thing that leads
us on towards the more complete mystery-somewhat as the
partial leads to the whole, and the limited to the unlimited.
It is a fact that the intellect would not even begin to search
logically or analogically for the completely mysterious cause of
the universe unless it had first perceived a relationship (afterwards discovered to be necessary) between some mysterious
phenomena in the universe of nature and this unknown Principle. Surely no one is so rash as to claim that he thoroughly
and clearly understands such naturally mysterious phenomena
as movement (as yet undefined essentially by either science or
philosophy), derived or participated being, secondary efficient
causes, essentially diversified transcendental perfections, and
the ordering to ends found in finite beings. H anyone makes
such a daim he is either so nai:ve as to be " skirting around "
the question or incapable of catching the mysterious elements
which have baffied great minds for centuries.
Josef Pieper has recently emphasized the fact that the beginning of philosophy lies in man's ability to find wonder, " to
marvel at " mysterious reality, so glibly taken for granted
by the superficial minded. He points out that the capacity to
wonder is one of man's greatest gifts and he deplores the fact
that modem philosophy has substituted doubt for the normal
movement of wonder. 2 "Wonder signifies that the world is
profounder, more all-embracing and mysterious than the logic
of everyday reason had taught us to believe. The innermost
meaning of wonder is fulfilled in a deepened sense of mystery.
It does not end in doubt, but is the awakening of the knowledge that being qua being is mysterious and inconceivable, and
that it is a mystery in the full sense of the word." 3 Peiper goes
on to show that in the state of wonder one is not in a state of
resigned ignorance, but searching for truth and on the way to
it. One does not know fully or conceive satisfactorily some
truths because, as St. Thomas reminds us, " the cause of our
• Josef Pieper, Leisure, The Basis of Culture (New York,

• Ibid., p. 135.

p. 133.

SISTER M. ANNICE

wonder is hidden from us." • In another place the Angelic
Doctor defines wonder as " deside·riwn sciendi "-the desire or
longing for knowledge. Pieper comments on the fact that St.
Thomas beheld in man's attraction to wonder the very beginning of his quest for God. " Furthermore, Aquinas held that
man's :first experience of wonder sets his feet on the ladder
that leads up to the beatific vision. And the truth that human
nature is intended for no less an end is revealed by the fact
that we are capable of experiencing the wonder of creation." 5
Reason should certainly make it clear that the effects which
lead to an absolutely mysterious cause must themselves have
something mysterious about them in order to, :first, engage the
human mind in such a quest, and secondly, to be able to" stand
for " in a significative way, the name for God.
Now, this is not in any way to deny or belittle the service of
logical method and discipline. Indeed, before we :finish we shall
have rigorously to employ dialectics and the logical processes
of both induction and deduction. But it is well to emphasize
at the outset the need of recognizing mystery when we me.et it
and the limitations of the discursive process so closely associated with the imagination and so necessary to progress in both
mathematics and the physical sciences. St. Thomas was full
of dialectical ingenuity but he certainly did not stop there.
He knew that the human mind was made for more than
problem solving and syllogistic reasoning; that its movement
is "three dimensional" in penetrating ever more deeply the
mystery of being. For the Angelic Doctor, human thought
extends radially and penetratively into ever widening circles.
Line:;tr inference is not an adequate instrument for that enlightenment which is more a progress towards pure understanding than a progression of demonstrations.
Nothing is ever gained by attempting to accomplish too
much at once. It would require at least a complete volume to
treat of St. Thomas' five ways of demonstrating the existence
of God. It is my purpose to treat of but one which is considered
• Ibid., p. 136.
• Ibid., loc. cit.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST" THOMAS

25

by some as the most complex of the five, viz", the quarta via.
l!'or the sake of order the treatment will fall into three divisions
The first will include the steps of observation and comparison
which belong to the process of induction, In this part the mind
is led to posit a maximum measure of perfection, that is, a
name for God which will ultimately be used as a significative
definition and the middle term in demonstration" The mysterious and varied degrees of existing transcendental perfections
lead the intellect dialectically to a supereminent Principle"
That this is not a form of the "ontological proof" will be
made clear"
The second part will follow the general inductive procedure
of hypothesis and analysis" The supereminent Principle which
has been reached through abstracting the relationship analogous to that of part to whole, here precisely that of limited
to unlimited (and completely mysterious) perfection, will be
recognized as the hypothetical principle. As in any inductive
work, the principle is granted hypothetically before the analysis
of participating and participated perfections (or the degrees
and the absolute norm) establish such a principle as necessary.
It will be seen that the foundation for the relationship of such
effects to such a cause lies in ·the property of dependency discovered in the participating perfection. In treating of such
transcendental concepts, reason moves on the metaphysical
plane, making use of analogy of proportionality in the acts of
comparison and analysis.
Lastly, we must show through an a posteriori demonstration
in which we proceed deductively that an absolute maximum
perfection exists as the first Efficient Cause and first Exemplary
Cause of the essentially varied degrees of transcendental perfections found in things in the universe" The method employed
in this part corresponds with the last step in general induction,
i. e. verification. In order to complete the whole process of
reasoning the induced law or principle must finally be demonstrated by syllogistic inference.

SISTER M. ANNICE

A MAXIMUM

MEASURE oF PERFECTION

IS PosiTED

By observation and comparison of things we discover that
the very perfection of existence (esse) of creatures and concomitantly, the attributes of goodness, unity, beauty, etc., are
found in an ordered hierarchy of distinctly different degrees.
The existence of a stone, a pine tree, a bird, and a man or the
goodness of steel, bread, sheep, and men differ essentially. Such
an ascending scale of perfection points to a maximum which
will be sought as the ultimate measure of these varied attributes. }"or a certain measure or norm is the only real basis
.for any comparison of more and less. Now, the maximum for
the transcendental perfections of being is obviously not one
that can be observed in the physical universe but must be
sought in a higher order of being-on the level of metaphysical
reality.
In his brief original statement of the quarta via St. Thomas
has clearly outlined this dialecLical ascent to the highest or
absolute subsisting Perfection. 6 But he has not included in
this particular question aU of the evidence to be used in demonstrating the existence of the maximum perfection as the first
cause of all derived being and the perfections which follow
being. Yet he has expressly given these arguments in other
works, notably, the treatise on creation in both the Summa
Theologiae and De Potentia, and again in the Contra Gentiles
and the Commentary on the Sentences."'
In the quarta via, just as in the other fou:r Thomistic proofs
6 Summa
Theol., I, q. fl, a. 3. Invenitur enim in rebus aliquid magis et minus
bonus et verum et nobile; et sic de aliis huiusmodi. Sed magis et minus dicuntur de
diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversirnode ad aliquid quod maxime est;
sicut magis calidum est, quod magis appropinquat maxime calido. Est igitur aliquid
quod est verissimum, et optimum, et nobilissimum, et per consequens maxime ens;
nam quae sunt maxime vera, sunt maxime entia, ut dicitur (II Met.) . Quod au tern
dicitur maxime tale in aliquo genere, est causa omnium quae sunt illus generis,
sicut ignis qui est maxime calidus est causa omnium calidorum ut in eodem libro
dicitur. Ergo est aliquid quod omnibus entibus est causa esse et bonitatis et
cuiuslibet perfectionis et hoc dicimus Deum.
7 Ibid., q. 44, a. I; De Potentia, q. 3, a. 5; 1 Cont. Gent., c. 13;ll Sent. d. 1, q.
l, a. 1; and in In Joan., f''Fologus.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

27

for the existence of God, the principle of proper causality is
applied. There is nothing unique in this. The uniqueness of
each way lies in the particular fact of experience to which it
refers, that is, the mysterious phenomena of nature which
incite wonder in the human mind. Thus man is led to seek the
ultimate principle and cause of such phenomena. In the fourth
way this fact of experience concerns perfections in beings not
attributable to the generic, specific, or individual potentialities
of their natures. The proof begins with the first and most
formal of all perfections, that of existence (esse) of beings in
act: " Among beings (things that are) some are more and
some less good, true, noble and the like." 8 A thing must first
have being before it can actually possess other perfections,
whether they be transcendental as nobility, goodness, and truth
or univocal perfections possessed by reason of generic and
specific natures such as animality and rationality in man.
Now in contrast with univocal predicamental perfections
discovered within natures and measured by the highest species
within genera, the maximum measure for strictly transcendental
perfections must be sought above and beyond things of the
corporeal universe. For if being itself is not limited to the
plane of sensible things, the same is true of goodness, unity,
truth and the like. And if they are to be realized in their
complete fullness it must be in the absolute state of which
they are formally capable. It is this which must constitute the
supreme measure and include the total concept of the perfection. As the maximum of transcendental perfection it must
exclude all imperfect realizations. This necessarily excludes the
varied and limited states in which it is found in finite beings.
Even in quantitatively measurable things, which always involve more and less, there is no real comparison without a
certain norm considered as the most perfect measure.
Logically we are led to seek the maximum wherever there
are degrees of the same perfection. As long as something of
act or perfection of any kind is lacking, the mind seems to
demand a better realization of such perfections as existence,
8

Summa Theel., I, q.

a. S.

28

SISTER M. ANNICE

goodness, love, freedom, truth, etc., than our experience
furnishes us with. We are never satisfied with the particular
good. Our intellectual knowledge which is of multiple and
restricted truths leaves us dissatisfied and ever desirous of
pursuing the whole truth. Above all, the precarious and limited
perfection of existence possessed by creatures urges us to seek
a more perfect life, eternal existence. In the psychological order.
both appetitively and cognitively we seem to press forward
towards the infinite possibilities of such perfections. And we
reasonably conclude that the maximum measure must be a
supreme and :infinite one which formally includes the total
concept of the perfection. Metaphysically it is possible to
abstract the transcendental perfections from all material conditions and imperfect realizations in the physical order and yet
find that they retain their essential constitution. The form
not only remains in the higher analogates but seems to be more
easily apprehended by the intellect. Indeed, these perfections
seem to tend formally towards a state of absolute purity which
implies only act. 9 It is only in the order of metaphysical abstraction that the intellect is able to refashion its concepts of
perfections obtained in the lower order of physical abstraction,
and through analogical insight arrive at the notion of perfection which transcends the physical universe and requires
no matter for verification. 1 ° For example, the concept of intel• LeRohellic, Problemes Philosophiques (Paris, 193:t), p. 136. Quae cum in sua
definitione non dicat nisi perfectionem seu actum, non repugnat quominus ab omni
subjecto absolvatur in sua simplicitate subsistens, et suam rationem formalem'
servet in gradu infinito.
10 Summa Theol., I, q. H!, a. 4. Cognitio enim contingit secundum quod cognitum
est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis. Unde cujuslibet cognoscentis
cognitio est secundum modum suae naturae. Si igitur modus essendi alicujus rei
cognitae excedat modum naturae cognoscentis oportet quod cognitio illius rei sit
supra naturam illius cognosentis: . . . Relinquitur ergo, quod cognoscere ipsum esse
subsistens sit connaturale soli intellectui divino, et quod sit supra facultatem
naturalem cuiuslibet intellectus creati, quia nulla creatura est suum esse, sed habet
esse participatum. Also, ibid., q. 84, a. 7. Intellectus autem humani qui est conjunctus corpori proprium objectum est quidditas sive natura in materia corporali
existens; et per hujusmodi naturas visiblium rerum, etiam invisibilium rerum
aliqualem cognitionem ascendit.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE " QUART A VIA " OF .S'l'. THOMAS

29

lect is immeasurably more an intellect when freed from the
limitations of material conditions. We may also take the
concepts of goodness, wisdom, and love as realized in man and
refashion these concepts analogically, applying them to higher
levels or modes of being, even extending them infinitely. The
notion of such perfections formally considered is without limit.
They are as unlimited as being itself is and we cannot even
positively conceive an excess of their ultimate measure or
maxxmuq1.
This, then, is the maximum being, the source of perfection
posited by St. Thomas in the quarta via, as supereminent
and Cause of being and the transcendental perfections of being. Now, the fact that we arrive at and accept
a maximum being as subsistent Perfection before we prove
the existence of such a « Being " may lead some to think that
we employ surreptitiously a form of the '" ontological " argument. The suspicion would have some foundation if we claimed
to arrive at the knowledge of God's existence by the way of
supereminence alone, and if we did not distinguish between
the orders of knowledge and being. We apply the principle of
causality in the actual order once we have accounted for the
movements of the mind, in penetrating the real and basic
relationship between limited, imperfect, mysteriously participating, and by itself unexplainable, being and the principle
from which such being derives. Affirmatively the mind expresses this principle as absolutely pure, i. e., the perfection of
Being by essence. Negatively, we purify our limited concepts
and designate this Being as devoid of all imperfection. And
by way of supereminence we apply this concept and name of
maximum Being or first Perfection to Him whom we call God.
Were it not for this ability of the human mind to discover
transcendental perfections mixed and limited in things and
compare essentially different degrees of it, denying infinite
perfection to even the highest finite actualization (as in the
angels) and, at the same time, afflrming the possibility of
perfection per essentiam, as ultimate principle and measure of

30

SISTER M. ANNICE

the limited degrees, we should never arrive at the argument
from causality as applied in this fourth demonstration. Remembering that principle is to the intellect what end is to the
appetite, we find that after proceeding inductively to and
positing the M axime Ens, we are able to use this concept and
name for God (what we mean by God), as a middle term in
the
demonstration. This, of course, does not occur until
the last part.
In this first part the reasoning process is largely inductive
since it is concerned so much with abstracting relationships.
Induction rests on the law of causality and the law of uniformity
in nature. It seems to involve more abstraction than any other
form of inference, and it can be applied to any science which
has as its object the discovery of universal laws and principles
which can explain the cause of some phenomenon of experience.
Its starting point is always experience and its goal is to reach
the cause which cannot be found immediately or by an unaided
act of inference. Compared to formal logical deduction the
" logic " of induction seems to be an analogical expression. For
it is not a per se formalized method of procedure, that is, its
methods are not so determined and regulated by purely formal
:rules as to lead infallibly to certain conclusionso And there
is a kind of basic continuity between the lower investigations
on the level of sensible experiences and the higher more disciplined levels of inquiry. One who infers inductively depends
greatly on his powers of observation, ability for careful comparisons, and constructing plausable suppositions. He must,
above all, be able to abstract on different levels, increasing in
profundity and mystery, the relations between existing singulars and hidden laws and principles. If he fails in this abstraction, in short, fails to make the proper connections, his
supposition or hypothesis is merely gratuitous. Now, once
we have abstracted the relationship of limited perfection to
unlimited, and in a sense, caught or intuited something of the
mystery of finite being and purely transcendental perfections,
we are in a position to posit the supereminent Principle which

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE " QUART A VIA " OF ST. THOMAS

31

is held as maximum norm and measure. An analysis then
follows which is concerned with participation and the participated perfections. The real foundation for the causal argument
lies in the dependency discovered here. Though more vaguely
and commonly seen at first, it (dependency) is ultimately
discovered to be a necessary property of all finite being (esse)
and consequently of the transcendental properties of being.
A brief comparison of purely transcendental perfections with
univocal generic perfections will show that they are realized
in things differently and conceived by the mind differently.
It is through a proper understanding of these facts that we
avoid falling into either pantheism or anthropomorphism when
we attribute the purely transcendental perfections formally and
eminently to God. The concept of the generic perfection
" animality " is in potentiality to the addition of extrinsic
differences for the constitution of its several species. The
specifying difference "rationality" is something extrinsic to
" animality " and consequently it adds some new perfection
to the genus. On the contrary, the concept of a transcendental
perfection such as being (esse) and its absolute attributes
unity, truth, goodness, actually contains, though in an unexplicitated way, its essentially different modes. Nothing
extrinsic is introduced when we make explicit some particular
mode of the transcendental. The logical contraction of the
concept comes from within when we express a distinct mode of
being, goodness, unity, etc. All degrees of the perfection are
implicit in the common ratio and it depends upon the subject
of which is it predicated what degree of the perfection is
made explicit. It must be recalled here that, according to St.
Thomas, the transcendental perfections of being do not add
any real relation to it but only ·a relation of reason. 11 As
attributes of being they are as capable of being realized according to all modes, even an infinite one, as being (esse) itself is.
And if being is never exhaustively realized in finite creatures,
u I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ad 4. Ad tertiam dicendum quod verum addit supra
ens sicut verum, bonum, et unum; nullum tamen earum addit aliquam differentiam
contrahentem ens, sed rationem quae consequetur omne ens.

SISTER M. ANNICE

since even the highest of them have a limiting principle of
potentiality, neither are those perfections which necessarily
follow being ever exhaustively actualized in creatures.
It is certainly admissable that we do not hold a univocal
concept of these absolutely transcendental perfections which
formally contain all modes or ·degrees of the perfection in
question. That which we form is an analogous concept possessing only a unity of proportion and our predications must
follow according to analogy also. In analogy of proper proportionality is wrapped up the key to understanding some of the
mystery of the ordered hierarchy of creatures in the universe.
And unless the analogous concept of being is understood and
applied correctly, it is impossible to admit true predication
of being and its absolute perfections with regard to both
finite and infinite being. It is only by reason of the fact that
the analogates of being and the other transcendental perfections can be proportionally identified in a common term,
intrinsically and formally present in all of them, that demonstrative value can be attached to these terms predicated according to analogy of proper proportionality. In short, the concept
of being having only proportional unity, yet always signifying
the perfection of being in some mode, among intrinsically
different modes, is able to occupy the place of a middle term
in a metaphysical demonstration. In another place I have
treated more fully the forms of analogy according to St.
Thomas, including analogy of inequality. 12 But for the present
purpose we shall consider only those forms of analogy which
are required for analyzing and understanding those perfections
which are ultimately discovered to have as their principle and
proper cause infinite Being and Perfection.
The ability of the human intellect to compare qualitative
things as well as quantitative, challenges man's measuring
comparison.
power and carries the mind into
Thus, in the science of metaphysics we are concerned with
transcendental or virtual " quantity " which has reference to
12 Dissertation:
The Henological Argument For The Ezitdence Of God (Notre
Dame, 1946), Ch. IV.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE'' QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

33

virtual "amounts" or degrees of perfection as well as power"
Whereas p:redicamental o:r univocal quantity exists only in
corporeally extended things, virtual quantity which follows
upon being can be found within all categories and likewise
outside of them. St. Thomas asserts that by the very fact
that a thing has being or exists, it has virtual quantity as
regards its perfection in the order of being, " ex hoc quod
dicitur ens consideratur in eo quantitas virtualis quantum ad
perfectionem essendi." 13 It is thus that the perfection of form
in anything has a certain greatness. In discussing whether or
not habitus increases St., Thomas affirms:
Increase like other things pertaining to quantity is transferred
from bodily quantity to intelligible spiritual things. . . . In corporeal quantity a thing is said to be great according as it reaches
the perfection of quantity due it; wherefore a certain quantity is
reputed great in a man which is not reputed great in an elephant.
And so also in forms we say a thing is great because it is perfect.
And since good has the nature of perfection, therefore ' in things
which are great but not in quantity, to be greater is the same as to
be better.' (Augustine, De Trin., VI) 14
In the effects of form which are being (esse) and operation,
as well as in form itself, we find virtual. quantity. For everything has being according as it has form, since form is the
principle of natural existence. 15 And, every agent operates
through its form. Consequently, in the order of being things
with more perfect forms have greater " amounts " or degrees
of the perfection of existence and in the order of operation such
natures have greater power of acting. 16 We see then that
transcendental quantity is as real as predicamental quantity
and that we may express comparisons or proportions in the
metaphysical order as well as in the physical and mathematical
orders. St. Thomas makes use of metaphysical proportion o:r
analogy to express proportionate relationship between potency
and act, effect and cause, and even between God and creatures
13

14

De Verit., q. !'l9, a. 3.
Summa Theol., I-II, 52, a. l.

3

15

10

De Verit., q. !'l7, a. l, ad 3.
V Metaphys., lect. 18.

34

SISTER M. ANNICE

asserting: "Although between God and the creature there
cannot be a generic or specific likeness, there can nevertheless
be a certain likeness of analogy as between potentiality and
act and substance and accident." 17 But in such comparisons
we must clearly understand that we do not interpret them as
we do mathematical proportions, i.e., according to determined
distances. The term proportion has been extended from the
order of mathematics into the order of metaphysics and it is
used to designate any relation of virtual quantity. Actually
this is the way that we compare the life, being, powers and
perfections in the things around us. And according to St.
Thomas: " In this sense there can be a proportion of the
creature to God inasmuch as it is related to Him as the effect
to its cause and as potentiality to act, and in this way the
created intellect can be proportioned to know God."
According to both Aristotle and St. Thomas the unity of
metaphysics is obtained by reducing the multiplicity of objects
to the analogical unity of being. 19 All beings by the fact that
they participate in existence have an entitative ordination to
being and to the perfections consequent upon being. All are
proportionally one in being, yet every being in respect of its
existence is diverse simply from every other being. Thus
analogy of proper proportionality is based on the diversity of
the act of being and the similarity in all beings between the
proportionate or commensurate esse and the nature exercising
this perfection. The unity of all things in being consists in an
analogical community of relations which all beings maintain
with one another through their act of being or existence. 20
In the analogy of proper proportionality it is the notion of
proportional likeness which is essential. This is concerned with
a likeness of relations existing between pairs or sets of terms
in different orders of reality. Thus there is a proportional likeness of relations existing between the proportions, matter :
De Pot., q. 8, a. 4, ad 9; and de Verit., q. 8, a. 1, ad 6.
Summa Theol., I, q.
a. 1, ad 4.
10 IV Metaphys., 1008 a, and XI Metaphys., 1061 a; also IV Metaphys., lect. 1.
•• I Sent., d. 85, q. 1, a. 4.
17
18

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

35

form as essence : existence, expressed geometricaily but interpreted according to metaphysical analogy. We find here not
so much something common to the terms in the given comparison, but common to the relationship between the terms in
the proportions. Hence St. Thomas characterizes this form of
analogy as " mutual likeness of proportions." 21 Such analogy
is able to obtain in the order of infinite as well as finite reality,
and we may say, Infinite Being : Its existence as finite being :
its existence. Uncreated Being is able to exist according to
its proper mode, i. e., of itself, and created being according to
its proper mode, from anotheL
In discussing whether knowledge is predicated equivocally
of God and man, St. Thomas sets forth the fundamental characteristics of several forms of analogy which must be applied
in a study of the relationship of creatures to God. 22 Analogy
of attribution is distinguished from analogy of proportionality
chiefly by the fact that in the former the perfection or form
signified by the name is found only in the primary analogue
and attributed by the mind to the minor analogates by reason
of some relationship such as causality; whereas, in proportionality the signified form exists intrinsically in all of the
analogates according to a relation of proportion. According
to St. Thomas analogy of attribution is to be predicated in a
twofold manner. In the De Potentia we find a description of
these and the correct application of one type only to God
and creatures:
this kind of predication is twofold. The first is when one
thing is predicated of two with respect to a third; thus being is
predicated of quantity and quality with respect to substance. The
other is when a thing is predicated of two by reason of a relationship between these two; thus being ·is predicated of substance and
quantity. In the first kind of predication the two things must be
preceded by something to which each of them bears a relation.
Thus substance has respect to quantity and quality, whereas in the
second kind of predication this is not necessary, but one of the
De Verit., q. 2, a. 11. Similitudo ad invicem proportionum.
•• Ibid., q. s, a. n.

21

36

SISTER M. ANNICE

two must precede the other. Wherefore since nothing precedes
God, but He precedes the creature, the second kind of analogical
predication is applicable to Him but not the first.23
It seems that the first type of analogy (multorum ad unum)
must be excluded from predication of God and creatures for
it would mean that we are predicating as though they were
both minor analogates under the universal concept of being,
viewed as the primary analogue. And thus it would be prior
to the being of God, Himself. Likewise, the second type of
analogy (unius ad alterum) as applied to God and creatures
is different from this analogy as applied to two creatures. For
example, when we apply " healthy " to medicine and to the
person in whom it helps to cause health there is truly an
extrinsic denomination since health is found intrinsically only
in one analogate and attributed by the mind to the other by
reason of the relation of causality. Now, these terms healthy
medicine and animal health in a man are proportionate to each
other according to a certain determined ratio, though, of
course, not in the sense of mathematical ratio. But with
regard to God and creatures there is an analogy of attribution
founded on the causal relationship with no possibility of a
determined ratio. For the form or perfection of being, goodness,
love, wisdom, etc., which we know and name from creatures,
must be intrinsically present and absolutely subsisting in an
infmitely perfect Being if it is to be accepted as the absolute
Maximum Perfection. And it is this Being that we have posited
as the supereminent Principle after completing the processes
of observation and analogous comparison of some of the
mysterious transcendental perfections of existing creatures.
Whereas in creatures these perfections are accidentally present in their natures, in the first and maximum Being, perfections are not said to be had or possessed but rather Perfection
constitutes Its very nature. As we shall see in the actual proof
of God's existence, God Who is being, goodness, love, causes
like effects in beings proportionate to their natures and modes
23

De Pot., q. 7, a. 7.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

37

of being. Such effects are capable of manifesting only imitatively and inadequately subsistent Perfection. St. Thomas
declares many times that these effects fall short of the power
of the Cause. And we shall also see that it is necessary to
make use of both analogy of proper proportionality and analogy
of attribution (unius ad alterum) in proving the existence of
God according to the qnarta via. }'or we are concerned with
effects reflecting the nature of the first Exemplary Cause and
depending per se upon the first proper Efficient Course. We
are following here the teaching of St. Thomas that " good "
is said of God and creatures according to both analogy of
attribution and proportionality. Proportionaliter, as form or
perfection common to all beings through a similitude to the
Summum Bonum, and attributively, according to first Goodness effecting goodness in creatures. 24
THE ABSOLU'l'E

PRINCIPLE

OF PERFECTION

pARTICIPATING

AND LIMITED

PERFECTION

We are not prepared to present all of the evidence for the
proper demonstration until we have analyzed participating
transcendental perfection. While the theory of analogous
reasoning has mo:re reference to the orders of understanding
and predication of transcendental reality, participation has
more reference to the order of the existence of such reality, the
order of being.
It is a common teaching and a familiar theme in the
writings of SL Thomas that finite, derived existence is an act
or perfection received from first act and consequently enjoying
a certain participation in the being or esse of that which is
Being. 25 Thus, we do not say that creatures are being but that
they have being in a limited way or mode. Whatever has its
being in such a way must have it non-essentially and must
Summa Theol., q. 13, a. 6.
Ibid., q. 44, a. 1; q. 71, a. 3; q. 75, a. 5, ad 1; I-II, q. 94, a.
111 Sent.,
d.
q.
a. 4; de Pot., q. 3, a. 5;1V Metaphys., lect. 1; VII Metaphys., lect. 3;
1 Cont. Gent., c. 3; II Cont. Gent., cc. 13, 15.
24

25

38

SISTER

M. ANNICE

be traced back to an essentially existing Being, i. e., one whose
essence is to be. The quarta via involves more than the bare
outline of a proof invoking efficient causality, though that in
itself is sufficient to prove the existence of a first Cause. It
also involves more than the fact that composite being is the
subject of causal action. For prior to this fact, and basic to it,
is the consideration of the foundation for the very relationship
of such principles as act and potency, perfection and limit,
and existence and potential essence. In the Treatise on Creation, St. Thomas has asserted that from the fact that a
thing has being by participation :it follows that it is caused
by another. 26 It can be seen that the characteristic of having
been caused is related to existence by participation as an
essential property is related to the essence of a thing. Now,
wherever an essential concomitant property is found, the essential nature itself must be found. Non-participating, uncaused,
simple Being is discovered to be the only foundation for and
source of participating, caused, composite being.
In this second part we are emphasizing the consideration of
existential being and its transcendental attributes according to
that which exists per essentiam and that which exists ab alio or
per participationem. Hence we must endeavor to understand
as far as possible what manner of participation we have reference to when considering infinite or essential Perfection and
finite or participated perfection. Abbe Penido describes three
distinct types of participation:
(1) to have part in the nature of another as the son shares in the
father's nature; (fl) to have part in a nature that is different, though
the part shared exists univocally in the other as the heat of fire
and that induced into iron; and (3) to have part by way of imitation or similitude in the nature found by essence in another like
the imprint of a seal or a 'photographic image. In the last there is a
resemblance but not communication of nature. Here in a true
sense is analogous participationP
26 SU'rnma Theol., I, q. 44, a. 1, ad 1.
•• Penido, "Le role de l'analogie en theologie dogmatique," Bibliotheque Thomiste,
XV (Paris, 1931), 360.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE " QUARTA VIA " OF S'l'. THOMAS

39

We see then that participation in regard to an absolute
fection which exists per essentiam, and perfections which exist
per participationem must be taken in the third sense. It must
signify not having any actual part in, but imitating that which
is imitable in some, though an inadequate way. 28 Yet in the
philosophy of St. Thomas, being which exists by participation
is not merely a resemblance or a copy of being which exists by
essence, though it is truly that with :regard to form. In this
St. Thomas' existential theory of participation severs itself
from the Platonic theory of pure forms or separated ideas. For
though Sto Thomas seems to have borrowed the germ of the
theory of participation from Platonic philosophy, he gave it
a firm foundation in existential metaphysics by establishing the
relationship of causality between the Absolute Being and aU
other beings whatsoever. All of the minor analogates contained
confusedly in the concept of being but predicated of explicitely as individuals enjoy the privilege of existing in essentially diverse modes of derived or participated being. It is thus
(as we have explained above) that the vague ratio of being can
be understood as a distinct, specific being. For St. Thomas,
then, the participating being is at the same time a similitude or
imitation of the being per essentiam and also the subject of
the causal action of a Being who is uncaused and non-participating.
For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused
in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited
by fire ... ; therefore all things apart from God are not their own
being, but are beings by participation. Therefore it must be that
all things which are diversified by diverse participation of being
so as to be more or less perfect are caused by one First Being who
possesses being most perfectly. 29

Here we recognize something like the second type of participation described by Penido. However, as we have seen before,
St. Thomas does not hold that the being or esse \vhich is in
Summa Theol., I, q. 4, a. 3, ad 1, et ad 3; II Sent., d. 17, q. l, a. l, ad 6.
Summa Theol., I, q. 44, a. l; De Substantiis Separatis, c. 3 (Vives ed., XXVII,
278 a).
28

29

40

SISTER M. ANNICE

the hierarchy of participating things is in them univocally, but
proportionally. And the perfection which is in the analogates
can be understood strictly, only with reference to their principle. In the Compendium Theologiae we read," Things which
are by participation are reduced to that which is by essence as
their principle and cause." 30
IDtimately and radically we see that a finite being is a
composition by reason of the fact that its existence is participated, and that only Being non-composite and absolutely
simple contains the sufficient reason for both participated being
and the cause of the sharing. The principle which is invoked
here is unquestionably that of causality, that is, whatever
exists, ultimately does so by virtue of a being that does not
1·eceive its being, i. e., an uncaused being. The argument from
causality is used to make explicit that which is assumed or
implied more vaguely and commonly in the doctrine of participation, which seems to underlie our considerations of sufficient
reason. Before we know that such perfections as being, goodness, and unity in a plant are unexplainable apart from an
all-perfect Cause, we know that they are limited. And we
know that this plant has less of these perfections than a man
has. It is obvious that there is discernible in creatures some. thing prior, both psychologically and ontologically, to the
actuality and the knowledge of the metaphysical composition
of potency and act which demands an adequate efficient cause.
The fact of metaphysical composition is recognized through a
process of philosophic speculation. But there is something
which is recognized more immediately and which is the very
raison d' etre of the metaphysical composition in things. It is
the reality of derived being, discovered by man in the mysterious, essentially varied, and limited character of the universally
possessed transcendental perfections, primarily the perfection
of being (esse) found in all things. This does not mean that
any other acts, i. e., actualized perfections in the universe,
cannot be known as effects which ultimately require an efficient
8

°Co111,pendium Theologiae, I, c. l!!S.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

41

cause who is supremely actualized or infinite Act. The other
four proofs of St. Thomas are surely evident, valid, and necessary in the particular spheres of reality to which they apply.
But the quarta via applies to a more extensive sphere of
reality, that is, any being and all being as such. It dominates
the entire sphere of finite existential reality. It is the limited,
graded, imperfect, non-per essentiam existence which is the
immediate indicator of produced or caused being. Hence we
find St. Thomas affirming: " A being of this nature cannot
but be caused, just as man cannot but be capable of laughter." 31
While this sentence is significant in showing the naturally inseparable property relationship between participated and
caused being, it is in the whole passage that we find a profound
fact upon which is based the primacy and ultimate character of
participation.
Although the relation to a cause is not part of the definition of a
thing caused, still it follows as a consequence on what belongs to
its essence, because from the fact that a thing has being by participation it follows that it is caused. Hence such a being cannot
be without being caused, just as a man cannot be without having
the faculty of laughing. But since to be caused does not enter into
the essence of being as such, therefore it is possible for us to find
a being uncaused. 32

Here we see that since " being caused " is not of the ratio
of being or esse (taken simpliciter) it is possible to discover
uncaused Being. We are now in a position to see the ultimate
character of participation. For it can be seen that while " to
be caused " is a necessary property of participated being, " to
be," that is, existence, is of the very nature of being simpliciter.
We define being as that the act of ·which is to exist. And
more generally, existence is defined as the act which places a
thing outside of nothing and outside of its causes. Now the
mind proceeding according to the two general movements
possible to it in acquiring knowledge, makes the primary
division of existential beings into those which do not have
31

Summa Theol., I, q. 44, a. l, ad l.

