THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORS: TnE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH
Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017

VoL. XXXV

JANUARY, 1971

iPavra(J"'ia IN THE PHILOSOPHY

No.1

OF ARISTOTLE

I

F WE WISH to make an exact delineation of the way in
which Aristotle speaks about imagination, we must clearly
distinguish between the explanation he gives concerning
the imagination considered in itself in the De Anima on the
one hand (and this will be the object of the first part of our
study), and, on the other, the allusions he makes regarding
the role of the imagination in various human activities or in
the vital functions of perfect animals. To insure greater respect
for the problem of chronology in Aristotle's writings, in the
course of the second part of our study we shall distinguish
what he says on this matter in the De Anima from what he
says in his other treatises.

I. Analysis of the Third Chapter of the Third Book of the
DE ANIMA.
In the history of philosophy this study of the imagination
in the De Anima has the unique position of being the first
philosophical study on this matter, since, although Plato spoke
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M.-D. PHILIPPE

about the imagination and sought its precise relations with
sensation and opinion, he never dealt with the imagination
itself. Independently of its content, which may seem deceptive at first sight, the study which Aristotle makes of it in the
De Anima, then, has the merit of being the first study.
In approaching this study, we do not find it useless to recall
the philosophical perspective in which it is elaborated. 1 In the
De Anima Aristotle aims for a precise definition of the soul.
Hence, after recalling the various opinions of previous philosophers concerning the soul, he begins to tell us, in the
Second Book, what it is.
He commences by defining its most common
that is,
1 In an article entitled " The Aristotelian Use of <l>avra<rla and <l>avra<TJ.La "
(The
New Scholasticism, XXXVII [1963], no. 3, pp. 312-26), Rev. Robert J. Roth, S.J.
indicates two difficulties represented by the texts of Aristotle on this subject. The
first difficulty concerns the suspicion of idealism which is generally deemed to be
foreign to Aristotle's theory on knowledge. The author comments that it is a
difficulty for the whole theory, which includes a psychic experience representative
of reality on the non-spatial level. The problem is this: how does the spirit know
the object without being closed within a world of ideas? The author adds that in
fact, properly speaking, there is no complete critique of knowledge in Aristotle's
writings; in these writings there is more a psychology than an epistemology in the
modern sense of the term.
The second difficulty concerns the probability of error in intellectual life by
reason of the dependency of this life upon images. Aristotle was surely conscious
of the problem, but, as Father Roth says, he also saw the difference between the
objective correspondence or non-correspondence of the image to reality and an
affirmation or denial based thereon. In the Metaphysics (r, 5, IOIOb I) Aristotle
says that " not everything that appears is true." There he is referring to the fact
that one cannot trust images when the object is at a distance, or when the thinker
is sick or asleep (cf. 1010 5b sq.). The author goes on to say that, in all cases
where Aristotle indicates the danger of error as inherent in images, he seems to
have in mind especially the correspondence or non-correspondence between image
and reality; but he is also conscious of the fact that the knower can add the necessary corrections to prevent him from judging that the sun is only a foot wide, and
he reproves those who use such examples for the purpose of casting doubt upon the
validity of images as a basis for knowledge (precisely, in Metaphysics r, 5, IOIOb
1-11) (Cf. art. cit., pp. 324-26). Has Father Roth fully grasped Aristotle's point of
view, which is neither psychological in the sense the author attributes to it nor
epistemological in the modern sense? It is a properly philosophical study of life
and the degrees of life. Within sense life imagination represents a certain degree
of life. The imagination function is a vital operation whose proper nature can be
sought and whose functions in the very life of the animal or man can be specified.

<Pavracria IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

3

by saying that it is a substance inasmuch as it is the form
of the natural body which potentially has life. And
since substance is an act (EvreA.€xeta), one can say that the
soul is the EvreA.€xeta of the organic body. However, this must
be understood in the sense that the soul is an act like science
and not like the exercise or use of science; it is the first act
{EvTEAEXEta TJ 1rpo:m1).

This first approach lacks precision inasmuch as the soul is
examined from the aspect of first philosophy and hence defined
as substance and first act. The question of knowing whether the
soul is separable from the body or not still remains. Is the soul
an act of the body as the helmsman in his ship? To arrive at
a proper definition of the soul, a definition which manifests
the proper cause, another point of departure must be employed,
namely, one that distinguishes the animated from the nonanimated, that is, the fact of life. In this way one discovers
inductively that the soul is that whereby the living thing
exercises its various vital functions; the soul is that whereby
we live, feel, and think.
To have a precise knowledge of what the soul is, then, there
must be a study of these various vital functions and a determination of what they are. And since the proper objects of
these vital functions (Ta aVTtKEtfLEVa) exist before the functions
themselves, these objects must first be defined, namely, food,
the sensible, and the intelligible. After studying food and
procreation in that order, Aristotle examines the various sensibles, from the visible to the tangible. Before taking up the
intelligible {vo1Jr6v), he pauses at the imagination, since it
plays an intermediary role between the sensible domain and
the intelligible. This fact, however, presents certain difficulties,
since imagination cannot be dealt with as sensations have been
treated or as thought will be dealt with; the imagination has
no object previous to its activity. Let us make a minute
analysis of the third chapter of Book III in order to see how
Aristotle conducts his inquiry.
This chapter begins with a statement which is a radical
resumption of the problem under consideration:

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M.-D. PHILIPPE

Since the soul has been defined especially by two differences,
namely, local motion, as well as the fact of thinking (vo£i:v) and
foresight (cppov£i:v), and it seems (8oK£i:) that the fact of thinking
and the fact of foresight are like a certain sensation (aia-8avw-6at) ...
In fact there is something common; in the two cases the soul
discerns (Kpivet) something, it knows (yvwpitet) a being. (This
explains why the ancients say that the fact of being prudent
(To <f>pove'iv) and the fact of sensation (To ala0avea-8at) are
" one." Ernpedocles states: " Intelligence develops among men
according to what is offered to their senses." And Aristotle
cites Horner [Odyssey XVIII, 136] in this sense).
All these philosophers suppose (1nro:Aap.{3avovaw) that the act of
thinking, like the act of feeling, is something bodily (awp.anKov)
and that one feels and thinks like by like (TO op.owv) .
But Aristotle reproaches them for not having dealt with error
(7} chrarYJ), which is more habitual (olKetoTepov) among animals
and "constitutes that in which the soul spends more time." 2
It follows from this confusion
either that all appearances (cpatvop.Eva) are true, or that error is
in contact with the unlike inasmuch as it is contrary to knowledge
of like by like. But one ordinarily admits that, in the case of
contraries, error, like knowledge, is one and the same. 3
Having listed this question among the problems to be solved
(chropias), Aristotle cannot admit this identification. So here
again he states:
It is clear that feeling and practical thinking are not the same,
since all animals share in the former, whereas only a few share in
the latter. 4 Even less so is thinking the same as feeling, inasmuch
as the experience of proper sensibles is
true and belongs
to all animals, whereas discourse (8tavo£i:a6at) can be false and
never belongs to any animal lacking reason (A6yo>) .5
• De Anima, TII, 3, 427b 2.
8 Ibid., 427a 17; 427b 2-6.

• To voe!v involves being-right and being-wrong. Being-right includes
and o6;a
being-wrong includes their contraries (427b 9).
• De Anima, III, 3, 427b 6-14.

iPavrauta

IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

5

This distinction between feeling and foresight is taken here only
on the basis of extension. The fact is that feeling belongs to
all animals, whereas foresight does not. This, however, does
not explain the difference between feeling and thinking.
Hence, to give a better demonstration of the impossibility
of this identification, it is necessary to discern the middle term,
the JLErafv, that is, the imagination. Indeed Aristotle does not
make this reasoning explicit, but this argument is suggested on
the basis of the remark he has just made and the study of the
imagination following upon the remark. What is certain is that,
having dealt with the imagination, Aristotle proves the need
for recalling the confusion of the ancients concerning the
various degrees of knowledge and their failure to consider the
fact of error. Moreover, is not imagination to be distinguished
from sensation as well as from intellectual knowledge if a precise understanding is to be sought of the various degrees of
knowledge and a determination of the source of errors?
The imagination (cpavraala)6 in fact is different from sensation
and discursive thought (lltavow) .7 But it cannot arise ( y{yv£rat)
without sensation. Furthermore, without imagination, there is no
act of admission (lm·6A.1JtfL').8 Evidently, then, it is not the same
as thought (v61Jmc;) or supposition (vTr6A1Jt/Jtc;), since this state
(TraBoc;) depends upon us, that is, whenever we wish it (f3ovA.6Jp.,£0a)
we can imagine whatever we want to imagine (inasmuch as it is
possible to produce images before one's eyes, like those who produce and arrange images according to a mnemonic system). But
the act of forming an opinion
does not depend solely
upon us; in fact one must be in error or in truth. 9
• Ibid., 427b 14.
7 In the Sophist dealing with the relations between being and non-being Plato
already tried to specify the bonds existing among ll.o')'os,
and ¢avral1'ia (260c
and 263d).
8 'T1roll.rr.f;•s (from v7ro-ll.al-'f!avw, take hold of from beneath, accept)
is translated
into Latin by adsumptio or sumptio. The French translators say "belief " (Barbotin, Tricot) or " conception of the spirit" (Mugnier, in the translation of the
Petits traites d'Histoire naturelle, Paris 1953), or even "judgment." One could
also translate this Greek noun by " admission," "acceptance," or even " apprehension." It is the first act of the intellect, which attains and takes hold of the
universal. It is the most basic apprehension, wherein one takes hold of the whole;
it is conception. Cf. Plato, Euthydemos, 295b; Gorgias, 458e; Theaetetos, 159b.
9 Cf. Metaphysics, K, 6, 1062b 34: to attach
one and the same value to the
opinions and imaginations of those who disagree among themselves is nonsense.

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M.-D. PHILIPPE

Let us get a grasp of the order in Aristotle's research. The
problem concerns the specification of the fact that the imagination is different from both sensation and discursive thought
(Stavota) and that, instead of continuing to speak about discursive thought, Aristotle speaks about the act of admission
(1nr6A.7JI/M) and thought (vo'Y}CJ"t<;) and argues on the basis of
the act of opinion (Soga,etv). Hence one must grasp the ties
among Stavota, 1m6A.7JI/Jt<;, VO'Y}CTt<;, and Soga,ew, which are all
used by Aristotle in opposition to cpawaCT[a. Moreover, a bit
further on (427b 25) , without introducing a detailed analysis
(inasmuch as it is not the matter of his principal concern) ,
Aristotle stresses that there are various types of supposition,
namely, science (e7T£CTTTJP-'YJ), opinion (S6ga), and prudence
(cppoV7JCTt<;), as well as their contraries. This not only shows
us the basic character and the full richness of tJ7TOA7JI/Jt<; but
also enlightens us about Aristotle's reasoning. Among the
activities of intelligence the most basic activity seems to be
tJ7TOA7JI/Jt<;, since it contains science, opinion, and prudence; and
this is probably the reason why Aristotle stresses that there
is no {m6'11.7JI/Jt<; without imagination. The basic character and
dependency of tJ7TOA7JI/Jt<; upon the imagination having been
indicated, it is normal for the distinction between 1m6'A'Y]I/Jt<; and
imagination to become the most urgent matter for the Stagirite's consideration. And since {m6'li.'YJI/Jt<;is diversified in science,
opinion, and prudence, it is clear that {m6A.'Y]I/Jt<;is least perfectly
realized in opinion and hence that in opinion v7TOA7JI/Jt<; is closest
to imagination. The act of making an opinion, then, is the
first thing to be distinguished from imagination. 10
We should have a good understanding of the first argument
which Aristotle uses to distinguish imagination from opinion:
man has a greater control over the exercise of imagination than
of opinion, inasmuch as the exercise of imagination does not
depend upon existing reality; the imagination does not depend
upon either truth or error.
10 There remains the specification of the bonds existing among O<ctvo<ct, v6'70'<S,
and inr6A.rl'/ns; but this can be done only by treating of the vails.

<I>avra<Ti.a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

7

In the order of knowledge we are faced with a particular
type of knowledge which has an autonomy in reference to
existing reality, since it depends only upon the will of the
subject. This great reliance upon the will of the man, then, is
what first characterizes the exercise of the imagination.
In his second argument, Aristotle stresses another aspect in
the autonomy of the imagination:
when we form an opinion (ooxatwp.fv) that something is threatening
or frightening, we are immediately (fl,Bv>) affected by it, just as
in the case when something seems reassuring; but in imagination
we are like spectators looking at something threatening or reassuring in a picture. 11
The affective repercussions from exercises of opinion and imagination can be very different, which shows that the causes are
different, inasmuch as the effects are different. By this we see
that, if we have a greater control over the exercise of the
imagination, we are correspondingly less effectively disturbed
by this exercise, which is less immediately connected with our
affective life.
This, then, is the twofold independence of the imaginationin reference to reality as an object and to affective reactionsthat Aristotle mentions here, as that which best indicates the
irreducibility of the imagination to the act of opinion. This
knowledge simultaneously appears to us to be more subject
to our will than opinion and less affectively engaged than the
latter; this shows us its character of being an independent and
unrealistic knowledge.
Aristotle continues:
Since thought (voftv) differs from feeling and seems to imply
imagination (cf>avma[a) on the one hand and the act of admission
(t7r6A"'t/n>) on the other, we must first investigate imagination and
then supposition.
Hence, after distinguishing imagination from the act of opinion
(which is a difference in 1nroA7Jt/n<>), Aristotle now proceeds to
11

De Anima, III, 8, 427b

8

M.-D. PHILIPPE

examine what imagination is, and he will thereby be enabled
to see what inroATJI/n<> is. 12
Hence if the imagination is [the faculty] whereby we say a phantasm (cpavmapa) is produced (yEv€a-8at) for us, and if we do not
give a metaphorical meaning to this term, it is a power (8vvap.t>) or
state
according to which we make the discernment (Kptvop.Ev)
as to whether we are right or wrong. Such also are sensation,
opinion, understanding (vov>), and science.13
There is the first definition Aristotle gives us concernmg
imagination; it is the source of the phantasm (<f>avma-,.uf n)
for us and hence a power or state enabling us to judge whether
we are right or wrong. This is truly a first, very general
definition (analogous to the first definition of the soul), which
indicates to us what makes imagination to be related to sensation, understanding, and science. All of these are powers enabling us to judge whether we are right or wrong.
After distinguishing imagination from opinion, he goes on
now to distinguish it from sensation:
Here is the proof that cpavrau{a is not sensation [this is clearly
destined to precise Plato's statements in this regard 14 ]. Sensation
is either potential or actual (e. g., sight or seeing) whereas imagination occurs when neither of these is present (e. g., what is imagined
in dreams) .15
What is the exact meaning of Aristotle's statement? Is not
the imagination also potential or actual, like vision? This text
is very elliptical. However, if we pay attention to what Aristotle has said as regards sensation, we can understand it. The
imagination is not actual and potential in the same way as
vision. To be in act, the latter depends upon the presence of
color or light, whereas the imagination does not, inasmuch as
it bears its own light and own form. Therefore, what is under12 Aristotle deals with inro'A7Jt/ILS when he investigates the activity of the voiJs.

De Anima, III, 3, 428a 1 sq.
Cf. Theaetetos, 152c: The imagination and sensation are identical for heat and
other similar states. These are what each person feels and risks becoming.
15 De Anima, III, 3, 428a 5-7.
18

14

cf>avraCTta IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

9

lined here is the twofold independence of imagination as regards
its object and environment. It bears both in itself. That is
why the two states "being potentially" and "being actually,"
so clearly distinct in reference to sight, are quite different in
reference to imagination. It could be said that imagination is
always in an intermediary state which is simultaneously actual
and potential, since this power bears its forms in itself; hence
it is always determined, but it is not always in ultimate act
as regards all the forms in it.
The first reason given by Aristotle is therefore extremely
profound. It indicates to us that, differing from sensation which
is subject to the real and therefore to this distinction of potency
and act, imagination, which is no longer subject to reality,
escapes thiEJ distinction.
Aristote then gives this second reason: "sensation is always
present ('mfpeCTn) but imagination is not." 16 This second
reason is even shorter and more elliptical than the first. It
must, therefore, be interpreted, but from the context. Moreover, it has just been stated that sensation is potential or actual.
Hence, if it is now said that it is always present, this presence
is anterior to this diversity of states which concern exercise.
Sensation is always present in animal life, whereas imagination
is not. Sensation is proper to animal life, whereas imagination
is not.
Having given these two reasons, Aristotle pursues his analysis
by using a proof by way of impossibility: " if they were identical
in actuality, all animals should have imagination." 17 This,
however, seems contrary to the facts. If one thinks of ants,
bees, or grubs, it seems that these animals are not in the same
situation as regards imagination. We should not forget what
Aristotle says about bees when he is talking about blood:
that is why bees and other animals of this type are endowed with
more prudence (cf>povtp.wnpa) than many sanguine animals. 18
16 Ibid., 428a 8. The expression Aristotle uses here is el-ra. a.ruiJ'f/uts p.€v ae! 'll'apeuTt.
On this matter d. The Parts of Animals, II, 647a 21: "So it is not possible that an
animal exist without sensibility." (Cf. also III, 68la).
17 De Anima, III, 3, 428a 9.
18 The Parts of Animals, II, 647b 5 sq., 17. Cf. also Metaphysics, A, 1, 980b 25.