•• Ibid.

42

SISTER M. ANNICE

their act o£ existence in a perfect and unlimited way and that
which is unlimited existence. Another way of expressing this
formula is according to being which has the perfection of
existence per essentiam and beings which have it per participationem.
St. Thomas has shown in several places that it is impossible
for some one thing to belong to two essentially diverse beings
and to both according to its essence.33 Hence, the perfection of
existence can be had essentially by only one. In the others
it is had by a partial and non-exhaustive possession. This may
be illustrated by propositions which predicate a note totally
or only partially of a subject. When an attribute is predicated
totally and essentially of a subject it does not exceed or fall
short of the subject, but is identical and convertible with :it,
as :in " Man is a :rational animaL" But when an attribute is
predicated of a subject only partially, e. g., where the individual
participates in the species, as in "John is a rational animal,"
the predicate exceeds the individual subject and is not convertible with it. In the De Ente et Essentia 34 St. Thomas
33 11 Cont. Gent., c. lli.
Impossible est autem aliquod unum duobus convenire
et utrique secundum quod ipsum. Quod enim de aliquo secundum quod ipsum
dicitur, ipsum non excedit: sicut habere tres angulos duobus rectis uequales non
excedit triangulum. Si igitur aliquid duobus conveniat non convenit utrique
secundum quod ipsum est. Impossible est igitur aliquod unum de duobus praedicare
ita quod de neutro per causam dicatur sed oportet vel unum esse alterius causam,
sicut ignis est causa caloris corpori mixto cum tamen utrumque calidam dicatur;
vel oportet quod aliquod tertium sit causa utrique, sicut duabus candelis ignis est
causa lucendi. Esse autem dicitur de omni eo quod est. Impossible est igitur esse
aliqua duo quorum neutrum habeat causam essendi, sed oportet utrumque acceptorum esse per causam, vel alterum alteri esse causam essendi. Oportet igitur
quod ab illo cui nihil est causa essendi, sit omne illud quod quocumque mode est.
Deum autem supra ostendimus (I, c. 13) hujusmodi ens esse cui nihil sit causa
essendi.
•• De Ente et Essentia, c. 4. Falsum est dicere, quod natura hominis inquantum
hujusmodi habeat esse in hoc singulari: si enim esse in hoc singulari conveniret
homini, in quantum est homo, non esset nunquam extra hoc singulare; similiter, si
conveniret homini, inquantum est homo non esse in singulari, nunquam esset in eo.
Sed verurn est dicere quod homo inquantum est homo, non habet quod sit in hoc
singulari vel in illo. Patet ergo quod natura hominis absolute considerata abstrahit
a qualibet esse.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

43

explains why the perfection of being a rational animal is not
confined to or convertible with the individual subject. While
it is true to say that John or Paul is essentially a man, it
is not true to say that the perfection of " being man " is
essentially John or Paul. For if to be in this individual belonged
to man, insofar as " being man " is concerned, human nature
would never exist outside of this individual. On the other hand,
if it belonged to the nature of man not to exist in the individual,
then rationality could not exist in John or Paul. But rational
animal is predicated essentially of and convertible with man,
natura secundum se, abstracted from all existence in individual
matter which limits essential form which in itself is relatively
inexhaustible or unlimited as to number.
Similarily on the metaphysical level the absolute transcendental perfections of being, goodness, wisdom, love, and the
like are participated by many natures unequally and nonunivocally according to the different orders to which these
natures belong. Received or contained and limited by the
participating natures, as the essence of man is in the case of
the individual, the transcendental perfections are received and
limited by the essence or form in potency to receive and contain
them. And just as the perfection of human nature does not
of its essence denote " being in " or " not being in " this individual, so on the higher metaphysical level, abstracted from
the singular, sensible, existing things the transcendental perfections do not denote either being participated and limited or
imparticipated and unlimited. Otherwise these perfections
could not be found in both ways, for example, the wisdom
found in man and the wisdom of God. But the complete actualization of such perfection demands by its very nature a subject
in which the perfection may exist in an unlimited mode of being
-infinite existence. Such perfections are not found ip their
completeness in any existing created nature as we find the
perfection of human nature in a circumscribed specific nature
whose measure is a determined essence.
It is surely clear in the philosophy of St. Thomas that a
Being whose essence it is to exist, and exist a se, cannot be

44

SISTER

M. ANNICE

diversified or multiplied. 35 Neither can any of its nature be
imparted in a univocal way. In the question treating of God's
perfection, "Whether any creature can be like God?" 36 the
Angelic Doctor answers four objections presented against any
likeness of creatures to God. First, he says that things are
at the same time like and unlike to God; like insofar as they
imitate what is capable of being imitated in God, and unlike
according as they (as effects) fall short of the power of their
cause. Secondly, God's :relation to creatures is not merely that
of a being in a higher genus, but of a being that transcends all
genera and constitutes their ultimate principle. This is why
we say that generic and specific perfections of creatures are
only virtually and not formally in God. As principle of their
genera He has the power to cause such perfections. Thirdly,
there is no possibility of the likeness of creatures to God being
univoca], since there is no" agreement in form according to the
formality of the same genus or species," but the likeness is
according to analogy. For being is predicated of God as
essential being and of creatures only as participating in being.
Lastly, St. Thomas asserts that though creatures may said
to be like God, the converse is not true. Such a Cause and its
effects are in entirely different orders and there cannot be a
mutual likeness between them. The example is given of a
statue which is like the man it represents while the man is not
like the statue which represents him. In the Quodlibetales
also is to be found one of St. Thomas' best descriptions of
participated pe:rfections. 31
l Cont. Gent .• c. 42.
Summa 'J'heol., I, q. 4, a. 3, ad l-4.
37 Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 3. Respondeo
dicendum quod dupliciter aliquid de aliquo
35
36

praedicatur: uno modo essentialiter, alio modo per participationem; lux enim praedicatur de corpore illuminato participative, sed si esset aliqua lux separata, praedicaretur de ea essentlaliter. Secundum ergo hoc dicendum est, quod ens praedicatur
de solo Deo essentialiter eo quod esse divinum est esse subsistens et absolutum; de
qualibet autem creatura praedicatur per participationem:
nulla enim creatura est
suum esse, sed est habens esse. Sic et Deus dicitur bonus essentialiter, quia est
ipsa bonitas; creatura autem dicuntur bonae per participationem quia habent bonitatem: unumquodque enim inquantum est, bonum est secundum illud Augustini in
De Doctrina Christiana, I, quod inquantum sumus boni, sumus. Quandocumque

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

THE FmsT EFFICIENT

CAusE OF EssENTIALLY

45

VARIED

PERFECTIONS

In the first two parts we have endeavored to answer two
questions which Aristotle holds must precede the knowledge of
a thing's existence. 38 According to his analysis of the knowledge
of anything, we must be able to answer four questions concerning it. Whether the connection of an attribute with the
thing is a fact, and what is the reason for the connection? A:re
two questions which must be answered before an unknown
existent and its nature can be admitted. Concerning the connection of the attribute, we have connected the essentially
varied, limited, transcendental being and perfections dependently with the source or principle of such perfections. And
secondly, we gave as the reason for such a connection participating perfection and per essentiarn Perfection, on the basis
that total and absolute perfection is the only explanation for
derived being and its transcendent perfections. This reasoning
is based on the fact that the simple transcendental perfections
existing according to more and less require an absolute Maximum, and the diversity of being (esse) ultimately requires
simple subsistent Being as their principle.
Yet we do not claim to have completely answered the third
question of Aristotle, the fact of the existence (of God) until
we have completed the whole Thomistic argument which makes
use of the a posteriori demonstration common to all five of
St. Thomas' proofs. In the quarta via it is the first proper
efficient Cause of being and its transcendental perfections that
is demonstrated. Thus as we have said above, the supereminent Principle or Maximum is verified in explicit demonstration
where heretofore the reasoning proceeded more commonly and
inductively. Nevertheless, this latter process implicitly contains
the former and is satisfying and even conclusive to some types
autem aliquid praedicatur de altere per participationem, oportet ibi aliquid esse
pra.eter id quod participatur: et ideo in qualibet creatura est aliud ipsa creatura
quae habet esse et ipsum esse.
38 II Poster. Analyt., 89b,

46

SISTER M. ANNICE

of thinkers. We might even say that anyone accustomed to
the contemplation of divine mysteries and the penetration of
the mystery of being may very well be convinced of the
necessity of God as source of all of the " partial " mysteriesthe vestiges and traces of the Creator in the universe. Such
a one may not bother to pursue the syllogistic deductive
demonstration.
In the proper demonstration of the existence of God we
make use of the a posteriori method. Here we must employ as
a middle term what may be called a nominal, or rather, a
significative definition in contrast to the essential definition
used in a priori demonstrations. We use the term "significative " in preference to the term " nominal " because of the
connotation which the latter has in the history of philosophy.
According to this latter theory there is no universality, either of
concept or of objective reality, and the common name is merely
a sign selected to designate a plurality of objects. Signification
refers to that from which the giving of the name comes (ida
quo imponitur nomen) ,S9 that is, the form or nature which it
represents to the mind,-the qualitas nominis. Thus, the
significative definition is here meaningful to anyone who understands even on the level of the lower analogates the nature of
such effects as being, goodness, truth, wisdom, etc. And the
signification takes on more meaning as the intellect penetrates
higher analogates.
In the De Potentia 40 we find a systematic series of arguments
for the existence of a first efficient Cause: (1) for the being
for
which is common to all things distinct from each other,
perfections found in degrees of more and less in several things,
and (3) for the composition in things which do not exist of
themselves but by way of participation. In this question St.
Thomas seems to have brought together into one summary
his reasoning on the existence of the M axime Ens required as
efficient cause of the being and all transcendental perfections
•• Maritain, Introduction to Logic, p. 62.
•• De Pot., q. 8, a. il.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

4'1

in existing things. Moreover, he states from what philosopher
and work he has drawn his ideas.
In the first argument he asserts that where we find something
common to a number of things we must conclude that it is
the effect of one cause. For since each one is different from the
other, and diversity of cause produces diversity of effect, it
is impossible for the common note to belong to each one by
reason of itself. In other words, that which properly constitutes
finite, contigent, beings as individuals can never explain the
presence of a common transcendental attribute. The individualizing traits in each are different, but the being, goodness,
unity, etc., are similm.·. The diverse do not of themselves
possess these common qualities. So St. Thomas concludes that,
since being is found in all things which are distinct from one
another, they must of necessity come into being not of themselves but by the action of some common cause. This argument
he ascribes to Plato who claimed that every multitude must be
preceded by unity. In the Phaedo Plato holds that the beauty
found in any corporeal being is " sister to the beauty found in
all others." 41 Neither Phaedo nor Phaedrus can be the source
of the beauty in them, but it must come from a higher principle
where the note is had in its full perfection and is undivided.
The passage, " it follows of necessity that they must come
into being not of themselves but by the action of some cause,"
requires that we consider St. Thomas' teaching on the efficient
cause of the coming to be of all finite creatures. In the
Cmnmentary on De Generatione Et Corruptione he asserts:
In one sense things come to be from that which has no being
without qualification. Yet in another sense they come to be always
from what is. For coming to be necessessarily implies the preexistence of something which potentially is but accidentally is not,
and this something is spoken of both as being and as not being. 42

Obviously, the first coming to be spoken of refers to God's
creative act through which the creature is made from non-being
Phaedo, 101 a .
.. 1 De Generat., lect. 8.

01

48

SISTER M. ANNICE

simpliciter, and tnerefore made being per se. For only that
which is Existence by essence can properly cause being in act,
existence, as its effect. Effects must be referred to proportionate
causes. Thus St. Thomas says:
it is not possible that a second cause by its own power be the
principle of being as such; this belongs to the first Cause since the
order of effects follows the order of causes. Now the first of all
effects is being, which is presupposed to all other effects, and does
not presuppose any other effect: wherefore to give being as such
must be the effect of the first Cause alone by its own power and
whatever other cause gives being does this insofar as it is the
recipient of the divine power and operation and not by its power.
. . . And since the power of every creature is fini\e, no creature can
possibly act even as :instrument to the effect of creating something: since creation demands infinite energy in the power whence
it proceeds.43
The second coming to be spoken of in the passage from the
De Generatione, "from
is" or pre-exists in some way,
has reference to generation. This is substantial becoming which
is within the power of natural agents, wherein is realized something from relative non-being that is, from potentiality. But
there is no question here of realizing or actualizing something
from absolute non-being. In the generation of an oak tree, for
example, a tree essentially or per se is made through the
intrinsic principles of matter and form uniting to make a
composite essence, and secondly, though the actualization of
this essence. For this is a subject with capacity to receive
further perfection which occurs when it receives the primary
act, existence. In the order o£ specific beings, i. e., in the
hierarchy of natures, a new being but not being per se is made,
since we have not something made from absolute non-being.
For there was previously some being to become or change, and
thus this new being as being is made per accidens. Being in
potentia and being in actu are not contradictories, but only
contraries, that is, contrary states of being. They exist in the
same genus and there is here only a change or transmutation
•• De Pot., q. 8, a. 4.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

49

from one state of being to another. Hence in generation the
new thing is a tree substantially or essentially caused and it
is being accidentally caused. As a tree :it was made from nontree-an acorn, and thus made per se and substantially. As a
being it had its coming to be from being in potency, by way
of change or alteration through contraries (not contradictories)
and thus made to be, per accidens.
In the second argument from the De Potentia is considered
the need Df an absolutely perfect Being as the supreme measure
and source where several things possess the same note. " For
if each one were of itself competent to have it there would be
no reason why one should have it more than another. . ..
Now there is one being most perfect and most true." 44 Consequently he concludes that all less perfect beings derive perfection therefrom. St. Thomas tells us that he has taken this
from the argument of Aristotle in the Metaphysics. 45 Lastly,
St. Thomas proves, according to the principle, " Whatever
exists through another must be :reduced to that which exists
of itself," that this last must be a Being in whom there is no
composition whatsoever. He concludes that from such a Being
must proceed all the composite things which have being by
participation. And this is from Avicenna (Metaphysics VIII,
6; IX, 8). The same proof is stated very directly in the Contra
Gentiles 46 where it is shown that several different things would
not unite without a cause of the composition. And if the first
"Ibid.
45 II Metaphys., 998b.
•• 1 Cont. Gent., c. 18. Si igitur compositus esset Deus, haberet componentem
non enim ipse seipsum componere posset, quia nihil est causa sui ipsius; esset enim
prius seipso, quod est impossible. Componens autem est causa efficiem> compositi.
Ergo Deus haberet causam efficientem. Et sic non esset causa prima quod· supra
(c. 13) habitum est .... Praeterea, in omni composito bonum non est hujus vel
i!lius partis, sed totius, et dico bonum secundum illam bonitatem quae est propria
totius et perfectio eius: nam partes sunt imperfectae respectu totius; sicut partes
hominis non sunt homo, partes etiam numeri senarii non habent perfectionem senarii,
et similiter partes lineae non perveniunt ad perfectionem mensurae quae in tota linea
invenitur. Si ergo Deus est compositus, perfectio et bonitas eius propt·ia invenitur
in toto, non autern in aliqua eius partium. Et sic noa eril in eo pCire illud bonum
quod est proprium ei. Non est ergo ipse primum et summum bonum.

4

50

SISTER M. ANNICE

Cause were not simple it would require an efficieift cause of its
own composition. Hence, there must be an ultimate " compounder " devoid of aU composition and absolutely simple and
perfect, Who is the adequate efficient Cause of the union of the
two diverse principles in creatures, i. e., perfection and the imperfect and limited receiver of the perfection.
The discussion of the divine imparting of being and other
simpliciter transcendental perfections is not complete without
a consideration of God's exemplary causality. In the De
Veritate St. Thomas asserts that God effects natural existence
in things through creation without the mediation of an agent
cause but with the mediation of a formal cause, since natural
form is the principle of natural being. 47 It is evident that
natural forms considered in themselves cannot be principles
of existence without presupposing some previous principle.
Unless we wish to give these forms a separate and independent
existence as Platonic philosophy does, we must posit a principle
from which they proceed.
an objection which attempts to
set aside the divine preservation of things by pointing out
that since form without assistance from outside can be a principle of operation and knowledge, it should likewise be a principle of existence after divine action has ceased, St. Thomas
answers that the form of a thing is not the principle of knowledge, operation, or. existence apart from a previous principle,
viz., God. 48
The extrinsic formal cause is called the forma ad quam in
distinction to the intrinsic formal cause, the forma secundum
quam which internally constitutes the finite being in a determined grade of being. This latter is the principle which as
correlative and complement of the material cause is compared
to it as act to potency, and together they constitute the essence
47 De Verit., q.
a. 1, ad 3. Dicendum quod esse naturale per creationem Deus
facit in nobis nulla causa agente mediante, sed tamen mediante aliqua causa formali:
forma enim naturalis principium est esse naturalis, et similiter esse spirituale gratuitum Deus facit in nobis nullo agente mediante sed tamen mediante aliqua forma
creata quae est gratia.
48 De Pot., q. 5, a. 1, ad 18.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

51

of a corporeal being. This formal cause has both an actus
primus and an actus secundus. Its first act is the information
of matter, e. g., to vivify the body is the first act of the soul.
Its second act, operation is an act of the form as united to
the body and strictly attributed to the suppositum. 49
But the forma ad quam extrinsically determines the likeness
or image of the effect that is to be produced. It supplies the
artist with the pattern or idea of the effect which he as agent
intends to produce. It is the archetype to which the effect in
its own mode of being actually conforms more or less perfectly
-that is, as nearly as the existential is able to conform with
the intentional form. The architect's plan as conceivPd by his
mind is not exactly the same as the form of each completed
building. The plan in the mind is much less limited and more
perfect in its own way than any effect, though the actualized
alone can be said to have real goodness and the other perfections
belonging to its order. But in the mind of the architect the
plan is not limited to any one time or place, :por composed of
any particular material and it is easily modified. Now in the
divine order, how infinitely and incomprehensively more perfect
must be the archetype than the actualized being in the finite
order. Hence St. Thomas insists that the similitude may
never be thought of in a univocal way. 50
God sees in His essence the infinitude multitude of possible
things as so many ways in which He is imitable analogically.
The divine essence containing simply all of the divine attributes
is the formal and primary object of the divine intellect. This
is known as God's simple intelligence. At the same time the
knowledge of the divine Being embraces everything actual or
possible in creation-what exists, has existed, or is yet to exist.
This is called God's knowledge of vision. Any distinction, of
course, is based upon our imperfect mode of knowing and is
•• De Verit., q. 27, a. 3, ad 25. Duplex est actus formae: unus qui est operatio,
ut calefacere, qui est actus secundus, et talis actus formae supposito attribuitur;
alius vero actus formae est materiae informatio quae est actus primus; sicut vivificare corpus est actus animae; et talis actus supposito formae non attribuitur.
50 De Pot., q. 3, a. 4, ad 9.

52

SISTER M. ANNICE

not to be found in God. 51 St. Thomas points out that the
knowledge of God, contrary to our knowledge, which is determined and caused by things outside of the mind, is Itself the
Cause of things. Our knowledge is an accident in the genus of
quality; God's knowledge is subsistent perfection, i.e., of His
very Essence. 52 He does not know things because they are,
but things are because He knows and wills them to be. Analogous to the artificer with practical knowledge by which he
produces a work of art, the divine knowledge insofar as the
divine will is joined to it, is the Cause of the existence of
creatures.
The knowledge of God is the Cause of things. For the knowledge
of God is to all things what the knowledge of the artificer is to
things made by his art. Now the knowledge of the artificer is the
cause of the things made by his art from the fact that the artificer
works by his intellect. Hence the form of the intellect must be the
principle of action as heat is the principle of heating. . . . The intelligible form does not denote. a principle of action insofar as it
resides in the one who understands unless there is added to it the
inclination to an effect, which inclination is through the will. For
since the intelligible form has a relation to opposite things (inasmuch as the same knowledge relates to opposites), it would not
produce a determined effect unless. it were determined to one thing
by the appetite, as the Philosopher says (Met. IX). Now it is
manifest that God causes things by His intellect, since His being is
His act. of understanding; and hence His knowledge must be the
cause of things, insofar as His will is joined to it. 58
51 Summa Theol., I, q. 14, a. 4. Uncle
ipsa sua essentia sit etiam specie intelligibilis, ut dictum est (q. 8, a. 7), ex
sequitur quod ipsum intelligere
sit ejus essentia et ejus esse. Et sic patent ex omnibus praemissis quod in Deo
intellectus, intelligens, et id quod intelligitur, et species intelligibilis et ipsum
intelligere, sunt omnino unum et idem.
•• Ibid., q. 15, a. 2. Non est autem contra simplicitatem divini intellectus quod
multa intelligat; sed contra simplicitatem ejus esset, si per plures species ejus
intellectus formaretur. Unde plures ideae sunt in mente divina ut intellectae ab ipsa.
Quod hoc modo potest videri. Ipse enim essentiam, suam perfecte cognoscit. Unde
cognoscit earn secundum omnem modum quo cognoscibilis est. Potest autem
cognosci non solum secundum quod in se est sed secundum quod est participabilis
secundum aliquem modum similitudinis a creaturis. Unaquaeque autem creatura
habet propriam speciem, secundum quod aliquo modo participat divinae essentiae
similitudinem.
•• Ibid., q. 14, a. 4.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

53

The form of the effect in the divine Mind and the form
intrinsic to the constitution of the creature are said by St.
Thomas to be homogeneous forms but not univocal since they
have different modes of being, one in the Mind and the other
in the thing. 54 This is that similitude between creatures and
Creator which the Angelic Doctor so many times compares to
the work of art and the idea in the mind of the artist. But
there is another likeness between God and creatures which
St. Thomas describes as both non-univocal and non-homogeneous:
There is another likeness inasmuch as the divine essence itself is
the supereminent but not homogeneous likeness of all things. It is
by reason of this latter likeness that good and the like are predicated in common of God and creatures: but not by reason of the
former, because when we say ' God is good ' we do not mean to
define Him from the fact that He understands the creature's goodness, since it has already been observed that not even the
in
the mind of the builder is called a house in the same sense as the
house in being. 55

This doctrine of the two likenesses (analogical) between creatures and God is found again in the question on creation in the
De Potentia where we read:
This is true in one way inasmuch as creatures reproduce in their
own way the idea of the divine Mind as the work of a craftsman is
a reproduction of the form in his mind. In another way it is true in
that creatures are somewhat likened to the very nature of God,
for as much as they derive their being from the first Being, their
goodness from the sovereign Good and so on. 56

Such are the absolute perfections which St. Thomas maintains
are predicated both causally and essentially of God, in the
following quotation:
These names are applied to God not as the Cause only, but also
essentially. For the words ' God is good or wise ' signify not only
that He is the Cause of wisdom or goodness but that these exist in
•• De Pot., q. 7, a. 7, a.d 6.
""Ibid.
•• Ibid., q. S, a. 4, ad 9.

54

SISTER M. ANNICE

Him in a more excellent way. Hence as regards what the name
signifies, these names are applied primarily to God rather than to
creatures, because these perfections flow from God to creatures, but
as regards the imposition of names, they are primarily applied by
us to creatures which we know first. 57

Thus it is evident that these are types of exemplarism, depending on whether the creature is a reproduction of the divine idea
as the forms in natural agents are, or is in some way likened
to the divine Nature itself, as finite goodness, love, wisdom and
the like are. In a passage in the Commentary on the Book of
Sentences St. Thomas makes this distinction most clearly. He
points first to the proper acceptation of divine examplarism,
the idea in the divine Mind. For in the philosophy of St.
Thomas, properly and formally speaking the causa exemplaris
is the idea had by the agent and as such is found only in
an intelligent agent. But he also points out that the divine
Nature may also be called an exemplar sicut ratione when there
exists formally both in God and in creatures the same ratio
proportionaliter. Thus is first Goodness the exemplary cause
of everything that has goodness, and this is true for the other
absolute perfections of being. St. Thomas emphasizes the fact
that God is not the exemplar of color and of truth in the same
way.ss
In the I Contra Gentiles, c. 93, St. Thomas teaches that
those moral virtues which derive their species from action
only-and action which is not inconsistent with divine perfection, indeed, cannot even be excluded from it,-are said to
be in God. Ferrariensis commenting on this asserts that such
divine virtues constitute the exemplars for human virtues." 9
Summa Theol., I, q. 18, a. 6.
ad 4.
59 Circa corollarium attendendum
secundum doctrinam Sancti Thomae, I Sent.,
d. 19, q. 5, a.
ad 4: Quod res dupliciter in Deo esse possunt exemplariter: scilicet,
in natura ipsius, et in intellectu. In natura divina dicuntur ilia exemplariter esse
quae formaliter sunt et in Deo et in creatura. Cum enim sit utriusque una ratio
proportionaliter, secundum quod aliqua perfectio est in creatura, exemplatur a
perfectione existente in natura divina sicut imperfectum a perfecto: sicut, quia
sapientia formaliter est in Deo et in homine, sapientia humana est quaedam
57

•• I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS

55

He compares the limited and particularized to the Absolute as
a candle light to the sun. But he is careful to stress the
Thomistic teaching that those virtues not properly applicable
to God find their exemplar not in the divine nature formally
but only in the divine wisdom, as is the case with all corporeal
things. The commentator on the Contra Gentiles emphasizes
especially these points, viz., any and all perfections of created
imitatio sapientiae divinae. In intellcctu autem dicuntur exemplariter esse ea
quorum propriae rationes cognoscuntur. Et quia omnium etiam quae formaliter in
Deo non sunt proprias rationes Deus cognoscit, ideo omnia exemplariter sunt intellectu divino, sive in divina sapientia, ut hie dicitur. . . . Considerandum
secundo, (in natura) quod ilia proprie dicuntur habere inter se similitudinem
secundum convenientiam in natura quae in aliquo formaliter conveniunt quod,
scilicet, secundum suam formalem rationem in ntroque inventur. Si autem quod
in uno formaliter est, in altero formaliter non sit, sed tantum virtualiter et eminenter,
ilia non dicuntur similia secundum convenientiam in natura. Sed quamvis quod sic
alterum virtualiter et eminenter continet, non habeat convenientiam in natura cum
ipso, potest tamen concipi ut alteri proportionatum et ut eius propria ratio; sicut
virtus solis, licet non babeat cnm calore similitudinem in natura, potest tamen
concipi ut ratio caloris eo quod calorem virtualiter et eminenter contineat; et sic
virtus solis concepta ut proportionata calori erit exemplar eius proprium in intellectu, quae tamen secundum se non est exemplar formaliter secundum esse naturae,
nisi improprie velimus accipere nomen " exernplaris " pro omni similitudine quomodocumque accepta sive, inquam, sit adequata sive excedens.
Ad propositum ergo negatur nihil posse esse exemplariter in divina sapientia quod
non sit exemplariter in divina natura; accipiendo esse exemplariter in natura pro
eo quod est habere in ipsa similitudinem secundum convenientiam formalem in
natura. Stant enim simul quod aliquid in intellectu divino sive in esse cognito,
habeat proprium exemplar, eo quod eius propria ratio concipitur ab intellectu
divino; et tamen in divina natura formaliter esse non habeat, sed tantum virtualiter,
et sic in ipso natura exemplar non habeat .... Voco autem formalem similitudinem
earn quae est eiusdem rationis aut simpliciter aut proportionaliter. Unde cum divina
essentia concipitur ut propria ratio alicujus in ipso non existentis formaliter sed
eminenter tantum, ipsa res est in Deo exemplariter secundum repraesentationem
intelligibilem tantum. Dum autem concipitur ut ratio eius quod in ipsa formaliter
est, res repraesentata habet in Deo similitudinem ac exemplar et secundum repraesentationem intelligibilem et secundum convenientiam formalem in natura. Sapientia
enim humana et repraesentatur secundum propriam rationem per formam intellectam
sive conceptam ab intellectu divino; et convenientiam formalem habet cum natura
divina inquantum sapientia est, eo quod sapientia et in Deo et in homine sit
secundum unam rationem analogam, ut superius est ostensum (c. 34, com. n. 16)
Et similiter dicitur de virtutibus quae proprie Deo conveniunt. Commentaria
Ferrariensis in Summam Contra Gentiles, c. 93 (Opera Omnia, ed. Leon., XIII,

56

SISTER M. ANNICE

things have their exemplars in the divine idea of them. All
absolute perfections as being, goodness, wisdom, and the like
are said to be exemplariter in the divine nature, since they exist
there eminently and formally. They are likewise known to the
divine intellect which is identical with the divine nature. All
mixed perfections such as humanity and corporeality are said
to exist only virtually and eminently in the divine Nature.
It does not seem that we should ever completely deny that
we have reached a knowledge of God's existence until we have
actually demonstrated it through the a posteriori proof. On the
other hand, this demonstration is necessary and satisfying to
one who wishes all of the steps of logical :inference made explicit.
Thus to complete the verification process a syllogism including
the following premises should be constructed.
Only Being per essentiarn (Subsistent Perfection) can properly
efficiently cause the being found in the hierarchy of things in the
universe.
But Being per essentiam (Subsistent Perfection) is what we mean
by God.
God is the only proper efficient Cause of the being found in
the hierarchy of things in the universe.