10

M.-D. PHILIPPE

More profoundly Aristotle stresses that " sensations are
always true, whereas imaginations are most frequently false." 19
This reason is more profound than the others and more proper
to the nature of knowledge. Sensations have this privilege of
being more natural and thereby of being always true, whereas
imaginations are knowledges which, being less determinate,
more easily deviate from the truth; they have even a propensity
to error.
The following and fifth reason is this:
When our sense is functioning accurately with regard to a sensible
object, we do not say that seems to be a man to us; rather we
say this only when we do not perceive clearly; hence sensation is
true and is false. 20

This argument appeals to our way of expressing ourselves.
When sensation is clear and precise (aKpt{3wr;), it has no need
for an imaginative completion, and one does not confuse it
with imagination. It is another matter when sensation is confused; at this moment it can no longer be distinguished clearly
from imagination, to the point that it can be considered as
being true and false. This shows that a weakened sensation
is no longer distinguished with sufficient clarity from imagination and that by this very fact imagination comes to make
up for this weakness.
Finally, there is the argument: "as we said before, one has
images even when the eyes are shut." 21 Imagination can last
even after vision ceases, and this shows the independence of
imagination. Although imagination seems to be that which
completes our imperfect sensations, yet it has a certain autonomy as regards sensations, since it lasts even when the
latter cease. Hence it is simultaneously related to our sensa10 De Anima, III, 3, 426a 11; lf;wlJeis. Cf. also Metaphysics, r 5, 1010b 3. In the
Sophist Plato seems to state the inverse: " Is it not henceforth evident that thought
(IIL<ivota), opinion
and imagination are, in our souls, genera equally susceptible of falsity and truth? " (263d) .
20 De Anima, III, 3, 428a 12-14. Cf. the example about optics which Aristotle
gives in his treatises on the Meteorologica (III, 2, 372b 8; 4, 374b 8 sq.).
21 De Anima, III, 3, 428a 15-16.

<I>avTau[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

11

tions and yet autonomous, within a certain measure, in their
regard.
These six reasons to which Aristotle appeals in order to show
the distinction between sensations and imagination are surely
of unequal value. Yet at the same time, they indicate the
greater autonomy (by comparison with sensations) of the imagination with respect to existing realities (the imagination is not
dependent upon the physical presence of the realities which
it imagines) and its less basic ties with animal life, inasmuch
as it is not a part of the essential structure of animal life.
If the complementary role of imagination clearly appears
when it is a matter of our imperfect sensations, this role
is less visible when our perfect sensations are involved. On
the contrary, this role always appears in the order of duration and permanency. Finally, the imagination shows itself
incapable of attaining truth; by its very nature it is an imperfect knowledge. Considered in relation to sensation and as
distinguished from sensation, imagination simultaneously seems
to be more autonomous (relative to the presence of the object),
less perfect (considered in relation to its purpose), rarer and
more developed (relative to animal life) , and secondary, inasmuch as it supplies for certain imperfections. 22 It can thus be
seen how complex imagination is and how difficult it is to
specify what it is.
Having so strongy indicated the congenital defect of the
imagination in relation to truth, Aristotle indicates in a more
profound way all that separates imagination from activities
proper to the intellect:
Imagination cannot be any one of the operations which are always
right, such as science or understanding (voii>), since imagination
is also false and deceptive (
.23

This propensity to error has already enabled us to distinguish
imagination from sensations; now it enables us to distinguish
22 In the Rhetoric Aristotle
speaks of imagination
( dcrllev-IJs) (1, 11, 1370a 28-29) .
•• De Anima, III, 3, 428a 17.

as being a weakened sensation

12

M.-D. PHILIPPE

it from science and the activities of the mind which are always
true. Here Aristotle stresses a very important reason which
shows the essential weakness of this type of knowledge. Science
cannot be based upon it, since the perfect cannot be based upon
the imperfect. Does not Aristotle denounce the error of Plato's
dialectics which has not grasped this point with sufficient
clarity?
However, although this propensity to error distinguishes
imagination from sensation, it does not thereby distinguish
imagination from opinion, since, like imagination, opinion can
be true or false. Here lies a fundamental relation between
imagination and opinion, a relation which had not been clearly
stated as yet. Hence the difference of indetermination respectively of imagination and opinion in reference to truth must
be precised; both imply this indetermination, but in various
ways. To grasp these differences, the fruits proper respectively
to imagination and opinion must be examined:
However, opinion implies belief (1r£an>), since one cannot hold
opinions about things which one does not believe; moreover, no
beast has belief, but many have imagination." 4
Although opinion permits the dawning of faith, imagination
does not suffice for this. In opinion, then, there is an order to
truth which does not exist in imagination; the latter is more
basically indeterminate in reference to truth, since it does not
permit the adhesion of faith.
Aristotle goes on to make further specifications in the same
sense:
faith follows from opmwn, conviction (r6 7rE7rE'iaOat) from faith,
and from conviction rational discourse (A.oyo>). Clearly, then,
imagination cannot be opinion accompanied by sensation, or
opinion produced by sensation, or a blend of opinion and sensation. 25
"'Ibid., 428a 20 sq.
25 Ibid., 428a 22 sq. This passage is extremely interesting if one wishes to understand the genesis of the
such as Aristotle understands it:
11"E11"EtrriJat,
There is no direct passage from opinion to the
there is
between
the two. And this implies an assent which makes a determination, whence the
is to arise.

<f>avraa-ta IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

13

If opinion gives birth to rational discourse
and this
cannot exist in the animal, although imagination can be in the
animal, evidently opinion is something other than imagination.
Here again the difference of indetermination (in reference to
the truth) between imagination and opinion can be seen. If
opinion, being imperfect, remains indeterminate, still it must
depart from this indetermination, whereas imagination is indeterminate as a consequence of its nature; it cannot depart
from this indetermination; of itself it is not ordered to rational
.
discourse
This distinction should help us to gain a better understanding of the confusions of the preceding philosophers, notably the opinion which Plato defends in the Sophist 26 :
From the foregoing reasons it is clear that (if one pretends) that
opinion is nothing other than sensation, but is this very thing,
of the opinion and
I say that imagination is the blend
the sensation of what is white, since it could not result from the
opinion of the good and the sensation of the white. To imagine,
then, is to form an opinion on the very thing which is sensed, not
in an accidental way. But, in fact, one imagines false things,
concerning which one can simultaneously have a true apprehension
(inr6/..1Jt{n.,); for example, one imagines that the sun measures a
foot in diameter and one is persuaded (rrl.rrnaraL) that it is larger
than the earth. 27 It follows, then, that either the percipient, without any change in the reality itself and without forgetting or
changing his conviction, has rejected his previous true opinion;
or, if one still holds the previous opinion, but with little or hardly
any conviction whatever, this opinion must be at once true and
false. But it could be false only if the reality changed without
our noticing it. Hence imagination is neither one of these functions nor a blend resulting from them. 28
26 In the Sophist, Plato defines imagination
as the combination
of
presents itself,
sensation and opinion (264a). He also asks: "when opinion
not according to itself (KaiJ' avri}v), but through sensation (lit' alueiw<ws), can
such an affection (7rri1Jos) be correctly entitled with some name other than
imagination?"
21 Let us observe that Aristotle seems to express the same intellectual attitude by
the fact of having a V7r6lvrp/JLS and the fact of being persuaded (7r<71"<1u1Jat).
28 De Anima, III, 3, 428a 26-428b 10.

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M.-D. PHILIPPE

In other words, if opinion and sensation were identical, imagination could be only the composition of the two, but of two
which bear on the same sensible reality. In this event, however,
certain impasses would ensue, since it is very easy to have a
true opinion about such or such a reality and have a false
imaginative representation of it, the example of the sun being
extremely clear. If, then, sensation and opinion are identical,
it must be admitted that opinion is reduced to imagination,
or vice versa. In the first case one abandons one's true opinion
to the advantage of imagination and sensation, and this in an
unlawful way; in the second case, if one holds on to one's first
opinion, one must then abandon the representation one makes
of it. Now opinion is true or false, but it can be false only if
the reality has changed without our knowledge, and this can
no longer be verified, since sensation is reduced to opinion.
Hence to make opinion and sensation identical is to make both
of them meaningless, and likewise imagination by the same
token.
After distinguishing imagination from sensation and opinion,
Aristotle can again examine imagination in itself. However,
imagination cannot be considered in itself as are sensation,
vision, or touch, since imagination is not a basic and first
knowledge; it is knowledge of knowledge. Furthermore, it is
not a perfect knowledge having its proper finality in itself;
it is a relative knowledge. This is why imagination is so difficult to grasp. This enables one to understand the manner in
which Aristotle is going to consider it:
But since when a particular thing is moved another thing can be
moved by it, and since imagination seems to be a movement
(K[v'IJrn>) which cannot occur ( y[yvwOat) without sensation, it concerns only things experienced [objectl and belongs only to those
who have sensation [subject].29
Everything that has been said previously leads to this affirmation: imagination is a movement resulting from sensation.
29 Ibid., 428b 10-11. Cf. also Physics, VIII, 3, 254a 29: "the imagination
and
opinion (M!;a) seem to be certain movements."

IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

15

Now, inasmuch as sensation is also a movement, imagination
is a movement of a movement; that is, it is not a first movement like sensation, which is actuated by an object that
moves without being moved; rather, imagination is actuated
by a movement. It is, then, a movement which has a twofold relativity, namely, that of movement and that of its
origin, which explains its extremely mobile and relative character. Imagination is a movement in the order of knowledge.
As regards what is deepest in it, knowledge is beyond movement. It achieves the unity of the person who feels with what
is felt, although its modality implies a movement. 30 Sensation
is realized after the manner of an alteration. 31 But this special
type of knowledge which is imagination is a movement; it is
becoming in the order of knowledge, where there is no fixed
point on one side or another. It is the conscious sensible fluxus,
immanent to the living thing, the perfect animal. This fluxus
is achieved through contraries by implying a subject beyond
contraries and capable of bearing them. Imagination is a dialectical movement which in itself is neither perfect nor imperfect
but which has a propensity to be degraded.
All this characterizes the imagination in the order of knowledge and also stresses the conditions of its exercise (it can be
exercised only in relation to things experienced), as well as
the conditions of its existence: it can exist only in a living
thing which possesses sensation, that is, an animal. Here we
are indeed in the presence of the definition proper to the
imagination (analogous to the proper definition of the soul).
Aristotle goes on to specify that this essential dependency
of the imagination upon sensation establishes it in a very
particular situation:
And since movement may be caused by actual sensation, so that
this movement must be like the sensation, such a movement cannot exist without sensation or exist in non-sentient beings; in
80 De Anima, III, 8, 43lb
"Science is identified in some way with objects of
knowledge, just as sensation with sensed objects."
31 On
459b 5: "since active sensation is a certain alteration

Tt.S) ."

16

M.-D. PHILIPPE

virtue of it the possessor can do ('lTOLELv) and suffer ('lT<L<J"XELV) many
things (1roAAa), as well as be true or false.32
Resulting

from sensation,

imagination

itself is similar to

((Sp,oia), without thereby becoming identified with, sensation;
that is, it remains a sense knowledge which cannot exist without sensation. If, then, it is limited in this aspect, inasmuch
as it cannot surpass the domain of what has been sensed, yet
it has a very great extension; it has a capacity for " making "
and" undergoing" many images which are true or false. What
characterizes the imagination is the 1rote'Lv, inasmuch as the
1raaxetv is common to imagination and sensation. 33 Imagination is a knowledge which makes and undergoes. Another differentiation from sensation lies in the fact that imagination is
true or false, as Aristotle has already noted.
Since imagination is the movement engendered by sensation,
if the latter has differentiations, so, too, the former will necessarily have differentiations.
Can one, then, specify various
degrees of perfection as one does for sensations? Here is Aristotle's argumentation, which begins by recalling what he had
said previously:
Now this occurs for the following reason. The experience of proper
sensibles is always true, or admits of error only to the least degree
possible. Secondly, there is the perception that these proper sensibles belong to someone accidentally, and here already error is
possible; one can make a mistake not in the fact that there is
something white, but whether the white object is this or that thing.
Thirdly, there is the perception of common sensibles which are
consequences of the sensibles to which the proper sensibles accidentally belong; I mean, for example, motion and magnitude, which
are accidental to the proper sensibles; it is about these that error
in sensation is possible to the highest degree. Thence the motion
resulting from actual sensation will differ according to these three
types of sensation. The first motion, resulting from the first sensation, is true when the sensation is still present. The others, howDe Anima, III, 3, 49!8b 14-17.
Cf. De Anima, II, 5, 417b 12, where Aristotle specifies the meaning of r6
?Tauxetv in reference to sensation; and On Dreams, 9!, 459b 9!7: the fact of mirrors
proves at the same time "that vision acts (?To<<i n) just as it acted upon (?raux<<)."
82

33

c'PavTacria IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE

17

ever, can be false whether the sensation is present or absent, and
especially when the sensible object is at some distance. 34
This passage shows us how there is a possibility of error
even on the level of sensations and how this possibility will
be encountered again, and will be amplified on the level of
imagination. In fact there is only one sole case wherein it can
be said that sensation is true, namely, when sensation concerns
the proper sensibles. 35 Aristotle adds that it " admits of the
minimum (oA.iytcrTov) of error." The same character of truth
is found again in the motion resulting from this sensation; the
character of truth in sensation is extended to the imagination
when the sensation remains actually present; in this way it
guarantees direct contact with the proper sensible. 36 We are in
the presence of the most natural knowledge, which safeguards
the finality proper to natural movements; they attain their
purpose in most cases (ut in pluribus). For knowledge, the
attainment of its proper purpose means to be true.
The other two cases of sensation imply certain possibilities of
error. The possibility of error enters as soon as it is no longer
a case of the proper sensible but of the accidental sensible
(this white rather than white) or the common sensibles, which
result from the accidental sensibles (the movement of this
white). The proper sensibles are indivisible in themselves and
can imply movement only as a consequence of their proper
bodily subject. The possibility of error results from composition; what is seen is no longer white, but this white; this is
seen through white, since only white is directly sensed. As soon
as there is composition there is no longer direct knowledge, and
so there is the possibility of error. One is no longer in the
presence of a natural and first movement, perfectly determined
34
85

De Anima, III, 3,
Cf. De Anima, II, 6, 418a 14 sq.: "each sense discerns (Kpiv.,) the sensibles

proper to it, nor is it deceived as to the fact of color or sound, but only as to the
nature or place of the colored object or the sound-producing object."
•• Cf. On Sense and Sensible Objects, where Aristotle speaks about the imagination of color (17 ¢avraula
xp6as): "The imagination of color is determined in
determinate bodies, if the surrounding environment does not change it."

18

M.-D. PHILIPPE

by its object. There is composition. Through the sensation
of white something else is attained, and this composition is
achieved thanks to a habit, a series of knowledges. By this
very fact it leaves the possibility of producing a bad composition, namely, this white, which one thinks is a wall, is in fact
only a cardboard decor. White can be rigorously the same
while having various subjects, since the bond between white
and this subject remains accidental in comparison with the
white.
Aristotle stresses that the possibility of error is the greatest
in regard to the common sensibles. However, these sensibles
remain sensibles, and they seem to be grasped less indirectly
than the accidental sensibles; the movement seems nearer the
white than the this. 37 The reason which Aristotle gives is
precise. These sensibles are derived from the accidental sensibles, and therefore they are reunited with the proper sensibles
through the accidental sensibles. There is, then, a twofold
composition in their regard and hence a twofold possibility
of error.
These possibilities of error are found in the imaginary movement provoked by these two types of sensation. This is normal
since the imaginary movement resulting from a complex sensation will itself imply the same complexity; the effect cannot
be simpler than its cause. And the possibility of error increases
if. in fact, the experienced sensible is distant.
We should note that here Aristotle distinguishes three types
37 Cf.
Anima, II, 6, 418a 8, where Aristotle expressly says that the sensible
involves three species, two of these being sensible " in themselves" (Ka.O' a.vnt),
the other being a sensible "by accident" (Ka.ra <Tvp,(:Jef:JrJK6s). It is very curious to
note the different order of species of sensible which Aristotle gives in this sixth
chapter of Book II as related to the one he gives in the third chapter of Book III
concerning imagination. In the sixth chapter (Book II) he distinguishes per se
sensibles from accidental sensibles according to their proper order to sensation.
Only the proper sensible and the common sensible are truly sensed, whereas the
accidental sensible is not truly a sensible: "the sentient subject does not undergo
any passion resulting from the accidental sensible" (418a 23). Whereas in the third
chapter (Book III), the Philosopher considers the sensible only in connection with
its very existence, its capacity for stabilizing knowledge; the order is no longer the
same. It is the common sensible which most frequently is the source of confusion.

<l>avrao-[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

19

of sensation relative to three types of sensibles; and he distinguishes them according to their possibility of imperfection,
since the possibility of error results from the imperfection of
knowledge as such. And this hierarchy proper to the sensible
is found to be extended to imagination through the intermediary of the corresponding sensation. This is still very
significant; the various imaginations are graded according to the
various sensations which are at their source, just as the various
sensations are graded according to the various sensibles which
are their proper principles. Hence these various imaginations
depend on sensations for their gradation. They have no
proper principles in themselves whereby they could be graded
according to their proper perfections. That is why it is
not necessary to conclude that there are three types of
imagination as there are three types of sensibles. These various
imaginations are specifically the same, but they have more or
less broad possibilities of error as the produced sensible image
especially represents proper sensibles, accidental sensibles, or
common sensibles, and as the sensible reality is actually sensed
or not. Since the only thing which rectifies the imagination is
sensation, the latter, to the extent that it is more or less true,
can rectify the imagination in the same measure.
Thereby we are strongly enlightened concerning the frailty
proper to the imagination, as well as the diversity and richness
of its own field of investigation. Everything sensible is its
domain.
Aristotle closes this chapter by making a final attempt to
define what the imagination is:
Hence if no function other than imagination possesses the characteristics which we have indicated and if it is always what we have
just said it is, it should be defined as the movement produced by
sensation actually functioning. 38 And since sight is the sense par
excellence, the imagination has its name (cpavrau[a) from light
(cpa6>) inasmuch as vision is not possible without light. 39 And
38 Cf. On Dreams, 1, 459a 17, where the same definition is encountered:
imagination is the movement engendered by sensation in its act.
39 Is there a resumption here, but in a quite different sense, of what Plato said in
the Kratylos concerning Hephaistos (407c)?