The major premise is made evident in St. Thomas' explanation
of the per se and per accidens coming to be of the being (esse)
in all creatures of the universe. The minor is the result of the
reasoning to the maximum being and perfection as ultimate
measure in the comparison of
and less of the same transcendental perfection in several essentially different beings.
This includes the extended process of the analysis of participated
perfection and its absolute Somce. For those who desire the
syllogistic process which produces the conclusion " God exists,"
we must construct two syllogisms. One of these results in the
more common conclusion of the existence of a Perfection by
essence as the principle or source of limited and participated
perfection; the second is the further proper deduction from
this one.

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE " QUART A VIA " OF ST. THOMAS

Participated and limited being and the transcendental
cannot exist apart from Perfection per essentiam.

57

perfections

But these perfections (etc.) are found to exist in finite creatures .
. ·. Perfection per essentiam exists of necessity.
Perfectionper essentiam exists.
But only God is Perfection per essentiam .
. ·. God Exists.
CoNcLUSION

In conclusion let us recall that we began by warning the
reader that the penetration of the mystery of being and the
hierarchically ordered transcendental perfections is not an easy
task. We have seen that by mental operations which belong to
the inductive method, viz., observation and comparison, we
dialectically arrive at and posit a supereminent Principle. This
is the maximum which man's intellect logically and psychologically demands when analogously comparing the degrees of
more and less of such perfections. Yet we predicate, we might
say, provisionally throughout our analysis of the imitative participation of creatural perfections in perfection per essentiam.
The strict verification of the existence of such a Perfection is
through the demonstration of it as a first proper efficient (and
exemplary) Cause. Employing both the analogy of proportionality and of attribution we name things and God from the
same perfection, since these perfections of being have the same
privilege which being itself has of existing in different modes,
even in an infinite mode. As to whether this process is
ontologically valid, i.e., verifiable in reality, we do not strictly
and conclusively pronounce upon until we have demonstrated
the absolute need of an existing Subsistent Perfection as the
proper efficient Cause of limited finite being and its transcendental properties. Existing reality forms the basis of all true
predication in our judgments. Hence those predications by
which we attach the attributes good, true, noble and the like
as names to God constitute enunciative propositions which will
remain so until we are in a position to assert judicatively their

58

SISTER M. ANNICE

truth. In predicating an attribute of any subject we join two
concepts in an enunciative proposition, seeking some identity
or difference. Unless the comparison conforms with things as
they are, it is not an expression of objective truth and therefore
does not represent reality. The mind does not give its assent,
by the judicative act, (which is the formal act of judging) to
these propositions until evidence compels it to do so. When we
have finally proved the existence of God through an a posteriori
demonstration requiring Him as First Cause of those perfections
predicated analogously of both God and creatures, the predications are verified and validated in the order of reality. The
quarta via does not seem to be strictly completed until we have
shown that the transcendental perfection of being and its
properties found in essentially varied degrees in creatures, are
unexplainable apart from an absolute Maximum, Subsistent
Perfection as their proper (per se) efficient Cause. The consideration of the exemplary Cause, while not necessary to the
primary proof, is helpful in understanding better the whole
theory of participated perfection.
SISTER

St. Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana

M . .ANNICE, c. s. c.

THE FORMAL SUBJECT OF METAPHYSICS

T

HE THO MIST revival that began at the turn of the
present century had to face the difficult and insistent
epistemological challenge laid down by Kantianism.
Philosophy had to establish its right to existence. Its chief
concern was to defend its most intimate metaphysical concepts
against the destructive onslaughts of subjectivism. So quite
willingly the Thomists of the time plunged immediately into
metaphysical problems at the beginning of the philosophical
course. It seemed to them necessary to do so, because of the
intellectual atmosphere of the time. But as a result, ontology
became a sort of introduction to natural philosophy; it served
an instrumental function: it gave and justified the concepts
of being, substance, act and potency, cause and all the other
conceptual equipment needed to carry on a philosophical investigation of nature and of man.
Once Thomism became :reestablished and began to enjoy a
feeling of stability, philosophers shifted the exposition of their
science to the more natural order, beginning with those sensible
objects that are more known to us and proceeding upward
toward immateriality and to God, the First Principle of reality,
Who is most knowable in His own nature. Yet there remained
an enticing temptation to compromise this order somewhat,
especially in metaphysics. In its sapiential function metaphysics is synthetic and views all of being from the heights of
an analogical unity. .But in its function as a science of the
ultimate principles of reality, metaphysics proceeds analytically,
that is, it works up from multiplicity to the peak of wisdom
and unity. The Summa Theologiae proceeds according to a
sapiential order, beginning with God and descending to creatures. It is a properly theological order/ and has the advantage
1 Creaturarum
consideratio pertinet ad theologos et ad philosophos, sed diversimode. Philosophi enim creaturas considerant, secundum quod in propria natura

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of giving a sublime, over-all view of the universe of being.
Small wonder if Thomists, who have depended on the Summa
as the main font of their philosophical doctrine, have yielded
to the synthetic urge and have failed to investigate the truly
scientific order that philosophy ought to follow.
Modern Thomists are turning their attention toward reconstructing a genuine Thomistic metaphysics in a properly philosophical order. St. Thomas never wrote a manual of metaphysics. He is above all a theologian, and in his writings the
queen of human science is truly a serving-maid: ancilla theologiae. We have to piece together the fragments of St. Thomas'
metaphysical doctrine according to principles of scientific
methodology and order gleaned from throughout his writings.
We can hope thereby to reach an understanding of the general
plan o£ metaphysics as it existed in the mind of the Angelic
Doctor.
Regarding this work of reconstruction, a sharp disagreement
of minds has arisen at the very starting point of metaphysics:
the determination of its formal subject, of what metaphysics
studies. The discussion is of vital importance, for as one
of the parties to it rightly points out, the correct designation
of the subject of metaphysics " will determine the whole subsequent development of the science." 2
After reading the available literature on the question, we
have come to the conviction that the controversy cannot be
understood except when placed in the broader perspective out
of which it arises. 3 The opponents of the view that our studies
consistunt: unde proprias causas et passiones rerum inquirunt; sed theologus considerat creaturas, secundum quod a p.rimo principio exierunt, et in finem ultimum
ordinantur qui Deus est; unde recte divina sapientia nominatur, quia altissimam
causam considerat, quae Deus est (St. Thomas, Super Libros Sententiarum. [ed.
Mandonnet and Moos, Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-1947] II, Prologus).
2 J. Owens, C. SS. R., "A Note on the Approach
to Thomistic Metaphysics,"
The New Scholasticism, XXVIII (Oct., 1954), 476.
3 The discussion was precipitated
by a paper of Dr. V. E. Smith read at the
. convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, April, 1954: "The
Prime Mover in Philosophy of Nature and in Metaphysics," Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association, XXVIII (1951), 78-94. Since then
a number of articles have been written on the subject: G. Klubertanz, S. J., "St.

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have led us to accept and which we present in this article are
men with a background of historical studies, who are emphasizing that Thomism is a Christian Philosophy, which has
grown up in a theological context and should not be separated
from its natal theology;! St. Thomas' Commentaries on Aristotle, consequently, are held to be expositions of Aristotle's
doctrine, rather than authentic sources of St. Thomas' own
philosophical thought. 5
Thomas on Learning Metaphysics," Gregorianum, XXXII (n. 1, 1954), 5-17; id.,
"The Teaching of Thomistic Metaphysics," Gregorianum, XXXV (n. !i!, 1954), 187205; id., "Being and God according to Contemporary Scholastics," The Modern
Schoolman, XXXII (Nov., 1954), l-17; J. Owens, C. SS. R., art. cit. supra; cf. id.,
"Theodicy, Natural Theology, and Metaphysics,'' The Modern Schoolman, XXVIII
(Jan., 1951), 126-137; id., "The Conclusion of the Prima Via," The Modern Schoolman, XXX (Nov., 1952), 33-53 (Jan. 1953), 109-121 (Mar. 1953), 203-215.
Other articles on this subject will be cited in the course of this article.
• The teaching of E. Gilson on this can be gathered passim in his works. The
following is an example: " It is by restoring the several Scholastic philosophies
to their natural places-namely, their natal theologies--that history will better and
better succeed in understanding them as they were. Non erubesco evangelium is a
saying we must know how to pronounce in all domains, even including that of
scholarship. And it also is by returning to its natural place that it will once more
bring forth flowers, or fruit. Only a prophet will be able to say what is to be the
shape of its future. But the historian can safely state by whom Scholastic philosophy
will be given a true life in the future. The true Scholastic philosophers will always
be theologians." "Historical Research and the Future of Scholasticism," The
Modern Schoolman, XXIX (Nov., 1951), 10. An associate of Gilson says of his
doctrine: " Since, in fact, the philosophy of St. Thomas exists according to the
theological order of the Summa, the question of recasting it according to a philosophical order is full of dangers. . . . As Gilson insists, the real question at issue is
whether we can separate a philosophy from the conditions in which it was born and
without which it never existed-and not thereby destroy it. Gilson's own answer
is a decided negative." A: Pegis, " Gilson and Thomism," Thought, XXII (Sept.,
1946), 447. Cf. E. G. Salmon, "Theological Order and the Philosophy of St.
Thomas," Thought, XXII (Dec., 1946), 667-678.
• " There is no philosophical writing of Thomas Aquinas to which we could apply
for an exposition of the truths concerning God and man which he considered
knowable in the natural light of human reason. His commentaries on Aristotle are
so many expositions of the doctrine of Aristotle, not of what might be called his
own philosophy. As a commentator, Thomas could add to the text something of
his own, but this was not his principal intention. We may find fragmentary expositions of his own philosophical conceptions in some particular treatises, for
instance in the De ente et essentia. Generally speaking, however, we must resort

MELVIN

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It is, of course, historically correct to recognize the influence
of theology on the development of Thomist philosophy. But it
is incorrect not to recognize the doctrinal independence of philosophy from theology. To submerge philosophy into theology
is to destroy it. The science of reason is distinct from the
science of faith, and if distinct, it can and must have its own
method and order.
Regarding the status of the Commentaries on Aristotle as
valid sources of St. Thomas' philosophical thought, we must
note that St. Thomas accepted Aristotelianism and made himself its champion against bitter attacks. He sometimes corrects
the doctrine or arguments of Aristotle. He always explains,
expands and supplements the concise and pithy statements of
the Stagyrite. He interprets benignly and at times :reads his own
thought into Aristotle's text. Surely, we can say that in general
the doctrine of the Commentaries is that of St. Thomas; that
when he says nothing against the opinions of Aristotle, he is
actually accepting them. 6 Moreover, there are many passages
in the Commentaries that undoubtedly represent St. Thomas'
own doctrine, such as the Proemium to the Metaphysics, to the
De Caelo and to the De Generatione. Likewise, in the theological works St. Thomas reproduces much of the cardinal doctrine
of the Commentaries, including the fundamental methodological principles of the Commentaries. There are in the two
Summae 41 citations of 25 different passages of the Posterior
Analytics, over 443 citations of 197 passages from the Metaphysics, and many citations from the other works. In addition
to all this, we must remember that the medieval mind was
more doctrinally than historically inclined, as is evident in the
very words of St. Thomas. After mentioning a difference of
interpretation by Simpl!cius and by Alexander of the words of
to his theological writings in order to find them fully developed, but following a
theological order." E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages
(New York: Random Honse, 1955), 367.
6 There may be individual
cases where one can argue that St. Thomas is only
expounding, not accepting, Aristotle's doctrine, especially if the doctrine contradicts his olher works. These would constitute difficulties, but not reasons to discard all the Commentaries.

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certain poets and philosophers, especially of Plato, St. Thomas
continues:
Whatever is to be said of these is of little concern to us. For the
study of philosophy is not for the purpose of knowing what men
have thought, but for knowing what the truth of the matter is.7

It is essential for understanding any of St. Thomas' philosophy that it be interpreted in the light of the doctrine of the
Po1:1terior Analytics, namely, the doctrine of scientific methodology accepted and used by St. Thomas. A science is not any
haphazard collection of truths about a subject. It is rather an
organic body of demonstrated knowledge of the commensurate
properties and causes of a subject in the light of the quidditative knowledge of the subject. The attributes are seen to
belong necessarily to the subject, and the subject is seen to
be the proper cause of the attributes, through comparing the
essential definitions of both. For the definition of the subject
is the middle term in at least the first demonstration of a
science. The subject must be known as something really existing, for if it does not exist, it cannot be defined. Moreover, the
same existing material things can be the subject of more than
one science, depending on the formal aspect under which they
are considered and the principles whereby they are defined. 8
The subject of any human science must follow the natural
mode of man's knowledge. The proper object of ou:r intellect
is the quiddity of sensible things. As St. Thomas says in his
Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethiu1:1:
7 1 de Caelo et Mundo
(ed. Leonina, vol. HI, Opera Omnia, Rome: Typ. Poly.
Vat., 1889), lect. 22, n. 8; cf. n. 5.
8 It is important
to keep in mind St. Thomas' terminology regarding the subject
and object of a science. The subject is a thing or things in entitative existence.
The object is the thing as it exists in knowledge. Both are material and formal.
The material subject is the thing simply. The formal subject is the material thing
under the aspect whereby it is considered in the science and is commensurate with
the properties demonstrated of it. The object of science is the whole scientific
process. The material object is the conclusions of the science; the formal object
are deduced.
is the definition of the subject, in the light of which the
Cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus (Parisiis; Desclee et Sociorum, 1931- ) ,
In Qu. l Primae Partis, Disp. 2, Art. 11. VoL I, p. 402.

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In the speculative sciences, by means of demonstration and definition we can know only those things to which our natural knowledge extends. Now such naturally known truths are revealed to
man by the light of the agent intellect, which is natural to man;
and nothing indeed is made known to us by this light except insofar
as it renders images actually intelligible; for in this consists the
operation of the agent intellect. . . . But since we receive images
from the sense, our knowledge of the above-mentioned principles
begins in the sense and memory .... Consequently, such principles do not carry us beyond what we can know from the objects
of sense. 9

Hence we cannot know the quiddity of God and of the separated
substances, for their natures transcend the scope of our intellect, and they are not adequately revealed by their effects in
the world. At most we can take their effects as the starting
point to prove their existence and some of their conditions;
but our knowledge will be negative and analogical.I 0 God and
the immaterial substances, therefore, cannot be the subject of
a human science, because we cannot attain a definition of them
to use as a middle term in a syllogism.
Our human type of knowledge starts with being: Id quod
primo cadit in intellectu est ens. 11 This first concept of being
• Q. 6, a. 4. Armand Maurer, C. S. B. (trans!.), The Division and Methods of the
Sciences (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1953), 76.
10 Si qua ergo res est, quae non habeat principia priora, ex quibus ratio procedere
possit, horum non potest esse scientia, secundum quod scientia hie accipitur, prout
est demonstrationis effectus. Unde scientiae speculativae non sunt de ipsis essentiis
substantiarum separatarum.
Non enim per scientias demonstrativas possumus
scire quod quid est in eis; quia ipsae essentiae harum substantiarum sunt intelligibiles
per seipsas ab intellectu ad hoc proportionato; non autem congregatur earum notitia,
qua cognoscitur quod quid est ipsarum, per aliqua priora. Sed per scientias speculativas potest sciri de eis an sint, et quid non sunt, et aliquid secundum similitudinem
in rebus inferioribus inventam.
Et tunc utimur posterioribus ut prioribus ad
earnm cognitionem; quia quae· sunt posteriora secundum naturam, sunt priora et
notiora quoad nos. Et sic patet quod ilia de quibus habetur scientia per ea quae
sunt priora simpliciter, sunt composita secundum se ex aliquibus prioribus. (I
Poster. [ed. Leonina, vol. I]lect. 41, n. 8. Cf. Ibid., lect. 30, n. 7; In de 1"rin. q. 6, a.
3, c; a. 4. Sed contra et Responsio). See Summa Theol., I, q. 88, a. !'.!, where St.
Thomas criticizes Avempace, who thought that by a progressive distillation of
material being we can come to a knowledge of the separated substances.
11 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 55 ,a. 4, ad l.

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is not the being of the science of metaphysics, but rather the
most imperfect, confused, potential of all concepts. It represents nothing more than a material something, a sensible
quiddity, an essence wearing only the rags of the sensible
existence that it connotes. This being is signified as an essence,
a thing, but with a connotation of the existence it exercises in
the individual thing attained by the senses. 12
Immediately following upon this concept of being, the intellect conceives, at least implicitly, the principle of non-contradiction, for this being cannot both be and not-be at the same time
and under the same aspect. This same being, moreover, is
doubly divisible: into potency and act and into the categories
of being. But let it be noted that this being does not extend
explicitly beyond the ambit of material objects.
When we begin to investigate this being scientifically, we find
that its most evident characteristic is its instability; it is always
changing, coming and going, more or less, here or there. This
being is revealed to us by our senses as in continual flux. But
by studying the changes of this being, which we can now call
mobile being, we learn much about it. We investigate its
ciples, causes and properties and build up quite a creditable
science which we call physics, natural science or philosophy of
nature. Physics should, we would expect, treat everything
12 Cf. 1 Perihe;rm., lect. 5, n. j!Q-j!j! and note p (ed. Leon.).
It is not exact to say
that being is attained only in judgment. It is attained as the first principle in simple apprehension. " In prima quidem operatione est aliquod primum, quod cadit in conceptione intellectus, scilicet, hoc quod dico ens; nee aliquid hac operatione potest mente
concipi, nisi inte!ligatur ens." (IV Metaphys. [ed. Cathala, Taurini; Marietti, 19j!6]
lect. 6, n. 605.) As thus conceived, being is essence with reference to existence, for
existence is the act and perfection of being, without which being cannot be understood, just as potency cannot be understood without reference to act. When we
apprehend being, the accompanying phantasm-without which we cannot think at
all (Summa Theol., I, q. 84, a. 7)-iexpresses the really existing individuals from
which the abstract concept has been drawn and to which it has an essential reference. The existential judgment, on the other hand, explicitly affirms the act of
existence that simple apprehension had only indirectly grasped as implicit in the
concept of being. Cf. Owen Bennett, 0. F. M. Conv., "Existence and the First
Principles According to St. Thomas Aquinas," Philosophical Studies in honor of
The Very Reverend Ignatius Smith, 0. P., John K. Ryan, editor. (Westminster,
Maryland: The Newman Press, 1952), 165-178.

5

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knowable about material being. It should solve all the problems
that our mind might encounter while probing into the mysteries
of reality. In fact, the first physicists looked upon their science
as just such a thing. St. Thomas says of them:
The ancients did not think that there was any substance besides
corporeal, mobile substance, which the physicist treats. And so it
was believed that they alone should treat of all nature, and consequently of being, as well as of the first principles that must be
considered along with being. But this is falseY

Physics really raises greater problems for us than it solves;
at least, it points out deeper, more insistent problems. For it
reveals that the first extrinsic principle of mobile being is
necessarily an Unmoved Mover. The whole progression of
General Physics, the first division of natural philosophy, tends
towards and culminates in the proof of the Unmoved Mover,
which lies outs!de the orbit of the senses and out of bounds for
physical science/ 4 Add to this the proof developed in psychology for the spiritual nature of man's soul and its separate
existence after death. Up until this point whenever a philosopher would say being, he would mean material being, for
such would be the only kind of being that he knew. A little
farm boy who has never been to the big city has a concept of
law-enforcement officer that does not transcend the local constable. Whenever he thinks of policeman, he thinks of the
constable. But once he has been to the big city and has seen
motorcycle policemen, traffic-cops, state troopers and park
policemen, his concept of law-enforcement officer is considerably broadened. In the same way, once the philosopher has
discovered the existence of immaterial beings, his idea of being
is extended and enriched. Physics pierces a hole through the
backdrop of sensible reality and reveals an entire new world
IV Meta., !ect. 5, n. 593.
It is within the competence of the physicist to prove the existence of God not
only from motion, but also from finality. Natural philosophy is concerned at every
step with the finality of nature and the orientation of all mobile beings to the
good of the whole universe, which is a bonum ordinis. A physicist would see that
the cause of the order of the whole universe would have to transcend the universe.
13

14

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of being, an immaterial or spiritual realm, which has important
influence upon our own world. St. Thomas says, continuing
the above quotation at the point where we interrupted him:
There is another science superior to natural science. For nature,
that is, the natural thing, that has in itself a principle of motion,
of itself is just one particular kind of universal being. Not every
being is such, since it has been proved in the eighth book of Physics
that there is an immobile being. This immobile being is higher and
more noble than the mobile being that natural science considers. 15

It might well be objected at this point that we do not need
natural philosophy to prove to us the existence of immaterial
being. We have known this from our catechism days. And
even apart from faith, we can acquire a pre-scientific knowledge
of God by our ordinary common sense. Why appeal to natural
philosophy to tell us what we knew already? We could, on the
strength of this approach, being philosophy with the science of
immaterial being.
We must, however, keep in mind that science proceeds by
way of propter quid demonstrations. Commensurate attributes
are demonstrated of a subject through the definition of the
subject from its formal aspect. The premisses of a scientific
syllogism, in which the definition of the subject is the middle
term, are the causes of the knowledge of the conclusion, and
must thereby be better known than the conclusion. H the
very formality of the subject, that whose light makes possible
the scientific inference, is itself given by faith, then the conclusions caused by this partly revealed definition will participate in the revealed character of their cause. Likewise, if the
formal aspect of the subject has been given through the imperfect common sense proof of God's existence, then the conclusions of metaphysics derived through the definition of the
subject will share the imperfect, uncritical status of their cause.
In order to set up a scientific subject, the formal aspect must
be either immediately evident to intellectual intuition or else
be made known by a strict scientific process. In no other way
15

IV Meta., lect. 5, n. 593. Italics ours.

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can a subject have the necessity whereby it can cause similar
necessity in the conclusion.
There is, therefore, no other scientific way to enter metaphysics than through the philosophy of nature, which gives
certain and necessary knowledge of the existence of immaterial
beings.
We cannot understand our own world, unless we learn about
this immaterial world in which are the ultimate causes of mobile
being. But how can we learn about this realm beyond materiality and mobility? Obviously, not directly, for man's direct
knowledge is· restricted to sensible reality. Nor can principles
of sensible, mobile being avail to investigate this immaterial
being. 16 Somehow, we must find a bridge to immaterial being.
Just as the astronomer has a bridge to worlds far removed
from our own, namely, the light that travels between them, so
now the human mind seeks principles whereby it can learn
about immateriality. As man matures from physics to metaphysics, he seeks something common between the material and
immaterial world, whereby we can learn about that world
beyond our own. That something held in common is precisely
BEING: both worlds are beings, or existing things. 17 Being is a
perfection possessed by both worlds. It is the only notion that
at present we find shared by both. But it is a beginning, and
with this notion we can set up a science whose goal is nothing
less than the knowledge of God Himself.
16 Consideratio speculativae scientiae non se extendit ultra virtutem principiorum
illius scientiae, quia in principiis scientiae virtualiter tota scientia continetur.
(Summa Theol., I-11, q. 8, a. 6, c.) Substantia enim solet dici prima inchoatio
cuiuscumque rei, et maxime quando tota res sequens continetur virtute in primo
principio; puta si dicamus quod prima principia indemonstrabilia sunt subiecta
scientiae, quia scilicet primum quod in nobis est de scientia sunt huiusmodi principia, et in eis virtute continetur tota scientia. (Ibid., 11-II,
4, a. I, c.)
17 Note that by being we do not mean existence alone, but rather essence plus
existence: the two are component principles of all beings other than God. There is
no question of starting metaphysics with an intuition of pure existence; the existence
that our mind attains is always existence limited by an essence. If we had no
knowledge of immaterial essences that have a commensurate immaterial existence,
then our concept of existence would not transcend the existence of the sensory matter that is the connatural object of our intellect.

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We must go back to our study of material being, for a human
science such as metaphysics is, must submit to the limitations
of human knowledge and find its concepts only by abstraction
from sensory experience. But this time we study material being
from a new aspect, no longer as mobile, but from this newly
discovered dimension of what it has in common with the immaterial world, namely, being. The subject of our science is
ens, not as mobile; but ens-the same ens-in quantum ens.
What exactly does this formula mean?
As a result of the discovery of immaterial being in the eighth
book of Physics, we have been able to separate in a negative
judgment being from material being: "Not every being is
such." 18 Now, by a second consideration of our data, we note
that in reality there exist both material and immaterial beings.
Hence, we see that being itself is a perfection not commensurate
with material being only, nor with immaterial being only: it
transcends both. Therefore, we make another judgment of
separation and say that being itself is neither material nor
immaterial. 19 It'can be either, because it transcends the modes
of material and immaterial. We have a concept now that opens
out upon the immaterial order, without, however, being closed
on the material order. 20 Hence, being and all the attributes that
IV ]!,[eta., lect. 5, n. 598.
It should be noted that the negative judgment which constitutes the subject of
metaphysics does not separate existence from essence, but rather being from the
modes of material and immaterial. This judgment of separation is expressed by St.
Thomas: "It is not of the nature of that which is separate -to exist in_ matter and
motion, but it can exist without them although we sometimes find it in them." (In
Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. 4., trans. cit., p. 42.)
20 " It is important to distinguish well the knowledge, and notably the negative
knowledge of the immaterial realities whose nature positively excludes matter, and
separation, or the relative negative judgment, which disengages being, the object of
metaphysics, and the other data of the same order from both the material and the
immaterial order, keeping them open, diversely however, upon both orders. To
open metaphysics of being upon the immaterial without closing it on the material
being of our experience-was not this the major preoccupation of Aristotle? This
preoccupation is all the more urgent if we ad:rp.it with recent historians that it was
only in the second stage of his development, after having abandoned the classical
definition of first philosophy as theology, that he made being as such the object of
metaphysics." L.-B. Geiger, 0. P., "Abstraction et 'separation d'apres S. Thomas,"
Revue des Sciences Pkilosophiques et Tkeologiques, XXIll (1947), 27. Our transl.
18

19

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the science of metaphysics demonstrates as commensurate with
it are indifferent to material or immaterial existence. This is
the profound meaning of St. Thomas' often repeated formula
that the object of metaphysics is whatever does not contain
matter in its concept or definition, some perfection whose nature
is indifferent to materiality, and which can exist either as
material or as immaterial. 21 In the first lecture on the Physics
of Aristotle he says:
There are some things which do not depend on matter for their
existence, nor according to concept (ratio): either because they
are never in matter, as God and other separated substances; or
because they are not universally in matter, as substance, potency
and act, and being itself. Of these Metaphysics treats. 22

We have, accordingly, isolated the formal aspect of the
subject of metaphysics, the transcendental perfection of that
which exists. But in order to study this perfection by human
science, we have to consider it as it is realized in material things.
Being itself is neither material nor immaterial, but the subject
of metaphysics is certainly material, for metaphysics is a human
science. The subject is the same material being known in the
first concept of the mind in a confused and imperfect way,
investigated by physics under the aspect of mobility and by
mathematics as quantified. Now this being is closely analysed
from the aspect of the transcendental perfection of being that
it possesses. Ens inquantum ens means material being from
the aspect of being itself, that is, considered from an aspect
that does not include matter in its definition and is in fact
also realized apart from matter as well as in matter. 23 Ens in21 If we had no objective
guarantees that metaphysical objects do in fact exist
as immaterial entities (i.e., God and separated souls), then our metaphysical concepts would point up immaterial aspects in material things, but with no more
realistic value than we grant to St. Anselm's ontological argument.
22 I Physic., !eel. l, n. 3. Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2; In Boet. de Trin.,
q. 5, a. 1, c; a. 4, c; VI Metaphys. Proem; lect. 1, n. 1162-65 et passim; De Sensu
et Sensa to, lect. 1; etc.
23 "Metapyhsics
has for object the reality of being immune from any matter,
even intelligible, whether in the sense of a positive exclusion of all materiality, as in
the case of God and the separate substances, or in a simply precisive or abstractive

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quantum ens is also designated by the expression ens commune
as the subject of metaphysics. This latter terminology puts a
greater emphasis on the formal aspect.u
The fact that ens commu,ne, when considered as subject of
metaphysics, means the common perfection of being as it is
realized in material being is further corroborated by the insistence of St. Thomas that God and the separated substances
do not enter into the subject of metaphysics. " The subject
in a science is that whose causes and attributes we investigate,
but not the causes themselves of any (subject-) genus under
inquiry. For the knowledge of the causes of any (subject-)
genus is the end attained by the inquiry of the science." 25
Therefore, "it must belong to the same science to investigate
the separated substances and being-in-general (ens commune),
which is the (subject-) genus of which the above mentioned
substances are the common and universal causes." 26 The
separated substances (including God) are thus distinguished
from ens commune as cause from effect.
However, even though the subject of this science is being-ingeneral (ens commune), the whole science is said to concern what
is separate from malter both in existence and in thought. For not
only are those things called separate in existence and thought which
can never exist in matter, like God and the intellectual substances,
sense, as in the case of the notions of being, act, potency, unity and plurality, etc.;
this immaterial reality, however, which properly forms the subject of metaphysics,
in the technical sense of the word, can be only ens commune, that is immaterial
being in the second sense, that is, in the precisive or abstract sense, namely, the
reason of being that does not positively exclude materiality nor positively imply it
in its formal content, for it can be realized in material reality and in spiritual
reality." Mariano De Andrea, 0. P,, "Soggetto e oggetto della metafisica secondo
S. Tommaso," Angelicum, XXVII (1950), 182. Our transl.
24 Ens commune is varied in signification.
As a universal, it is primum logicum
separated out from material and immaterial beings and existing as such only in the
mind, "M.ulto igitur minus et ipsum esse commune est aliquid praeter omnes res
existentes nisi in intellectu solum" (I Cont. Gent,, c. £6.) It is this universal concept of being that the science of metaphysics enriches by evolving its virtual
transcendentality.
Ens commune as the formal subject of metaphysics is not this
concept, but rather that reality in which we find it, material being.
25 Metaphys.
Proem., A. Mauer (trans.), op. cit .• p, 82.