20

M.-D. PHILIPPE

since the images remain and are like sensations, the animals achieve
many actions as a result of these images, some animals, namely,
beasts, because they have no mind (vov<>), others, namely, men,
because their mind is at times clouded by passion, diseases, or sleep.
Concerning imagination, then, let what we have said about its
nature (n lo-n) and cause (IM n lo-nv) suffice.40

Hence Aristotle resumes what he had already said previously
and states it more precisely: " Imagination is the movement
engendered by sensation in act."
This movement which is imagination is connected especially
with vision, since this is the most excellent sensation. Hence
vision is the privileged, but non-exclusive, source of imagination. Aristotle does not treat the problem, but one can say
that he does not exclude any sensation as the cause and source
of imagination, except perhaps touch, since it can be an isolated
sensation. 41 It seems that a certain perfection of animal life
is needed before imagination can appear.
Finally, Aristotle notes that images last and are "like sensations" and that because of them animals and men accomplish
many actions. Here, then, Aristotle stresses the permanence
of images, their similarities as regards sensations, and their
power, a principle of operation.
That the images last longer than sensations has already been
indicated and shows one of the characteristics proper to imagination, namely, its independence with regard to sensible
realities and therefore also with regard to time.
It is very important to note that images are like sensations.
Aristotle had already indicated that imagination, a movement
resulting from sensation, was necessarily like sensations. Hence
there is a similarity on the level of operations, as well as on
De Anima, III, 3,
9.
Cf. De Anima, II,
413b
"Living things endowed with touch have desire
but do they possess imagination? That is a doubtful question." And III,
II, 434a
where the same question is raised: "In imperfect animals having only
touch, can imagination exist along with desire (lm8vfLlav)? They have pleasure and
pain, and hence an appetite. But how would they be endowed with imagination?
Here one must answer: 'as they move themselves in an indeterminate way, so these
functions belong to them in an indeterminate way' (aopirrTws)."
' 0

41

Cf>avTacrta IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

21

the level of the respective objects; this is normal since it is a
question of knowledge functions. Can one go further? We
know that the philosopher states that it is proper to sensation
to receive the form (eT8os-) without matter (avev Tijs- vATJs-) .42
Moreover, speaking of images, he says also: " images are like
sensed objects except that they are without matter." 43 Let us
grasp this point well: sensation is the form of sensed things,
and images are what is attained by the imagination, just as
sensed things are attained by sensations, with this difference,
however, that images do not imply matter; they are pure
sensible forms.
These imagined forms are like the forms of sensed things.
Now Aristotle has specified that sensible forms can be understood in three different ways, namely, the proper sensible, the
common sensible, and the accidental sensible. Here we are
faced with three degrees of sensible. Only the proper sensible
is an absolutely pure and simple sensible; the two other types
are connected with other elements, namely, the subject or
properties of this subject. Are phantasms similar to these
three species of sensible? Are there three degrees of imagination and phantasms as there are three more or less pure degrees
of sensation?
Aristotle does not treat this question explicitly. However,
he stresses the point that the imagination following upon the
sensation of the proper sensible cannot be erroneous as long
as the proper sensible remains present; at this moment, then,
the image prolongs the sensation without deforming it. It
could be said that this imaginative representation of what is
actually sensed remains similar to what is sensed. 44 But from
•• De Anima, III, 8, 431b
434a
9-16.
•• As regards the " movement produced by sensation in act, this movement neces14), De Corte writes: "Such a dynamic initiative
sarily being like sensation"
can be produced simultaneously at the presence of sensation and hence of the object
concerning which there is sensation; thus the image constitutes, as it were, a sketch
of what the scholastics will later call the species expressa corresponding to the
entitative and cognoscitive information of the species expressa, wherein the knower
contemplates the object known. It can be prolonged in the absence of sensation

•• Ibid., 8,

M.-D. PHILIPPE

the moment when the sensation is no longer actual, the imaginative representation no longer has the same determination;
it can lead us into error. When we close our eyes, the representation of red is no longer the sensation of red which we had
previously when we looked at such and such red reality. The
proper sensible which immediately determines sensation determines the imagination only through sensation and hence imagination is never determined immediately by the proper sensible;
it is determined only through sensation, that is, by the form of
the proper sensible as lived through and in sensation. By this
very fact this form is always bound to movement and to a
certain subject. On the level of the image the various species
of sensible can no longer be distinguished, since all of them
and the object, and it is understood that, in this case, the object known is known
only proportionately to the length of this absence, the sensation being no longer
there to insinuate in the imagination the strength and freshness of its act. That is
why the repetition of sense knowledge, induction, and experience are necessary for the
development of knowledge. Furthermore, that is why the imagination as a dim and
hazy representation of an object consequently perceived as such through its phantasm should be constantly helped and put aright by the imagination inasmuch as it
is connected with the present sensation. To acquire the value of knowledge, and
of the sole knowledge which has value in Aristotle's eyes, namely, that of an object,
the imagination should be in continuous ccrrespondence with sensation which determines its power for apprehending the real. The result of this is that it appears
very close to common sense (sensus communis), but, while the latter registers
sensible reality, the imagination, without reconstructing this reality, perceives it
through the phantasm which it expresses in conformity with the data impressed upon
it. In the proper sense the imagination is, consequently, fully that which it is as a
knowing faculty only by actual union with sensation and with the object which
provokes sensation."
Then De Corte adds: " One gains a glimpse of the important place which this
faculty occupies in the systematic organization of conceptual knowledge. Relying
upon sensation, [the imagination] depends upon it as a consequence of the object,
but it transcends the latter as a consequence of its superior causality, which utilizes
it as an instrument of knowledge. In this way it raises itself to the level of rational
functions. According to Plutarch, who on this point successfully extricates the
virtual content of Aristotle's thought, the imagination truly constitutes the intermediary between sensation and thought, the hinge around which knowledge
turns. Does not Aristotle go as far as speaking about an imagination having an
intellectual character, ¢avrarrla
(De Anima, III, 10, 433b 29. Cf. 11,
434a 7, and Philopon, 515, 12)? " (M. De Corte, La doctrine de ['intelligence selon
Aristote [Paris: Vrin, 1934], pp. 173-175).

<f>avracr[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

are united and present. This is what explains how the form
of the common sensible very easily becomes predominant in
the image.
Finally, let us not forget that images are operational principles in the life of the animal and that for men the emotions,
diseases, or sleep restore a primordial value to the imagination.
We shall have the occasion to specify this fact when we consider how Aristotle indicates the functions of the imagination
in his other treatises. 45
We should note that, from another aspect, Aristotle determines the organ of imagination only in a very general way.
Unquestionably, for him, the sensitive faculty is not without the
body, without a bodily organ; only the mind is separated. 46 Since
the imagination forms part of the sensitive soul, then, it should
have a bodily organ. 47 It can exist in certain animals. However, Aristotle distinguishes the imaginative part from the
sensitive part and the appetitive part, and he states that,
according to its being, this imaginative faculty differs from
the other faculties. 48
At the end of the analysis of this chapter 3, as we compare
this chapter with the preceding chapters, we are very surprised
to ascertain that here Aristotle no longer determines imagination, as a vital function, by its proper object, although he had
•• Cf. The Motion of Animals, 7, 701b 16, where Aristotle emphasizes that sensations are alterations and that imaginations and the vo7'Jr1'Ls have the power of realities. Although all three of these change, yet imagination and thought have something special, in the sense that they have, as it were, a power.
•• De Anima, III, 4, 429b 5.
47 Cf. Eudemian Ethics, H, 2, 1235b 29. "Imagination
and opinion are not found
in the same (part) of the soul." Cf. also On Dream.s, I, 458b 29, where Aristotle
asks the question about knowing whether the imaginative faculty (ro <f>avraunKov)
and the sensitive faculty of the soul are identical, or whether they differ from each
other. A bit later, referring to the study of the treatise On the Soul, Aristotle
asserts: " since the imaginative faculty ( ro <f>avraunKov) is identical with the sense
faculty, their being (ro elva<) is different" (1, 459a 15 sq.).
•• De Anima, III, 9, 432b 1 sq.: "Then comes the imaginative part (ro <f>avrauT<KilV) which seems to be essentially different from all the others, but which is
extremely difficult to identify with, or distinguish from any of these parts, if one
begins by supposing that the parts of the soul are separated from one another."

24

M.-D. PHILIPPE

announced and used this method previously. His dominant
concern is simultaneously to distinguish imagination from sensation and thought (reasoning) and to establish it as a movement resulting from sensation.
We understand why Aristotle has changed his method very
radically without giving us a warning, since, when it is a question of imagination, it can no longer be said that the object is
anterior to the function; in the strict sense there is no object
for the function of the imagination, but there is a fruit. The
imagination produces an image, a phantasm. This image exists
only for and in this act; it does not exist previously. On the
level of imagination the subject-object distinction, then, can
no longer be applied; the imagination can no longer be understood other than in its own exercise. To know what it is, we
must seek its efficient cause, since it has no final cause. That
is why the genetic method is called for, and only this method
enables us to know what it is.

II. The Role of Imagination in the Development

of Our

Human Life.
In the order o£ knowledge, imagination appears to be only
a mean. It is neither good nor evil, all depending upon the
use one makes o£ it. In itself it is a possibility of advancing
further, inasmuch as it possesses a greater autonomy than
sensations; but it can also occasion a terrible withdrawal, imprisoning the person who knows within himself, within his
experience. The imagination can permit an emphasis of the
known sensible, the proper sensible, but it can also imprison
the knower in his own subjectivity: it is an idealizing knowledge. Let us see how Aristotle shows us this role of imagination in the development of our human life.
a) Functions of the Imagination in Intellectual Knowledge,
in the Perspective of the DE ANIMA.
I£ imagination is a movement resulting from sensation, it is
utilized by our intellective soul in its various activities.

<f>avTa<T(a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

Speaking of the discursive
lines the following:

(8tavor/nK1J)

OF ARISTOTLE

Q5

soul Aristotle under-

the images (-r<i cpavraupma) are present to it ({m·apxn) as sensibles
(
and when it affirms or denies good or evil, it avoids
or pursues them. That is why the soul never thinks without an
image (avEV cpavraup.ara).49
Then, after recalling
concludes:

the role of common

sense, Aristotle

The noetic faculty, then, thinks the forms (ra £t8YJ) in the phantasms.
And just as it is in these phantasms that there is the determination of what it is to seek or to avoid, it is moved, even outside sensation, when it is occupied with images .... At other times by means
which are in the soul, one
of the images or thoughts
calculates (>..oy[,€rat) and deliberates, as though one saw future
matters in present data. 50
These various assertions clearly show that, for Aristotle, the
image is indispensable for discursive thought. Yet, although
one cannot think without an image, the image, however, is
not what determines and specifies our thought. The image
is a necessary condition; it is not the object which activates
our noetic knowledge.
Discursive thought, however, is not the only thought which
needs images; the same is true of the contemplative soul:
moreover, when one contemplates (OEwpfi), the contemplative act
is necessarily accompanied by an image.51
And, in terminating his analyses of intellective activity, Aristotle asks himself this question: " How then are the first
49 De Anima, III, 7, 431a 14 sq.
The same affirmation is found in the tract On
Memory and Recollection, I, 449b 30-31: "One cannot think without images."
Aristotle had asked himself the question at the beginning of his study On the Soul
"The act of thinking (To vo<iv) seems eminently proper to the soul. If this
activity is identical with a kind of imagination (</>aVTauia) or if it can function
without the imagination, even this cannot exist apart from the body" (De Anima,
I, 1, 403a 8).
50 De Anima, III, 7, 431b 2-7.
51 Ibid., III, 8, 432a 8.

26

M.-D. PHILIPPE

intelligibles (Ta 1rpw-ra
distinguished from images?" 52
Aristotle had just asserted that imagination is distinct from
affirmation and denial inasmuch as these imply a synthesis
(
of intelligibles. Without solving the question,
since it pertains not to the De Anima but to first philosophy
to provide the answer, Aristotle suggests that these first intelligibles are not images but that they never exist without images. 5 3
It is always the same doctrine that is asserted: our intellectual
activities, those which reason as well as those which contemplate, always presuppose the presence of phantasms; but
they use phantasms to attain the intelligible forms and to
attain reality, affirming or denying its existence and what it is.
For Aristotle this is very clear; only sensations and the
activities of the intellect can attain existing reality; the imagination can attain only phantasms, sensible forms without
matter. But these phantasms are utilized in all our intellectual
activities, from the least perfect to the most perfect.
If the imagination is present to all our intellectual activities,
it is also present, and in an even more determinant way, for
the formation of language whereby we can communicate what
we think to others. Let us cite this striking text:
not every sound (t/n!cf>o<>) made by an animal is a voice
One can make noise with the tongue, like those who cough; but
that which produces the noise must have a soul and use some
imagination (representation: fJ-fTa cf>avraa[a., nv6<>), since the voice
is a certain sound capable of signifying ( n<> af;acf>o<> a1Jp,avTtK6<>)•54

The signification of the word, which is proper to the word,
demands a certain presence of imagination.
Finally, let us note this passage from the Metaphysics: "not
everything that appears (1r8.v To cpatv6,..tevov) is true .... Even
if the sensation does not deceive us, yet imagination is not
the same thing as the sensation (iJ cpav-raCF[a ov mvT6v rfi
." 55
Ibid., III, 8, 432a 12.
Ibid., III, 8, 432a 13-14 .
.. Ibid., II, 8, 420b 32.
55 Cf. Metaphysics, r, 5, 1010b 1-11.
52

53

<f:>avracr[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

b)

OF ARISTOTLE

27

Functions of the Imagination as Regards the Local Movement of the Animal. Imagination and Desire according
to the DE ANIMA.

In his search for the principle of local movement in the
animal Aristotle observes that this faculty is not the nutritive
power. This movement itself "is always with imagination or
desire" (f-LETa cf>avracr[a<; 1]
.56 And he specifies:
and
There are two principles of local movement; desire
mind (vov>), if one deems imagination (cpavTaa-lav) to be a certain
understanding. 57
Then, to support his assertion, the Philosopher

recalls:

Frequently men turn away from science to follow their imaginations, and the other animals possess neither understanding nor
reason (A.oyurp,o>) but only imagination. 58
Here, then, are the two principles of every local movement in
the animal: the practical intellect or imagination and desire. 59
But if the intellect is always right, " desire and imagination
can be right or wrong." 60 Then, terminating this analysis of
the moving principle of the animal, Aristotle summarizes his
thought:
In general, then, as has been said, insofar as the living being is
capable of desire, it is also capable of self-movement. The faculty
for desire, however, is not without imagination (avfv cf>av-racTia>),and
every imagination is either rational or sensible. The latter is what
is shared by other animals besides man. 61
We should get a good grasp of this assertion: "every imaginanation is either rational
or sensible (
.
It is a matter of discerning two different exercises of the imagination, one done with understanding, the other only accom•• De Anima, III, 9, 432b 16.
67 Ibid., III, 10, 433a 9-10.
•• Ibid., III, 10, 433a 11 sq.
•• Ibid., III, 10, 433a 20: " When the imagination moves, it cannot move without
desire."

•• Ibid., III, 10, 433a 27.
61 Ibid., III, 10, 433b 27 sq.

28

M.-D. PHILIPPE

parrying sensation. For conviction in this regard it is enough
for us to read the explanation which Aristotle himself gives
concerning these two types of imagination:
Sensitive imagination exists even in irrational animals, whereas
deliberative ({3ovA.£vnKry) pertains only to being endowed with
reason. For to know whether one will do this or that is already
the work of reasoning .... Hence they [the beings endowed with
reason] can form a single image from many phantasms. And the
reason why inferior animals seem not to possess opinion
is that they do not have that sort of imagination which proceeds
from the syllogism, inasmuch as this presupposes the former. 62

Here Aristotle no longer speaks about rational (A.oyta-nKr})
imagination, but about deliberative (f3ovAEvnKr)) imagination.
But it is easy to understand that it is always a matter of distinguishing the two sorts o£ exercise regarding the imagination. 63
These two chapters (9 and 10) of the third book of the De
Anima clearly show the capital role of imagination and desire
in the local movement of the animal. The very intimate cooperation between imagination and desire enable the animal
to move himself, since it shows him what he must avoid and
what he must seek. Here we see the very close bond existing
between imagination and desire, and hence between imagination
and affective life. However, Aristotle does not develop this
question in the De Anima, since what he seeks is to determine
what the soul is by analyzing its proper functions. It is enough
for him, then, to specify what actuates vital local movement. 64
Ibid., III, 11, 434a 5 sq.
Cf. On Memory and Recollection, 1, 453a 14. Speaking about willing (ro
fJov'/\evnKov), Aristotle asserts: "for the act of deliberation (fJov'/\eveuOat) is a
certain syllogism ( uv'/\'1-.o"'(<<YflOS)."
64 Examining the role of desire, Aristotle shows that this desire which is exercised
on the basis of a quality which attracts somebody or makes him flee, can be exercised only because of thought or imagination. We cite this curious text: "Hence the
principle of movement is that which should be pursued in the order of action, and
it is necessary that the hot or cold quality of what is pursued or avoided be
accompanied by thought or imagination" (The Motion of Animals, 8, 701b 35).
Cf. 7, 701a 33: " Cupidity tells me that I must drink; and that the voOs or imagination or sensation asserts that it is to be drunk." Likewise, 701a 36: " Desire
is the ultimate cause of the act of stirring, which proceeds by sensation or by imagi62
63

cl>avracria IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

If we now examine the other works of Aristotle, we can
complete that which is told to us in such a precise and sober
way in the De Anima. We shall consider first the role of
imagination with regard to memory and the bond between
imagination and dream and then shall go on to the examination of the role of imagination with regard to the emotions
and the will.
c)

Imagination is the Source of .Jl:lemory.

Aristotle shows the connections between imagination and
memory in his small treatise On .Memory and Reminiscence
where he asks what memory and reminiscence are (n Ecrn),
through what cause (8L<1 nv airiav) they occur, and what part
of the soul is concerned with this affection and the act of
remembering. 65
The first thing to recognize is that memory considers neither
the future (which is the object of opinion and hope) nor the
present (which is the object of sensation) but the past (ro
1rapov) .66

Memory
is neither sensation nor supposition (lnrol.."'tfru;),
but possession
or modification (mi8o>) of some of these, when
the time occurs. 67

Time is always connected with memory. Reflecting upon this
perception of time as involved in memory Aristotle observes:
We necessarily know (yvwp[,Hv) magnitude and movement by that
which makes us know time; and the phantasm (ro cpavraafLa) is an
affection (7r6.8o>) of common sensation (r-ij> Kowry>
.68

Here one remains in sensible knowledge. The memory of
intelligibles (rwv voYJrwv) cannot take place without an image
nation and thought." And again 701a 30 anent desire: " it is immediately achieved
when it is in act by sensation or imagination or intellection in reference to the aim
desired."
65 On Memory and Recollection, 1, 449b 4-6.
66 Ibid., 1, 449b 14-15.
67 Ibid., I, 449b 24-25.
68 Ibid., I, 450a 9-11.

30

M.-D. PHILIPPE

(avev cpavnfCTp,ar6<;)/ 9 in such a way that memory is not applied
immediately to intelligibles; it can be applied to them only
through the imagination; in itself memory is a sense. Hence
Aristotle can answer the question: to which part of the soul
does memory belong?
It is clear that that part of the soul from which memory rises is
precisely that part to which imagination belongs and that what
is imaginable is of itself capable of being memorized, and that
what is an accidental object of memory is no object without the
imagination. 70

Furthermore, Aristotle asks how it happens that the image
remains in some, whereas it hardly penetrates the memory of
others. 71 Why do chidren and old persons seem to be those
who have the least memory, like those who are in a state of
flux, as though the impression of a seal were applied to
running water? 72
This point clearly shows the difference and the relationship
existing between imagination and memory. If the latter always
presupposes the former, it implies in itself certain proper
demands, namely, of time and of permanency; the image should
last. Memory appears to be a knowledge which is more realistic
than imagination.
Seeking to specify what memory is, Aristotle observes:
The animal painted on a board is at the same time an animal and
a copy ( fiKwv), and, while being one and the same, it is these two
things; however, the fact of being (To dvat) is not the same for the
two things, and it is possible to look at it both as an animal and
as a copy. So we must suppose that the phantasm in us is something which is by itself, as well as the phantasm of something else.
Consequently, inasmuch as we consider the phantasm in itself, it is
a representation ({hwp7Jp,a) or phantasm; inasmuch as it is of some
other thing, it is like a copy or souvenir. 73
•• Ibid., l, 450a IS.
70 Ibid., l, 450a flS.
71 Ibid., I, 450b 10.
•• Ibid., I, 450b fl.
78 Ibid., 1, 450b flO sq. (etKwv as translated
into Latin by imago and cp&.vTa.upa.
by phanU!sma).

cf;laVTaO"ta IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE

81

The phantasm, then, can be used in two ways: it can be considered in itself as a phantasm or also inasmuch as it is an
image of some other thing. In the first case it is the imagination which perceives it in the surest way. In the second case
it serves as a " copy " or " memory (eiKwv and /-LVTJ/-L6vevi-La).
This enables us to make a still better discernment between
imagination and remembrance.
For Aristotle this distinction is very important, and the
confusion which can be made between these usages of the
image explains certain errors. Certain persons, in a state of
ecstasy (€gtO"Ta/-Levot) "spoke of phantasms as though they were
reality and as if they remembered them. This happens when
someone looks at what is not a copy as though it were a
copy." 74
As regards reminiscence (avaiLVTJO"t'>) Aristotle asserts: "reminiscence is a search for the image in that very thing (€v
Totovnp)." 75 And if melancholic persons are easily troubled
when they ought to recall, it is that " images excite them to
the highest degree (/-LaAtO"m) ." 76
d)

Imagination and Dreams.

If one wishes to understand the connections between images
and dreams such as the Philosopher conceives them, one must
completely analyze Aristotle's short treatise On Dreams. 71
It suffices, nevertheless, to go to the end of this treatise to
understand how the Philosopher defines the dream by the
image:
. . . The dream is not every image ( cf><fvmap,a 1rav) which manifests
itself in sleep ... just as it is not every truthful thought which
comes to us in sleep independently of images (1rapa Ta cf>avnfap,aTa) .
.. Ibid., I, 45Ia IO sq.
75 Ibid., I, 458a I5.
76 Ibid., I, 458a I9.
77 On Dreams (ITepl
I, 458b I sq. This treatise begins in the following
way: "After these studies, we must first investigate, on the matter of the dream,
in which part of the soul it appears and whether it is an affection
of the
noetic or sense part."

M.-D. PHILIPPE

But the image which derives from the movement of sensible impressions when one is asleep and insofar as one is sleeping, that is
the dream. 78

The bond between the dream and memory can be seen: the
two are connected with the image and with sensible impressions, but one is achieved while a person is awake, the other
in the state of sleep. The image plays an essential role in
both cases, but just as one cannot identify image with memory,
so one cannot identify image with dream. However, just as
there is no memory without image, so there is no dream
without image.
Here let us quote certain passages of this small treatise
which seem particularly interesting to us with a view to
grasping the bonds between image and dream. After asserting
that we "feel" dreams not through sensation 79 nor through
opinion, inasmuch as during dreams we "conceive" (evvovf.Lev)
something other than the object-since in sleep we sometimes
think (evvovf.Lev) of another thing beyond phantasms (7rapa
Ta cpavni(J"f.Lam),80 Aristotie specifies:
It frequently happens, in fact, that persons seeking to remember
what they have dreamed envisage some other image, apart from
the dream, in the place where the images are received. 81

Hence it is evident that not every phantasm in sleep is a dream
and that what we think (o €vvovf1.£v) in this state is what we have
previously accepted through opinion. 82
But whether the imagination and the sensitive part are identical
in the soul or different, no dream occurs unless one sees and feels
something .... 83

If, then, it is true that one sees nothing in the dream, it is not
accurate to say that the sense faculty experiences nothing, but it
is possible that sight and the other senses experience some affecIbid., 3, 462a 18-19 sq.
Ibid., 1, 458b 9.
80 Ibid., 1, 458b 18: 1rapa ra ¢avratr11ara
81 Ibid., 1, 4t8b 23.
82 Ibid., 1, 458b 24-25.
88 Ibid., 1, 458b 29-30.

78

79

<J:>avracTI,a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

33

tion. Each of the impressions acts in a certain way as though
it were awakened, but not as though one were really roused. 84
And sometimes opinion tells us that what we see is false, as it
tells those who are awake; at other times opinion is fettered by
the image and goes along with it. 85
After this first analysis Aristotle

concludes:

It is clear, then, that the experience (ro 1raOo>) which we call

dreaming does not belong to the opinionative or to the intellective
faculty, or to the sensitive faculty, taken absolutely. 86
Hence one must make an appeal to the imagination:
Imagination is the movement engendered by sensation in act, and
the dream appears to be a certain phantasm, since we call the
dream the phantasm in sleep (ro iv
rf>avmaJUL) either absolutely
or in a special sense. It is clear that the dream belongs to the
sensitive faculty inasmuch as it is capable of phantasms. 87
Then, speaking about possible errors, the Philosopher cites
certain facts. The approach of a fever, as also a certain emotional state of anger, can produce illusions:
The cause of these phenomena is that it is not according to the
same power that one discerns what is chief (Kp[vav ro Kvpwv) and
that phantasms are engendered. The sign of this is that the sun
seems to be a foot wide, whereas something else contradicts this
impression. 88
Then the Philosopher specifies the conditions which favor
the blossoming of images in contrast to those which do not
favor this development:
Hence, just as in a liquid, if one agitates it very much, sometimes
no image (£t8wA.ov) appears, sometimes a completely distorted image
Ibid., 1, 459a
Ibid., 1, 459a 6-7.
86 Ibid., 1, 459a 8 sq.
87 Ibid., 1, 459a 17 sq.
88 Ibid.,
460b 16-18. And from what is said a bit further on, let us quote this
8•

85

statement: " In every case the appearance (To ¢awoiJ.EPOP) is there, but it does not
seem real in every case, but only when the discerning faculty is restrained and lacks
its own movement" (Ibid., 3, 461b 5 sq.).

34

M.-D. PHILIPPE

appears, so that the object seems quite different from what it
really is, although when the liquid is no longer moving, the images
are clear and visible; so also in sleep, sometimes the images (-ra
cpavnl.up.a-ra) and movement remaining from the waking hours and
resulting from sensations are altogether cancelled when the movement in question is too great. Sometimes, however, the visions
produced are terrifying and monstrous and the dreams are morbid,
as occurs, for example, with the melancholic, the feverish, and the
inebriated. 89

When calm returns, then certain discernments can be made.
Then Aristotle seeks to specify whereby we are conscious
of appearances in dreams:
In sleep, if a person is conscious that he is asleep and if he takes
account of the state which reveals the sensation of sleep, there
is an appearance (cf>a[v£-rat), but there is something in him which
tells him that, although it appears to be Coriscus, but is not
Coriscus himself (since often, when one is sleeping, there is something in his soul which tells him that what appears (-r6 cpatv6p..£vov)
is a dream), whereas if he does not take account of the fact that
he is asleep, there is nothing to contradict the imagination. 90

And the Philosopher concludes:
It is clear that what we say is true and that in the sensorial organs
(£v -rot<> aiu01JT1Jpiot<>) there are movements apt to produce images
(cf>av-raunKat),if one tries attentively to remember what one experiences when one is falling asleep as well as when one awakes; sometimes, in waking up, one will discover that the images which
appeared (-ra cpaw6p..£va £t8wA.a) in sleep are movements in the sense
organs. 91
89 Ibid., 8, 461a 14 sq. Here Aristotle uses the term eti5w"!l.ov translated
into Latin
as effigies or simulacrum (462a 12, 462a 16). This word, which is the source of our
contemporary term " idol," implies an idea of confusion which is apt to deceive .
.Pav-ra.tr,ua., which designates the fruit of imagination, does not imply the idea of
trouble. EtKwv, used in the Poetics, comes from lotKa. (to be similar) and indicates
the resemblance of what is relative to some other thing. These three words correspond to what appears (q,a.lvw) immediately, whereas vtro"A•r.f;ts is the act of taking
from below, as though one grasped something beyond that which appears in its
regard.
•• Ibid., S,
" 1 Ibid., S,

<l>avrau[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE

85

Hence" the dream is a sort of image (cf)(l.vTaap.an) occurring in
sleep, since the appearances (eZ8cuA.a) concerning which we
have just spoken are not dreams," 92
Finally, in the treatise On Divination in Sleep, we must note
these observations from Aristotle:
But in truth it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the
representations (cpavraap,anov) occurring during sleep are the causes
of actions proper to each one of us.93
It is possible for the movements which take place during sleep
to be principles of actions accomplished during the day, inasmuch as the thought (8tavota) of these actions has already
been prepared in the nocturnal phantasms (Ev
cf>avTaCTftacn
.94 Hence it is possible that certain dreams be
signs and causes.
Furthermore, as regards the interpretation of dreams, Aristotle observes:
The most skillful interpreter
of dreams is the man who
can recognize likenesses (ra> op,otor1Jra>). . . . I say likenesses, since
phantasms (ra cpavraap,ara) are a bit like representations of objects
in the water (rot> w ro!> il8amv dllwAm>) .95
So that, if the movement of liquids is violent, the representation
( lp,cpaat>) is not at all like the original and the images (ra £i8w.Aa)
do not resemble their models.96
The role of the image, then, appears to be essential to this
particular state of sleep; but imagination and dreams must not
be identified on the basis of this observation.
e)

Imagination and Man's Emotions.

In the Rhetoric Aristotle constantly underlines the role of
imagination in reference to the emotions, and particularly as
regards pleasures. Let us quote certain texts here:
92 Ibid., 8, 462a 16-17.
•• On Divination in Sleep, 1, 463a 21 sq.
•• Ibid., 1, 463a 29-80.
•• Ibid., 2, 464b 5 sq.
•• Ibid., 2, 464b 10 sq.

36

M.-D. PHILIPPE

Since the experience of pleasure is in the sensation of a certain
emotion (mf8ou>), and imagination is a feebled sensation, it follows
that when a person remembers and when he expects, he produces
a sort of image (cf>avracr[a n>) of what he remembers and of what
he expects. 97

From another aspect,
The opinion of others towards us feeds our imagination, and this
makes us believe that we are fine fellows. "Honors and good repute
are among the most pleasant things, because everyone
imagines that he has the qualities of a fine fellow." 98

In what is most intimate to us, imagination produces an image
of ourselves which gives us pleasure. As a result, a man likes
to imagine his superiority over others:
Victory is pleasant, not only for the ambitious, but for everyone,
inasmuch as an image of superiority is produced, which all persons
desire with more or less eagerness. 99

Imagination can augment the pleasure of friendship by giving
us a greater consciousness of our goodness:
It is pleasant to love ( r6 cpti\E'iv) • • • just as it is pleasant (
to be loved ( r6 cpti\EZ0"8at), since the imagination then makes us
discover that we possess the good which all persons desire ... to
be loved by a friend is to be an object of affection in and by
oneself .100

Imagination can also augment our pleasure by making us
dwell interiorly upon the thought of revenge:
A certain pleasure follows upon anger for the reason given (the
hope of revenge) and because man passes his time in the thought
( rfi 8wvo[q_) ; hence the imagination in exercising itself causes us
pleasure ( ywopiVYJ cf>avrav[a
ip:rrotEZ) as it does in dreams. 101
97 Rhetoric, I, 11, 1370a 27-30. Cf. also Rhetoric, II, 5, 1383a 17: "in such a
way that hope follows upon the representation (!-'eTa <f;avra<Ilas) of thmgs which
can save us inasmuch as they are near."
•• Ibid., 1, 11, 137la 8 sq.
•• Ibid., 1, 11, l370b 32 sq.
100 Ibid., 1, 11, 137la 17 sq.
101 Ibid., II, 2, 1378b 7-9.

<l>aVTaa-£a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

87

This connection with anger is also asserted in the Ethics. 102
Imagination can exalt us in giving us an exalted image of
what we are, but it can also put us in a state of shame as
regards ourselves: " since shame (7] ala-xvli'YJ) is an imagination
about dishonor (1rep"i d8of£a.,) ." 103 It can also put us into a
state of fear and trouble:
Let us admit that fear is a certain pain or trouble caused by the
imagination (
tK ,Pavraa-Eac;) concerning a future evil capable
of destroying us or making us experience pain, since not all evil
things are an object of fear. 104
Given this very important role of imagination as regards
the emotions, we understand how it can be the occasion for a
lack of prudence and a lack of self-mastery and hence become
a great obstacle to virtue:
It is especially persons who are quick-tempered and of melancholy

disposition who manifest this very impetuous absence of self-control;
the former by following their impetuosity, the latter by force of
their impressions, shut themselves up anew against reason (8ul.
u¢o8p1lTYfTa OVK avap.Evovatv TOV Aoyov) ' since they follow their
imagination. 105

Aristotle reminds us that the beasts do not lack control over
themselves inasmuch as it is impossible for them to conceive
the universal (ovK
TWV Ka()6X.ov {.m6X.11/Jw)' but they possess
only the imagination and memory of particular things (dx.Aa
TWV

Ka

()'

,,
EKU<J"TU

,I.

,

'

,
) 106
f-tVYJf-tTJV ,

If imagination plays a very important role as regards our
emotional life, our virtues in their tum act upon our imagina102 " The M-yos or imagination
has shown him that there was outrage or disdain;
and anger flares up immediately, as though it had ooncluded as a result of reasoning
(o-vXXo-yto-ap,evos) that one must start a war against the adversary.
By contrast,
as soon as the M-yos and the aro-IJ'I)o-ts have indicated an agreeable object, desire
(l·rn!Jvp,la) flings itself out towards enjoyment" (Ethics to Nicomachus, H, 7,
1149a 32).
108 Rhetoric, II, 6, 1384a 23.
10 • Ibid., II, 5, 1382a 23.
105 Ethics to Nicomachus, H, 8, ll50b 28.
106 Ibid., H, 5, 1147b 4-5.
Aristotle has just distinguished ltn!Jvp,la from

38

M.-D. PHILIPPE

tions, 107 inasmuch as man has a certain power over his imaginations.108 That is why imagination can be deemed to be, as it
were, engendered by thought, as it is normally engendered by
sensation. 109 This indicates a new type of cooperation between
imagination and the intellect.

Imagination and the Will.
Imagination can act not only on the emotions but also on
the will. As regards the will, the imagination also plays an
important role, inasmuch as it presents the apparent good:
To cpaw6fLevov &:ya06v. 110 Let us cite this particularly significant
text:
f)

We see that what moves the animal is thought (8t&vma), imagination, choice, the will (f3ouA.7Jat>), the appetite (i1rdJvp.lav). All of
these are reduced to the vov> and desire, inasmuch as the imagination and sensation have the same horizon (xwpav) as the vov>.111
This last statement should be understood in the perspective of
the treatise On the Motion of Animals.
g) Imagination Can Be a Source of Opposition to Realistic
Knowledge.
We have already seen how imagination can cooperate in
intellectual knowledge; but we must note also that imagination,
achieving a knowledge as irreducible to sensation as to opinion,
can be at the source of an anarchical knowledge which is in
opposition to the discernment of the senses and the intellect.
107 Cf . .Eudemian Ethics, B, 1, 1219b 24: " The imaginations of virtuous men are
better."
108 Cf. p. 24 supra.
109 Cf. The Motion of Animals, 8, 702a 19: "In fact, the organic parts dispose the
passions harmoniously and suitably, whereas imagination makes the apt disposition
for desire. But the latter is engendered either by thought or by sensations."
11 ° Cf. Eudemian Ethics, B, 1, 1235b 26: "the apparent
good for some is the
object of opinion, for others it is the object of imagination, although it may not be
the object of opinion." Cf. also The Motion of Animals, 6, 700b 28: 'TO <f>atv6p.evov

ti'Ya86v.
111

The Motion of Animals, 6, 700b 17.