•• Ibid.

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MELVIN A. GLUTZ

but also those which can be without matter, such as being-ingeneral (ens commune) .2 7
St. Thomas amplifies this statement in his Commentary on

the De Trinitate of Boethius:
Something can exist separate from matter and motion in two
different ways: First, in the sense that it is of the nature of the
thing called separate to be able in no way to exist in matter and
motion, as God and the angels are said to be separate from matter
and motion. Secondly, in the sense that it is not of the nature of
that which is separate to exist in matter and motion, but it can
exist without them although we sometimes find it in them. In
this sense, being, substance, potency and act are separate from
matter and motion because they do not depend on them with
respect to existence, unlike mathematicals, which can only exist
in matter although they can be understood without sensible matter. Thus philosophical theology treats of beings separate in the
second sense as its subjects and of beings separate in the first
sense as the principles of its subject. 28
The subject of metaphysics, then, cannot be that absolutely
transcendental being that extends by analogy of proper proportionality from God to creatures, from substance to accidents,
and from real to possible and rational being. It is rather what
we can call the relatively transcendental perfection of real
being, which is studied in material being, but is really independent of materiality. 29 This formality in material being
opens up for us vistas of immaterial reality.
•• Ibid. Cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 66, a. 5, ad 4; De Causis, lect. 6.
""In Boet. de Trin., q. 5, a. 4, transl. cit.,
•• " The equivalence of the terms: ' ens inquantum ens ' and ' ens finitum ' is in
perfect accord with the proper function that St. Thomas with Aristotle assigns to
a science • propter quid,' which metaphysics must be considered to be, and which is
to make known the property of the subject of the science by the analysis of the
quidditative notion of the same subject. But for St. Thomas infinite or divine being
escapes every essential definition on the part of the human intelligence, as something that is outside its specific natural possibility and hence cannot in any way be
a subject of metaphysical science, insofar as it is an expression of the intellectuality
proper to man. . . . In conclusion, ' ens inquantum ens,' or ' ens commune,' which
forms the subject of metaphysics, cannot, according to St. Thomas, be being in
its absolute transcendentality, that is, insofar as it embraces finite and infinite
being, but only being in its relative transcendentality, insofar, that is, as it extends

THE FORMAL

SUBJECT

OF METAPHYSICS

73

Physics must now yield its claim to primacy. The things that
physics would have treated, were there no immaterial beingthings such as potency and act, substance and the other predicaments, the causes, the principle of non-contradiction and
the defense of the validity of knowledge are found not to be
commensurate with material being, but rather with being as
such. They enter into the proper scope of metaphysics. 30
The metaphysician studies being as being and finds it to be
in every way dependent and imperfect. It is composed,
received, participated, caused, contingent, not only in its intrinsic nature, but also in its operation. Its every facet and
every attribute points toward a transcendent, infinitely perfect
Cause existing beyond the ambit of human intelligence, but
revealed by Its proper effects in the finite realm of ens commune. The metaphysician has thus built his bridge on the
pillars of sensible reality and suspended it from the cables of
existence and causality that span the worlds of the material
and immaterial. Though a process of analysis of material being
in those highest aspects of the formalities it possesses in common with immaterial beings, the metaphysician arrives at the
greatest purely human knowledge of the First Cause of all
being. The immaterial dimension of material being is the
proper effect of God and it makes God known to us.
But the work of the metaphysician is not yet completed.
He has studied material being as mobile. He has investigated
ens commune, or negatively immaterial being. He has come
to know positively immaterial being, that is, God. The passion
of the mind for unity still asserts itself. Just as Einstein was
to predicamental being." M. DeAndrea, art. cit., 181. Cf. P. Robert, 0. P., "La
metaphysiqqe, science distincte de toute autre discipline philosophique, selon S.
Thomas," Divus Thomas (PL), L (1947), 9W6 sq.
•• Si non est aliqua alia substantia praeter eas quae consistunt secundum naturam,
de quibus est physica, physica erit prima scientia. Sed, si est aliqua substantia immobilis, ista erit prior substantia natmali; et per consequens philosophia considerans
hujusmodi substantiam, erit philosophia' prima. Et quia est prima, ideo erit universalis, et erit ejus speculari de ente inquantum est ens, et de eo quod quid est, et
de his quae sunt entis inquantum est ens: eadem enim est scientia primi entis et
entis communis, ut in principio quarti habitum est (VI Meta., lect. 1, no. 1170).

74

MELVIN A. GLUTZ

attempting a unified field theory, a mathematical formula that
would apply to all of reality, so the metaphysician now seeks
a single concept that will embrace the whole of being, even the
Supreme Being and Cause of all. His concept of being has
been so refined and extended that in one triumphant intuition
he now conceives being in all its transcendental amplitude,
extending by proper proportionality from God down to the
humblest accident of the least possible being-being that is
one-being that is true-being that is good and beautiful to
behold!
MELVIN A. GLUTZ, c. P.
St. Gabriel Monastery
Des Moines, Iowa

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

T

WENTIETH-CENTURY logical positivism, the position that all philosophical p:.;:oblems can and ought to
be resolved into questions of linguistic analysis, has
given a tremendous impetus to semantic studies. One consequence of this quickened interest has been that certain men,
recognizing the essential sign-function of language and perceiving the importance of non-linguistic signs in the various
fields of human endeavor, have envisioned a new organon of
scientific study, a new universal science, a science of signs
(termed "semiotic"), in terms of which all other scientific
investigation might proceed and be expressed.
In view of the importance attached by many to a general
theory of signs, it behooves the Thomist to examine his own
position on this question and to compare it with that held by
present-day" semioticians." Accordingly, the aim of this article
is to present St. Thomas' view of the nature of signs and to
compare that view with the semiotic theory proposed by Dr.
Charles Morris, who is representative of the modern position
and is one of the foremost workers in the field.
It is not surprising that there is no fully-developed theory
of signs in the writings of St. Thomas, for he was primarily a
theologian and, as such, was not vitally concerned with the
problems of semiotic except insofar as they might be related
to theology itself or to some part of philosophy which was so
related. Fortunately for our purpose, however, logic is a prerequisite for any science, whether theological or philosophical
and logic as conceived by St. Thomas involves some consideration of semiotic, especially that part of semiotic which deals
with language. In theology, moreover, a certain theory of signs
is presupposed, for example, in any study of the Sacraments,
which are by definition a certain type of sign, and also in any
consideration of vocal prayer.
75

76

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

From these sources, then, it is possible to extract a rather
clear indication of the direction a fully-developed Thomistic
theory of signs would have taken. In fact, it seems possible to
find in St. Thomas an incipient semiotic with at least some
suggestion of all the important distinctions a modern semiotician introduces into his theory.
In his explicit treatment of logic, St. Thomas systematizes
his theory according to the framework provided by Aristotle.
Because, according to Aristotle, there are three acts of the intellect and because logic is the science which treats of these acts,
it is fitting that logic should have a corresponding tripartite
division. 1
The first act of the intellect is simple appprehension, the
intellectual cognition of some nature; to this act corresponds
that division of logic which treats of definition. 2 To judgment,
the second act of the intellect, corresponds the study of propositions.3 Finally, the process of ratiocination, the third act of
the intellect, is correlated with a formal treatment of the
syllogism. 4
to this division, St. Thomas takes up in
his exposition of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias the question of
linguistic signification, a question essential to any serious consideration of propositions. 5
1 Cf. St. Thomas, ln libros Peri Hermeneias Expositio, Lib. I, Iect. 1:
"Cum
autem Logica dicatur rationalis scientia, necesse est quod eius consideratio versetur
circa ea quae pertinent ad tres praedictas operationes rationis." Cf. also, In I Posteriorum Analyticorum, Lib. I, lecl. 1: "Eadem ratione ars quaedam necessaria est,
quae sit directiva ipsius actus J.'ationis, per quam scilicet homo in ipso actu rationis
ordinate, faciliter et sine errore procedat." "Et haec ars est Logica, idest rationalis
scientia. Quae non solum rationalis est ex hoc, quod est secundum rationem (quod
est omnibus artibus commune); sed etiam ex hoc, quod est circa ipsum actum
rationis sicut circa 'p:ropriam materiam."
• Definition and that upon which it depends, genus, differentia, and predication,
are treated in Aristotle's Categories.
• Considered by Aristotle in his Peri Hermeneias, or On Interpretation.
• Considered by Aristotle in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics, and
Sophistical Refutations.
• While the Aristotelis Peri Hermmeias Expositio is ostensibly a mere explanation of Aristotle, a comparison of the two texts reveals that the explanation is not
simply a restatement of the original. It appears to express St. Thomas' own thought;
moreover, in view of the fact that what is found here is in perfect accord with St.

ST, THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

77

The title of St. Thomas' work, De lnterpretatione in Latin,
has a technical meaning which cannot be :rendered by the
English " interpretation." 6 Boethius, in his work of the same
title, defined interpretatio as " a meaningful vocal sound which
is in itself expressive of something other than itself.'' 7 and it is
this meaning of interpretatio that St. Thomas adopts with certain qualifications. Accordingly, conjunctions and prepositions
are not inte·rpretationes, for they do not in themselves give
of something other than themselves. Similarly, vocal
sounds which are significant, not by resolution or design, but
naturally, such as the roaring of lions o:r the barking of dogs,
cannot be called interpretationes. They cannot because whoever uses an interpretatio intends to convey some knowledge,
to express some thought. Therefore, only nouns, verbs, and
sentences can be called interpretationes; and even of these the
first two ought rather to be called principles of interpretationes,
for of themselves they do not express anything of which it can
be said that it is true or false.
In short, only an enunciative sentence, that is, a sentence
which is either true or false, is really an interpretatio" Other
sentences, subjunctive and imperative, for example, are ordered
to expressing one's feelings and desires, to directing the actions
of others, rather than to signifying what one thinks: they are
not pertinent to science; they belong to the arts.
Having defined his subject matter, St. Thomas turns to a
detailed analysis of each part of the definition, treating in
turn each of the following topics: the signification of vocal
sounds, the diverse kinds of signification, the material and
formal principles of sentences, the definition of an enunciation,
and the types of enunciative sentences.
There are three types of signs by means of which man can
attain to a conceptual knowledge of things: by writing, by
Thomas' other. writings, there is an added indication that one is justified in holding
the Expositio to be an expression of what St. Thomas took to be the truth and
not merely of what Aristotle had said.
• Cf. the Leonine Opera omnia, voL 1, pp. 7-8, n. 'Y, for a discussion of 4>1"7/I'Elru.
7 "Interpretatio
est vox significativa, per seipsam aliquid significans."

78

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

spoken words, and by his own intellectual concepts abstracted
from sensible things. Were man naturally a solitary animal, he
would have no need for any signs other than his concepts; but,
since he is by nature political and social, there is required some
means by which one man's ideas may be made known to
others. Moreover, since man desires to communicate, not only
with those who are in his presence, but also with those who
are at a distance or who will live at some future time, it is
necessary that he have a system of writing. 8
A distinction must be made between vocal sounds uttered
simply as an expression of some emotion (passio animae) ,
moaning, for example, and those which by human convention
convey information about one's thoughts (conceptio intellectus). Only the latter are truly interpretationes, and it is to be
noted about these that they do not signify immediately anything other than one's thoughts. That is, for instance, the word
" man " ·does not directly signify individual men, but rather
human nature in the abstract directly and individual men
only through the mediacy of the concept. The signification of
written words is a further degree removed from simple denotation of objects, f,or writing signifies the spoken word directly,
the concept through the spoken word, and individual objects
through the concept. 9
While it is natural to man to make use of words to express
his concepts, that a given word should express a particular
concept is determined by human convention. This is evident
from the fact that various groups of men use differing terms to
express the same thought. The concepts themselves, it is to be
noted, are the same for all men, for they are " similitudes " of
the things they signify/ 0 Similarly, vocal sounds which express
8 St. Thomas, op. cit., lect. 2.
• Ibid. To signify is not to denote; signification has to do with the intension of a
term rather than its extension; particulars are signified only inasmuch as they have
it is the nature, properly speaking, which is signified by a term
a certain
or concept.
1 °Cf. ibid.:
" ... res non cognoscitur ab anima nisi per aliquam similitudinem
existentem vel in sensu vel in intellectu."

ST. :I'HOMAS

AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

79

mere feelings and are naturally significant are uniform among
men.
Because there are diverse intellectual cq_nceptions,the words
which are used as signs of such concepts are also diverse in
their signification, for a sign must conform to what is signified.
That is, just as there is an act of understanding in which there
is neither truth nor falsity (simple apprehension) and another
act in which there is necessarily one or the other (judgment),
so there are vocal expressions which signify without any implication of truth or falsity and others which do carry such an
implication.
The " truth " which is Jn question here is, of course,' not
" metaphysical " truth; which is the conformity of things to the
divine intellect; nor the " truth " of those who would make the
human intellect the measure of all things so that whatever -is
thought is true; nor is it the " practical " truth which is found
in human artifacts which correspond to the mind of the artist. 11
Neither is it the truth which consists simply in the conformity
of the human intellect to extra-mental objects, the intellect
resembling something to be assessed and the object a kind of
criterion according to which the assessment is to be made.
Rather, the truth in question is in the judgment that one's
conceptions are conformed to reality.
Accordingly, while the simple intellectual apprehension of
some essence or nature is true, and even necessarily true, 12 the
truth which is the criterion of diverse types of signification is
found only in a judgment, in an act of " composing and dividing." If such an act is in conformity with reality/ 3 that is, if
the intellect judges something to be which in reality is, the
judgment is true; if, on the other hand-and there is no middle
What is said here about truth is taken from ibid., lect. 8.
Since all man's ideas originate in experience, it is impossible that he should have
any simple conceptions which do not correspond to reality.
13 Such a judgment is not to be confused with a complex concept (to be discussed
later), that which constitutes the "matter" of the judgment. It is not the conof such a complex concept to reality that constitutes the truth in question;
it is the judgment that there is such a conformity. Cf. St. Thomas, op. cit., lect. s.
11

12

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ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

ground
intellect judges a thing to be which in
reality is not, the judgment is false. The signs, then, which
signify without the implication of truth or falsity are nouns and
verbs, which, taken by themselves, are expressive merely of
simple
Only enunciative statements signify in
such a way as to be true or false, to be interpretationes in the
strict sense. Moreover, as has been mentioned previously,
man does not use language signs except to convey to another
some judgment that he has made or else to express his feelings
or desires (affectiones). Neither of these purposes can be accomplished by the simple use of nouns or verbs in isolation,
unless there is an added sign such as the tone of voice or a
gesture. 15 Therefore, nouns and verbs are not, strictly speaking,
interpretationes; neither are they in isolation effective in any
of the usages man makes of language signs.
While signification belongs primarily to language signs which
are declarative sentences, it is within the domain of a study of
language signs to investigate the elements, the nouns and verbs
which enter into any significant statement and are as its
" material principles," 16 or integral parts.
There are :fi\'e points which enter into the definition of a
noun, all of which, except the fourth, are true also of verbs.
First, generically a noun is a vocal sound; secondly, it is a sign;
thirdly, it signifies by human convention; fourthly, it signifies
without any temporal implication; fifthly, none of its parts is
significant in isolation from the whole. With respect to the first
three points, sufficient has already been said. With respect to
" Pronouns are included in the class of nouns, participles in the class of verbs. In
cases of grammatical ellipses, a noun or verb taken alone may signify a judgment,
but that is only because the hearer or reader supplies the missing words.
15 One who doubts this statement may verify it by saying, in a normal tone of
voice, "fire," or "running," or "green" to another. The normal response is invariably, "What about 'fire'?" or "Who's 'running'?" or "What's 'green'?"
It is quite obvious that we expect one who speaks to express a judgment, signify a
desire, issue a command, or ask a question. Cf. St. Thomas, op. cit., lect. 5.
18 Cf. ibid., lect. 4, p. 19, § 1:
" •.. determinat principia quasi materialia
enunciations, scilicet, partes integrales ipsius.... "

ST. THOMAS

AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

81

the question of temporal implication, however, some clarification is in order.
Words may be expressive of time in three ways: those which
signify time as a kind of thing, e. g., "day," "year"; those
which signify some way of measuring time, e. g., "yesterday,"
" tomorrow "; and those which express something which is
measured by time; and so words which express action or
passion, e. g., "walk," "being-carried," belong to this class.
Words which are expressive in the first of the three ways mentioned are nouns; in the second, abverbs; in the third, verbs.
Adverbs, it will be noted, are given no further consideration,
for only the elements requisite for a significant sentence are
under investigation. 17
Because a noun is meant to express a single, incomplex
mental conception, no part of a noun is significant if separated
from the ·whole; it is only in the case of an oratio, which signifies
a complex mental conception, that the parts are themselves
significant. For example, the term " black-eyed-Susan" is not a
sign of blackness or the possession of eyes or of Susan-though
the origin of the term results from the signification of the parts
-rather, it signifies only as a whole and evokes knowledge only
of the single idea which represents the flower in question. On
the other hand, an expression such as " black eye " represents
a complex conception; each part is significant of an element of
the complex conception; the expression is, therefore, an oratio
rather than a noun.ts
While nouns can be either subjects or predicates in a proposition, verbs are restricted to predication. An infinitive, which
may be a subject, as in ambulm·e est moveri, signifies an action
or passion i;n the abstract and, therefore, without any implication of time; it is, accordingly, a noun rather than a verb.
Similarly, a word such as curro taken in its material supposition, that is, as signifying the word itself, is a noun, not
a verb.
Because a verb always indicates a predicate, that is, that
17

Cf. ibid., p.

§ 7.

•• lbid.

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ZITA LAUER

which is said of another as inhering in that other, and because
every predication requires a verb, every verb can be said to
"consignify" the composition by which subject and predicate
are combined, the inherence of the predicate in the subject.
That is, though a verb such as "walks" in "Socrates walks"
formally signifies a certain kind of action which is found in
Socrates, since it also carries the implication that the action is
in Socrates, it can be said to " consignify " the relation of
inherence, or the composition of subject and predicate. Similarly, while the word " is " signifies some act, substantial,
formal, or accidental, it also consignifies the composition of
subject and predicate. 19 It is by reason of the verb's consigni:fication of composition that discourse can be said to be true
or false.

*

*

*

*

*

Hoving considered an enunciation's material principles (nouns
and verbs), St. Thomas proceeds to a treatment of the oratio,
the formal principle. An oratio, like a verb, is a vocal sign; it
is distinguished, however, by the fact that it expresses, not a
simple concept, but a composite idea. Moreover, at least some
part of the oratio must be significant when isolated from the
whole. It is to be noted in this connection that not every part
need be so significant, for negations, and other syncategorematic
words which can be components of omtiones ("
"all men,"" no men," for example) do not of themselves signify
anything absolutely, but only the status of one thing with
respect to another. 20
An oratio, as the words of which it is composed, signifies by
human convention. There are some, however, who have argued
19 Ibid., lect. 5:
"Ideo autem dicit quod hoc verbum EST consignificat compositionem, quia non eam principaliter significat, sed ex consequenti; significat enim
primo illud quod cadit in intellectu per modum actualitatis absolute: nam EST,
simpliciter dictum, significat in actu esse; et ideo significat per modum verbi."
20 Ibid., lect. 6:
" Signanter autem non dicit: Cuius
est significativa aliquid
separata, sed cuius aliquid partium est significativum, propter negationes et alia
syncategoremata, quae secundum se non significant aliquid absolutum, sed solum
habitudinem unius ad alterum."

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

83

that such is not the case, and they have given the following
argument: 21 Any natural power ought to have natural instruments, for nature does not fail to supply that which is necessary
for its operation. Now the power of expressing one's thoughts
is a natural power, and orationes are the natural instruments.
Therefore, orationes have a natural, not a conventional, signification. This argument, however, is fallacious, for the natural
instruments supplied for expressing one's thoughts are the
throat and lungs, by which the voice is formed, and the tongue,
teeth, and lips, by which vowels and consonants are articulated.
Orationes, then, are not the instruments, but rather the effects
of instruments; as such, they are artifacts, not natural things.
Moreover, the power of communicating one's thoughts is a
rational rather than a motive power; it belongs to the intellect,
which moves the corporeal powers to produce vocal sounds.
Consequently, orationes are, if instruments at all, instruments
of the intellect and, therefore, an argument from the nature of
corporeal beings (philosophy of nature) does not apply.
The enunciation, like the oratio, expresses a complex mental
conception; e. g., "good men"; it adds, however, the requirement that the expression be either true or false; e. g., " All
men are good." An enunciation, by definition, is an oratio in
which there is truth or falsity; that is, an expression of a complex concept which either does or does not conform to reality. 22
Besides enunciations there are four other kinds of " perfect "
orationes, that is, orationes which are complete sentences inasmuch as they make perfect sense to the hearer and do not, as
"imperfect" orationes, leave him in intellectual suspense.
These four kinds of sentences, deprecativa, imperativa, interrogativa, and vocativa, are not intended to express what one
knows, but rather to direct and order others in accordance
with one's knowledge. 28 A vocative sentence directs another to
"'Ibid.
•• Ibid., lect. 7.
•• Ibid. For St. Thomas, to direct, to order, to command are acts of the intellect
rather than of the will; therefore, even non-enunciative statements are more truly
instruments of the intellect than of the will.

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give his attention; an interrogative, to respond vocally; an
imperative sentence directs an inferior to perform some action;
a deprecative, a superior. Related to the deprecative sentence,
and reducible to it, is the optative, because with respect to one's
superior one directs actions through the expression Qf one's
desires. Similarly, a sentence which expresses a doubt is reducible to the interrogative sentence. In none of these is there a
question of truth or falsity.
Logic deals only with the enunciative statement; to rhetoric
or poetics belong the other four. 24 The reason for this" division
of labor " lies in the purpose the logician has in mind. Logic is
ordered to demonstrative science, its purpose is to lead men to
consent to the truth, having been convinced by reason alone.
Consequently, it will deal only with those sentences which
signify things as being known truly. The rhetorician and poet,
on the other hand, are interested in obtaining others' assent to
their own desires or intentions, not only through the words
they use, but also by arousing ·various emotions in their hearers.
Inasmuch, however, as any of these sentences can be studied
with respect to their appropriate construction, they are within
the domain of the grammarian.
One further step in the consideration of enunciative statements is necessary as a preliminary to :reasoning: the division of
such statements into those which affirm and those which deny
a predicate of a subject, and the division into those which are
singular, universal, indefinite, and particular. The nature of
affirmative and negative propositions is quite evident; it need
only be mentioned that for St. Thomas the affirmative proposition is prior, for there can be no division except of what is
composed, and the affirmative proposition expresses the re2 • Cf. I Poster., !ect. 1:
"Quandoque vero, non fit complete fides vel opinio, sed
suspicio quaedam, quia non totaliter declinatur ad unam partem contradictionis,
licet magis inclinetur in hanc quam in illam. Et ad hoc ordinatur Rhetorica.
Quandoque vero sola existimatio declinat in aliquam partem contradictionis propter
aliquam repraesentationem, ad modum quo fit homini abominatio alicuius cibi, si
repraesentetur ei sub similitudine alicuius abominabilis. Et ad hoc ordinatur Poetica;
nam poetae est inducere ad aliquod virtuosum per aliquam decentem :repraesentationem .... "

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

85

quisite intellectual composition. The negative proposition
merely adds a negative particle to the affirmative. 25
The remaining division of propositions is somewhat more
complicated. If the concept which is signified by the subject
of a proposition denominates an object by representing the
qualities or attributes that are proper to that object as an
individual, then the proposition is singular. Should the signified
concept denominate an object by representing the qualities or
attributes that object has in common with other objects, then
the proposition is universal, particular, or indefinite. 26 The
universal proposition is one in which the predicate is affirmed
or denied of every object having the nature signified by the
subject; in the particular proposition the predicate is affirmed
or denied of some of the objects signified. Where there is no
word such as " all," or " some " to indicate that the predicate
is affirmed or denied either universally or "particularly," the
proposition is indefinite.
With these distinctions made, it may be said that the constituents of linguistic communication have been enumerated
and a foundation for reasoning provided.
Beyond the material presented from St. Thomas' works on
logic, a few statements can be gleaned from other treatises.
Since these statements are, for the most part, brief, unconnected
parenthetical passages, it seems advisable to present them
according to the work in which they are found.
In his Commentary on the First Book of the Sentences St.
Thomas tells us that words are of three kinds: of the heart, of
the voice, and of the imagination. 27 The imaginative voice. is
necessary because speaking is a motor action (not merely a
reflex) and every motor action is accompanied by some imagination of the action to be performed. Moreover, because the
action is a deliberate action of a rational being, it must be
preceded by intellectual deliberation and judgment, the verbum
•• Ibid., I Periherm., lect. 8.
26 Ibid., lect. 10.
27 I Sent., d. 27, q. 2, a. 1:
" •.. invenitur triplex verbum: scilicet cordis, et
vocis, et quod habet imaginem vocis. . • • "

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cordis, or verbum rei, quia est immediata similitudo ipsius rei.28
This, of course, is quite in keeping with St. Thomas' frequent
designation of the concept as a verbum, a designation which is
the source of theological analogies, one of which forms the
context from which the above statement was abstracted.
In the Commentary on the Fourth Book of the Sentences, a
different threefold division of signs is made: signs are demonstrative if they signify something in the present, rememorative
if they signify what is past, and prognostic if they signify the
future. 29
In the same place it is said that all sensible creatures are
signs of the divine which is invisible. 3 ° Closely related to this
is the fact that every effect can be a sign of its cause. Moreover, because some effects are not sensible, but immaterial, it
follows that not every sign is sensible. 31
In the First Pm·t of the Summa Theologiae St. Thomas says
that words are signs of thoughts and thoughts are similitudes
of things; therefore, it follows that ·words signify things through
the mediacy of an intellectual concept." 2 With respect to words
referring to God, however, some distinctions must be made.
In this life, it is impossible for us to know God in His essence;
rather, we know Him by means of His creatures, as their
cause, but as exceeding them in perfection and as free from
all limitation. For this reason we can give. a name to God,
not, however, as if such a name signified the divine essence as
it is, as "man" expresses the essence of man as it is.33
28

20

Ibid.
IV Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1: " ... triplex est signum; scilicet demonstrativum,

quod est de praesenti; rememorativum, quod est de praeterito; prognosticum, quod
est de futuro."
30 Ibid.:
" ... omnes creaturae sensibiles sunt signa invisibilium divinorum."
81 Ibid., qcla. 2: " ... omnis effectus suae causae signum esse potest.
Sed quidam
effectus sunt spiritua!es, qui nullam speciem ingerunt sensibus, Ergo non omne
signum aliquam speciem sensibus ingerit ... non omne signum est sensibile."
82 Sum·ma Theol., l, q. 13, a. 1, c.
88 Ibid.; " Deus in hac vita non potest
a nobis videri per suam essentiam; sed
cognoscitur a nobis ex creaturis, secundum habitudinem principii, et per modum
excellentiae et remotionis. Sic igitur potest nominari a nobis ex creaturis: non tamen
ita quod nomen significans ipsum, exprimat divinam essentiam secundum quod est,

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

87

The Prima Secundae yields simply a declaration that words
hold the first place among the signs men use in communicating
with one another. 34 The Secunda Secundae, however, is more
fruitful. It is here, in a treatment of vocal prayer, that St.
Thomas shows how words can be used to arouse the thoughts
and desires they express. In answering the question whether
one ought to use words in prayer since anything sensible withholds men from ascending to God, he states that words pertaining to something other than devotion _distract the mind
and impede the devotion of the one who is praying, but words
pertaining to devotion stir up the mind, especially in those
who are not so devout. 35 These words, however, are of no use
in making something known to God, Who already knows all
things, but they serve to lift up to God the mind of the one
who prays or of some other who hears him. 36
There are, in fact, three reasons for using words in prayer:
first, to stir up within oneself the devotion by means of which
the mind is raised to God. The human mind is moved to
thought and, consequently, to affections and desires through
the medium of exterior signs, whether they be vocal or of some
other kind. However, if one's mind is distracted or impeded by
signs, he ought not to use them. Secondly, the use of words in
prayer is a kind of payment of a debt; that is, since man has
received everything from God, the physical as well as the
spiritual, he ought to serve God, not only. by good thoughts,
but also by their physical expression in words. Thirdly, vocal
prayer can be the result of a certain overflow of the soul into
the body due to the vehemence of one's affections. 37
In the same work we are told that there is a difference
sicut hoc nomen homo exprimit sua significatione essentiam hominis secundum quod
est." Cf. also ibid., ad 2.
•• Ibid., I-II, q. 55, a. 4, ad 2. Cf. also III, q. 60, a. 6, ad 2.
35 Ibid., II-II,
q. 88, a. 12, ad 2: " ... verba ad aliud pertinentia distrahunt
mentem, et impediunt devotionem orantis. Sed verba significantia aliquid ad
devotionem pertinens excitant mentes, praecipue minus devotas."
•• Ibid., ·ad 1: " ... vocalis oratio non profertur ad hoc quod aliquid ignotum .
Deo manifestetur: sed ad hoc quod mens orantis vel aliorum excitetur in Deum."
•• Ibid., c.

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between the reason we direct words to other men and the
reason we direct them to God. We direct words toward other
men that we might make known to them the otherwise unknowable thoughts that we have. Similarly, we praise a man
vocally that we might make known either to him or to others
the good opinion we have of him and that, through making it
known, we might incite him to even better actions and induce
the others who hear us to share our opinion and to revere and
imitate the one who is praised. When we direct words to
God, however, we do not intend to make our thoughts known,
but to induce ourselves and our hearers to reverence Him.
Therefore, it is necessary that we praise God verbally, not
indeed for His sake, but that ou.r mvn affections might be
stirred up. 38
In treating the question of lying, St. Thomas says that
one can lie, not only by verbal expressions. which hold the
principal place among signs, but also by intending to signify
something untrue by moving the eyes or the head in a certain
way. 39 Moreover, lying is evil by its very nature, for, as words
are naturally signs of one's thoughts, it is unnatural and unjust
that anyone should verbally signify something which he does
not :really have in his mind. 40
The use of signs is peculiarly human, we are told in this
same question. Every enunciation is an act of reason relating
a sign to something signified, for every :representation consists
in some comparison, and comparison belongs properly to reason.
Therefore, even though brute animals make certain things
known, they do not intend to do so; it is by natural instinct
that they perform some action one of whose consequences is
to make a certain thing manifest.
Finally, in the De Veritate there is a definition of signs:
nothing, properly speaking, can be called a sign unless it is
something by means of which one may attain to the knowlt>dge
of something else in a "discursive" way, that is, not by the
type of knowledge proper to "intelligent"
rather than
38 Ibid., q. 91, a. l, c.
•• Ibid., q. no, a. l, ad 2.

•• Ibid., a. 3, c.

nzbid., a. 1, c.

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

89

"rational" beings. Therefore, signs for us are sensible things;
for our knowledge, which is " discursive," arises from sensibles.
But in a wider sense, a sign can be said to be anything which
is known and by means of which some other thing is known;
according to this usage a concept can be said to be a sign of
a thing whereby the thing is known. 42 It is not required that
the sign be either a cause or that it be an effect, but only
that it be pre-cognized; therefore, an effect may be a sign of
a cause, as the pulse is a sign of one's health, or a cause may
be a sign of an effect, as meteorological conditions are a sign
of impending weather:n

*

*

*

*

*

In view of what has been garnered concerning St. Thomas'
theory of signs, what observations can be made as a result of
comparing it with the semiotic expressed by Dr. Morris in
Signs, Language and Behavior?
What seems at first sight to be the most significant difference
is St. Thomas' " mentalistic " approach as opposed to Dr.
Morris' behavioral approach. For Dr. Morris a sign is a preparatory stimulus 44 which takes the place of a " stimulus
object" 45 in causing a disposition to respond with a certain
type of goal-seeking behavior if other conditions are then
fulfilled. For instance, the sound of a dinner bell is a stimulus
inasmuch as it constitutes a physical energy which acts upon
the ear of the person who hears it. The person, however, does
not respond to the sound or the bell itself with any goal-seeking
behavior, but is disposed by the ringing to respond to the
dinner of which it is a sign. The certain other conditions
would be, for example, that the person be hungry, that he be
free to respond, etc.
•• De Veritate, q. 9, a. 4, ad 4.
'"Ibid., ad 5.
•• Signs, Language and Behavior (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946), p. 8: "A
preparatory stimulus is any stimulus which influences a response to some other
stimulus."
•• Ibid.: " By a stimulus is meant . • . any physical energy which acts upon a
receptor of a living organism; the source of this energy will be called a stimulusobject."

90

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The " disposition to respond," which seems to be the crucial
point of the entire formulation, is not completely clarified, the
absence of such clarification being due to Dr. Morris' opinion
that this constitutes a psychological problem and that semiotic
can quite well proceed without such clarification. However,
the term "interpretant" is introduced to signify this disposition caused by a sign.46 What a sign signifies, however, is
not the disposition to respond, nor even the stimulus-object
for which the sign is a substitute; what is signified (the
significatum) is the complex of qualities or conditions which
a thing or situation must have to permit it to be an object
of the behavior response to which the organism is disposed by
the sign. In the example of the dinner bell, what is signified,
then, is not the dinner, but the complex of qualities which
anything must have to be a dinner.
Whatever has these qualities is a denotatum of the sign, a
possible object of the goal-seeking behavior to which the
organism is disposed. 47
All of this behavioristic approach, Dr. Morris tells us, is
" an attempt to carry out resolutely the insight of Charles Peirce
that a sign gives rise to an interpretant and that an interpretant
is in the last analysis 'a modification of a person's tendencies
toward action.'" 48 It does not follow, however, that persons do
not have feelings and thoughts, that man is merely a complex
which responds to physical stimuli according to iron-clad physical laws. The approach is meant to be a methodological one;
that is, since semiotic is meant to be a science and science is
based on what can be known by observation, what semiotic
must take into account is observable behavior. Moreover," all
' mentalist ' terms may tum out to be incorporable within a
behavioral semiotic." 49 For instance, an "idea" may be the
same as an " interpretant."
•• Ibid., p. 18.
" Dr. Morris proposes that this use of significatum and detnotatum removes any
temptation to posit Platonic ideas or other types of " subsistences " as objecta denoted by the signs. Vide, ibid., p. 19.
' 8 Ibid., p. 28.
•• Ibid., p. 80.

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

91

On the basis of the limited information we have concerning
St. Thomas' opinion on this question, and on the basis of the
Thomistic system in general, it seems that the following points
of similarity to Dr. Morris' theory are evident: A science, for
St. Thomas too, must be based on what is observable; certainly,
the only means we have for knowing whether or not sign behavior takes place in young children, in the mentally incompetent, and in brute animals, is by observing what they do.
Even in the case of normal adults, as Dr. Morris notes, the
reports they give of their self-observations are often unreliable
and must be checked by other means. In fact, the words in
which such persons make their reports are themselves a type
of behavior, and it is only because the words are something
sensible that we are able to observe them, that they are able
to be a sign to us of that person's own sign behavior. 50 However, this does not mean that deductions from observations
may not lead to a conclusion that there is something " mentalistic" about sign behavior. In fact, as has been mentioned,
St. Thomas does not limit signs, in the wider sense, to physical
stimuli; an idea is itself a sign.
St. Thomas would agree that the nature of Dr. Morris'" disposition to respond " is a question belonging to the domain of
psychology (scientific psychology, for St. Thomas, also proceeds by means of intelligent observation); nevertheless, since
there is a type of psychology embodied in the Thomistic system,
a Thomistic theory of signs is bound to be linked with such a
psychology. That is, the nature of the" interpretant" is bound
to be something cognitive; every sign, inasmuch as it is a sign,
directly causes knowledge; it effects in the sign interpreter a
certain sense image or idea. 51 In the case where the interpretant
GO cr: Summa Theol., nr. q. 60, a. 4, ad 1:
"Effectus au tern sensibilis per se
habet quod ducat in cognitionem alterius, quasi primo et per se homini innotescens:
quia omnis nostra cognitio a sensu initium habet. Effectus autem intelligibiles non
habent quod possint ducere in cognitionem alterius nisi inquantum sunt per aliud
manifestati, idest, per aliqua sensibilia. Et inde est quod primo et principaliter
dicuntur signa, quae sensibus offeruntur .... "
61 Cf. ibid., c.:
"Signum autem est per quod aliquis devenit in cognitionem
alterius."

ROSEMARY

ZITA LAUER

is an idea, or concept, there is something analogous to Dr.
Morris' significatum; that is, the content of an idea, or its
ratio, is that nature or complex of qualities which anything
must have to be denoted by the sign which caused the concept.
However, it would seem that for St. Thomas only language
signs could truly be said to denote.
For example, pronunciation of the word " man " produces a
certain physical energy which acts upon the auditory receptor
and, through a complicated process, results in the hearer's forming a concept or idea of man. The original word does not
signify this particular concept had by this particular person,
but rather the content of the concept, rational animality, that
nature which must be found in any being before it can be said
to be a man, before it can be a denotatum of the term " man." 52
To what extent, for St. Thomas, is a concept, which we have
correlated with Dr. Morris' "interpretant," really a disposition
to respond? Strangely enough, the answer to this question
depends upon the answer to the ancient question of the relative
importance of intellect and will. In the face of St. Thomas'
judging the intellect to be superior, it must be said that a
concept is not essentially, or even in its most important aspect,
a disposition to respond; that is, knowledge is not ultimately
for the sake of any action which depends upon the will; rather,
knowledge holds the ultimate place in the series of human goals.
Nevertheless, since all wined actions are what they are by reason
of the knowledge the agent has (though this is not the sole
cause of their specification) , and since any knowledge contains
at least the possibility of influencing behavior, a concept can
be said, in some sense, to be a disposition to respond. 53
52 For St. Thomas, as we have seen, the concept becomes in turn a sign of any
being which has the nature represented by its ratio. That is, the " interpretant"
signifies what Dr. Morris would call the denotata of the original sign, but signifies
them only inasmuch as they have the nature represented by the concept.
•• Cf. Summa Theol., II-II, q. 83, a. 12, c.: "Quia per exteriora signa ...
movetur mens hominis et secundum apprehensionem et per consequens secundum
afjectionem." (Italics added.) Cf. I Poster., lect. 1, p. 138, § 1: "Alia enim animalia quodam naturali instinctu ad snos actus aguntur; homo autem rationis
judicio in suis actionibus dirigitur." For St. Thomas, it must be noted, a sign

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

93

This, however, would not constitute a definition of "concept." Nor is every interpretant a concept. Since it is necessary
only that a sign be a means of attaining to a knowledge of
something other than the sign itself, and since there are two
levels of knowledge, sensuous and intellectual, the sense image,
or " phantasm," may also be an interpretant. In the case of
brute animals, this would necessarily be true of all signs.
With respect to the stipulation Dr. Morris makes that the
response be one of goal-seeking behavior, there is no possibility
that St. Thomas should disagree; it is even metaphysically
impossible in his system that there should be any behavior
which is not ordered to some goal or "end." 54 Moreover, in
the case of human or animal actions, the goal must be represented to the agent by means of some sign. Not only does
every sign dispose to goal-seeking behavior, but all such behavior depends upon signs.
"response " would not necessarily be " any action of a muscle or gland "; it might
well be a non-physical act, an act which would be only indirectly observable by
someone other than the agent. While it is true that the judgment of the practical
intellect is the immediate " disposition to respond," this judgment is dependent in
part upon speculative knowledge. General ethical principles are speculative, and yet
we do expect different responses from those who know certain ethical principles than
we expect from those who are ignorant of the same speculative principles. Of course,
the practical judgment intervenes, and our expectations may not be realized. The
practical judgment might be considered as one of those " additional conditions "
under which the response in question takes place. Cf. Morris, op. cit., p. 9.: "A
disposition to respond to something in a certain way is a state of an organism at a
given time which is such that under certain additional conditions the response in
question takes place. These additional conditions may be very complex. An animal
disposed to go to a certain place to obtain food may not go there even if food is
observed-he may not be willing or able to swim across an intervening water barrier.
. . . The complex of conditions also includes other states of the organism."
•• While Dr. Morris has set out to develop a semiotic which will be equally
acceptable to materialists and " mentalists," it is quite evident that his own materialistic philosophy moves him to conceive of behavior as alawys transient and of
goals as always extrinsic to the agent. For St. Thomas, on the other hand, immanent "behavior " is a fact, and the goal of such "behavior " is intrinsic. But that
there must be some goal or end for both transient and immanent acts is beyond
dispute: "Agens autem non movet nisi ex intentione finis. Si enim agens non esset
determinatum ad aliquem effectum, non magis ageret hoc quam illud; ad hoc ergo
quod determinatum effectum producat necesse est quod determinetur ad aliquid
certum, quod habet rationam finis." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 1, a. 2, c.

94

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In short, St. Thomas and
Morris seem to agree almost
perfectly in their description of what happens in sign behavior;
their disagreement centers about the interpretant. But even
here St. Thomas would not, it seems, say Dr. Morris' formulation " of a set of conditions sufficient for something to be a
sign" 55 is incorrect; he would, however, say it is not a definition.
Dr. Morris, on the other hand, has not proposed his formulation
as a definition, but only as a more or less tentative way of
delineating some " material object" for semiotic.
Both St. Thomas and Dr. Morris appear to give to language
signs a primary place; Dr. Morris, however, while giving special
consideration to " language," develops his semiotic in such a
fashion as never to exclude non-language signs. Therefore, in
the following discussion relative to Dr. Morris' "modes of
signifying," it must be kept in mind that what is said of St.
Thomas' theory is restricted to language signs; what is said of
Dr. Morris' is not so restricted.
Dr. Morris chooses to classify signs "in terms of differences
in tendencies to response." 56 Again, this is a behavioristic
approach. In the relation of an organism to its environment
there are three factors to be taken into consideration: " the
nature of the environment in which the organism operates, the
import or relevance of this enviroment for the needs of the
organism, and the ways in which the organism must act upon
the environment in order to satisfy its needs." 57 A particular
type of sign signifies each of these facets of the environment:
a " designative " sign signifies the nature of the environment;
an " appraisive," the relevance of the environment for the needs
of the organism; and a " prescriptive " sign, the ways in which
the organism must act upon the environment to satisfy its
needs. A forth type of sign, the "formative," disposes an
organism " to modify in determinate ways the dispositions to
response occasioned by other signs .... " 58
None of these signs, however, is useful to an organism in
isolation from the rest. For instance, the word " hat " pro56
56

Signs, Language and Behavior, p. 10.
Morris, op. cit., p.

Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 158.

57

S'f. THOMAS

AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

95

nounced by itself, though it signifies, will not ordinarily be a useful sign; that is, it is not sufficient to direct behavior. But if the
word should be accompanied by pointing, then what is designated by " hat " (" hat "is a " designator ") is signified as being
in a certain region of the environment, and the interpreter is
so disposed that his behavior can be directed toward it as a
goal-object. This complex of signs, the word "hat" plus the
gesture of pointing, composes an " ascriptor," in this case a
"designative ascriptor." Should this ascriptor be made more
complex with the addition of an appraisive sign, e. g.," becoming hat," and should the interpreter be disposed primarily to
preferential behavior thereby, the ascriptor becomes an appraisive one. A prescriptive ascriptor would be exemplified in
the command or suggestion, " Buy that hat." A fourth type of
ascriptor is the " formative," e. g., " Hats are either becoming
or not becoming," where what is signified principally is alternativeness or the exclusion of a third possibility. These four
types of ascriptors, then, form the basic signs which are useful
to an organism. "The notion of ascriptor." Dr. Morris tells us,
" corresponds roughly to the term ' sentence.' " 59

*

*

*

*

*

There are, in this analysis, many similarities to the Thomistic
analysis of language signs. First of all, as has been noted above,
nouns and verbs, which are the material of orationes, do not,
if used in isolation, signify in such a way as to satisfy the
interpreter; the basic sign which is useful is the "perfect"
oratio, that complex sign which may express a fact, make a
request, issue a command, or ask a question. The " perfect "
oratio of St. Thomas seems to correspond to a great extent
to Dr. Morris' "ascriptor." However, where Dr. Morris distinguishes his ascriptors according to whether they dispose the
organism with respect to the nature of the environment, its
relevance for the needs of the organism, or the response requirements of the environment, St. Thomas divides his perfect
·orationes according to their usages. A perfect oratio which is
59

Ibid., p. 73.

96

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ZITA LAUER

particularly suited to convey information, or is such that its
primary and normal usage is to give knowledge, is an enunciative statement, whether it conveys information about the
location of things in the environment, about their usefulness to
anyone, or about the actions that must be performed to fulfil
some need or desire, or about anything whatsoever.
It is true, however, that orationes are made up at least in
part of terms which are peculiarly "identificative"
(those
signifying accidents of time and place), terms which are peculiarly designative (nouns), terms which are peculiarly appraisive (those closely connected with the will or emotions, e. g.,
" good," " pleasurable ") , terms which are peculiarly prescriptive (verbs in the imperative mood), and those which are
peculiarly formative (syncategorematic terms) . Nevertheless,
since St. Thomas approaches the problem already equipped
with an Aristotelian division of terms according to the ten
categories, there was no reason for his laying down some other
criteria for classification. Moreover, a disposition to respond
to one's environment is only a consequent of a sign, and not
part of its nature. Therefore, a distinction based on such dispositions would be an unscientific, in Aristotle's sense of the
term, distinction.
There is in Dr. Morris' treatment of signs something analogous to St. Thomas' division of perfect orationes; that is, Dr.
Morris distinguishes four primary usages of signs: « Signs . . .
may be used to inform the organism about something, to aid
it in its preferential selection of objects, to incite responsesequences of some behavior family, and to organize signproduced behavior (interpretants) into a determinate whole." 60
These distinctions resemble the usages which St. Thomas
enumerates: an enunciative statement is one of such a nature
that its immediate usage is to give information; the other types
of sentences are of such a nature that they are especially suited
for directing and ordering others, but always, of course, by
making something known, by signifying something to another.
A vocative sentence is useful in acquiring another's attention;
"0

Ibid., p. 95.

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

97

an interrogative, to direct another to respond verbally; an
imperative, to move another to act in a certain way. These
types of sentences, St. Thomas says, are within the domain of
the rhetorician or poet, for they are especially suited to their
intentions of inciting others to certain opinions, likes and dislikes, and to certain ways of acting. They belong, in Dr.
Morris' terminology, to a form of discourse other than
scientific. 61
Dr. Morris lists certain subdivisions or specializations of his
primary usages of signs, some of which are quite similar to those
enumerated by St. Thomas. For instance, Dr. Morris says that
one may use a sign" to call out submission in some one else"; 62
for St. Thomas the imperative sentence implies that the interis an inferior; its use would then call out submission in
another; Dr. Morris mentions the use of signs "to incite a
particular response in ,oneself'); we have seen already how St.
Thomas defends the use of vocal prayer as a means of inciting
oneself and others to devotion. Finally, the use of interrogative
orationes is paralleled by Dr. Morris' statement that one may
use a sign " to get a reply to a question which bothers him."
On the very interesting question of the truth of a sign, Dr.
Morris requires for the truth of a sign that it denote. 63 For St.
Thomas, particular signs which are complex concepts are true
when they correspond to reality, which seems to be very much
like saying they are true when they denote. Statements are
true, as opposed to mendacious, when they correspond to the
concept of the one making the statement; which is very much
like saying they are true when they denote such a concept.
Statements have "logical" truth when they correspond to
reality; which is again much like saying they are true when
they denote.
For St. Thomas, of course, only enunciative statements
signify in such a way that they can be said to he true or false;
it makes no difference whether such statements would be
61

Cf. ibid., Chapter V.

•• Ibid., p. 95.

•• Ibid., p. 197.

98

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ZITA LAUER

classed as designative, appraisive, prescriptive, or formative in
Dr. Morris' terminology. While the other types of perfect
orationes cannot be said to be true or false, they could, with
the enunciation, be said to be " adequate or inadequate," as
Dr. Morris uses the terms; that is, they can be successful or
unsuccessful in accomplishing the sign-producer's purpose of
convincing an interpreter or directing his behavior. 64
Again, however, the effectiveness of a sign is only accidental
to it, not something essential; as such, it could not constitute
for St. Thomas a scientific criterion for distinction, nor could
it even enter into a scientific, in the Aristotelian sense, treatment of signs. Nevertheless, whatever scientific knowledge one
might attain about the nature of signs is attainable only
through logical deductions based on principles resulting from
such intelligent observation.
There is still one point of agreement between St. Thomas
and Dr. Morris to be brought out, a point on which Dr. Morris
will perhaps find very little agreement in current philosophical
circles. He states that " semiotic," which includes logic, becomes in its expanded form the essential organon of philosophy." 65 Because for St. Thomas the elements of logic are
the simple and complex concepts expressed by terms and propositions, and because such concepts, terms, and propositions
are signs, a study of signs is prior in some respect to logic.
There is, however, a difficulty connected with this analysis:
even a science of semiotic would have to employ logic, and so
logic would be prior to semiotic, or at least to that pa:rt of
semiotic which is not identical with logic.
Despite all the remarkable similarities discovered between
St. Thomas' analysis of signs and that of Dr. Morris, there is,
of course, no possibility of denying the fundamental philosophical differences of the two men, differences which make
necessary a frequent mutatis 'mutandis procedure in reconciling
the two analyses. However, St. Thomas was not himself averse
to employing such a procedure in order to extract from other
""Ibid., pp. 97-106.

65

Ibid., p.

ST. THOMAS AND MODERN SEMIOTIC

99

philosophical systems whatever could be usefully incorporated
into his own. It is with the hope that modem Thomists may
find in Dr. Morris' semiotic a source of useful adaptations that
this article is presented, and also with the hope that it may
contribute to some degree of mutual understanding between
Thomistic and non- Thomistic schools of thought.
RosEMARY
Rosary College

River Forest, Ill.

ZITA LAuER

SYMBOLISM AND CAUSALITY

T

HE rational organization of the world has always involved the notion of causalily in some form or another.
}'or the simple observation and collection of detached
events would be meaningless and useless without the operation
of some principle of order. As the most significant and powerful
instrument of order, causality is usually defined as that which
produces something different from itself. Without discussing
here the existence, meaning, types, operation or the value of
causality, it suffices to acknowledge that this notion is generally
accepted by common sense as well as by reflexive thinking,
and that it has played a leading role in the natural sciences
from the time of the Greeks to the classical period of modern
science. The question to be treated here is whether causality is
still relevant in science and more particularly in physical
theories.
As physics was mainly qualitative in earlier times, the causal
language already accepted by common sense was convenient
and adequate for natural science as welL In this sense, Aristotle
and later St. Thomas 1 maintained that the physicist must use
all the causes and especially the final cause in explaining
nature. Insofar as rnobile being is the proper object of physics,
the fact that it is a specification of being as such makes it
capable of treatment by metaphysical categories as well. That
is why the modern scientific thinkers, from Descartes and
Newton to Laplace and Herz, remained faithful to the causal
language, although their philosophies differed from the Aristotelian tradition"
During the modern period, however, the quantitative aspect
of physics emerged from the experiments of Galileo with an
expanding success, and it lent itself more freely to a symbolic
instead of to a verbal expression. At the same time, the subtle
1

St. Thomas, I Physic., lect. 1, and I Metaphys., lect. I (513b) and lect.

100

(5l8b).

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analysis of the conditions and limits of knowledge, as well as
of the strict and sufficient requirements of experimentation and
generalization, led some philosophers to discard the notion of
causality as a real and necessary principle. For Hume, a cause
as such is never observable or perceivable; consequently, it has
no objective existence. Causality thus shrinks into a mere habit
and can be replaced more conveniently and effectively by
linguistic or mathematical structures displaying the constant
and necessary connections which prove sufficient to science.
There is something uncanny about the finality with which
Hume's analysis and conclusions have been accepted by
scientists. But if one disagrees with his rudimentary epistemology, which confuses impressions and ideas, then his
comments on causality do not make sense any more. The mind
can certainly see or intuit the constant and necessary connections between given sets_ of objects or events. It also
names and uses such connections in analyzing and systematizing
knowledge. But it cannot be responsible for all the events
themselves, for their actual contacts, for their results, and for
their constant recurrence. For if it were, there could be no
decisive distinction between objective changes and dreams or
subjective constructions. And if it is not, then nothing can
explain how the mind recognizes recurrences, how it interprets
its perceptions, and why there is such a close parallelism
between external events and our mental construction of them.
Furthermore, it is unnecessary to observe a thing in order to
assert its existence: atoms, electrons and protons are considered
as objective without ever being observed as objects. Likewise,
if some events are observable by external inspection or reflexive
introspection, yet the details of their becoming or their continuity are never completely observable: yet, we accept these
notions as a whole, as they help to assume or assert constant
and necessary connections between events or objects. For there
are no absolutely independent occurrences in the world, and no
absolute discontinuity between any phenomena.
Because of these intimate binding connections between
events, scientific words are relatively static. And they have to

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be in this world of flux, in order to fix meanings and uses in
statements concerning the present and the future. In short,
they are universals; and as such they should not be identified
with the things in particular, but with the things in action
which is another way of saying with their meaning. The notion
of opemt;ion and the notion of value are involved in this remark.
The first is largely physical, insofar as it deals with the circumstances, conditions, modes, manner and behavior of a thing
in action. The second is strictly philosophical, for it refers to
the specific or general importance of a thing in action situated
in the comprehensive field of the whole creation. With the use
of the notion of operation only, knowledge is simply practical.
But with the twin use of operation and value, knowledge
becomes complete.
The question now is whether causality, which is prominent
in ordinary language (level I) and in an axiological language
(level HI) is also necessary in an operational language (level
H) which covers the needs of a physical system. To this
question, modern thinkers answer in the negative generallyo
The wealth of scientific knowledge gathered from the Renaissance to the present day led some of the finest minds of that
long period to devote their labors and thoughts to the operational aspect of the study of nature. Scientific discoveries and
physical theories were organized through a succession of operations involving: (1) the planned arrangement of a set of
objects in given circumstances, (2) the occurrence of certain
contacts between natural events and technical objects, (3) the
observation of resulting events and circumstances different from
the original ones, (4) the recognition of likenesses in repeated
similar operations, allowing for proper generalization and prediction, (5) the expression of these observations and relationships by means of symbols properly integrated in a mathematical language.
As long as mathematical structures with solutions usually
monovalent could account for the restricted data which formed
the material of classical physics, the circumstances and contacts
contributing to the production of results were considered as the

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causes of these results. But with the complex expansion of
our technical observations and experiments, new mathematical
structures involving approximations or plurivalent solutions
had to be used. The apparent uncertainty introduced into the
exposition and interpretation of scientific theories gradually
displaced the causal language formerly current: for it seems
that causality is less immediate or observable in the equations
of Relativity and Quantum Physics.
The thorough integration of modern physics into its system
of expression thus accounts for the tendency to consider science
as a copy of the external world, and even for the rival theory
that the external world is actually organized by the activism
involved in scientific progress. But as no room was found for
the traditional notion of causality in the organization and
practical interpretation of the latest physical theories, the causal
language was neglected or formally abandoned. Whether a
physical system is a copy of the external world or the producer
or organizer of our experience, it was thought unscientific in
both cases to introduce into it any ingredients, such as causal
elements, which seem to be neither observable, nor verifiable,
nor indispensable in the production and the expression or presentation of that particular physical theory. And once causality
was formally eliminated from the realm of natural knowledge,
many thinkers found it proper and urgent to eliminate it as
well for the higher realm of interpretation, of value, of metaphysics, of philosophy as a whole.
Our burden now is to show that causality is unavoidably
relevant in physics; and that it is materially implied in a
physical theory, even if it not formally involved in its language
:md symbolism. Such a discussion would then strengthen our
conclusion that the causal language reappears in the interpretation of physical situations, methods, results and systems; and
consequently, that causality always keeps its place in philosophy proper. The argument may be developed through the
analysis of the use of symbolism in physics.