<l>aii'TaUta IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

39

We can examine only what appears, without taking account
of the discernment of knowledge which attains the real. 112
In this way the imagination can be a source of error. 113
In the treatise On Dreams, as we have already indicated,
Aristotle observes that this propensity to error is manifested
in the fact that, " just as the sun seems to be a foot wide,
frequently some other thing contradicts the imagination." 114
h)

Imagination and Art.

We observe first that Aristotle stresses the chief role of
imagination in his Rhetoric: " In Rhetoric everything depends
upon the imagination, and this has the hearer in view." 115
Now we know that, for the Philosopher, rhetoric is an art
ordered to persuasion (To 7Tt0av6v), and that this appears in
that discourse
which produces the emotional experience.116 Here, then, we have a very clear expression of the
cooperation between imagination and discourse
Furthermore, this is not proper to the art of rhetoric, inasmuch as every art seems to be the fruit of a very special
112 In his treatise On the Heavens, II, 13, 294a 7, concerning the circular form of
the earth, Aristotle notes that one must not confuse what one knows about reality
in its appearance and what one knows about reality in itself. Cf. also II, 14,
31, as well as On the World, 395b 6; Meteorologica, I, 5, 342b 32; 3, 339a 35; On
Sophistical Refutations, 4, 165b 25; 6, 168b 7-8; Topics, I, I, IOOb 21.
118 Meteorologica, II, 9, 370a 15. Since imagination is a source of error, imagination has come to be identified with illusion as error. G. Canguilhem writes:
"The imagination is non-perception. It is the perception of some object other than
its authentic object. . . . There is no empty consciousness, deprived of an object,
and perception concerns all instants. But sometimes perception is right, sometimes
it is wrong; it is imagination in the latter case. The imagination is thought always
having a content but capable of establishing an object for itself which differs from
that through which it is aroused. Hence to imagine is to live an effective and
correlative behavior concerning an object which differs from the real object." And
G. Canguilhem cites Alain (Systeme des Beaux-Arts, p. 18): " Disorder in the body,
error in the spirit, one nourishing the other, that is what is real for the imagina(G. Canguilhem, "La creation artistique selon Alain," in Revue de Metaphysique et de morale, LVII, no. 2 [avril-juin, 1952], pp. 176-77).
114 On Dreams,
460b 19.
115 Rhetoric, III, 1, 1404a 11.
116 Ibid., I, 1, 1356a
sq.

40

M.-D. PHILIPPE

cooperation between the mind and imagination, between the
A.6yos and phantasms.
Aristotle does not speak explicitly about imagination in his
Poetics; but in showing (in the Rhetorics) the importance of
the image (elKwv JLETacpopa) in poetry 117 and of the fable (myth)
in tragedy, 118 and in speaking about the imitative art, he
thereby clearly indicates the chief role of imagination. However, he also indicates the chief role of the mind; poetry is
more philosophical and has a more elevated character than
history, inasmuch as poetry speaks of things in a rather universal way (nl. Ka06A.ov), whereas history speaks about things
"according to what is particular." 119
As regards imitation, Aristotle stresses the fact that "the
tendency to imitate is instinctive to man from childhood." 120
It is by imitation that he acquires his first lessons and all men
experience pleasure through these lessons. The sign of this is furnished by the facts: we pleasurably contemplate the most faithful
images (r?is dK6va>) of real objects which we cannot look at directly
without pain, as, for example, what concerns the most repulsive
beasts and corpses. 121

There is need to specify the precise bonds existing between
phantasms and images or fables in order to grasp better the
cooperation between the imagination and the intellect in art.
What is evident is that every image and every fable presupposes a phantasm, a representation. Yet all intellectual
knowledge, too, presupposes a phantasm and cannot be produced without a phantasm. 122 What characterizes the art of
117 Cf. ibid., III, 4, 1406b 20. There is between <iKwv and f.teTa</>opa a slight
difference (lita</>€pet fL<Kp6v): " when it is said that Achilles rushed like a lion,
that is an image; on the contrary, 'this lion rushed' is a metaphor."
118 Poetics, I, 6, 1460a 4: "A myth
is the imitation of an action; by
myth I mean the synthesis of actions."
110 Ibid., I, 9, 145lb 5 sq.
120 Ibid., I, 4, 1448b 5 sq.
121 Ibid., I, 4, 1448b 7 sq.
See our study L'art imite la nature in L'activite
artistique, II (Paris, ed. Beauchesne, 1970), p. 305 ff.
122 On this matter
let us cite this passage from C. Canguilhem very significant of recent theories concerning the imagination which are directly opposed to Aris-

<l>aPTacr[a IN THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ARISTOTLE

41

imitation is that it uses the phantasm to make an image or
fable from it. Hence we are in the presence of an exemplaryImage.

*

*

*

*

*

At the end of this study, it appears quite clear that Aristotle
has not scorned the role of imagination in human life,
both intellectual and affective; this is a consequence of his
realism and his philosophical conception of the substantial
union between soul and body .123 Although he has seen the
full importance and richness of the imagination, he has also
understood its dangers. But he has not been content to describe
and situate the various functions of imagination in our life;
he has sought to specify what it is, the special type of knowledge it presents, an especially difficult task in view of the
extremely fluctuant, mobile, and poorly determined character
of the imagination. Is it not the least determined knowledge
totle: "Sartre, who also knows sufficiently well what he owes Alain on this point,
traces to Descartes, before Hume, that conception of the mental image which makes
of it an impression of things in thought, an object in the mind, a card in an album.
Personally it seems to me that Sartre has not gone back far enough in his research
concerning the responsibilities anent the matter of this conception of the image,
imitation and presence, something which he refuses to do along with and after
Alain. For, finally, it is Aristotle who holds that imagination is a theoretical power
without its own productive activity, its role being only to furnish a content for
rational thought. If imagination plays a role in art, it is by its function as an
instrument of knowledge, by its logical function " (Art. cit., p. 176).
128 It has even been so much as said that the imagination
was " the principle of
the form and the end (final cause) which unites all the parts of Aristotle's system
in his conception of the universe" (Froschammer, Uber die Principien der Aristotclischen Philosophie und die Phantasia in Dersclben [Munich, 1881], p. 108).
And the author of this book in which the imagination, a divine faculty, is the
creator of the universe, God being the artist and the world a work of art, adds:
" When we reach the point of specifying the action of the imagination in the
objective and subjective sense as principle of unity for the conception of the universe as held by Aristotle, it is not a matter of merely explaining what Aristotle
himself holds and explains with his customary precision, but also that which remains
non-developed in his writings and which is offered as a consequence, or. that which
remains at the base as a supposition." Citing this passage in his Esthetique
d'Aristote et de ses successeurs, Ch. Benard comments: "It is clear that with this
method one can cause the philosophy of Aristotle to be delivered from a Muse
who will be the Imagination itself two thousand years after the Stagirite" (p. 879).

42

M.-D. PHILIPPE

precisely because it no longer looks at what is real, is not
specified by a proper object? Is it not the most mobile and
dynamic knowledge, the knowledge wherein the self-movement
(se movere) is achieved in the clearest and most exclusive
way, inasmuch as it is a self-movement (se movere) without
finality? Therefore Aristotle first seeks to distinguish imagination, on the one hand, from opinion, and, on the other, from
sensation, in order to show us how imagination, on the one
hand, does not attain the most imperfect knowledge of the vovs-,
and, on the other, remains a sense knowledge, yet mediated by
another sense knowledge; it is a second sense knowledge. That
is why it can be considered to be either a weakened sensation
or a more developed sense knowledge. In fact it is both. From
the qualitative point of view and the aspect of qualitative determination, it is surely a weakened sensation; and from the
aspect of autonomy it is surely a more vital, more immanent,
and more perfect knowledge, inasmuch as it prolongs sense
knowledge from the viewpoint of representation.
Thus, for man, it is at the apex of sense knowledge and disposes him for rational knowledge; hence it is essentially intermediary, enabling him to unite contraries. Given this position
of intermediary, the very important role which it plays in the
whole of human life, very specially in affective life and artistic
life, can be understood. The phantasm then becomes the image,
the myth, the part of reality the intellect can imitate, the
manner whereby it reconstructs the universe in it. Imagination, then, permits a certain synthesis of the intelligible and
the sensible, the universal and the singular.
Thus we see how we can consider imagination either as an
intermediary between sense knowledge and intellectual knowledge (if we examine it in itself, and this is what Aristotle
mainly does), or as a synthesis of these two types of knowledge, if we examine it in its artistic function, and this is what
Plato mainly does.

M.-D. PHILIPPE,
Univl!l'aity of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

O.P.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONCEPTFORMATION

O

N READING Dr. Mortimer Adler's assessment of The
Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes about
a year ago, I was excited by Mr. Adler's remark at one
point that Peter Geach, in a book entitled Mental Acts/ had
convincingly shown that "human concept-formation ... does
not consist in a process of abstraction at all." 2 Like most other
philosophers, I had often wrestled with the difficulties and
perplexities surrounding the various theories of human understanding, so it will not be difficult to understand my enthusiasm
on being alerted to a work which promised to show why Locke
was wrong in holding that " he that thinks general names or
notions are anything else but abstract and partial ideas of
more complex ones, taken at first from particular existences,
will ... be at a loss where to find them." 3 Accordingly, I picked
up a copy of Mr. Geach's book at my first opportunity,
disposed to discover therein the long-standing oversight or
confusion which had led so many philosophers to look on ideas
as the result of some sort of abstractive process.
The following pages, then, may be read either as a critical
response to Mr. Geach's presentation, or as an expression
of the disappointment I experienced in terms of what Dr. Adler
had led me to expect. I also hope, beyond this, that the following pages may be of some interest and illumination to
other philosophers in their own assessments of this historically
complex and philosophically difficult topic. A Structural Outline is given below.
1 Peter
Geach, Mental Acts. Their Content and their Objects (London:
Routeledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 131 with Bibliography and Index.
2 Mortimer
J. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), p. 187, reference to fn. !l!l on p. 817.
• John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, par. D.

48

44

JOHN N. DEELY
STRUCTURAL

OUTLINE

I. The Logical Structure of an Historical Controversy-p. 44.
II. The Construction of Mr. Geach: Aquinas in Caricature--p. 45.
III. The Achievements of Sense and Their Relation to Concept-Formation
in Man According to Aquinas--p. 55.
A. Rational processes and animal intelligence--p. 56.
B. The traditional language of faculties-p. 59.
C. The Notion of vis aestimativa and of experimentum-p. 60.
I. The levels or grades of sensitive life--p. 61.
2. The third or highest level of sensitive awareness--p. 64.
8. Textual difficulties--p. 67.
4. Resolution of difficulties: the synonymy of vis aestimativa
and experimentum--p. 70.
D. The accidental and the essential universal-p. 72.
E. The proper contrast between animal intelligence (vis aestimativa)
and the perceptual roots of concept-formation in man (vis cogitativa)-p. 77.
F. The sphere of animal consciousness and the world of human awareness--p. 79.
G. Rational processes and animal intelligence: summary restatement-p. 81.
IV. Aquinas and Mr. Geach: A Study in Parody-p. 84.
A. The problem of particular judgment&-p. 85.
B. The role of the intellectus agens in concept-formation-p. 86.
V. Conclusion: Toward the Roots of the Caricature--p. 88.

I. The Logical Structure of an Historical Controversy.
There are, as everyone knows, a relatively small number of
major issues in philosophy which are decisive in that the
position one takes with respect to them determines everything
else one may consistently contend about man and the world.
One such fundamental issue is the problem of the sense
of the distinction between mind and body and the nature of
the relations that obtain between the terms of this distinction.
According to one school of thought the principles necessary
and sufficient for settling this issue are to be found in the
writings of Aristotle, particularly as interpreted and developed
by Aquinas. Thus, as W. I. Matson points out in a perceptive
and scholarly presentation of "Why Isn't the Mind-Body
Problem Ancient?", "from Homer to Aristotle, the line be-

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

45

tween mind and body, when drawn at all, was drawn so
as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side." ''
Within this perspective Aquinas was subsequently able to
make clear that there are only two alternatives to the hylomorphic doctrine on the soul insofar as it relates to any question
of mind and body, namely, an idealistic or dualistic doctrine
denying any mutual dependence of mind and body, or, on the
other hand, a materialistic doctrine asserting that bodily processes can explain equally and fully both intellectual or conceptual acts and sensory or perceptual ones. Either intellect
differs from sense in kind but in such wise that the former
depends on the latter for the derivation and elaboration of its
own proper notions (Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle); or
the intellect differs in kind from sense without depending thereon in the derivation-though perhaps in the elaboration-of its
proper notions; or the intellect is dependent on sense in such
wise that there is not even a fundamental difference in kind
between them, and what accounts for sensory perceptions
suffices in principle to account for intellectual conceptions.

II. The Construction of Mr. Geach: Aquinas in Caricature.
Now what does Geach tell us in his analysis of Mental Acts
that further clarifies and illustrates the consequences of these
fundamental options? It is an interesting mixture. He tries
to combine the consequences flowing from Aquinas's position
with the fundamental tenet that intellect differs in kind from
sense without depending thereon in the derivation of its proper
notions. One might have thought that this was just Mr.
Geach's way of being "ecumenical" and bringing diverse traditions into a mutually stimulating contact (although in the
end any such merger of the fundamental dialectical options or
"logical possibilities" envisionable in terms of a basic philosophical problem is bound to end in ruin for all concerned).
I. Matson, "Why Isn't the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?" in
Mind, Matter and Method, ed. by P. K. Feyerband and G. Maxwell (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1966), p. 101.

46

JOHN N. DEELY

But Mr. Geach goes out of his way to obviate this courteous
interpretation by appending to his book an "Historical Note"
on "Aquinas and Abstractionism," 5 wherein he assures us that
not only does he think that intellect differs irreducibly in kind
from sense in such a manner as to be quite independent thereof
both for the formation and exercise of concepts, but that " it
can be decisively shown that in his maturest work, the Summa
Theologica, [the] views [of Aquinas] are opposed to what I
have called abstractionism." 6 This "decisive historical note"
accomplishes its stated aim by reference principally to I, q. 79,
a. 3, ad 2, and I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3. It is this "historical note"
that I want now to examine.
The justice of Geach's interpretation depends on the answer
that must be made to the following questions:
1) What is it that Geach calls "abstractionism" ? (p. below)
2) Is the thought of St. Thomas as it can be found in his
" maturest work " opposed to what Geach calls abstractionism? (pp. below) This question is itself a complex which I shall break down into three points:
a) Can the Summa be called simply Aquinas's" maturest
work" ? (pp.
below).
b) Does Aquinas express an anti-abstractionist view regarding the formation of concepts in I, q. 79, a. 3.
ad 2, as Geach alleges? (pp.
below)
c) Does Aquinas express an anti-abstractionist view on
the " exercise," i. e., the elaboration and application,
of concepts in I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3, as Geach alleges?
(pp.
below)

Let us consider each of these questions in tum.
I)

What does Geach mean by abstractionism?

He says:

I shall use " abstractionism " as a name for the doctrine that a
concept is acquired by a process of singling out in attention some
one feature given in direct experience-abstracting it-and ignoring
5

0

Geach, op. cit., "Appendix," pp. 180-181.
Ibid., p. ISO.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

47

the other features simultaneously given-abstracting from them.
The abstractionist would wish to maintain that all acts of judgment are to be accounted for as exercises of concepts got by
abstraction. 1 My own view is that abstractionism is wholly mistaken; that no concept at all is acquired by the supposed process
of abstraction. 1 " ••• I shall try to show that the whole idea of
abstraction-of discriminative attention to some feature given in
experience-is thoroughly incoherent. 8

2) The next question is whether the thought of St. Thomas
in his maturest work is opposed to abstractionism as just
outlined. We proceed by way of three points.
a) What is involved in Geach's singling out of the Summa
as Aquinas's "maturest work" ? If one means by this that the
Summa is the longest of Aquinas's works which does not develop
principally as a Commentarium on someone else's writing and
that it is from the latter period of Aquinas's life (1266-1273),
then no exception can be taken to this reference. On the other
hand, if one intends to use this phrase as a device for sharply
separating the thought of the Summa from the rest of Aquinas's
writings as being what he " really and finally thought "-the
mature as opposed to the other writings-so that only the
expressions of the Summa finally " count," from a genetic point
of view, then the reference is simply a subterfuge for impoverished interpretation. The period in Aquinas's life from
1266-1273, for example, also dates the composition of In III
libros de anima, In XII libros metaphysicorum, In II libros
post. anal., among other works, so that, from a chronological
and genetic point of view and for purposes of interpretation,
these works are on an equal footing with the Summa insofar as
"maturity" is at issue. 9
b) Geach comments on I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 as follows:
Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid.
• Ibid., p. 19.
• Cf. E. Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (New York, 1940), pp.
424-425; M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas (Chicago: Regnery,
1964), passim.
7

7a

48

JOHN N. DEELY

In accepting the comparison whereby the intellectus agens, the
mind's concept-forming power, is likened to a light that enables the
mind's eye to see the intelligible features of things, as the bodily
eye sees colors, Aquinas is careful to add that this comparison
goes on all fours only if we suppose that colours are generated by
kindling the light-that the light is not just revealing colours that
already existed in the dark. 10
From this it is supposed to be plain that the view of Aquinas
on the formation of concepts in the Summa is anti-abstractionist.
In point of fact, the Reply in question has little bearing on
the problem of abstraction. Aquinas is discussing in q. 79 the
intellectual powers of the soul, after having shown in the
previous question that sense and intellect, generically considered, differ in kind as powers. Having shown in art. 1 of q.
79 that the intellect is a power, and in art. 2 that it is in a
condition of potentiality with respect to the intelligibility of
things, Aquinas proceeds in art. 3 to discuss whether there
must be a cause distinct from the things themselves which are
understood to explain the passage of our understanding in a
given case to a state of actual understanding; and he points
out that our answer to this question is principally determined
by the position we adopt concerning the forms of natural things.
If we say, like Plato, that the forms of themselves subsist
apart from matter, it will follow that they are of themselves
in a state of actual intelligibility, and in this case there is no
need for an active cause for understanding, except perhaps
in some secondary way and by reason of a concomitant attribute.11
On the other hand, if we are of like opinion with Aristotle
on the question of natural forms and regard them as existing
actually only in a sensible way and in strict dependence on
matter insofar as they are within the subsistent, the individual
that exists as a part of nature, then it will be necessary to posit
an active cause of understanding which essentially, and not
10

11

Geach, op. cit., p. 130.
See Summa Theol., I, 79, a. 4; q. 84, a. 6.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

49

just incidentally, accounts for the actualization of our understanding in any given case. On the Aristotelian view there
is no need for a sensus agens because sensible things are found
in a state of actuality-not indeed as sensed but as things 12existing independently of the soul; similarly, on the Platonic
view, there is no need for an intellectus agens because intelligible things are found actually as such existing independently
of the soul. But since in the Aristotelian view intelligible
things are found to be such only in a state of potentialitynot indeed as understood but as things-it is necessary to
admit the necessity of an intellectus agens.
The intelligible as such is not something which can be found
existing in the physical world. And therefore our understanding
of nature could not be accounted for simply by the fact that our
intellect is immaterial, were there not also an active aspect of
intelligence which caused the non-subsistent sensible forms to exist
in knowledge as though they were subsistent, i.e., able to exist as
such apart from matter-qui faceret intelligibilia actu per modum
abstractionis. 18

Now what in Geach's comment bears on any of these points,
which cover q. 79, a. 3, objs. 1 and 3, corpus, and ad 1 and 3?
Let us now bring into account the reply to obj. 2, on which
alone Geach rests his case that Thomas propounds an antiabstractionist view. The second objection states that, if you
are going to argue for the existence of an intellectus
12 " Res faciens passiones in sensu non est ipsemet sensus, quia sensus non est
suimet, sed alterius, quod opportet esse prius sensu naturaliter. . . . Et si contra
hoc dicatur quod sensibile et sensus sunt relativa ad invicem dicta [prout sensibilia
in actu non sunt sine sensibus, i. e., animalibus], et ita simul natura, et interempto
uno interimitur aliud; nihilominus sequitur propositum; quia sensibile in potentia
non dicitur relative ad sensum [sicut e contra intelligibile dicitur relative ad
intellectum] quasi ad ipsum referatur, sed quia sensus refertur ad ipsum." (In
IV Met., lect. 14, nn. 706-707).
13 Summa
Theol., I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 3: " Intelligible autem in actu non est
aliquid existens in rerum natura, quantum ad naturam rerum sensibilium, quae
non subsistunt praeter materiam. Et ideo ad intelligendum non sufficeret immaterialitas intellectus possibilis, nisi adesset intellectus agens, qui faceret intelligibilia in actu per modum abstractionis."

50

JOHN N. DEELY

by analogy to the function light performs in making sight
possible, then the conclusion will not hold up. For, in the case
of seeing, there is a medium involved, and light functions not
to make things potentially colored to be so actually but only
to render the medium luminous, whereupon the actually colored
things as colored are able of their own nature to cause vision.
But since there is no similar medium involved in the case
of understanding, there is no gound for postulating an intellectus agens which functions in understanding as light functions
in seeing.
St. Thomas's reply to this is simply to point out-as indeed
is clear in the light of the rest of the article of which Geach
omits mention-that no one was trying to argue to the necessity of an intellectus agens from an analysis of the way that
light does or does not function in making colored things visible
but from the intrinsic requirements of the structure of understanding and of the passive intellect. For this argument the
precise function light plays in seeing is irrelevant, so much so
that, even if the particular view stated in the objection should
be correct, it would not affect the analogy between the intellectus agens and light but only the reason for which one might
employ this particular metaphor. In Geach's terms, the point
of I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 is that, if we suppose "that colours are
generated by kindling the light," 14 then Aristotle's comparison
of the intellectus agens to light is verified in that the intellectus
agens is required for understanding just as light is required
for seeing and in the same way as light is required for seeing;
on the other hand, if we suppose " that the light is . . . just
revealing colours that already existed [actually] in the dark," 1 "
then Aristotle's comparison still holds inasmuch as, just as the
intellectus agens is necessary for understanding, so also light
is necessary for seeing, although the reason for the necessity
is no longer formally the same in the two cases. The only
thing which Aquinas " is careful to add " in " accepting the
10

Geach, op. cit., p. 180.

'"Ibid.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

51

comparison whereby the intellectus agens, the mind's conceptforming power, is likened to a light that enables the mind's
eye to see the intelligible features of things, as the bodily eye
sees colours," 16 is that the comparison does not depend entirely on a particular theory of the function of light!
There are two opinions current to explain the function of light
with respect to seeing. Some hold that light is essential to sight
in the sense of actually making colors to be visible; and if this
view is correct, it would follow that the intellectus agens is required
for understanding in a manner strictly analogous [similiter requiritur, et propter idem] to the manner in which seeing requires
light. But others contend that this is not the role which light plays
when we see things. Light is not necessary for colors to be actually
visible but is required merely in order that the medium might
become luminous. Such, for example, is the view expressed by
Averroes in par. 67 of his Commentary on the De anima; and if
this is the correct view, then the comparison whereby Aristotle
likens the intellectus agens to light would not hold strictly [non
propter idem] but only in the respect that, as light is necessary
for seeing, so the intellectus agens is necessary for actual understanding.U

In summary, the text in I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 2 has little bearing
on the problem of abstraction; and the article as a whole is
not directly concerned with how concepts are formed but
with whether we must assign on the part of the intellect, in
addition to a potentiality with respect to the intelligibility
of things, some power to make things actually intelligible.
The answer to this is Yes, and Aquinas does add that this
intellectus agens operates "per modum abstractionis"; but
16

Ibid.
Summa Theol., I, q. 79, a. S, ad

"dicendum quod circa effectum luminis
est duplex opinio. Quidam enim dicunt quod lumen requiritur ad visum, ut
faciat colores actu visibiles. Et secundum hoc, similiter requiritur, et propter
idem, intellectus agens ad intelligendum, propter quod lumen ad videndum. Secundum alios vero, lumen requiritur ad videndum, non propter colores, ut fiant actu
visibiles; sed ut medium fiat actu lucidum, ut Commentator dicit in II de Anima.
Et secundum hoc, similitudo qua Aristoteles assimilat intellectum agentem lumini,
attenditur quantum ad hoc, quod sicut hoc est necessarium ad videndum, ita illud
ad intelligendum; sed non propter idem."
17

52

JOHN N. DEELY

the question as to the nature of abstraction is only dealt with
as it touches on his major concern, which is not to show in
what sense the comparison between the intellectus agens and
light " goes on all fours " 18 but rather to show, if anything,
that whether the comparison goes on all fours or some other
way is strictly irrelevant to the question of " whether there
is an intellectus agens."
Actually, the text which Geach cites with regard to the
" exercise " of concepts says a good deal more on the question
of just how concepts are formed than does I, q. 79, a. 8, ad 2,
which is the least relevant passage to the subject of Geach's
discussion in the entirety of art. 8. Let us therefore turn to this
second text and see how it bears on Geach's argument. We will
then be in a fair position to pass judgment on the justice of
Geach's historical note.
c) Not only does Aquinas say, according to Geach, that,
if we wish the likening of the intellectus agens to light to go
on all fours, we must adopt the opinion that colors are
generated by kindling the light:
Furthermore he says that when we frame a judgment expressed
in words, our use of concepts is to be compared, not to seeing
something, but rather to forming a visual image of something we
are not now seeing, or even never have seen (Ia, q. 85, art. 2 ad
3 urn). So he expresses anti-abstractionist views both on the formation and on the exercise of concepts.19
Geach seems to infer here that, since St. Thomas affirms that
a sensory experience does not lie at the base of everything we
can put into words, obviously our employment of concepts
cannot depend on an abstractive process. Let us situate his
commentary in the context of the question with respect to
which the objection St. Thomas is answering arises.
Question 85 treats of the manner and order according to
which human understanding develops itself. Having treated
18

Geach, op. cit., p. 130.

•• Ibid.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

53

in art. 1 the question of whether our intellect understands
the world through a process of abstraction from sensory experito treat of the problem of
ence, St. Thomas goes on in art.
whether the intellect is related to its concepts in such wise
as to have them for its immediate object or only in such wise
as to know existing things directly through the medium of
concepts, which are therefore known to exist only reflexively
and never as such. The third objection against the thesis that
concepts are not as such the objects of understanding states
that, since words, as the expression of what we understand,
express concepts, it would seem to follow that therefore concepts as such are the objects of our understanding. In reply
to this objection Aquinas writes as follows:
There are two aspects to the cognitive operation which goes on
in the sensitive part of the soul. One aspect involves a passive
undergoing of the actual influence upon the sensory powers of
some object or other in the environment: it is under this aspect
that the operation of sense is determined by being actually affected
by some independent object [sensatio enim est actus sensibilis in
sensu]. The other aspect involves an active constituting or formation, according as the sensory consciousness [vis imaginativa]
forms or fashions for itself some image or mental picture of an
object not physically present, or even of something never as such
seen in the physical environment.
Both of these aspects are
likewise met with in the operation of the intellect. On the one hand,
account must be taken of the influence according to which our
understanding is actualized in one or another respect; and, on the
other hand, account must be taken of the manner in which the
intellect, once informed, is further able to fashion or elaborate for
itself concepts, whether by defining, distinguishing, or synthesizing, which secondary concepts are what words signify. Thus
spoken words do not signify the primary but rather the secondary
aspect of concept formation, i.e., words signify concepts as the
intellect has itself elaborated and related them for the purpose
of discriminating the reality of things [ad judicandum de rebu,;
exterioribus ]. 20
20 Summa
Theol., I, q. 85, a.
ad 8: "dicendum quod in parte sensitiva
invenitur duplex operatio. Una secundum solam immutationem: et sic perficitur
operatio sensus per hoc quod immutatur a sensibili. Alia operatio est formatio,

54

JOHN N. DEELY

Now what about that first or primary formation, the aspect
according to which the intellect is not active but passive in
order to become active?
Nam prima quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili, qua quidem formatus,
format secunda vel definitionem vel divisionem vel compositionem,
quae per vocem significatur ... ad judicandum de rebus exterioribus. 21

What about these primary "species intelligibiles"? Are they
abstractions for Aquinas or not? Geach leaves this question
entirely out of his reference to the text he cites as exemplifying
Aquinas's " anti-abstractionist views," and yet it is the very
question which really has a bearing on what Geach alleges to
be the case.
As a matter of fact, they are, for Aquinas, abstractions in
the precise manner which Geach denies concepts ever can be,
of " being able to recognize some feature we have found in
direct experience " ; 22 and in the precise sense, " thoroughly
incoherent" according to Geach, of being possible only on the
basis of " discriminative attention to some feature given in
experience." 23
This is the very heart of Aquinas's teaching on the relations
that obtain between sense and intellect, rooted in the distinction between the potential and the actual existence of a
world of intelligible natures.
secundum quod vis imaginativa format sibi aliquod idolum rei absentis, vel etiam
nunquam visae. Et utraque haec operatio coniungitur in intellectu. Nam primo
quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis secundum quod informatur specie
intelligibili. Q.ua quidem formatus, format secundo vel definitionem vel divisionem
vel compositionem, quae per vocem significatur.
Uncle ratio quam significat
nomen, est definitio; et enuntiatio significat compositionem et divisionem intellectus
Non ergo voces significant ipsas species intelligibiles; sed ea quae intellectus sibi
format ad iudicandum de rebus exterioribus." See Jacques Maritain, The Degrees
of Knowledge, trans. from the 4th Fr. ed. under the general supervision of
Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Scribner's, 1959), Appendix I, "The Concept,"
esp. p. 395.
21

Ibid.

22

Geach,

23

Ibid., p. 19.

op. cit., p. 40.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

55

Because our conceptual knowledge is derived from experience [as
well as from discourse], Aristotle considered it to be fairly evident
that our initial concepts must be formed on inductive grounds. 24
Now it is even more evident that properly and essentially speaking sensation is of the singular, but it must nevertheless be admitted
upon analysis that there is an improper and incidental fashion
according to which the upper levels of sensitive life are contiguous
with the rudimentary achievements of properly intellectual life.25
For if it were the case that the achievements of sensory awareness
were restricted in every respect to particularities and in no way
effected a structure of generalized categories transcending and
organizing the individual encounters of day-to-day interaction, it
would not be possible that some of our concepts should take their
origin, as they do, in the apprehensions of sense. 26

III. The Achievements of Sense and Their Relation to Concept-Formation in Man According to Aquinas.
To understand what is at stake here, it is necessary to put
to Aquinas this question: granted that sense and intellect
differ fundamentally, so that the achievements of conceptual
thinking are never reducible to the achievements of perceptual
thinking, what are the highest achievements or organizational
levels which sensory life is in principle capable of attaining,
and what is the relation of these maximal attainments to the
functionings of intellectual life at its own levels?
When one reads the works of Aquinas with this question
explicitly in mind, one finds an aspect of his thought which
deals comfortably with the question of how can there be an
intellectual awareness of singulars, in sharp contrast to the
tortured elaborations of this question which one usually asso"In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 595: " Quia igitur universalium cognitionem
accipimus ex singularibus, concludit manifestum esse quod necesse est prima
universalia prinicipia cognoscere per inductionem."
25 Ibid.:
" Manifestum est enim quod singulare sentitur proprie et per se,
sed tamen sensus est quodammodo etiam ipsius universalis."
26 Ibid.:
" Si autem ita esset quod sensus apprehenderet solum id quod est
particularitatis, et nullo modo cum hoc apprehenderet universalem naturam in
particulari, non esset possibile quod ex apprehensione sensus causaretur in nobis
cognitio universalis."

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ciates with the scholastic tradition. Traditionally, philosophers
speak of the contrast between universals and particulars when
drawing the line between intellectual and sensory awareness;
and in point of fact, there is a sense in which no one who
successfully follows the discussion can deny that intellectual
knowledge contrasts with sensory knowledge as a universal
principle contrasts with a particular existent. This is the way
Aquinas speaks, following a long tradition of Greek philosophy
and commentary thereon both Latin and Arabic; and this is
the way many philosophers still speak. I have no quarrel with
the thought of Aquinas and those who follow him on this point;
rather, I want to suggest why contemporary intellectuals, not
only scientists but also philosophers, are legitimately confused
by this way of expressing the distinction between sensory and
intellectual knowledge; and then to suggest an alternate way
of speaking which makes the same point while obviating most
of the difficulties. In the course of this development I hope
that the utter absurdity of Geach's historical claim (that the
"mature Aquinas" was not an abstractionist) and also of his
personal thesis (that the "whole idea" of abstraction is completely incoherent) will become a matter of common agreement between the reader and me.
A. Rational Processes and Animal Intelligence.
H. H. Price has well observed that in modern times "philosophers are not accustomed to considering a level of mental
development at which cognition and action are not yet sharply
differentiated, and a level, moreover, at which words are not
used and even images can be dispensed with." 27
Yves Simon, in a remarkable discussion of "freedom of
choice as freedom of judgment," suggests a very good reason
why this should be so. "If the question of animal intelligence
in man is so poorly known, it is probably because it is very
difficult to separate, even incompletely, the processes pertaining
lM' H. H. Price, Thinking and Experience (Cambridge, Mass.:
p. 120.