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THOMAS GREENWOOD

Three types of symbols are involved in the organization and
presentation of a physical theory:
(1) the abbreviative
symbols which stand for physical concepts such as energy,
acceleration, time or mass; (2) the quantitative symbols which
represent mathematical values such as positions or numbers;
(3) the operational symbols which indicate types of relations,
such as functions, equations or variations, as well as calculating
processes, such as addition, summation or integration.
Symbols are usually assigned to basic facts and relations:
they substitute for whole series of actions performed or expected
to be performed by given physical objects and leading to
measurement. The choice and the economy of a symbol are
influenced by the physical circumstances of the experiment in
view and the features of the system into which it is integrated.
Symbols are usually assigned to objects and actions in general,
and rarely to individual instances. But as it is impossible to
meet or to establish absolutely identical conditions in organizing
a type-experiment, the symbolism of approximation and
probability is now used to cover the slightest differences or
variations expected.
The methodical steps to be followed in harnessing an experiment with a mathematical structure are these: (1) devise
carefully the objects and circumstances of the experiment and
give values to them by calculation; (2) note carefully the
subsidiary conditions of the experiment, such as time, positions,
temperature, proximate bodies, and so on; (3) assign proper
symbols to basic objects and relations, binding them in an
equation which may be taken as the working hypothesis of the
experiment; (4) from this equation deduce another :representing the momentary rate of change of the variables investigated;
(5) integrate this equation to reproduce the working hypothesis
in a mathematical form suitable for calculation and verification.
It is this function which :represents a physical law, insofar as
it describes in action the general relations of the elements
involved and allows the prediction of similar events. The simplicity of its expression, which is an additional criterion of its
effectiveness and correctness, screens the complex conditions

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of its actual operation as shown by the lengthy calculations
involved in the process of its solution.
These circumstances are illustrated by any mathematical
expression of a physical law in classical or in modern physics.
No causal language is used in setting or in manipulating such
mathematical expressions, for the simple reason that the major
intention of the physicist is to discover and to state the quantitative relations of the basic elements represented in the expression: he is not concerned as such with the explanation of
the phenomena involved. Yet causality is involved in the
relations between the phenomena symbolized: for the factual
symbolism which represents them and their quantitative relations is itself conditioned by these relations which have to
be explained eventually outside of the symbolic language. In
other words, symbolism never determines any phenomena, but
only certain mathematical expressions which may or may not
correspond to expected phenomena. The occurrence of any
phenomenon is conditioned by other phenomena; and the factual relation between them is eminently causal and not mathematical. For it is only something concrete like matter or
energy, which can produce a concrete phenomenon: symbolism
belongs to a different level of existence and has no power as
such to produce anything in the concrete or phenomenal realm.
The name of cause is precisely given to what which produces
something different from itself in the same level of existence,
and that is why the reading of a coherent sequence of mathematical expressions does not require the causal language, which
is indispensable in explaining the actual succession of natural
phenomena.
The operation of causality in a mathematical system appears
in the concomitant variations of two sets of phenomena under
investigation. The variation of the first set cannot be due to
an arbitrary mathematical change, but to the deliberate activity
of the physicist who interferes by concrete means with the
original circumstances of a phenomenon or experiment. This
motivated interference is expressed by a change in the original
expression of the given relations of the elements of the phe-

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THOMAS GREENWOOD

nomenon or experiment. Strictly mathematical operations
indicate afterwards a corresponding variation in the second set
under investigation. But this mathematical variation has to
be tested by concrete means in order to find out whether the
extra-mathematical manipulation of the original circumstances
is justified or not. It follows that the variation of the second
set of phenomena is caused by the variation of the first set:
it is neither determined nor caused by the variations of their
symbolic expressions, which are expressions of certain modalities of concrete events and not the events themselves. The
constant correspondence of the variations in the related mathematical expressions merely represent an intimate and objective
quantitative relation between the set of phenomena under investigation.
Causality appears in another way in a physical theory,
namely, in the ordinary language used to state its original
assumptions and to link up eventually certain steps in the
succession of its mathematical development. If symbolism
alone could explain by itself the happenings in a physical
system, no words of any kind would have to be used in expressing the behavior and relations of the elements involved.
But this is impossible: because symbols stand for something
which 6:rives them meaning and power, for they have none by
themselves. The mathematical relations between the things
which stand behind the symbols are only one aspect of the
manifold properties of these things: as their symbolic expression
is conditioned by these things as a whole, it .stands to reason
that ordinary language has to be used in order to introduce and
interpret the symbols. Now, ordinary language covers more
qualitative relations than symbols can ever do: it is that additional intension which involves causality, which allows both
the factual contacts and the necessary connections between
phenomena, and which imputes meaning and operational power
to the symbols chosen or used in a physical theory.
To be sure, a system of mathematical physics is something
more than points, measurements, number, operators and symbols. It requires the silent presence of the phenomena (and

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substances) which give meaning to the whole symbolism and
which allow both the translation of its final mathematical
expressions into ordinary (or scientific) language, and the
utilization of these expressions with their meanings for the
higher interpretation of the whole systems in terms of ultimate
categories and principles. For lack of a better word suitable to
an idealistic attitude of mind, Eddington calls that " something
more" beyond the symbolism the "stuff-out-there," an expression which pegs the whole symbolism of a physical theory
to the realities he has to acknowledge but does not need in
the development of its mathematical expression. With this
summary dismissal of the ontological elements of the external
world the field seems clear for a mathematical organization of
the universe, where the mind reigns supreme and strains itself
to do the work which is factually done by the objects it proudly
tries to eliminate. But in this ethereal realm of almost pure
ideas, should not one say that the mind causes the mathemathical fastened on the pointers, measurements, numbers,
operators and symbols in general used in the physical theory
they illustrate? The fact is that whenever we cogitate outside
the technical field of the mathematical structues of a physical
system, the language of causality reappears in one form or
another. So that causality is required both in the final shaping
of a physical theory and in its ultimate interpretation in terms
of values and general principles.
The construction of physical theory involves a number of
steps where symbols play a part subordinate to ordinary (or
scientific) language. Such is the case in (I) the generalization
from single experiments to a physical law expressed in words
or symbols;
the framing of an hypothesis; (3) the precise
definition of the basic concepts involved; (4) the organization
of a theory, where groups of laws connecting fundamental
(•oncepts are related by a combination of words and mathematical expressions; (5) the verification of the actual relation
between a law and the relevant theory; (6) the determination
of the proper criteria for the success of the physical theory;
(7) the choice of the mathematical structures most efficient

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THOMAS GREENWOOD

in representing and developing the characters and objectives
of the given theory; (8) the linguistic expression of the
qualitative relations (or laws) involved in a general theory,
and (9) the connection of the qualitative laws with the mathematical expressions of the theory proper. The subordination of
symbolism to language in all these processes points to the open
or hidden operation of causality in the phenomenal world
which a physical theory endeavors to harness, to describe, to
utilize and to investigate for further developments.
As regards the ultimate interpretation of a physical theory,
the mental operations involved in this process cannot be described fundamentally by symbols alone, whether mathematical
or logical. :For the interest of this activity does not reside
in the formalism of the operations, but in their content proper
which is phenomenal or ontological even though it may be
expressed partly or even principally by means of symbols.
The conditions usually required for such an interpretation are
the precise knowledge of the elements, assumptions, methods
and conclusions of the various physical theories; and the mental
analysis of the procedures and successive phases of a theory
with regard to its coherence, conclusiveness and relevancy"
The interpretation proper of the theory as a whole, in terms
of knowledge and reality in their objective and universal aspect,
involves such questions as the following: the nature and
operation of the basic concepts of Space, Time, Motion and
the like; the individuality and interdependence of phenomena;
the abstract and actual relationship between the continuous
and the discrete; determinism and arbitrariness in the processes
of nature; the rational and empirical elements of mathematics;
discursive, demonstrative and intuitive activity in relation to
the construction of a physical theory; real unity and internal
finality of such a system; perfectibility of a construction
through changing models, with the correlative principle of
reaching truth by successive approximations; the relation between knowledge and reality; whether and why nature (or the
stuff-out-there) offers any :resistance to our mental structures
and physical hypotheses; how and why expectations based on

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probabilistic structure ,may lead to legitimate predictions; the
reason for the obvious distinction between the phenomena of
physics and those of biology and sociology, as well as the
details of their specific activity and the eventual formalization
of their processes; whether the conditions of the actual process
of discovery involve a combination of experience, theory, intuition, reason and chance; and the value of science in general.
All these problems entail more strictly the subordination of
to language, than does the construction of a physical
theory which already involves such a subordination. Yet, if
the ultimate interpretation of a natural system goes beyond
the level of its construction, there is no abyss or irrelevance
between the span of its construction and the field of its interpretation. As a significant and useful part of knowledge, science
integrates itself naturally into the specific interests of philosophy; for it constitutes a justification of both its prolegomena
and the basis of its higher-level conclusions.
This brings us back to our original question: whether
causality is necessary in the· operational language convering
the needs of a physical system, as it is in the ordinary language
of everyday experience and in the axiological language of philosophy. The development of our discussion leads us to assert
emphatically that the factual continuity underlying these three
levels of mental activity (ordinary, scientific and philosophical)
carries the necessity of causality into the intimate pattern and
web of a physical theory. For the causal relation is a constituent element of the realm of existence in and through al!
its levels.

*

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*

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*

lllustrations of ou.r general conclusion about the necessary
presence of causality in a physical theory may be taken from
classical, statistical and modern physics. The monovalent
solutions of classical physics may be interpreted easily in terms
of causal relations. As an example from statistical physics, we
may interpret Dirac's formula:

S-1 (x, y, z, En, k, m) S (x, y, z, En, k, m) dxdydz.

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THOMAS GREENWOOD

This matrix expression indicates the probability that an
electron with an energy E will be found in a volume dxdydz
at the point with x, y, z as coordinates and at a given instant.
The small quantitative differences involved in this probability
expression, in fact or by indirection, do not result from an
arbitrary decision of the mathematician or from the inescapable
implications of its mathematical structure. This matrix pictures
mathematically a situation which is caused concretely by sets
of events which can be expected to produce a certain result
concerning the electron under consideration. The behavior of
that particular electron is an occurrence which must have a
cause, even if its operation cannot be calculated with accuracy.
The ptobability expression indicates the difficulty of obtaining
a strict numerical value for the position of the electron, and
not the non-existence of a cause to the factual behavior of that
electron.
Similarly, the scatter of an indefinite set of electrons may be
described collectively though not individually: but if it is not
possible to determine accurately the path or position of an
individual electron of that set, it does not follow that they do
not occur and that their occurrence is not conditioned necessarily by the factual operation of other events. The causal
language can be formally introduced in statistical physics, if
complete situations could be observed and expressed in their
factual details. At present, it is not practical to do so, because
science can observe only restricted occurrences and sequences
of events, rather than complete situations.
As a last example from modern physics, we propose to
analyze the so-called Uncertainty Relations of Heisenberg,
where it seems more difficult to detect the operation of causality. In order to place them in their mathematical and
physical background, we might be permitted to restate some
technical preliminaries.
As it is well-known, a magnitude represented by one number
in classical mechanics may be represented either by one number
or usually by a matrix in Quantum physics. When the matrix
is not diagonal (with the elements in the diagonal row alike) ,

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it is impossible to calculate the precise values of the given
magnitude, which is then specified by approximation only. If
the original matrix can be changed into a diagonal one by
means of an orthogonal transformation, the diagonal elements
of the new matrix give the precise values of the magnitude
under consideration. The importance of diagonal matrices in
physics may be stressed by the following analogy: the physical
representation of a non-diagonal matrix resembles the blurred
image given by an improperly focussed binocular; while the
diagonal matrix corresponds to the perfectly clear image given
by a binocular properly focussed and adjusted to the eyes and
to the object investigated. The orthogonal transformation then
corresponds to the operation of adjusting the binocular until
it gives a clear picture.
Let us now take the two matrices Q and P having (ql, q2,
q3 .. . qn) and (pi, p2, p3 ... pn) as diagonal terms respectively, when these matrices are made diagonal. If Q and P are
commutative, they can be made diagonal simultaneously by an
appropriate rotation of the axes; with this done, the values of
the elements q and p of the matrices may be obtained at the
same time. But if Q and P arc non-commutative, only one at a
time can be transformed into a diagonal matrix: in this case,
if Q is made diagonal, its elements q will have precise values,
while the values of the elements p will remain uncertain. The
possibility of obtaining the precise values of two physical
magnitudes simultaneously depends then on the commutativity
of their matrices. Nevertheless, the possible values of the
elements of one matrix may be determined by probabilities
when the precise values of the elements of the other matrix are
known. Thus by applying the orthogonal transformation S to
the matrices Q and P with S (qm, pn) as the terms of this
transformation matrix, we obtain

s-l (qm, pn) s (qm, pn)
as the probability that the physical magnitude Q will have the
value qm when the magnitude P will have the value pn and
reciprocally.

THOMAS GREENWOOD

These developments may be applied to a material point in
motion having the coordinates (ql, q2, q3) and (pl, p2, p3)
for its position and its moment respectively. These six
values cannot be determined precisely and simultaneously, on
the strength of our previous remarks. To simplify the issue,
let us take a system with a degree of freedom allowing only
one coordinate q and p for the given position and moment
respectively. The general term of the transformation matrix S
which changes the matrices Q and P into diagonals is given
by the following equation involving h, the Planck's constant:

S (q, p) = (l/V h) e2wi/k(q,p).
This expression allows the determination of the probability for
the value of p the moment when q is the value of the position.
It turns out in symbols that

s-l (q, p) s (q, p) may be 1/h.
As the value 1 j h is constant, the moment can take any
value when the position is known, and reciprocally. But if the
position is not known exactly and if t..q is the probable error of
its determination, the value of the moment p is not totally
indefinite. In fact, calculation shows that taking t..p as the
probable error in determining the moment, the two errors are
connected by the expression
(A)

Ji"'urthermore, the probable error affecting the calculation of
the time and the energy of a system is tied down by the
equation

(B)
These expressions (A) and (B) are the Uncertainty
of Heisenberg which have been the subject of some extravagant metaphysical speculations. But their significance becomes clear and proper when interpreted in terms of causality.
Obviously Heisenberg's expressions result from the practical
relations between an observer and the thing observed at the

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microscopic level. The reciprocal action of these two terms is
negligible in classical physics, where the experimental and probability methods available reduce conveniently the margin of
error in the calculation of this interaction. But in micmphysics.
the effect of the two terms on one another produces enormous
and often uncontrollable changes in the observed system. To be
sure, the use of light and optical instruments affect the behavior
of an electron; for the inevitable clash of a proton with an
electron -produces a mechanical effect which changes somehow
the direction and the timing of both, as Compton has shown.
It seems impossible then for an observer to determine exactly
and simultaneously the behavior of these two observables. The
precision of the measurement of one of them entails a proportional error in the measurement of the other. But the factual
difficulty does not justify the assertion made by idealists and
·pragmatists that indeterminism characterizes what they call
nature, and that causality becomes a fiction as a consequence.
The fallacy of non-sequitur usually characterizes their arguments. Thus Eddington declares that the impossibility of
determining simultaneously the position and the moment of
a moving particle proves that these two observables are not
associated in nature; and that since the physical world does not
manifest or require any causal relations, science should :remove
its opposition to free-wilL But if science has no means actually
of discovering the precise causal relation between two observablcs associ:tted factually in experience, it does not follow
that causality as such does not operate in nature.
The principle of causality asserts in general that every event
has a sufficient cause, and conversely, that there is no effect
without a cause. The practical impossibility of discovering all
the causal relations in a system does not entail the theoretical
or real impossibility of such a discovery. In this respect,
Quantum physics as well as any other physical theory uses
physical causality continually: it predicts future events by
utilizing similar circumstances in the occurrence of similar
events; it retraces the causal relations which produce an unpredictable event after its occurrence; and it justifies the practi.:
8

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cal impossibility of certain calculations and the subsequent
unpredictability of certain events by means of the causal
relations binding together the observer, the event and the circumstances of their mutual reactions.
The probability expressions used by Quantum physics should
not be taken as an indication of the primacy of chance and
indeterminacy in the operations of nature. For indeed a mathematical probability is expressed by a quotient which entails a
determinate value: but the alternatives involved in the representation of this value do not fonn an infinite class corresponding to the acknowledgment of pure chance, which would be the
negation of all science. These alternatives are reduced always
to a limited set, in keeping with the regular operations of
nature, by means of restrictive principles involving causality,
such as the conservation of energy, the equality of action and
reaction, and the steady value of Planck's constant which
corresponds somehow to some hidden causation in the operations of nature. This remark has its parallel in the logical
fonn which may be given to a probability expression. While
classical physics expresses its statements in categorical fonn
usually, Quantum physics favors more the disjunctive form.
The classical assertion " A is necessarily followed by B " becomes the Quantum statement " A is necessarily followed by
B or C." Both expressions involve causality; for in order to
deny a causal relation by means of a disjunctive, we should
have" A is not necessarily followed by B but indeed by C, D,
E or F and so on indefinitely." But no physical law could be
expressed in this way, for such an indefinite disjunctive covers
only individual cases produced by blind chance. The restriction
of the formal alternatives symbolizes the restriction of the
physical alternatives indicating what we may call the causal
resistance of the operations of nature.
It is true that probability expressions and disjunctive forms
seem to weaken the full impact of a causal operation; but they
neither eliminate it nor do they try to dispense with it: causality
affects in fact the correct alternative, even if we cannot always
put our finger on it, and somehow diffuses its shadow on the

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others in order to bind them in the proper probability forms
and expressions. In the same way, the very limits imposed
on the Uncertainty Relations by Planck's constant and by the
intimate connection between the pair of variables eliminate
the freedom of the mind in their expression and even the
random choice of mathematical forms for their expression,
and point to some hidden necessity in their formulation. In
this line of thought, one may ask whether the relative weakening of the classical interpretation of physical causality though
the new discoveries of science and the probability structures
used for their expression points to a universal physical causality which might be caught one day by more subtle experiments and by more adequate mathematical forms. A similar
view was expressed by Planck himself when he attempted to
integrate the new physics in the wider field of human knowledge as a whole.
This legitimate question mark summarizes the teleological
and justifies in a way the successive phases exhibited by physical knowledge in their development. The organization of our
physical knowledge thus begins with substance-signs coordinated
largely by causal relations expressed by symbols eventually.
As these relations are investigated with greater precision and
detail, a more flexible symbolism is invented to weave and
hold together the new facts and the new connections discovered. At this stage, the substance-signs gradually disappear
in favor of the operational symbols integrated into an effective
mathematical structure: here, the earnest physicist becomes
interested in the permanence and invariance of the relations
between the symbols and in their effective mathematical expression, rather than in the individual substances or phenomena
and in their causal relations. But as the operational symbols
are constructions of the mind, new and more general sets of
symbols are constructed and investigated to cover new experiments and new facts involving that same invariance and permanence, if the previous mathematical structure prove inadequate to the task. The success of these efforts, which
technicians apply to practical needs, has wrongly increased

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the momentum of the arguments against the operation and
existence of causality in the realm of science and nature.
Assuredly the burden and the enjoyment of the physicist at
this level of expert activity coincide with the actual and technical processes of the construction, the expression and the verification of a theory, regardless of its epistemological prolegomena,
its ontological implications and its axiological conclusions. Insofar as present-day physics does not aeal with the causal
relations between substances, the weight of symbolism exceeds
by far the weight of causality in a modern physical theory.
For this reason, the expert investigator neglects causality altogether and turns exclusively and formally to the coherence and
unity of his mathematical . structures, which express and
generalize the invariant or permanent relations between natural
phenomena, when asked for an explanation or an interpretation
of his results. Even causal laws are expressed as theorems in
these mathematical structures; and in due course the general
invariant relations expressed· symbolically are considered as
natural laws grouped together systematically in a physical
theory. But though physics as such need not be interested in
the philosophy which underlies and which crowns the interpre.tation as well as the construction of a physical theory, this
legitimate indifference does not eliminate the facts, the categories, the principles and the values of that philosophy which
has also a legitimate and a necessary place in the pyramid of
knowledge.
The real question with which modern physics faces us now
is not whether or not causality actually operates in the physical
world, but how to express in a satisfactory manner for the
modern mind the proper relations between physics and philosophy. A sound solution of this question would show the
fundamental and teleological compatibility of the attitude of
Aristotle and St. Thomas, for whom the physicist uses all the
causes in order to understand the substances he investigates,
and the practical attitude of the modern physicist whose more
modest objective is to discover and describe the behavior of the
secondary qualities as well as the primary qualities of the

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physical world, without having to lean on ontological investigations and statements, even though they are prerequisites of
his explorations and results .
.For in the long run, both the Aristotelian philosopher and the
mathematical physicist will agree that we are not completely
free to organize our knowledge of the natural world: the frame
of science is conditioned by objective data which resist arbitrary
manipulations and which shatter any narrow or improper
mathematical structures imposed on them. Here we have the
basic explanation of the periodical development of physical
theories. To be sure, the human mind is unable by its very
essence to penetrate the intimate nature of matter, which is
intimately related to the external world, to the succession of
phenomena, to our sensations and perceptions, and even to our
thinking generally. As principle of individuation, matter has
no idea we could grasp: 2 it becomes intelligible to us by
conjunction with a form which changes it into an essence. Thus
informed, matter can become the other in the process of knowledge; but it realizes this aptitude in sensu diviso by ceasing to
be itself. Our mind can therefore grasp an embodiment and a
succession of forms, and it is capable of connecting them systematically and of expressing their relations in particular or in
general statements; but it is unable to exhaust all the forms,
as it is finite and it moves in time. Here again, we can see
why no physical theory will ever be able to account for the
totality of actual and possible phenomena or to pronounce the
last word on the nature of the external world.
On the other hand, o;ur means of knowledge are essentially
imperfect: our senses, our reason, our intuition often mislead
us. Organized science is a blurred image of pure intellection:
for the proper mode of human knowledge is not in aliquo as
with the angels, but ex aliquo in a discursive manner. 8 It is
true that reasoning unifies after distinguishing; but this process
of reducing multiple elements to an abstract principle characterizes the inferiority of reason. A series of judgments form• De Veritate, q. 8, a. 5.
• Ibid., q. 8, a. 15, and I Poster., lect. 82 and 85.

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THOMAS

GREENWOOD

ing a well-ordered chain would never cover adequately the
fundamental unity of nature. F'urthermore, discursive thought
progresses by substitution of equivalents, although there are
no real equivalents in nature. If our knowledge of the external
world has thus the weakness of discursive thought, yet it shares
in its triumphs with each discovery and each successful systematization of our expanding acquisitions .
.1\iodern physics approximates and expresses the operations
of nature by means of complex symbolic constructions. But its
symbolism is neither arbitrary nor exclusively subjective. lls
power and its objectivity have their foundation in the operation
of the causes which bind the mind with the external world.
Thus from the highest reaches of reflexive thinking where it is
formally accepted, causality drenches the external world and
gives to the whole field of physics its factual significance, its
practical value, and its justification for true progress.
THOMAS

St. Joseph's College,
Collegeville, Indiana

GREENWOOD

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
JAMEs V.
Ph. D., is chairman of the Liberal Arts Program at
I\1anhattan College, New York City, and a frequent contributor to
THE THOMIST.
Sxs.TER M. ANNICE, C. S.C., M.A., Ph. D., is professor of philosophy and
head of the department of philosophy at St. Mary's College, Notre
Dame, Indiana.
MELVIN A. GLUTZ, C. P., Ph. Laur., teaches philosophy at St. Gabriel
Passionist Monastery, Des .Moines, Iowa. He completed his studies
for the doctorate at the Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy, Dominican
House of Studies, River Forest, Ill.
RosEMARY ZrTA LAUER, M.A., is assistant professor, department
losophy, Rosary College, River Forest, Ill.

of phi-

THOMAS GREENWOOD, l'h. D., is professor of philosophy at the University
of Montreal.
JosEPH B. McALLISTER, Ph. D., author of the work Ethics, is an Associate
professor of philosophy in The Catholic University of America.
KEVIN WALL, 0. P., S. T. Lr., S. T. L., is professor of dogmatic theology
at the College of St. Albert the Great, Oakland, Calif.
WILUAM M. HART, Ph. D., a graduate of the Collegio Angelicum in Rome,
is professor of philosophy at the St. Bernard Seminary, Rochester,
N.Y.
GREGORY STEVENS, 0. S. B., S. T. D., a frequent contributor to THE
THOMIST, is a professor of theology at St. Anselm's Priory,
Washington, D. C.

119

BOOK REVIEWS
Royce on the Human Self. By J. HARRY CoTTON. Cambridge:
University Press, 1954. Pp. 359 with index. $5.00.

Harvard

There is a challenge hard to resist in a philosophy which claims that
our present ideas have a meaning that is infinite. And that challenge
becomes more insistent when the same philosophy further teaches that we
human ,selves are in truth finite fragments constitutive of an infinite
absolute self. Such is the philosophy of Josiah Royce who during his
thirty-four years at Harvard University developed and taught a unique
system of absolute idealism. This is the philosophy which J. Harry
Cotton presents with admirable clarity in Royce on the Human Self. The
human self is a point of departure for the author, an approach to the
whole organized system of thought seen in Royce's writings. It is a wellchosen point of approach for two reasons: Royce himself, particularly in
later years, was deeply interested in the problem of the individual self
in relation to the whole world, the absolute, which he called the Self of
many selves. His inclination to practical social and religious applications
of his doctrine revealed the very
need of a clear and certain teaching on the nature ahd value of the human self. For reasons of criticism,
too, this initial concentration on the self has an advantage, for it is in
his attempt to save the finite self from being absorbed in the unity of
the Absolute that Royce comes face to face with the most radical difficulty
against his system as a whole.
The search for the precise significance of the self is not an easy one.
Royce, rejecting previous speculation on the matter, sees a key to the
problem in an empirical examination and appraisal of the present moment
of consciousness: What is given here and now? The self is not a pure
datum; it is not to be found as known in my experience in the same way
that other things are known. Nevertheless, it is (in some obscure way
known as the thinker of the present moment. Following this line of
investigation, Royce continues his analysis of present cognition. In the
present thought itself, he says, there is evidenced a will or purpose which
reaches out, as it were, to embrace all the concrete experience that is
signified or meant by this idea. (E. g., the idea of counting is partially
satisfied with the limited series of numbers now experienced, but the will
of the idea reaches beyond to all countable numbers.) The limitation of
our present consciousness is but the failure of the present idea to attain
to a perfect fulfilment of its will, which is to say that the present ideal
purpose is only partially embodied by the data of my actual experience.

120

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121

This imperfect fulfilment or embodiment of the idea's purpose is called the
internal meaning of the idea. Now there is joined to the present partially
fulfilled ideal volition a " ... certain peculiar feeling of interest," and t;his
constitutes, for Royce, the finite human self. We have here, of course,
only an initial characterization which needs development. And the first
direction of development which Cotton explains in his work regards the
time element always associated with the individual self. If the self is so
constrained to the present moment, what account can be made of the
consciousness of the past and future? Royce appeals once more to the
double aspect of our ideas: the purpose and the fulfilment. There is more
of meaning than of knowledge in our ideas, more purpose than fulfilment.
Beyond the present experience the ideal volition reaches out in external
meaning to all that is not now present-to the acknowledgment of the
past and anticipation of the future. In this temporal extension the self
is seen in further definition as the constructor of both the past and
future. Royce once wrote that the present moment is
builder of both
branches of the conceived time stream. The present datum, then, has the
nature of a sign whose interpretation is a kind of active mental interference in which the human self is seen to postulate both past and- future
dimensions.
Further definition of the self comes to us through social communication.
Self-consciousness results from a whole complexus of elements, but primarily
it comes from the vital contact that the self experiences in human relations.
It is by talking with and knowing my fellow-man, by knowing what his
thoughts are, by communicating with him and comparing ideas that I
become most self-conscious. Through such social relations and intercommunications, too, the self is put into contact with the physical world of
nature-the common property of all the distinct regions of peculiar interest
and communication, the common property of all selves.
Royce now formulates a complete idealistic ontology by enlarging on
what is perhaps the most characteristic note of his doctrine: thought is
activity. There is no pure speculation; thought is practical; it is volitive.
Deeds are called brilliantly clear expressions of longing. Even now that
extent of will which is unfulfilled for me, which is beyond my self, which is
beyond my " world of appreciation," projects into my consciousness something of another world, the " world of description." This is a transcendent
world of fulfilment and experience which the finite idea-self means but
cannot know. This meaning, empty of experience, is signified in me by
symbols of mental constructs just as past and future were constructed. But
what is an unexperienced "world of description" for me is, nonetheless, a
" world of appreciation " and internal experiential meaning beyond me.
Hence Royce's notion of Being: " What is, or what is real, is as such the
complete embodiment, in individual form and in final fulfilment, of the
internal meaning of finite ideas." Reality, the Absolute-what is later

the

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BOOK REVIEWS

termed the Community-is the determinate summation of all internal
meanings. The whole of reality is the community of all finite selves, the
infinite Self of many selves. The infinite purpose of our finite ideas when
considered as infinitely embodied in experience is the Absolute plenum
which we mean in full but know only in part. And this Absolute is at once
a community, divine and personal.
.From an analysis-his own peculiar analysis, to be sure--of the moments
of volitive cognition Royce comes to his understanding of what a human
self is and at the same time finds a basis for his ontology. Unfortunately,
however, very serious difficulties arise: How can the infinite be "constituted " by the summation of finite internal meanings, finite selves?
What is it that constrains attention in us and so limits our thought to
finite fulfilment? And conversely, what systematic reason can Royce give
to explain why the Absolute-the larger Self-does not indeed swallow the
finite self and destroy its individuality and freedom? It is the ancient
problem of the one and many, of monism wanting to be pluralism and vice
versa. Royce saw the problem as one to be solved in a study of logical
theory and the mathematical analogy of the infinite self-representative
series. In this direction he sought to show how an infinite multitude of
finite selves could be at once presented as constitutive of the Absolute and
still maintain their selfhood. Against Braciley, Royce defended the totumsimul presentation or completion of an infinite series of finite selves each
of which stood apart as more than mere appearance and as resisting " transmutation " in the Absolute. But to face a problem is not to solve it, and
this writer adopts the criticism of George Santayana to the effect that
though Royce liked to give to his system the name of absolute idealism,
he constantly strove to fuse with this idealism the radically incompatible
element of social realism.
There is often in Royce's social writings a very appealing evidence of
zeal for peace and the welfare of all. Salvation, peace, full self-realization
can come only through the virtue of loyalty exercised in the absolute
community. Loyalty is all-embracive, " ... free and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a persoa to a cause." By loyalty I exercise my freedom
that I am at once myself and part .of a larger Self.
in the
When loyalty reigns, all finite persons freely unite with one another to
constitute, the whole wherein each individual lives more intensely in his
devotion to the. Community. But whatever the charm of expression or
sincerity of intention in these writings, one cannot escape the inner
conflict between the absorption of the individual selves which seems the
inevitable consequence of his theory and the permanence and freedom of
individuals which is dictated by his own practical interests.
Royce's treatment of the Christian Church has been justly criticised.
His notion of Christianity was based on a very inadequate study of a few
chapters of the New Testament, principally Saint Paul. Furthermore, it