Harvard, 1969!),

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57

to animal intelligence from the rational processes which penetrate them intimately." 28
Even allowing this, which is certainly the case, it must still
be said that the absence of consideration which Price remarks
makes for a rather curious state of affairs. For the literature o£
ancient and medieval philosophy have many passages treating
of just such a level of mental development as that to which
Price refers. They even gave a name to the highest level of
mental life prior to the possibility o£ speech and necessary as
its precondition, calling it the vis aestimativa in animals and
the vis cogitativa, sometimes ratio particularis, or even sometimes the experimentum, in man.
It is important for present purposes to note particularly the
difficulty remarked by Simon to which these classical expressions bear witness, namely, the difficulty o£ separating, "even
incompletely," the highest attainments of animal intelligence
from the primitive attainments o£ human intelligence.
It must be acknowledged that with respect to the powers of
apprehension, even as with respect to the powers of desire, there
is something which belongs to animal life as fully consonant with
its own ontological level, and something which belongs to it according as it has some measure of participation of rationality,
reaching in its own highest attainments the levels which are the
foundation of the higher attainments of intelligence at the level
of human existence .... Just as imaginative capacities [vis imaginativa] belong to the animal soul according as it is a part of the
order of sense (because in the imagination are preserved the
experiences of things as sensed), so, by contrast, estimative capacities, by virtue of which the animal perceives something in
terms of features not directly sensible, as when it reacts with
friendliness or hostility to diverse objects, belong to the animal
soul according as it has a communion with the order of intellect.
It is by reason of this estimative capacity that animals are said
to have a kind of foresight or prudence, i.e., by reason of the fact
that they are able to modify their behavior in the light of past
experience. 29
28 Yves Simon, Freedom of Choice (New York:
Fordham, 1969), pp. 111-112.
'"De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4: "Sciendum est ... quod tam ex parte
apprehensivarum virium quam ex parte appetitivarum sensitivae partis, aliquid

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JOHN N. DEELY

From this it is apparent how serious an error it is to translate vis aestimativa as "instinct" and to contrast the vis
aestimativa with the vis cogitativa as what is wholly innate
and fixed with what is flexible and indetermined in operation
by its association with reason, i. e., by existing in a human
being. 30 This is to mistake the estimative capacities of a
particular range of animal forms for the estimative capacity
of the animal soul considered in itself. It is to confuse the
de facto with the de jure and to substitute the part for the
whole. As Professor Price has so well said,
It is a mistake to suppose that there is a level of consciousness
in which one is aware only of particulars and not in any sense at all
aware of universals. A being whose consciousness was in such a
state could never learn anything; and if per impossibile it could,
its learning when acquired could never be applied. 31
It is possible that in some creatures the capacity of recognizing
their food or their enemies is unlearned, " instinctive " as we say;
and that the function of sense-experience is merely to actualize
these already existing recognitional powers. But in most animals,
perhaps in all, sensation has another function as well. It enables
one to learn from experience, and thereby to respond more effectively to one's environment. To put it rather extravagantly, senseexperience exists for the sake of induction. 32
est quod competit sensibili animae secundum propriam naturam; aliquid vero,
secundum quod habet aliquam participationem modicam rationis, attingens ad
ultimum eius in sui supremo;. . .. Sicut vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili
secundum propriam rationem, quia in ea reservantur formae per sensum acceptae;
sed vis aestimativa, per quam animal apprehendit intentiones non acceptas per
sensum, ut amicitiam vel inimicitiam, inest animae sensitivae secundum quod
participat aliquid rationis: unde ratione huius aestimationis dicuntur animalia
quamdam prudentiam habere."
30 Even though
there is no doubt that such a construction is sometimes suggested by St. Thomas himself, e. g., In III de anima, lect. 13, n. 397; In I Met.,
lect. 1, n. 11; et alibi.
31 Price, op. cit., p. 43.
32 Ibid., p. 42.
" Our conclusion so far is that recognition of individuals is
derivative. It is recognition of characteristics which is fundamental. There can
can be no recognition of individuals (not even mis-recognition of them) unless
there is already recognition of characteristics. And there are probably forms of
consciousness in which recognition of characteristics occurs but recognition of
individuals does not." (Ibid., p. 41). "I am tempted to add that the philosophical

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Just what the contrast is between vis aestimativa and vts
cogitativa we shall presently have to see. But it is certainly
not the contrast between instinct on the one hand and intelligence on the other. That is why vis aestimativa ought not
to be understood exclusively as a name for a psychological
faculty, but beyond this as a descriptive term for a condition
or state-specifically,
the state of animal intelligence at the
upper reaches of what it can in principle attain.

B. The Traditional Language of Faculties.
Because of the widespread misunderstanding of this point,
it is not unreasonable to abandon the traditional terminology
of the " internal senses " entirely, and to substitue for it another
expressly designed to obviate the exaggerations to which the
language of "faculties" has been mother. This is the course
chosen, for example, by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, who suggests
the use of a contemporary, neutral, and dialectically fashioned
terminology for those who wish to point out the difference
between human intelligence and animal intelligence without
having to caricature the attainments open to the latter:
I propose that the non-verbal thought processes of animalsprocesses that remove the animal, in one way or another, from the
domination of the immediate sensory stimulus- consists in (a)
perceptual traces or residues, and (b) perceptual attainments. By
perceptual traces or residues I mean memory-images that function
representatively, i.e., in place of sensory stimuli that are no longer
themselves operative. By perceptual attainments I mean the products of perceptual generalization and discrimination. I will usc
the term " perceptual abstraction " to name such products. Since
all these elements are perceptual-either the consequences or the
products of perceptual activity-it seems fitting to identify the
thought processes of animals with perceptual thought. 33
Degrees of animal intelligence are supposedly correlated with the
degrees to which they possess the power of perceptual generalizamyth of a purely sensitive consciousness, aware only of particulars, is one of the
most important reasons for the rise of Behaviourism."
(Ibid., pp. 43-44).
33 Adler, The Difference
of Man, p. 153.

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JOHN N. DEELY

tion and discrimination-the power to acquire perceptual abstractions. Degrees of this power, Professor Kluver has shown, can be
experimentally measured by what he calls "the method of equivalent and non-equivalent stimuli." 34
That is one way to avoid being misled by the language of
faculties. It is not, however, necesary to go to this extreme
philosophically, convenient though it might prove dialectically. Philosophically, it is possible instead to follow Price's
counsel: "The language of faculties is not to be rejected
altogether. It is right and proper to use it as a rough and
ready ' first aid ' in a preliminary classification of mental
processes. But if it is a useful servant, it is also a bad master,
and we must not allow it to tyrannize over us." 35
Adopting this alternative, it can be said that "intelligent
behavior, no less than thinking, depends on the awareness of
universalia in re. It should follow (though this conclusion
was not generally drawn, and was sometimes even denied) that
even animals have some awareness of universals, since they
are certainly capable of intelligent behaviour; at any rate, they
must be capable of recognizing universals 'in their instances,'
even if they cannot conceive of universals in abstracto." 30

C. The Notion of" Vis Aestimativa" and of" Experimentum."
To understand how this is so, three points of classico-medieval Aristotelianism must be rightly and carefully understood,
specifically, the concept of experimentum (roughly, "experience ") , the distinction between the accidental and essential
universal, and the relation of the latter to the former. Only
then can the proper contrast be drawn between vis aestimativa
(the highest attainments open in principle to the workings
of animal intelligence) and vis cogitativa (the perceptual roots
without which there could be no conceptual thought, either
primo or secunda) .
•• Ibid., p. 154.
•• Price, op. cit., p. 78.
•• Ibid., p. 86.

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1. The levels or grades of sensitive life.

With respect to the notion of experience, St. Thomas points
out that there are in principle three grades or levels of animal
awareness and that to each of these levels the notion of experience applies in different ways. "For some forms of animal
life," he says, specifically, "for those animals which pass their
entire existence fixed in one place, the influence of sensible
objects in the surrounding environment gives rise to nothing
beyond the collated awareness of immediate sensations; and
in these forms there is no such thing as memory." 37 " This
very fact that there can be animals without a capacity for
recollection means that only some animals have an internally
organized field of apprehensions [sunt prudentia ], since this implies provision for the future on the basis of a memory of
past happenings." 38 On the other hand-and this is the third
dimension or plane of possible animal existence-among those
animals which need a memory by reason of the fact that they
depend for survival on being able to orient themselves and
move about, there are some in whom the estimative capacities
are rigidly determined and only slightly, if at all, open to
modification through experience; while in others the estimative
capacities admit of a wide range of behavioral modification
through experience, and only these latter kind, for example,
can be effectively trained.
37 In I Met., lect. 1, n. 10:
"In quibusdam vero animalibus ex sensu non fit
phantasia, et sic in eis non potest esse memoria: et huiusmodi sunt animalia
imperfecta, quae sunt immobilia secundum locum." And he cites good Darwinian
reasons for the structure of sensory consciousness in such forms: " Cum enim
animalibus cognitio sensitiva sit provisiva ad vitae necessitatem et ad propriam
operationem, animalia ilia memoriam habere debent, quae moventur ad distans
motu progressivo: nisi enim apud ea remaneret per memoriam intentio praeconcepta, ex qua ad motum inducuntur, motum continuare non possent quousque
finem intentum consequerentur. Animalibus vero immobilibus sufficit ad proprias
operationes, praesentis sensibilis acceptio, cum ad distans non moveantur; et ideo
sola imaginatione confusa habent aliquem motum, ut dicitur tertio de Anima."
88 Ibid., n. 11:
"Ex hoc autem, quod quaedam animalia memoriam habent, et
quaedam non habent, sequitur quod quaedam sunt prudentia et quaedam non.
Cum enim prudentia ex praeteritorum memoria de futuris provideat."

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JOHN N. DEELY

It seems to me quite clear that what Aquinas is getting at
here, without having at his disposal adequate field research or
laboratory reports, is the distinction between instinct strictly
so-called, i. e., between a species dominated by a pattern of
behavior which is "species-predictable" or "'ubiquitous in its
distribution ' among all members of a species without exception," 39 and intelligence, i.e., species the behavior of which
does not seem to be dominated by a gene-determined pattern
as much as it is governed by a " principle of nonrational estimations which bear the mark of individual experience and
which are ceaselessly transformed by the acquisitions of experience." 40 Thus in discussing the three grades of animal life,
St. Thomas uses the phrase "ex quodam naturae instinctu " 41
before he draws the distinction between illa animalia quae sunt
prudentia et non disciplinabilia et ea quae sunt et prudentia
et disciplinabilia. 42 It is true that he himself seeks to ground
this distinction on the presence or absence of hearing-" inter
ea vero, quae memoriam habent, quaedam habent auditum
et quaedam non" 43-but whatever its fundament (which is
39 Adler, op. cit., pp. 115-116. Adler cites this statement
as " the minimum meaning [of the words 'innate' and 'instinct'] that can be agreed to by all parties"
(p. 115), in support of which statement he gives the following references (fn. 6,
p. 312): "See Donald Hebb, A Textbook of Psychology (Philadelphia: W. B.
Saunders Co., 1958), pp. 123-126, and 129-130, esp. p. 126. With regard to the
differentiation between innate and learned behavior, see N. Tinbergen, The
Study of Instinct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), Konrad Lorenz, Evolution
and Modification of Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), Adolf
Portmann, Animals as Social Beings (New York: Viking, 1961), Chapter 5;
lrenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, " Experimental Criteria for Distinguishing Innate from
Culturally Conditioned Behavior" in Cross-Cultural Understanding (New York:
Harper, 1964), ed. by F. S. C. Northrop and H. H. Livingston, pp. 297-307."
40 Simon, Freedom of Choice, p. 40.
41 In I Met., lect 1, n. 11.
42 In I Met., lect. 1, n. 12. The Latin here is not a quotation but a condensation
in paraphrase of the following remarks: " ... quaedam [anirnalia] ... licet
prudentiam habere possint, non tamen sunt disciplinabilia. . . . [Alia] vero
animalia . . . et disciplinabilia et prudentia esse possunt." See fn. 48 below for
fuller context.
•• Ibid. The text continues: "Quaecumque autem auditum non habent, ut
apes, vel si quod aliud huiusmodi animal est, licet prudentiam habere possint,

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a question for experimental science, not for philosophy), the
distinction between instinct and animal intelligence is a phenotypically sound one: "Whereas the behavior of insects is
mostly instinctive [second grade of cognitio quae est in brutis],
that of the higher vertebrates is remarkably capable of adjustment to the circumstances [third grade]." 44 That the adaptive
flexibility distinguishing the third level or grade from the second should be referred to the vis aestimativa is clear from the
sense in which the attainments proper to the vis aestimativa
are coincident with the capacity of perceptual abstraction and
thought as Adler has explained them (" ratione huius aestimationis dicuntur animalia quamdam prudentiam habere " 45 ) •
This is also why the exclusive translation of vis aestimativa
as " instinct " and the view of it as innate in the sense of fixed
and rigid-" determinata ad unum "-is mistaken, and an implicit denial at the theoretical level of the difference between
the second and third levels of animal awareness as it is given
at the level of observation. Thus the phrase used to distinguish
the second level of animal life from the first-ratione praenon tamen sunt disciplinabilia, ut scilicet per alterius instructionem possint assuescere ad aliquid faciendum vel vitandum: huiusmodi enim instructio praecipue
recipitur per auditum: uncle dicitur in libro de Sensu et sensato, quod auditus est
sensus disciplinae. . . . Ilia vero animalia, quae memoriam et auditum habent,
et disciplinabilia et prudentia esse possunt.
•• Simon, op. cit., p. 111.
•• De
q.
a.
par 4. In The Difference of Man, pp. 153-154, Adler
explains the difference between " intelligence " in animals and instinct in the following terms: " By a perceptual abstraction in an animal I mean a disposition
to perceive a number of sensible particulars (or, in laboratory parlance, stimuli)
as the same in kind or as sufficiently similar to be reacted to as the same. . . .
This disposition is only operative in the presence of an appropriate sensory
stimulus, and never in its absence."
" Outside of the laboratory and in the field, ethologists have found that
animals have the disposition to recognize other animals as members of their
own species or as members of alien species, in spite of individual differences
among the perceived instances. Here again we have the operation of perceptual
abstraction in animal behavior; but here the perceptual abstractions are, according
to the ethologists, instinctive or innate . . . they are not perceptual attainments,
but perceptual endowments. However, this difference does not affect their character or functioning as perceptual abstractions."

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JOHN N. DEELY

sentiae memoriae, quaedam animalia " aliquid prudentiae habere possunt " 46-does not have a univocal meaning even in
the order of animal consciousness. Not only is it necessary to
aver that " dicitur prudentia aliter in brutis animalibus, et
aliter hominibus inesse," 47 but also that " dicitur prudentia
aliter in brutis secundi gradus cognitionis, et aliter in brutis
tertius gradus inesse." In the former case, prudentia means
"an innately structured repertoire of interaction responses";
in the latter case, it means " able to learn from experience."
From this it can be seen that, on the one hand, the ancient
outlines of the nature of animal intelligence were basically
sound and grounded in principle, but at the same time they
were also beset by a number of ambiguities and uncertainties
consequent on the want of laboratory experiments and the
meagerness of field researches. These ambiguities and uncertainties such as have been brought out in the foregoing
textual analyses, moreover, resulted-as indeed it was inevitable they should-in a certain amount of equivocation and
hesitation when it came to considering the upper levels of
sensory apprehension in relation to intellectual apprehension,
bearing witness to the great difficulty, as Simon says, of
separating, "even incompletely, the processes pertaining to
animal intelligence from the rational processes which penetrate
them intimately." 48 Therefore, it is necessary to keep before
one's mind in an explicit way the question which is our guide
through each of these classical texts: what is the highest
level in principle open to the workings of animal intelligence,
and how is conceptual intelligence related thereto?
2. The third or highest level of sensitive awareness.

What we have established thus far is that of the three socalled grades or levels of animal awareness, it is only the third
that need be of further concern to us in the present analysis.
What are the ambiguities and uncertainties in the traditional
•• In I Met., lect. 1, n. 11.
"Ibid.
•• Simon, up. cit., p. 11!!.

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analyses of that sort of animal able to learn from experience,
and how are they to be resolved in view of the question at
hand?
Interestingly enough, we find in St. Thomas's analysis of the
operation of animal intelligence an ambiguity exactly analogous
to that which obtains in his analysis of the operation of human
intelligence, but with the opposite emphasis. His analyses of
the contrasts between practical and speculative reason in man
and the superiority accorded to the latter are well known.
Equally well known is St. Thomas's conclusion that speculative
reason and the contemplative life it founds are strictly speaking
more divine than human/ 9 being aspects in which man in a
certain manner transcend his own proper nature. Thus he
goes so far as to say that "the highest attainments open in
principle to the workings of human intelligence are realized
perfectly only in the divine intelligence, and, insofar as they
are realized in the human mind, they exist not so much as a
possession of man but rather as something borrowed by man
from God." 50 And he contends that, so far as possible, it is
in the light of such life and wisdom proprie superhumana that
man must seek to organize his existence.
Now a distinction in every way paralleling this is drawn
by St. Thomas in the order of animal intelligence in the text
from the De V eritate which we have already had occasion to
notice:
It should be recognized that in the order of animal awareness ...

there is not only a capacity which is strictly proper to animal
intelligence, but also a capacity by virtue of which the animal in
an improper way attains the level of human intelligence.51
49 Cf. Josef Pieper,
Leisure, the Basis of Culture (New York: Mentor, 1963),
esp. pp. 26-28; St. Thomas, de Veritate, q. 15, a. 1, and de Virtutibus Cardinalibus,
q. 1.
50 In I Met., lect. 3, n. 64:
"talem scientiam, quae est de Deo et de primis
causis, aut solus Deus habet, aut si non solus, ipse tamen maxime habet. Solus
quidem habet secundum perfectam comprehensionem.
Maxime vero habet, inquantum suo modo etiam ab hominibus habetur, licet ab eis non ut possessio
habeatur, sed sicut aliquid ab eo mutuatum."
51 De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4:
"Sciendum est ... quod ... ex parte appre-

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JOHN N. DEELY

In others words, the highest attainments open in principle to
the workings of animal intelligence are realized perfectly,
secundum perfectam comprehensionem, only in the workings
of human intelligence; and insofar as they are realized in the
animal mind they exist not so much as a possession of the
animal but rather as something "borrowed "by the animal from
man.
Just as the power of imagination (vis imaginativa) belongs to
the animal soul by virtue of its proper nature as sensitive, ... so,
by contrast, the capacity for practical assessments in view of
development and survival (vis aestimativa) . . . exists in the
animal soul according as it in a certain manner transcends its own
proper nature. 52
In other words, just as the higher and more noble capacities
of the human intelligence are quaedam participatio divinae,
so the " superior et dignior" capacities of the animal intelligence are quaedam participatio humanae. "From such consideration it is beyond dispute," say Aquinas, " that the vis
aestimativa is the highest and most noble among the various
capacities of animal apprehension." 53
From this, according to the principle that each thing is said
to be directed by the highest of its capacities, it would follow
that, as Price says, " any creature which can be aware of
present-to-past resemblance [quod habet memoriam] at all has
hensivarum virium . . . sensitivae partis, aliquid est quod competit sensibili
animae secundum propriam naturam; aliquid vero, secundum quod habet aliquam
participationem modicam rationis, attingens ad ultimum eius in sui supremo."
52 Ibid.:
" Sicut vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili secundum propriam
rationem, ... sed vis aestimativa, per quam animal apprehendit intentiones non
acceptas per sensum ... inest animae sensitivae secundum quod participat aliquid
rationis." See also Aquinas's remark in De Potemtia, q. 5, a. 8, as cited and
commented on by Yves Simon in his " Essay on Sensation," fn. 31 (in The
Philosophy of Knowledge, ed. by R. Houde and J. Mullally [Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1960], p. 78).
53 Ibid., par. 5:
"Patet igitur ex dictis, quod irascibilis et concupiscibilis sunt
diversae potentiae, et quid est objectum utriusque, et quomodo irascibilis juvat
concupiscibilem, et est superior et dignior ea, sicut aestimativa inter cetera8

apprehemsivas virtutes semsitivae partis."