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123

does seem that he uses the Church only insofar as he can see in it an
illustration of his doctrine. Though Cotton thinks this a less well justified
criticism, it remains true that once the Church has been translated into
Roycean terms, it is more a Roycean church than a Christian Church,
especially in view of the fact that the philosopher quite frankly decides that
the Church is better understood if consideration of its Founder is omitted.
To this we agree if one has in mind the forced and false imposition on
history of a preconceived Roycean religious society. But if one is genuinely
interested in the Church of Christ, one must study the entire historical
record without prejudice. In Royce there was prejudice in favor of his
system, a prejudice which prohibited him from any valid and real recognition of society as history and common experience show it to be. Again
some words of Santayana come to mind telling us that when Royce was
speaking one had the impression that he could have answered any
question asked of him-if he had not a system to defend.
The idealism of Josiah Royce is receiving more and more attentive study
as the years go on. J. Harry Cotton's work is without doubt a most valuable
contribution to that study. It is a clear exposition of Roycean doctrine
enhanced by frequent and apt citations from the philosopher's writings,
some being taken from unpublished manuscripts. In the preface the author
expresses the hope that his critical remarks will not obstruct the course of
the argument. They do not. Rather, we were disappointed that there was
not more discussion of a critical nature. If there is a revival today of
Royce's thinking in the practical problems of society and religion, we
should attend to the metaphysics which is the support and foundation of
that thinking. In any philosophy the value of applications is, of course,
measured by the validity of underlying principles. The validity of Royce's
principles must even now be vigorously examined, tested, judged. There
are serious questions of metaphysics which Royce has not answered; there
are grave objections which he has not satisfied. Until all difficulties of
principle are faced and satisfactorily solved, the practical teachings and
consequent applications of Roycean theory are formally unacceptable. Mr.
Cotton's primary objective, however, was exposition rather than criticism
and in this he has been highly successful. The work treats all the main
features of Royce's thought. The presentation is well planned and vivid in
expression, the work of a competent scholar. The book is well deserving
of the following recommendation given it by Professor William Ernest
Hocking: " To deal with Royce's doctrine systematically requires courage
as well as competence: Professor Cotton has both. Royce's views on the
human self involve his whole corpus of thought, as this work at once
recognizes: it thus becomes the first full-length study of Royce's philosophy
in English."
WILLIAM M. HART
St. Bernard's Seminary

Rochester, N. Y.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Dialectique de L'Agir. By ANDRE MARc, S. J. Lyons: E. Vitte, 1954. Pp.
588 wih index. Fr.
Those who are acquainted with the other works of Fr. Marc will welcome
this third volume of the series which began with Psychologie Reflexive, and
Dialectique de L' Affirmation. The present volume treats of the moral life,
and follows the study of man and his activity, and the examination of
epistemology and metaphysics contained in the other volumes. The conclusion of the series is to appear under the title: L'Etre et L'Esprit. This
work on ethics deserves careful study and serious thought from all who are
sincerely interested in the problems of human life and moral behavior. The
author has brought to his task, as to the preceding ones, a vast and penetrating knowledge of not only Scholastic thought but also that of other
philosophies, of Kant and Hegel, and above all of French philosophy, both
" classical " and modem. He has devoted to this series almost thirty years
of study and reflection.
The author's analytical powers are displayed in the dialectic carried on
between these different systems on all points of major philosophic interest.
While some may -feel that this process is unconvincing and lacks scientific
precision, it does have real advantages. The Thomistic position appears
in a much more telling light by virtue of the contrast of opinions; its
truth can be much more clearly seen and more profoundly appreciated by
making its merit stand out in this way. The richness and "virtuality"
of Thomistic doctrine, much of which is lost to those unaware of other
systems, is shown in a new light. Not the least virtue of this method is
that the reader, who is used to the cavalier treatment meted out to nonscholastics in most history of philosophy courses in Catholic schools and
in many manuals will be pleased to see that such serious thinkers as Kant,
Fichte, Hegel, Bergson, Le Senne, Hamelin and others are treated as such;
and not as misguided, immature dabblers in the world of thought. This
last point alone is sufficient to recommend the reading of Marc to the
student of scholastic philosophy, for it will help him to realize the need
of intelligent, not to say courteous, consideration for other philosophers,
and will show the advantages for the causes of scl:jolasticism and truth
which are to be gained by a knowledge of these philosophers. Perhaps one
of the reasons for the lack of influence of scholastic thought on nonCatholic circles is due precisely to the scholastics' lack of knowledge of other
systems and an inability to present their position in terms and in a
manner acceptable to and understandable by the modern thinkers.
The synthetic presentations of ThomistiC' teaching with which ·Marc
concludes his various " conversations " with other philosophers are generally
very well done, and stress the fundamental principles and their rich mean··
ing in a way which few modern Thomists can equal. Marc himself
not
quite the equal of Pere Sertillanges, but there are times when he succeeds

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125

as well. The arrangement and style of the volume are such as not to allow
any full, detailed discussion of each point that some may expect, but what
is gained is a firmer, more coherent insight into principles. The mere
fact of treating philosophical questions as problems to be settled, and of
working towards their solution in the dialectical process gives this volume
a great advantage over the normal manual presentation of the scholastic
position-a presentation often so trite, self-assured and unquestioning as
to stimulate little interest in philosophic thought.
Marc situates ethics in its proper order, as the study of human behavior
which follows upon investigation of the intellect and will, and the con-·
struction of a metaphysics. Thus, in harmony with the Thomistic tradition,
ethics is rooted in metaphysics and psychology; however, he does not
·:mention the technical point of the traditional subalternation of ethics to
rational psychology. It may be well to attempt a statement of the author's
general inspiration in his philosophic work. The study of philosophy centers
upon the relations of spirit and being. Starting with an analysis of
language as a sign, the author passed on to consider the structure of mental
activity, and of the working of the will,
in his first volume,
with a discussion of the soul itself. The orientation of these human activities and of the soul itself to reality-the intentional character of spirit, its
relation to being is uppermost in the author's view. This study led to a
discussion of metaphysics, the notion of being, and of the great theses of
that science: the transcendentals, the division and categories of being.
In all of this, the mutual relationship and " continuity " of mind and
reality is the principle of unity. The objection that Marc considers man
qnly as a spirit, and neglects the substantial unity of body and soul, he
liimself answers quite adequately. (p. 57) The treatment of ethics begins,
in this framework, with a discussion of the nature of this science, and above
all an analysis of the act of the will and its intentional character.
The author considers the possible objection of the theologian that a
rational, strictly philosophical examination of human activity is condemned
at the outset to serious incompleteness by the exclusion .of the supernatural-as man's destiny and as present by grace. Marc states; however,
that the rational investigation of human acts is a necessary part of human
intellectual life and study, and insists upon the fact that this philosophical
study does not positively exclude the supernatural, but rather demonstrates the openness of human life and activity to the Creator, so that the
·ethical problem devient precisement de determiner ce que cela engage par
rapport a ce qui l'egale et a ce qqli le depasse. (p. 9) The philosopher
establishes the nature and orientation of human activity, and shows its'
potentialities, deficiencies and aspirations. Indeed, ethics is a fundamental
study, providing a solid basis for theological developments, while it, itself,
is truly scientific and adequate, for it does attain truth, both speculative
and' practical. The object, then, of moral philosophy is to establish an

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BOOK REVIEWS

order in truly human actions; it deals with the being of action, of that
which man is to create, of which he is to an extent the measure, and points
out what is to be done, setting up norms directive of the free act.
Even a summary of the development of thought in this work would far
exceed our present limits. The point of importance is to realize the value
of Marc's method. Too often, he says, the scholastic takes his fundamental
notions "ready-made ": ils acceptent les notions morales, toutes constituees, sans nous donner d'assister a leur naissance. . . . (p. 39) The
need of arriving at and clarifying the meaning of these basic notions is not
only stressed by the author, but is, to a noteworthy degree, satisfied by
his work. No matter how much one may disagree with some particular
points, the outstanding value of this work is precisely to share with the
reader a process of thought, the research and dialectic of a philosopher,
at home in the world of ideas and reality.
The general movement of this dialectic of action begins with the analysis
of the intentional character and finality of the human act. To establish
this, the author interrogates and discusses this basic question first of all
with Kant, whose reduction of finality to the merely empirical level, made
him establish the moral life on the maxims of the pure practical reason,
and exclude the teleological approach entirely. Finality, however, is not
really reducible to the sensible alone, and rather than deduce it and
freedom from the maxim of duty in the " good will," finality is seen as the
very form of our action, from an analysis of the intentional character of
the human act. The character of deliberation of the free act is " discussed "
with Nietzsche and Gide who would prefer purely spontaneous, unexamined
action, and hold as an ideal: Agir sans juger si l'action est bonne ou
mauvaise. (p. 59) In their effort, however, to suppress action for a consciolWlly-sought goal, these thinkers implicitly retain the primacy of
finality, since they themselves act for an end in the very attempt to do
away with it. From this beginning, the dialectic proceeds upward to the
discovery of an ultimate end. This analysis is based on the contrast
between the infinity of desire and the "narrowness" of choice. Choice
ceases to be " intolerable " when it is seen as aimed at the fullness of
being and goodness. The unity of the final end is the conclusion of a long
argumentation. The problem of the One and the Many is solved in a
final way here, on the plane of action: Il retrouve, et cette fois pour les
resoudre definitivement, tant en theorie que dans la pratique, les antinomies
fondamentales due multiple et de l'un, du fini et l'infini . ...
The nature of beatitude is seen in the dialectic between hedonism,
eudemonism, and Kantian deontology. 1\farc proceeds to a discussion of
the proof for God's existence from the existence of this natural tendency
to a final goal, and then examines the question of the natural desire to
see God. It will be sufficient here to state that, in the main, he accepts
the positions established by P. Roland-Gosselin, 0. P., and by P. Motte,

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BOOK REVIEWS

0. P., on these two questions. The author shows especially how the
philosophical analysis of these problems leads to the threshold of theology
and revelation: Le Dieu d,u philosophe et de la raison presage celui du
chretien et du theologien (p. 9!63) , and should reveal the proper attitude
of man as one of expectant submission. (p. 275) The sense and direction
of human life and destiny lies here.
The second part of the volume is given over to the nature of morality
and of obligation. The examination of finality and freedom lead to a
consideration of their rational character, and this character introduces the
notion of morality, of the place of right reason and the source of the
distinction between the morally right and eviL From the necessity to
act, to judge and to decide, springs moral obligation and from the necessity
of action, one sees that to act freely and rationally is itself a necessity of
action, of human action, since: cet agir intentionnel et rationnel s'avere
laquelle nous
necessarire, puisqu'il se fonde sur une impulsion spontanee
ne pouvons nous smtstraire qu'en y reco-urant toujours, il s'est impose
comme obligatoire . . . . (p. 522) Just as God, seen as the term of human
desire and action concluded the discussion of finality, so now He is seen
here as the source of obligation, as the source of an impulsion toward
Himself. For though moral obligation can be established without a
previous demonstration of God's existence and authority, the fact of moral
obligation does lead to God, as to its only source and full explanation.
The synthesis of all these principles is finally found in the moral conscience, the fully-developed practical reason, directing not only the acquisition of virtue, but pointing out to the natural man the real goal of human
destiny. The volume ends with this discussion of the moral conscience,
its structure and operation, and of the virtues and their individual natures,
and functions.
Far better than a mere cataloging of different opinions on the fundamental
problems of human activity, the method of Fr. Marc is not only intellectually stimulating, but practically valuable. If " the current confusion
in contemporary ethical theories is tragically costly " (T. E. Hill, Contemporary Ethical Theories, New York, 1950, p. 2), this volume of
analysis and synthesis should contribute not only to the clear vision of
the nature and meaning of moral problems, but to their solution-both
theoretical and practical. The reading of this volume should stimulate
other Thomistic moral philosophers to complete the work begun so
auspiciously.
GREGORY STEVENS, 0. s. B.
St. Anselm's Priory

a

Washington, D. C.

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De L'Existence a L'Etre: La Philosophie de Gabriel Marcel. By RoGER
TROISFONTAINEs, S. J. Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1953. Vol. I, pp. 416.
Vol. II, pp.
The purpose of this searching work, as the author implies, is not to
present the thought of Gabriel Marcel, the famous French'-Catholic existentialist, in logical guise. Such an exposition, if it were to be attempted,
would be foreign to the spirit of Marcel's thought, for it would necessitate
meticulous tracing out of the rational connections between meditations
which, for the most part, have grown out of contingent circumstances and
concrete experiences. The resultant rational tissue would be unrecognizable
as the thought of MarceL
Consistent with his refusal to render the thought of the famous philosopher logically consistent the author rejects any tendency to systematize,
for the same factors which dissuade him from dialectical clarifications
likewise persuade hiJ:n not to attempt a systematization. The thought of
Marcel does not easily fit into the organic form of classic philosophies.
Rather the author intends simply to synthesize the doctrine, which
does not of necessity imply rationalization or systematization but only a
"putting together." (vol. I, p.
In doing this, he affords the reader
the advantage of, a comprehensive view of the thought of Marcel which
springs from many years of experience and intimate living with the
profound personal problems yf our times.
No one can question the need for some form of synthesis of the work
of this thinker in order that the body of professional philosophers, whose
lies in other fields, may thereby form an intelligent opinion
personal
of his thought. One has but to peruse briefly the list of his various writings,
given in the appendix to the second volume, to be convinced 'of this. They
are nearly innumerable, scattered throughout diverse publications, and
taking every form from the philosophical essay to literary and dramatic
criticism. As such, therefore, they are inaccessible to the average reader,
and certainly the interested philosophical public owes the author of these
two volumes a debt of gratitude for the obvious labor which went into
gathering ,this dispersed thought into one manageable work.
Of
the immediate reaction which some readers might feel toward
such a woj-k would be not so much gratitude as scepticism based upon their
knowledge of the character of Marcel's thought. It would seem impossible
to condense his meditations because of their non-systematic nature, arising
as they do in varied circumstances and being closely connected with
fleeting concrete events. And communication of the thought would seem,
to such readers, to be precluded by its highly personal content. For both
of these reasons some readers might feel that the efforts of the author were
doomed to failure from the beginning, since the synthesis would . simply
result in cutting away and would destroy the possibility of communicating

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129

the spirit of this philosophy. Perhaps the scepticism will be somewhat
allayed by the expressed approval which Marcel gives the work in his
preface to the first volume, where he states his satisfaction with the
results of
Troisfontaines' labors, affirming that he would have
wished to write the work himself if various personal circumstances had
not dissuaded him. The content of the doctrine itself bolsters this generous
support.
The doctrine of Gabriel Marcel, though it takes its point of departure
in concrete experience, as does the doctrine of all the existentialists, does
not exclude, by reason of the singularity and personal content of the
experience, synthetic compilation. Quite the contrary, for it unfolds a
spiritual process evolving from the singular point of departure which
follows a universal pattern, and it can be synthesized in terms of this
pattern. (vol. I, p. 44) This the author does by exposing the process and
exemplifying it in the most striking meditations of the philosopher. He
excludes thereby a vast amount of specific detail but he does not fail to
communicate the brain and heart of the body of Marcel's teaching.
A basis of synthesis and communication is found not only in the universality of the spiritual process, manifested consistently in the writings
of Marcel from the first beginnings ?f his philosophical thought, but also
to some degree in the personal point of departure insofar as this contains
regions of experience common to Marcel and his readers. The author
investigates these points of contact, turning the attention of the reader to
them, and in that way achieves a vivid communication of the philosopher's
teachings. (vol. I, p. 49!) Because of his signal success in accomplishing his
purpose he well merits the enthusiastic approval of Marcel himself.
The spiritual process, which renders the synthesis possible, involves three
stages. In its first stage it is the simple fact of involvement in a situation,
the circumstance of existing which is thrust upon a person through birth
into the world. He does not choose this situation nor does his liberty in
any way constitute its ontological basis.
In its second stage of development the spirit reflects upon the primitive
situation in the world and thereby introduces division where there was
simplicity. It opposes ego to non-ego; it distinguishes, and thus compares
and classifies. Because of the division so created the spirit in this second
stage loses contact with the simple datum of the original involvementwith existence-and attains rather a constructed content partly at least of
its own fabrication. It therefore, in a sense, destroys existence, the deepest
ontological truth of its being. It is not surprising that having suffered this
loss the spirit should feel dissatisfied with the second stage of its growth
and seek to go beyond it, to recover the simplicity of the point of departure.
H it manages to achieve its desire the spirit enters the third and final stage.
The third stage of spiritual evolution transcends the division of the
second and thereby regains, in some sense, the simplicity and the existence
9

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of the first. It does this " in some sense " because obviously having passed
through the second stage it can never again be exactly the same but must
always show the signs of its passage. This final stage, in the terminology
of Marcel, is the participation in being, by which term he distinguishes the
third stage from the simple fact of existence of the first and from the
division operated upon being in the second.
According to the author there are two ways of achieving passage out
of the second stage. One way is through aesthetic intuition of transcendent
values; and the other is through spiritual aversion for whatever tends to
lock the mind into the prison of the second stage. The aesthetic mode of
escape, especially in the drama and in music, is manifested by the author
in his discussion of Marcel as an individual and as a productive thinker.
He indicates, in discussing the personality of the philosopher, that this
mode of approach to reality is part of :Marcel's nature and a beloved means
for him not only to assimilate the experience of others but also to communicate his own. In particular, the author shows, Marcel considers the
drama chiefly as a vehicle for assisting another to transcend the limitations
of the second stage of spiritual growth. This is the sense of Marcel both in
his criticisms of other playwrights and in his own creative work. He gauges
the value of the drama from its success in communicating that participation
in being which has already been achieved by the creator.
The major portion of the work deals with the achievement of the
participation of being by means or spiritual aversion for indequate insights
into reality. This subject is introduced in the first chapter of the first
volume where an analysis is made of the technocratic view of reality with
the purpose of causing the reader to feel a revulsion for it.
The phenomenological study of the technical mentality, with which the
author chooses to commence his treatment of Marcel's highly personal
thought, introduces the reader with considerable clarity to the sense of
movement of this philosophy. Because of its clarity this study has definite
advantages as a point of departure for communicating Marcel's thought,
though it is not to be taken as the factual or doctrinal point of departure
for the personal development of Marcel himself. As an exercise in phenomenological analysis it does not commit itself to an epistemology of
reality but simply studies a conceptual content. It does not therefore
critically evaluate the mind of the technician nor explain it empirically
or philosophically, but simply exposes its intentional structure in order
to evoke the experience of nausea and ennui-J.\;Iarcel's personal reaction
toward it-and thereby carry the mind beyond to that which transcends the
technological. In doing this it reveals the technological mentality as a type
of first reflection upon the situation of man in the world which is, of itself,
a block to further progress and which must be regurgitated by the spirit
in order to be transcended. The nausea and ennui, deeply personal experiences, which effectuate this are precious for the one who suffers them.

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According to the technological mentality, which reflects upon the individual's situation in the world, not only is the world capable of being
treated by techniques but it is adequately defined in terms of them. That
is to say, it not only thinks that techniques can be validly employed upon
nature-manipulating it for definite goals and purposes-but that nature
is nothing more than that which is submissive to technology. It considers
anything which, by supposition, would lie beyond techniques as simply
not real. Such an attitude, jarring when presented so baldly, is nevertheless
common although perhaps many times only unconscious. It reveals itself,
for example, in the individual who so determines the course of his actions
as to manifest in them the expectation of finding an answer to the most
profound problems of life in the advance of technical and scientific proficiency.
It is the sense of Marcel's writings that such an attitude toward one's
situation in the world can,
critical conditions, result in spiritual
nausea, while mental regurgitation serves as a medium for transcending
the limits of this inadequate approach to the world. He locates the critical
condition for this reaction in the contemplation of the impotency of
techniques in certain realms of one's situation in the world. When this
fact is faced the contemplator senses the futility of his future totally
committed to powerless instruments, and then nausea and ennui overwhelm him.
There are two realms of the situation in the world which, for the
intelligent contemplative, clearly escape technique: the achievement of
human happiness and the control of death. There is no technique for
happiness nor is there a technique for thwarting death. A certain breadth
and sensitivity of spirit are required to perceive that this is so, for a dull
mind may very well conceive that the advance in science will satisfy
completely the deepest human desires. But the penetrating spirit wiH
recognize the truth and feel the pervading dissatisfaction which it causes
in the soul. And yet the pain which such dissatisfaction occasions is well
worth it to him, since it will confer upon him a true participation in being.
The nausea arising in these conditions teaches the mind that what it
has tried to assimilate is an indigestible content, just as bodily nausea
teaches the a...•imal what must not be eaten. Spiritual aversion reveals
to the soul that it cannot entertain any ideas whatsoever, which for some
reason appeal to it, but rather that there is a determined and natural
food which it must have and which alone satisfies' its longings.
The nausea which arises in the mind attempting to commit itself totally
to the technical mentality shows that such a giving of self is contrary to
the good of the spirit. When this revulsion factually fails to occur it is
because the necessary conditions for it are not realized and the spirit
absorbs the poisonous doctrine without sensing any harm. In minimal
doses it takes in the toxic substance and gradually succumbs to the resultant

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creeping paralysis. But if it consumes the critical dosage revulsion follows
and reveals the truth. The spirit then understands that there is another
food of contrary quality which it must eat and in understanding this, in
the ter'minology of Marcel, it attains participation in being-the essence of
spiritual reality.
Therefore both nausea and despair, which arise in the soul dedicated to
technique but aware of its limitations, reveal to us the three stages of
spiritual development: I) a situation in the world; 2) reflection upon
this situation conceiving it as nothing more than the technically realizable
and through the nausea and despair which this reflection occasions being
projected into: 3) the participation in being. Nausea, which springs up
in appetite through the perception that the technical mentality does not
explain all of reality-not death, for example-reveals that there is a
reality beyond that which is intelligible in terms of scieritism. Despair,
which bears upon the frustration of the possibly achievable-as occurs
in a hopeless endeavor, for example, medically to control
that there is a reality beyond that which is achievable by techniques.
In short, nausea and despair have a knowledge value insofar as they
discover for us the three stages of spiritual development. They reveal the
spirit to us, in the first stage, as in the world; in the second, a reflecting
upon the world and thereby introducing division and opposition, which are
overcome by its passage into the third stage of participation in being, where
it attains the true essence of spiritual reality. This is the theme of the
philosophy of Marcel and the multitude of his writings manifests the infinite
possibilities of variations upon it.
The technical mentality, which is the object of nausea in the author's
first exemplification of the thought of Marcel, is not, of course, the only
source of revulsion nor even the most important. It is merely the easiest
to understand for the average reader approaching this doctrine for the
first time. The most profound object of spiritual aversion, as the author
now proceeds to show, is a false philosophy.
According to Gabriel Marcel the essential defect of a false philosophy,
and that by which we detect it, is that it closes the mind in upon itself
in the second stage of spiritual growth, thereby making advance to the third
stage impossible. For example, the false philosophy of Positivism has the
defect of blocking spiritual progress because it claims to comprehend reality
empirically-that is, in
of comparison, measure and classificationand therefore does not allow the mind to pruis''beyond the second stage
where such conceptions are indigenous. It renders participation in being
impossible and by this defect we recognize its falseness.
The philosophy of Rationalism also, which pretends to deduce the world
from fundamental principles, closes the mind in upon· itself in the second
stage. It does not answer the problem of contingency nor of liberty, both
of which lie outside of rational necessity, but rather it blinds the mind to

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the fact that these exist and are not soluble,in its terms, so that ·relative to
its methods they present a beyondness and a mystery.
The true philosophy, in contradistinction to these false doctrines, of its
very natUre facilitates the passage of the spirit into the final stage of
participation in being. Taking its point of departure in the concrete world
of the philosopher-in conditions beyond his choosing and his control-it
so reflects as by the reflection itself to point to the transcendant mystery.
True philosophy discovers the existence of the stages of spiritual growth
and correctly interprets them both in general and in the variety of specific
forms in which they occur. Such a philosophy, Marcel maintains, is not
pure contemplation with the thinker facing an object distinct from himself
toward which he maintains neutrality but rather it is an involvement and
an engagement in which the thinker fuses with the thought object-his
own true being ..
Once the author has established the essential spirit of the thought of
Marcel, as we have endeavored to show, he enters into the specific details:
the analysis of the stages of mental growth; the interpretation of the variety
of experience possible in the first and second reflections of the second stage;
the interpretation of participation in being as found in the third stage.
He develops each facet clearly and at considerable length so as to afford a
satisfying sampling of Marcel's varied meditations. For the reader who is
interested in the details of this philosophy he provides a genuine treasury.
By way of criticism, and briefly, we might admit that the stages of the
spiritual growth so prolixly defined by Marcel and so clearly described by
the author do factually exist. There is no reason to deny it either in theory
or in practice whatever may be our interpretation of its significance. In
theory one expects advance and fatigue in all psychical phenomena and
therefore one is not surprised to find this law manifested in the broad
pattern of human culture, that is to say, one is not surprised to find that
the recent history of human thought has proceeded for a while with great
enthusiasm and is now, at least for some minds, at a period of fatigue.
This simply mirrors the oscillating curve of human activity. For this
reason, we need not deny the testimony of the existentialists when they
affirm that they have experienced _this fatigue.
Therefore, both in theory and in concrete experience, it seems quite
justifiable to affirm of the modern spirit that it has: I) been placed in the
world as a first stage of development;
has reflected upon this fact in
a second stage and through nausea with the world so seen 'has been projected into; 3) a third stage of intuition of being. Of course, from the·
standpoint of our traditional doctrine, we would more sharply delineate
this third stage as a block intuition of the fundamental falseness of the
total world view of the more recent philosophies-Positivism, Rationalism
and so forth-based on the ontological fact that these doctrines are

BOOK REVIEWS

repugnant to human nature, which repugnance has been sensed by the
existentialists.
The criticisms, which Marcel levels against Positivism, Empiricism and
Rationalism, seem quite acceptable, as far as they go. A scholastic can
very well admit that these doctrines exclude from the mind a vast portion
of reality, not only in fact, but in principle. He surely would find the
criticisms superficial, gauged by the standard of rigorous scholastic methods,
but he would nevertheless not find them wrong. But when Marcel applies
his censure to all " conceptual " thought as such, then the scholastic must
object. Marcel classifies all traditional philosophies as " conceptualizations "
and " systematizations " which, he seems to think, puts them on the same
level as Positivism and Rationalism, and thereby makes them blocks in
the path of the spirit which it must transcend through nausea. He denies
for this reason that traditional thought provides insight into true being.
The criticism of Marcel fails here precisely because it is superficial, insofar
as it bases its censure on accidental surface qualities, and confused, insofar
as it fails to distinguish the specific differences of these many diverse forms
of thought, which he characterizes as " conceptual." If he were to make
the proper distinctions in the formalities of these modes of thought (difficult
enough for him, due to his meager knowledge of scholasticism which he
acquired by a few months study when he was forty years old) he would
see that the revulsion of his mind for modern thought does not include the
ancient doctrine and that for this reason he cannot deny to it a true
intuition into being.
The revulsion which Marcel, and for that matter all of the existentialists,
stress as fundamental cannot be accepted as the only breakout from the
prison of modern thought. It is simply one mode of escape, although the
conditions of the modern mind may well make it an unusually effective one.
It is a subjective means of throwing off the errors of recent thought but
there is a far more important objective means in the insights of traditional
Thomism. Nausea may cause a person to give up a harmful diet but it
will not supply a specific remedy for attaining health. For this, one must
depend upon the rational insights of the science of medicine. Spiritual
nausea may cause a person to realize that the content of his mind is harmful
for him but it will not indicate the specific contents, the positive principles
and insights, which the nature of the mind demands. So the spiritual
regurgitation of the modern. mind teaches it that what it has assimilated as
supposedly nourishing food is really indigestible. It knows, through this
experience, that it is not totally indetermined in what it may think and
how it may orientate its mental life, but rather that nature is quite
determined on a particular food and will reject any other. But it cannot,
through this revulsion, determine what is the specific food of the mind,
nor define the spirit and interpret the significance of spiritual growth. In
other words, the sickness of the modern mind is a quite adequate reason

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for rejecting a false doctrine, but totally inadequate for constructing or
even judging the true doctrine.
The full merit of this fine work will take considerable time and use to
determine, but it seems clear, even at this moment, that one of its essential
contributions to Thomistic thought will be to point out the significance of
the sickness of the modern mind. For it shows clearly that the diet of
Scientism and Positivism and Rationalism, which has been the staple
food for so many minds during the last four hundred years, results in
nausea. Traditional Thomism is justified in looking upcin this psychical
fact as a confirmation of its persistent attack upon these teachings as a
noxious mental content. There now remains for the followers of the
Angelic Doctor the task of interpreting accurately the significance of the
existentialist aversion and making use of it in the interests of truth.
KEVIN wALL,

0. P.

College of St. Albert the Great
Oakland, California

The Phenomenology of Moral Experience. By MAURICE MANDELBAUM.
Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955. Pp. 338 with indexes. $5.00.
Phenomenological approaches in ethics start from the data of moral
consciousness and postulate that solutions to ethical problems be " educed "
from, and verified by, direct analysis of individual moral judgments.
Phenomenology rules out all prior commitments of a metaphysical, psychological or sociological sort. Such appears to be the procedure in general,
from which, however, Dr. Mandelbaum, who is Professor of Philosophy at
Dartmouth, somewhat deviates. But before launching his own phenomenological inquiry, he explains in one of the book's most debatable chapters
(chapter I), why he departs from some of the more usual approaches. At
the same time he allows that something, even much, can be said for
metaphysical, psychological, sociological and phenomenological (dealing
with content) investigations.
By metaphysical he understands efforts to discover a summum bonum
or absolute moral standard through reference to reality's ultimate nature.
He admits that : " No matter where we start, we must in the end reconcile
our conceptions of value and of obligation with what we conceive to be
true of the world. In specific instances our normative judgments may
unhappily come into conflict with actuality, but we inveterately believe
... that what is good and what is morally obligatory have their foundations
in the underlying properties of being. Only the most violent diremption
enables us even to suppose that reality and value are antagonistically
related ... it is fallacious to argue that the metaphysical approach to ethies

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is guilty of error in coupling what is ultimately real with what is ultimately
valuable." (p. 17)
Such a declaration scarcely prepares one for what he terms the error of
the metaphysical approach. "No system of ethics can be validated merely
by showing that it is entailed by the nature of ultimate reality. If the
system which the ·metaphysician deduces is not consonant with the judgments of value and obligation which men actually make, no amount of
argument will convince us that the system is valid and its metaphysical
basis true." (p. 17) Whatever else may be said of this passage, it seems
discordant with the author's own warning (p.
, that " the acceptance
of any principle does not in itself guarantee
this principle will, in ..
practice, be successfully applied." 1\Ien's actual moral judgments can be
shockingly opposed without disproving (or proving) the reality of their
metaphysical basis. Furthermore, the issue is not winning people to accept
a system but establishing a system they ought to accept-whether or not
in fact they do.
Questionable also is the generalization that those who adopt the metaphysical approach aim to deduce, and thus validate, only those judgments
of value and obligation which they find to be ultimately justifiable. Such
a process, the author thinks, is permeated by an initial distinction between
the enlightened and the unenlightened moral consciousness-and is basically
fallacious. Probably it is a petitio principii, if it occurs always as the author
describes it. But is it true that every metaphysical approach begins with
distinguishing the enlightened from the unenlightened moral consciousness?
Surely some that merit being called metaphysical do not begin with moral
consciousl).ess at all but. with efforts to understand existence and human
destiny. It is worth noting, perhaps, that Dr. Mandelbaum appears not
to be rejecting the metaphysical approach absolutely. He foresees some
advantages in it-if it can be united with an unbiased investigation of
the data of man's moral consciousness. And he does not deny this possibility. His final judgment is that the metaphysical approach is "imprudent "-a word referring more properly to a system's practical feasibility
than to its truth.
Quite rightly the author allows that psychological and sociological
approaches to ethical problems can make valuable contributions; but he'
disallows them when, instead of being used collaterally, t)ley serve as first
approaches. There is, he writes, " no more reason to suppose that ail
adequate psychology of the causal factors involved in moral judgments
would eliminate praise and blame, than to suppose .that an understanding
of the causes of color-vision would alter the colors which we actually see."
(p.
As for sociology, he empha..'!izes that it is not an independent
method and that a genuine " science des mreurs " cannot be conceived
in merely sociological terms.
Singly and collectively, Dr. Mandelbaum holds, metaphysical, psycho.:

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logical and sociological approaches are to be rejected: first, because they
are inadequate and then because they fail to match phenomenology's
promise and fulfillment.
Standard phenomenological procedure, according to the author, treats
moral judgments contentually; it focuses on what is asserted. Departing
from this position, Dr. Mandelbaum abstracts from content. He aims to
discover generic, structuml properties of moral judgments. He is not
concerned, at least in the beginning, with truth or falsity, validity, or invalidity. Only after he has satisfied himself about what moral judgments
have in common (structurally, not contentually-chapters !i!, 3, 4), does he
take up moral controversies and their resolution (chapters 5 and 6).
Whether or not the author justifies his phenomenological method of
educing ethidl principles normative and universal enough to separate true
from false judgments can be seriously doubted. There is no question,
however, that his analysis of moral judgments is original and informing.
Direct moral judgments (chapter
manifest the phenomenon of a
"reflex" or "objective" demand which is experienced as levelled against
the person apprehending it. This demand, as reflex and objective, the
author holds to be the inexpungeable element in our own experience as well
as furnishing the foundation for any theory capable of explaining man's
consciousness of his obligations. This may be admitted, without at aU
agreeing, however, with his statement (p. 53) , that he finds no fundamental
difference between the element of demand he experiences when he feels
he ought to weed his garden or tidy his desk and when he feels he ought
to keep his pledged word.
This is difficult to understand, coming from an author who seems so
set against idealism and subjectivism and who stresses as he does the
objectivity of demands which issue in feeling moral obligation. We experience pressure, as he calls it (pp. 55-56) , to help a man with his stalled car,
and this pressure is no less real than pressure of being hungry or angry.
Apparently only pressures of feeling obliged to help others are considered
objective; for the author calls the feeling that I ought to eat subjective.
However, later on (pp. 90-91) he explains that while we feel obligated to
promote the pleasure of others but not our own, nonetheless we do feel
other obligations to ourselves. These " so-called duties to ourselves are to
be understood, not in terms of the particular good consequences which
they promote, but in terms of their relation to an ideal" And ideals, he
insists, do not operate upon us in the form of subjective wishes but a§
something which appears inherently good and the source of demand
upon us.
Dr. Mandelbaum contends that we never feel moral obligation unless
we feel some objective demand. We do not, he writes," feel any obligation
to fulfill a desire which we experience as being 'subjective' in character,
that is, as being something which we want merely because we want it.

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In order to feel an obligation to satisfy one's desire, the fulfillment of that
del>ire must be seen as a means to some further end which itself appears
as 'objectively good,' that is, as good independently of one's preference
for it. It is not what I prefer, (he distinguishes 'duty ' clearly from
' interest ') what I wish, or what I want, which appears as my duty; duty
appears as objective, as independent of preference, inclination, or desire."
(p. 57)
All this emphasis upon objective demand is appealing; but it is really
secondary to the question of what constitutes the basis for this demand, or
moral obligation. The author answers (pp.
that it is apprehended
fittingness of one rather than the other of envisioned but incompatible
demands. But when one persists and asks what this fittingness is or how
it is defined, the author repeatedly says it is indefinable.
If this is so, then however laudable may be his analysis and welcome his
rejection of idealism, utilitarianism and systems of morality based on
consequences (which he calls "teleological "), and in spite of his efforts
to explain fittingness ostensively and to take the over-all situation and
action into account-in spite of all this it seems that the author's imposing
vehicle of phenomenology has taken us down a dead-end street.
Nor is the hopelessness of the impasse ameliorated in Dr. Mandelbaum's
explorations of what he calls removed moral judg'ments (chapter 3). These
are judgments of moral rightness and wrongness made by an observer ...
or by ourselves as observers of our own past action. Although the author
indicates important differences between removed and direct moral judgments, nothing issues from his analysis to clarify or give body to the
critically important concept of fittingness, which underpins objective
demand, which in tum is the essential note of moral obligation.
There is a radical shift in perspective from moral judgments of the direct
and removed type to Dr. Mandelbaum's third classification. Judgments
of moral worth (chapter 4) predicate goodness or badness not of action but
of some attribute of a person's character or even of his character as a whole.
To those who object that it is wrong to judge another person's character,
the author replies that he is not dealing with judgments men should make
but with those that are made. But he goes beyond this, and seems to
justify such judgments under certain conditions. (p. 178) Yet he writes
(pp. 180-181): " ... the rightness or wrongness of an action which we see
a person perform does not serve as the ground for our judgments of moral
worth#, (of the agent or some of his attributes) .... "Furthermore, it is
also clear that our judgments of moral worth do not serve as the ground for
our judgments of rightness and wrongness ... we do not base our judgment
of the rightness or wrongness of an action on the moral worth of the
trait of character which that action reveals."
Turning from generic considerations of moral judgments to content, the
author makes no effort to minimize the fact of controversies. He does,

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however, categorically deny that ethical differences disprove the existence
of a valid standard for assaying moral judgments. (p. 184) He then
proceeds to examine and classify the sources of controversy (chapter iii).
Conflicting moral judgments may be disagreements, disparities or
divergences. Disagreement labels disputes in which differing conclusions are
reached even though the disputants agree on the non-moral aspects of
the situation. Disparities arise simply because matters of fact are differently apprehended. Divergences occur when one person's moral judgment
has no counterpart in another's moral judgments. For example--referring
to the same action, one man may consider its rightness or wrongness while
another passes judgment on the agent's moral worth. Theoretically,
disparities should be eliminated by getting the facts straight, and divergences should be smoothed out if the parties realized their judgments were
of different types. The difficulty is in practice; divergences and disparities
are likely to involve or devolve into genuine disagreement/!. Emotions,
sentiments, personal characteristic, Dr. Mandelbaum acknowledges as
affecting moral judgments; but they are no more primary sources of
controversies about morals than they are primary sources of moral judgments themselves.
The author's analysis of moral controversies is one of the book's most
satisfactory sections. His conclusion is that there " is probably no fundamental, irreducible heterogeneity in the moral experience of different persons,
whether they be members of the same or of different societies." (p. 234)
But he is referring, it should be remarked, to generic sources of conflict.
He still has to cope with situations of genuine moral disagreements, which
he admits sometimes cannot be solved without facing the question of
whether there is or is not a single obligatory and universal standard of
conduct. Earlier in the work (p. 185) he had conceded that he did not
think it possible to reach this final goal, i.e., of ascertaining such a standard.
Now in the book's final chapter and after labyrinthine analyses he confesses
(p. 239) that they have not given a clue to any such absolute, discoverable
standard. They have not revealed a criterion to estimate more adequate
from less adequate moral judgments. Yet Dr. Mandelbaum is fully aware
that this is the " crucial problem," a "basic issue for any theory which
deals with normative ethics." (p. 2U)
It seems fair to anticipate that the author will produce some solution to
this crucial problem, and the success of his work may well be measured in
terms of this solution.
He proposes three principles for which he claims only that, singly and
collectively, they will solve some but not all moral controversies. Primacy
of facts he mentions first. It means that disputants should have a just
regard for facts. Moral judgments are invalid if they originate from anything other than a person's apprehension of the properties of what he
asserts to be worthy of praise or. blame. Pride, sympathy, self-interest

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may distort one's conception of the facts and so invalidate moral judgment.
More important is the principle of universality. It states that to be valid
moral judgments must not restricted by reference to special conditions.
Notice that the author limits " universality" to a claim made for universal
acknowledgment. For he warns (p.
that the question of the validity
of moral judgments cannot be decided in terms of the truth-value assigned
to them nor in terms of a universality of agreement among persons making
such judgments. Third is the principle of ultimacy. It signifies that "any
moral judgment which is believed to be valid is incorrigible, and any
incorrigible moral judgment must be acknowledged to be binding upon
thought and upon action." (p.
It echoes the familiar axiom, that a
man in good faith must follow his convictions about right and wrong. But
obviously, this relates to his responsibility and not to the moral character
of this, since he says
of the action involved. The author seems
that he does not contend that we should affirm what the agent apprehends
as right or as wrong is right or wrong. " I can say that X would have
been the right action for the agent to take, had he not thought it wrong
without overthrowing my own judgment that a contrary action Y was the
objectively right action which he should have seen to be right." . (p.
The principles of the primacy of facts and of universality will settle
some controversies; but they will not, to quote the author, solve them alL
Some persons may consistently espouse alternative ways of structuring
moral situations and consistently hold that certain types of action do or do
not have moral goodness. When this occurs, Dr. Mandelbaum says, we have
reached the end of any justifiable moral controversy. "If anyone," he
writes, " wishes to establish that there is a universally valid contentual
standard· for conduct, applicable to all persons and in all cultures, he must
empirically show that this standard is implicit in every moral judgment
which any person is willing to be consistent in affirming. The evidence that
such is the case is not, I believe, available. And even were it to be
established we should still have to admit that it would be theoretically
possible that such should not always be the case." . (p. 807)
This conclusion, the author himself labels as sceptical-and there is
emphatically every reason to take his word for it. Yet he thinks his long
argument has produced other conclusions relevant to the traditional
problems of normative ethics, which make it possible to say something at
least about men's actual moral obligations. We can say that men must
act as their sense of moral obligation dictates, and that this sense of
obligation must be sharpened by dogged self-criticism, informed by a
conscientious appraisal of the facts involved and he capable of being
consistently espoused. (p. 308) Negatively, man must avoid the pitfall
of self-deception, which, said Bishop Butler, is a corruption of the whole
moral character in its principle.
This is an earnest book, competently reasoned and modestly expressed,

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rich in valuable and praiseworthy material. The author's approval or
pejorative criticism often lends considerable phenomenological support to
ethics inspired by objective and universal criteria of contentual validity and
right moral conduct. He refreshingly restates some old truths and effectively
uses modern psychology and sociology. His charges against metaphysical,
or absolutist, systems deserve serious study. He reacts wisely to the weaknesses of relativism, idealism, subjectiv,ism, utilitarianism, and all attempts
to measure morality by consequences or statistics. As a perspicacious
exposition of phenomenology, Dr. Mandelbaum's work is remarkable. Because it succeeds so well in this regard and so cogently follows its argument
to grim and futile scepticism, some readers may regard the book as a
trenchant indictment of phenomenology in general and of the author's
method in particular.
JosEPH B. McALLISTER
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

BRIEF NOTICES
Summa of the Christian Life. By LoUis OF GRANADA. Translated by
Jordan Aumann, 0. P. St. Louis: Herder, 1954. Vol. I, pp.
$4.00.
Vol. II, pp.
$4.50.
Not the least interesting part of this work is the long historical introduction by Fr. Alvaro Huerga, 0. P. which provides a magnificent synthesis o£
the life and works of Louis of Granada, the humble Dominican friar who was
born at Granada in 1505 and whose ascetical writings are known and loved
throughout the whole world.
Louis was received into the Dominican Order at Granada in 1524. Later
he was sent to the famous College of St. Gregory, Valladolid, celebrated
for the brilliance of its students and professors. Although admirably fitted
for the life of teaching, Louis' ambition was to be a missionary in the New
World; but his superiors provided otherwise, and his true vocation as a
spiritual writer and preacher developed. His first venture was a small tract
on the method of prayer which was sent to a student of St. Gregory,
Valladolid-a work which was later to become the famous Libro de la
Oracion y Meditacion. His fame grew to such an extent that he was given
permission to preach anywhere in Spain.
In 1551 we find him in Portugal, and here, apart from a few short visits
to Spain, he was to live, work and die. He became Provincial of the
Portuguese province of the Order in 1556 and also confessor to the Queen
Regent. However, at heart he was still a humble friar and neither praise
nor blame, success or failure ever moved him; rather his spirituality grows
more mature under trials while his writing seems to acquire greater clarity
and precision.
The best known of his works are The Sinner's Guide, The Book of Meditation and Prayer, The Memorial of the Christian Life, and the Introduction
to the Creed, a gigantic work written during the last years of his life but
still redolent of the spirit of youth. There are over forty-nine authentic
works of Granada extant-a surprising thing when we remember that he
did not begin his career as an author until nearly fifty years of age,
writing Ol). spiritual theology, on apologetics, hagiography and sacred eloquence, apart from translating works by other authors into Spanish.
His influence as a spiritual writer both in Spain and other countries
possibly may be explained by the fact that he appeals to all classes in the
Christian community, but it is not the whole explanation. Nor can it be
attributed merely to the beauty and purity of his style--and one must
admit that his work possesses both qualities, especially in the original
Spanish. The real explanation lies deeper. First of all, his doctrine is always

BRIEF NOTICES

143

solid, being based on Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, and Saint Thomas
Aquinas. Secondly, the main theme of his writings-the Pauline idea that
the Christian lives in and for Christ-is the mainspring of all spirituality
worthy of the name. This theme Granada develops through a series of
graded steps which anyone can follow. What is more, he appeals not merely
to the intellect but also to the will. The result is a spiritual synthesis
clothed in simple yet beautiful language which has a universal appeal.
The Summa of the Christian Life contains a selection taken from
Granada's writings and arranged in the order of the questions in the
Summa of St. Thomas. The idea of using the Summa as a framework for
the writings of Granada was conceived by Fr. Antonio Trancho, 0. P.,
who was executed by the Communists in the early days of the Spanish
Civil War, and was finally brought to completion by Msgr. Francisco
Barbado, 0. P., Bishop of Salamanca.
Apart from the long historical introduction, of which we have given a
summary, the first volume contains twenty-eight chapters of selections from
Granada's writings. These treat in general of the existence and nature of
God, the Trinity, creation and the wonders of the universe. Even in
translation the author's appeal makes itself felt. In treating of God's
perfection, for example, we see the cold light of reason taking us step by
step towards the inevitable conclusion that God must be infinite in all
His perfections; yet this reasoning is achieved in such a way that the will
is led to prayerful adoration at the same time. The section on the wonders
of creation throws yet another light on the author, because here we see
a man who must have known and loved the world around him as few of
his contemporaries did.
The second volume contains three sections dealing with the quest for
happiness, the theological virtues, and moral virtues. This volume reveals
even more dearly than the first the spiritual value of Louis of Granada
for those living in the modern world. The highlights of this second volume
are the chapters on sin and the means of freeing ourselves from its dominion,
divine grace, charity, the path to holiness, the virtue of religion, vocal
and mental prayer, humility and pride.
This work surely deserves to be an outstanding success on its own merits
since it is written by the greatest of all Dominican ascetical writers and is
admirably adapted for present-day needs. The extracts have been admirably
chosen and the translation has been well done, doing justice to the original.

144

BRIEF NOTICES

The Indwelling of the Trinity. By FRANCIS L. B. CuNNINGHAM,
Dubuque: The Priory Press, .1955. Pp. 31 with indexes. $7.50.

0. P.

" If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love
him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him" (John
l4 : f-!3). The wonderful promise contained in these words of Our Lord, that
the soul who loves God will be rewarded with a special presence of the
Father and the Son (from other passages, we know that the Holy Spirit is
included) , forms the subject matter of this excellent work by Father
Cunningham. Its appearance is timely, for much is being written on the
subject by authors who depart from the traditional view and seek support
in the text of St. Thomas.
The author has sharply defined his intention: " To be able to explain
how the Trinity comes to abide in the just, in what way the new relationship is constituted, where the precise newness of the presence is found,
what are the respective roles played by created and uncreated grace--this
is to give the formal reason of the divine indwelling." (p. 10)
The author is convinced that the profoundest explanation is to be found
in the teaching of St. Thomas. But an obstacle arises here: it is frequently
said that St. Thomas changed his position during the course of his writings.
In order to clarify this difficulty, }?r. Cunningham has, with commendable
diligence, traced the elements of St. Thomas' teaching to his predecessors
and contemporaries. It turns out that the principal sources of the Angelic
Doctor are the Summa fratris Alexandri, the Commentary of St. Albert,
and (possibly for the Scriptum super Sententias, probably for the Summa
Theologiae) the Commentary of St. Bonaventure. The author clearly
demonstrates that St. Thomas is following Alexander (with an important
exception) and not St. Albert, whose position he actually refutes.
There is no doubt that the presence of the Trinity promised by Our Lord
is a special presence, a new presence, a real presence of the three Divine
Persons, not as separate, but as distinct. The problem, then, is to determine
the formal reason for this new presence. Some few theologians are tempted
to seek an answer in a special activity of the Persons. This position goes
contrary to the universally held principle that all extra- Trinitarian operations are common to the Three Persons. Hence, if this is a new presence,
the newness must be on the part of the creature. Other theologians reduce
the formal reason to appropriation: all three Persons produce effects of
grace in the soul, which effects, by appropriation, contain a likeness of one
Person. While appropriation enters into the Thomistic solution, it is insufficient to explain the realism of the presence traditionally upheld. Hence,
St. Thomas' explanation is in the intentional order: the three Divine
Persons are present (in the effects of grace, certainly) as objects of knowledge and love. Or, as Fr. Cunningham summarizes it: "Manifestation, in
the eyes of the Angelic Doctor, means not only the representation of the

BRIEF NOTICES

145

Persons in their gifts but the quasi-experimental knowledge of the Persons
represented in Their gifts by virtue of these gifts. And this, if not the
knowledge of the Beatific Vision, an immediate thinking of God without
reasoning process, and a direct contact with the Persons as distinct and
as really present."
This scholarly work is the first volume issued by a new publishing house,
The Priory Press, established by the Dominican Fathers of St. Albert's
Province, at their House of Studies in Dubuque, Iowa. The format of the
book, the printing, the design of the cover, all bear testimony to the high
quality of work that we may expect from tlus new publishing venture.

Fortitude and Temperance. By JosEF PIEPER. Translated
Coogan. New York: Pantheon, 1954. Pp. H!8.

by Daniel F.

This little book is a series of essays on the last two cardinal virtues
which the author believes have been especially misunderstood by enlightened
liberalism. The introduction disclaims any originality of thought while
boasting that every sentence may be documented from the works of St.
Thomas. Despite the disclaimer, there are many penetrating insights into
the meaning of St. Thomas which will be quite valuable to those familiar
with the actual text. Indeed, for any adequate comprehension of fortitude
and temperance, the text of the Summa would be absolutely necessary.
The reasons for this are the
author's preoccupations with his special
object. The very character of the essay precludes a full exposition of the
subject such as might be found in a scientific monograph or text book.
Besides, the author is admittedly concerned with an explanation to the
liberals rather than a pure explanation. This means that he isolates certain
matters which he regards as important or as neglected by modern thinkers.
Accordingly, fortitude itself is discussed in four brief chapters besides
the introductory chapter, but there is no special consideration of its
potential parts. This is somewhat disappointing for certainly patience and
magnanimity are of great importance in themselves as well as being
excellent preliminary skirmishes in preparation for the virtue Professor
Pieper describes as " readiness to fall in battle." Temperance is treated at
greater length, with the more important of its potential parts, in nine
essays. There is so much that is good here that one wishes the author had
resisted the current fashion of mock-scandal at the so-called Manicheism,
Puritanism or prurience of some of the standard manuals of moral theology.
While many of these undoubtedly have their defects, the number and
gravity of failings· are considerably reduced when their object is considered,
that is, that they are not written for the general public but for those who
are to have the care of souls in the Sacrament of Penance.

10

146

BRIEF NOTICES

Natural Law and Natural Rights. Studies in Jurisprudence, II. Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1955. Pp. 106 with index. $3.00.
This small volume contains four essays on varying aspects of natural
right and natural law presented at the 1954 Conference on Law in Society
held at the Southern Methodist University. These studies represent a
further development of the issues raised in the essays presented at the
1953 conference and which were published under the title "Origins of the
Natural Law."
Mr. Outler, Professor of Theology at the University, makes a rapid
examination of some of the concepts of human rights and obligations to be
found in the teachings of classical Protestant authorities from Luther to
Puffendorf. As the title of this essay wisely implies, the author refrains
from discussing natural law concepts in the sense of immutable rights and
duties.
Professor Scott-Craig argues that Locke stands for the " golden mean "
between the extremist defenders of natural law and the extremist proponents
of natural right, and that he was trying " to free the tradition of Natural
Law by more reliance on Natural Right, to effect a better synthesis of a
religious tradition in which we have ultimately no rights but only gifts
and blessings and retractable privileges issuing from a sovereign divine
person, and a secular tradition of sovereign principles to which we can
appeal."
Theories of natural law and natural right are criticized from the point
of view of modern pragmatism by Professor Patterson, the Cardozo
Professor of Jurisprudence in Columbia University. The author concludes
that the traditional theories of natural law and natural right are inadequat"'
to meet the need for ethical legal idealism today; " at best they can provide
rhetorical support for conclusions derived from other grounds or by other
methods."
In the final essay Professor Harding, noting the recent increase in interest
in the natural law, sets out several sound caveats for lawyers who desire to
study natural law. However, his characterization of the scholarly ncoscholastic criticism of the philosophy of Mr. Justice Holmes as "vicious"
is certainly incorrect. These stimulating essays call to mind Etienne
Gilson's comment: "The natural law always buries its undertakers."

BRIEF NOTICES

147

The Age of Belief. By ANNE FREMANTLE. Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1955.
Pp.
with index.
This work comprises the first volume of a projected series of six devoted
to the general subject: The Great Ages of Western Philosophy. In it the
author, at one time lecturer in creative writing at Fordham University,
strives to reproduce the wisdom of the Middle Ages from Augustine to
William of Ockham. Her main purpose is to present a source book " with
the emphasis on the original texts " so that one can conceive a concise and
correct idea of Western European Philosophy as it developed between the
fifth and fifteenth centuries. The selected texts are interspersed with
"explanatory" remarks and "interpretative" commentary.
Due to the efforts of such eminent scholars as Gilson, Boehner, Grabmann,
DeWulf, and others much interest has been stimulated regarding this period:
and for some time there has been felt a need for a series of readings from
primary sources that would serve as a tool for an intelligent understanding
of the problems of the mind proposed and solved during the years of
medieval expansion. Unfortunately, the present volume does little to satisfy
this need. Slightly more than half of work is devoted to primary texts, the
texts chosen are too narrow in over-all scope and too loosely related to
give an adequate view of many of the problems, and finally the interpretative liaisons made by the author often tend to enshroud the basic problem
and its solution. In view of these defects, it would seem that the book does
not quite adaquately satisfy the rigorous demands of a source book.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Baier!, Joseph J. The Catholic Church and the Modern State. Rochester:
St. Bernard Seminary, 1955. Pp.
with index. $4.50.
Battaglia, Felice. (tr. by M. L. Roure). La Valeur dans L'IIistoire. Paris:
Fr. 525.
Aubier, 1955. Pp.
Boekraad, A. J. The Personal Conquest of Truth According to J. 11.
Newman. Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1955. Pp. 3Q7 with index. $3.50.
Bonforte, John. The Philosophy of Epictetus. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1955. Pp. 160. $3.00.
Bouyer, Louis. (tr. by K. Pond). The Meaning of the Monastic Life.
New York: Kenedy, 1955. Pp.
$4.00.
Buchler, Justus. Nature and Judgment. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1955. Pp. 218 with index. $3.75.
Butler, 0. P., Richard. The Mind of Santayana. Chicago: Regnery, 1955.
Pp. 248 with index. $4.00.
Cameron, Viola M. God's Plan and Man's Destiny. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1955. Pp. 160. $1.80.
Combes, Andre .. Saint Therese and Her Mission. New York: Kenedy, 1955.
Pp.
$3.50.
Copleston, S. J., F. C. Aquinas. Baltimore: Penguin, 1955. Pp.
$0.85.
Dooyeweerd, Herman. (tr. D. H. Freeman and H. DeJonste). A New
Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. II. Philadelphia: Presbyterian
& Reformed, 1955. Pp. 625. $36.00 per set of IV Vols.
Farrell, 0. P., Walter and Hughes, 0. P., Dominic. Swift Victory. New
York: Sheed & Ward, 1955. Pp.
$3.Yl5.
Grindel, C. M., Carl W. Concept of Freedom. Chicago: Regnery, 1955.
Pp.
$10.00.
Hanke, Lewis and Fernandez, Manuel. Bartolo'/11£ de las Casas. Santiago:
Fondo Historico y Bibliografico Jose Torobio Medina, 1954. Pp. 431
with indexes.
Huant, Ernest. Le "Credo" de Jean Rostand. Turin: Desclee, 1955.
Pp. Hl8.
Jung, C. G. and Pauli, W. The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche.
New York: Pantheon, 1955. Pp.
with index. $3.00.
Koren, C. S. Sp., Henry J. Introduction to the Philosophy of Animate
Nature. St. Louis: Herder, 1955. Pp. 854 with indexes. $4.75.
---. Introduction to the Science of Metaphysics. St. Louis: Herder,
1955. Pp. 310 wiith index. $4.50.

148

:BOOKS RECEIVED

149

Lamont, W. D., The Value Judgment. New York: Philosophical Library,
1955. Pp. 360 with index. $6.00.
Lazerowitz, Morris. The Structure of Metaphysics. New York: Humanities
Press, 1955. Pp. 293 with index. $5.00.
Lecomte du Nlioy, Mary. The Road to "Human Destiny." New York:
Longmans, Green, 1955. Pp. 344 with index. $5.00.
Lewis, Clarence Irving. The Ground and Nature of the Right. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1955. Pp. 103.
Masure, Eugene. (tr. by Angeline Bouchard). Parish Priest. Chicago:
Fides, 1955. Pp.
$3.95.
Mauriac, F.ran!,!ois. (tr. by Edw. H. Flannery). Words of Faith. New
York: Philosophical Library, 1955. Pp. 118. $2.75.
Oesterreicher, John M. (ed.). The Bridge. A Yearbook of Judea-Christian
Studies, I. New York: Pantheon, 1955. Pp. 349. $3.95.
Ottaviano, Cahnelo. MetajWica dell'Essere. Naples: Rondinella, 1955.
Par. I, pp. 875. L. 3000. Par. II, pp. 745 with index. L. 3000.
Paton, H. J. The Modern Predicament. New York: Macmillan, 1955.
Pp. 405 with index. $5.25.
Pernoud, Regine. (tr. by J. M. Cohen). The Retrial of Joan of Arc. New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955. Pp. 276. $4.75.
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1955.
Knowledge and Expression. Washington, D. C.: Catholic University
Press, 1955. Pp. 313. $3.50.
Raphael, D. Daiches. Moral Judgment. New York: Macmillan, 1955. Pp.
with index. $2.75.
Roos, S. J., H. (tr. by Andre Renard, 0. S. B.). Kierkegaard et le
Catholicisme. I.ouvain: Neuwelaerts, 1955. Pp. 92. $0.96.
S. Thomae Aquinatis. In Librum de Causis Expositio. Cura et studio
Ceslai Pra, 0. P. Turin: Marietti, 1955. Pp. 231 with index.
---. In Aristotelis Libros Peri Hermeneias et Posteriorum Analyticorum Expositio. Cura et studio Raymundi M. Spiazzi, 0. P. Turin:
Marietti, 1955. Pp. 457 with index.
Thonnard, A. A., F. J. (tr. by Edw. A. Maziarz, C. PP. S.). A Short
History of Philosophy. New York: Desclee, 1955. Pp. 1084 with
index. $6.50.
Toulemont, Rene. Sociologique et Pluralisme Dialectique. Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1955. Pp. £76. $2.40.
Wild, John. The Challenge of Existentialism. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1955. Pp. 304 with index. $6.00.
Winn, Ralph B. American Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library,
1955. Pp. 336 with index. $6.00.