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taken the first step toward cognition also, though it still has
a very long way to go and may never be able to complete the
journey"; 54 and it would further follow that among those
animal forms belonging to the second and third grades of
cognitive differentiation
(which St. Thomas groups together
as "animalia perfecta" over against the "animalia imperfecta"
of the first grade) , the more perfect among them would organize
their life so far as possible secundum quod habent aliquam
participationem modicam rationis, that is, by virtue of the
vis aestimativa insofar as it means animal intelligence rather
than mere instinct.
3. Textual difficulties.
There are a number of terminological difficulties that resist
any smooth resolution. Let us make explicit note of them
so that we can at least make some account of them.
First of all, there is the difficulty consequent on the diverse
uses of the notions of imagination and memory. In distinguishing the first and lowest possible level of animal or sensory
existence Thomas says: "In quibusdam vero animalibus ex
sensu non fit phantasia, et sic in eis non potest esse memoria." 55
Now the term "phantasia" in usually regarded as a synonym
for "imaginatio," but, if we were to make this substitution in
the text just cited, the following inconsistency would result:
In quibusdam vero animalibus ex sensu non fit imaginatio, et sic
in eis non potest esse memoria; et huiusmodi sunt animalia
imperfecta, quae sunt immobilia secundum locnm, ut conchilia ....
Animalibus vero immobilibus sufficit ad proprias operationes. praesentis sensibilis acceptio . . . et ideo sola im,aginatione confusa
habent aliquem motum indeterminatum ....
In other words, the imperfect forms of animal life have
no memory because they have no imaginative capacity, although they do have some imaginative capacity! Obviously,
•• Price, op. cit., p. 74.
55 In I Met., lect. 1, n. 10.

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JOHN N. DEELY

St. Thomas has in mind some kind of distinction between
" phantasia " and " imaginatio," but what exactly is it?
In the text just cited, it was said that "memoria" presupposes " phantasia," although some form of " imaginatio " can
pre-exist " memoria." On this accounting, " imaginatio " would
be a capacity lower in the scale of sensory consciousness than
the capacity for " memoria." This inference is borne out in
a later passage of the same lectio:
Dicit [Aristotelis] ergo quod vita animalium regitur imaginatione
et memoria; imaginatione quidem, quantum ad animalia imperfecta;
memoria vero quantum ad animalia perfecta. Licet enim et haec
imaginationem habeant, tamen unumquodque regi dicitur ab eo
quod est principalius in ipso. 56

But, while this way of stating the matter is consistent within
the lectio, it conflicts with the statement in the De Veritate
according to which the vis aestimativa is placed at the summit of sensory consciousness 57 and would accordingly be the
virtus regitiva vitae quantum ad animalia perfecta saltem in
tertium gradum cognitionis sensitivae. It also conflicts with
the statement that "vis imaginativa competit animae sensibili
secundum propriam rationem," 58 for if "imaginato " is the
same capacity as the "vis imaginativa," the text just cited
from In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14 (at fn. 56 above), is saying in
effect that, whereas the imperfect animals are ruled by id quod
competit animae sensibili secundum propriam rationem, scil.,
imaginatio seu vis imaginativa, the perfect animals are ruled
by aliquid quod competit animae sensibili secundum rationem
non propriam, scil., memoria. This ambiguity is compounded
by the use of the phrase vis imaginativa in the Summa Theol.,
I, q. 85, a. 2 ad 3, which, as we have alreCldy seen (see text
above at fn. 20), certainly suggests that the vis imaginativa
corresponds to the highest capacity of sensory awareness,
whereas the text from De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4 (cited
•• Ibid., n. 14.
57 See fn. 58 above.
•• De Veritate, q.

a.

par. 4.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

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in fn.
above) sharply distinguishes the vis aestimativa as
the highest sensory capacity from the vis imaginativa.
These ambiguities, in my judgment, amply reinforce Price's
observation that "the language of faculties is a useful servant
but a bad master " ; and they indicate the justice of my earlier
remark to the effect that the term vis aestimativa cannot be
understood as a name for a distinct faculty, unless it is also
understood in wider terms as a descriptive label for animal
intelligence both in its instinctive and educable manifestations,59 or for what Adler aptly calls the capacity for perceptual
thinking. Thus Gredt, for example, after restricting the notion
of vis aestimativa to the instinctive aspect of animal intelligence 60 and equating phantasia with imaginatio, so that phantasma becomes simply "imago rei in phantasia existens," 6 '
is compelled to concede the inadequacy of this rigidly delimited
terminology when it comes to explaining the precise manner
in which sensory awareness serves as the foundation of intellectual conceptions, saying that, in this reference, phantasm
does not mean simply ' product of imagination " but rather
the combined product of all three of the higher " senses." 62
In general, what seems to me to be missing from contemporary
expositions of the traditional doctrine of the internal senses
is a clear analysis of the ways in which the so-called senses
59 As we shall see, whereas
vis aestimativa in the former reference betokens
instinct, in the latter reference it betokens what Aquinas and Aristotle called the
experimentum.
60 Josephus
Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, editio decima

tertia recognita et aucta ab Euchario Zenzen (Barcelona, Spain: Herder, 1961),
p. 422, par. 501. See also John of St. Thomas (ne Jean Poinsot), Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Reiser erl., (Marietti, 1937), Vol. III, p. 264a12-b16.
61 Ibid., p. 418, par. 497.
62 Ibid., p. 470, par. 551, n. 2:
"Vocem phantasiae latius sumimus, quatenus
complectitur etiam memoriam sensitivam et cogitativam, seu quatenus significat
tres altiores facultates partis sensitivae.
Hae facultates objectum cognoscunt
independenter a praesentia et secundum omnes qualitates suas sensibiles, ac
proinde intellectui objectum praebent, ex quo quidditativum cognitionem haurire
possit." For the rationale of this usage of the term " phantasia " in a broad
as well as in a restrictive sense, see Jean Poinsot, Cursus Philosophicus, III, Q.
8, Art. 2, esp. 252a43-b2, 253a42-46, 258a9-37.

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JOHN N. DEELY

are not only analytically distinct but also existentially separable-the sort of analysis essayed in former times in such
neglected classics as Jean Poinsot's treatise De sensibus internis.62"
However, such an analysis is not essential to our immediate
purpose, which is to get clearly in mind the meaning of experimentum; and having taken note of the foregoing difficulties,
we may resolve them sufficiently for our immediate purpose
m the following manner.
4. Resolution of difficulties: the synonymy of " vis aestimativa " and " experimentum."

Inasmuch as Thomas says that the lives of the " perfect "
animals are ruled by memoria, 63 whereas the vis imaginativa
belongs to the sensitive soul according to its own proper nature,64 it is clear that in this respect the two terms are being
used synonymously. On this acceptation, we would expect that,
just as St. Thomas says with respect to the vis imaginativa
that it is in animal life inferior to that higher level of sensory
awareness, the vis aestimativa, which is a quaedam participatio
humanae cognitionis, so over and above memoria there would
be found in the more perfect of the animalia perfecta some
further achievement of animal consciousness. 65 This expectation is realized.
••• This treatise forms Q. 8 of the Cursus philosophicus, Vol. III (Reiser ed.;
Rome: Marietti, 1937), pp. 241-271, esp. Art. 2, "Quid sint phantasia et reliquae
potentiae interiores, et in quibus subiectis sint."
•• In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14.
•• De Veritate, q. 25, a. 2, par. 4.
65 This leaves unresolved, however, the question of how to interpret St. Thomas's
earlier reference in par. 11 (of this same lectio which makes memoria the rule
of perfected animal life) to "judgment" in "animals other than man" as being
founded on " a certain natural instinct." " Judicium autem de rebus agendis non
ex rationis deliberatione, sed ex quodam naturae instinctu, prudentia in aliis
animalibus dicitur. Unde prudentia in aliis animalibus est naturalis aestimatio
de convenientibus prosequendis, et fugiendis nocivis, sicut agnus sequitur matrem
et fugit lupum." (In I Met., lect. 1, n. 11) St. Thomas clearly has the vis
aestimativa in mind here, yet equally clearly he has in mind only that sense
of it which translates as " instinct " rather than animal intelligence. Perhaps the

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Over and above memory, ... the next and highest level of sensory
consciousness is that organization of past perceptions which is
made on the basis of memory and which is called " experience."
Now although this manner of learning through interaction is something properly human achieved by virtue of the vis cogitativa,
which is also called the ratio particularis, [inasmuch as, on the one
hand, this capacity is rooted in the material aspect of the soul;
on the other hand,] because animals too habituate themselves
to the pursuit and avoidance of certain things on the basis
of a memory of previous encounters, it must be allowed that
some among the brute animals are able to achieve that organization
of consciousness which is here called experience. 66
best that can be said in the face of these difficulties is that at the first and
lowest grade of sensory consciousness are those animals which are able to respond
only to the actual presence of an edible object by an innate " knowledge," or to
a direct physical assault in a simple reflex way. At the second level or grade
of sensory consciousness are located all those forms which have sufficient memory
to spatially orient themselves but the general life-style of which is governed by
innate mechanisms of response or instinct, as is clear in the world of insects.
At the third or highest level of sensory apprehension are those animal forms which
lie in the anthropoid evolutionary line, animals capable of perceptual thought and
rudimentary forms of imitative transmission of behavior. But there is no way of
smoothly integrating even this usage with aU the others that have come to light.
Yet, for all the confusion at the verbal level, the thought involved remains surprisingly constant and clear. "But though sense-perception is innate in all animals,
in some the sense-impression comes to persist, in others it does not. So animals
in which this persistence does not come to be have either no knowledge at all
outside the act of perceiving, or no knowledge of objects of which no impression
persists; animals in which it does come into being have perception and can continue to retain the sense-impression in the soul: and when such persistence is
frequently repeated a futher distinction at once arises between those which
out of the persistence of such sense-impressions develop a power of systematizing
them and those which do not." (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Bk. II, ch. 19,
99b35-100a4.)
Cf. also Henri Bergson, " The Divergent Directions of the
Evolution of Life-Torpor, Intelligence, Instinct," Ch. I of Creative Evolution,
authorized trans. by Arthur Mitchell (New York: Modern Library, 1944), pp.
109-203.
•• In I Met., lect. 1, n. 15: "Supra memoriam autem ... proximum est
experimentum, quod quaedam animalia ... participant ... parum. Experimentum
enim est ex collatione plurium singularium in memoria receptorum. Huiusmodi
autem collatio est homini propria, e,t pertinet ad vim cogitativam, quae ratio
particularis dicitur nihilominus tamen haec vis est in parte sensitiva-In Ill de Anima, lect. 13, n. 397]: quae est collativa intentionum individualium, sicut ratio universalis intentionum universalium. Et, quia ex multis sensibus et memoria animalia ad
aliquid consuescunt prosequendum vel vitandum, inde est quod aliquid experimenti,

f

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JOHN N. DEELY

D. The Accidental and the Essential Universal.
This particular conception of experience lies at the base of
the distinction between the per se and per accidens universal. 67
The following text comes closest to making this clear, provided
that, in reading it, one adverts explicitly to the concession
that in principle the level of the experimentum is open to
animal intelligence in some measure:
Just as memory comes to be in those animals able to retain the
impressions of sensation, so likewise does experience come to be
on the basis of the recognized repetition of similar sense impressions
on separate occasions and under differing circumstances, inasmuch
as experience is nothing other than familiarity based on a multiplicity of memories.
Yet familiarity presupposes some active assessment whereby one
thing is compared with another and related thereto. 68 ••• An active
assessment of this kind goes beyond the impressions of sense by
licet parum, participare videntur.
Homines autem supra experimentum, quod
pertinet ad rationem particularem, habent rationem universalem, per quam vivunt,
sicut per id quod est principale in eis" (see further citation in fn. 67 below).
67 Ibid., n. 16:
" Sicut autem se habet experimentum ad rationem particularem,
et consuetudo ad memoriam in animalibus, ita se habet ars ad rationem universalem.
(" Experimentum " and " consuetudo" here are synonymous, saving only the
difference between perceptual thought as suffused by understanding
(" experimentum " strictissime dictum) and perceptual thought in a pure state (" consuetudo" in animalibus brutis); "memoria" is loosely used here to designate
the highest level of organization of perceptual thought as perceptual, and therefore
is partly synonymous here with "vis aestimativa " (see the analysis of the Textual
Difficulties in Section III-C-3 of the present article), which in turn is a synonym
for "ratio particularis "-saving, again, the aforementioned difference between
qualified and unqualified perceptual generalization:
thus, "experimentum seu
consuetudo " here = what I am calling the " universale per accidens," whereas
true art, "ars" as superordinate to "experimentum," already depends for its
reality and existence on the workings of the " ratio universalis seu intellectus,"
i.e., on the products of conceptual thought properly so-called, the "universale per
se."] Ideo sicut perfectum vitae regimen est animalibus per memoriam adjuncta
assuefactione ex disciplina, vel quomodolibet aliter, ita perfectum hominis regimen
est per rationem arte perfectam. Quidam tamen ratione sine arte reguntur; sed
hoc est regimen imperfectum." Parallelly: some animals are governed by instinct
with little or no contribution from experience, but this is an imperfect level and
pattern of sensory existence.
68 Compare
Thomas's thought here with the remarks made by H. H. Price in
Thinking and Experience, pp. 33-35.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

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relating a number of them under some common aspect, which the
intelligence can consider in itself apart from any one particular
memory or sense-impression. 69
The " transcendence of the given " through experience IS
exactly what is meant first of all by the "universal": "the
mind persists in attending to its perceptions until it discriminates some aspect under which they may be unified, which is
what is meant by a universal." 70 How the universal is further
distinguished as accidental or essential may be seen from the
following:
If many singulars which are indifferent under one or another of
their actual aspects are apprehended as such by the mind, that
one aspect or aspects under which they are not different, when
apprehended by the mind, becomes a universal in the primary
sense, whether it pertains to the essence of the singulars or not. 71

There we have the basis for the distinction between the
essential and the accidental universal. 72 The relations between
69 In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 592:
"ex sensu fit memoria in illis animalibus,
in quibus remanet impressio sensibilis, sicut supra dictum est. Ex memoria
autem multoties facta circa eamdem rem, in diversis tamen singularibus, fit
experimentum; quia experimentum nihil aliud esse videtur quam accipere aliquid
ex multis in memoria retentis.
"Sed tamen experimentum indiget aliqua ratiocinatione circa particularia
per quam confertur unum ad aliud, quod est proprium rationis. . .. Ratio autem
non sistit in experimento particularium, sed ex multis particularibus in quibus
expertus est, accipit unum commune, quod firmatur in anima, et considerat
illud absque consideratione alicuius singularium."
70 Ibid., n. 595:
" anima stat per considerationem quousque perveniatur ad
aliquid impartibile in eis, quod est universale."
71 Ibid., n. 594:
"Si enim accipiantur multa singularia, quae sunt indifferentia
quantum ad aliquid unum in eis existens, illud unum secundum quod non differunt,
in anima acceptum, est primum universale, quidquid sit illud, sive scilicet
pertineat ad essentiam singularium, sive non."
70 The distinction between the "universale quod pertinet
ad essentiam " and the
"universale quod pertinet ad accidentia alicuius rei existentis" is first of all
simply the distinction between concepts which express what are real essential
definitions philosophically speaking, on the one hand, and concepts which express
definitions which are real but descriptive of a syndrome of accidents rather than
of an essential property in the strict sense, on the other hand: see J. N. Deely,
" The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," Part II, The Tlwmist,

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JOHN N. DEELY

the two include the relation of sense to intellect. To see how
this is so, it is necessary to see the manner in which a purely
animal intelligence can attain to an accidental universal, without any need at all for concepts in the strict sense. St Thomas
gives the following example of an accidental universal:
Through experience we find that Socrates and Plato and many
others are indifferent with respect to whiteness, and we apprehend
this unifying feature, whiteness, as an accidental universal. 73
Now consider this example in the following situation. Imagine
a dog lost in a jungle while a puppy, and having to grow up
fending for itself. In the area where the dog grows up there
are two mutually hostile tribes, one made up entirely of black
men, the other made up entirely of whites. In the course of his
hunting the dog in one way or another recurrently comes upon
members of both tribes and is equally suspicious of black and
white the first few times. However, on every occasion that the
dog both notices and is noticed by one of the black men, the
black makes some sort of friendly overture, either by throwing
the animal a bit of food, or by calling out in a friendly voice,
or by some other such gesture of "friendship." Whenever the
dog is noticed by a member of the white tribe, the very opposite
occurs. The white man stones the animal or clubs it and in
general manifests an active hostility. It is not long before the
dog seeks to actively avoid any member of the white tribe
XXXIII (April, 1969), esp. pp. 827-828. In a secondary sense, however, the
distinction rests on the difference between the order of perceptual abstractions
and that of conceptual abstractions, inasmuch as a unification of individuals by
the mind under some common sensory features with respect to which " they
are not different" can take place perceptually as well as conceptually-which
is the whole point of applying the term " abstraction " in Geach's and Price's
sense to both orders. It is this subdistinction of the per accidens universal that
is important for the present discussion.
73 In II Post. Anal., n. 594:
"Quia enim invenimus Socratem et Platonem
et multos alios esse indifferentes quantum ad albedinem, accipimus hoc unum,
scilicet, album, quasi universale quod est accidens." See fn. 78 above on the
primary and secondary senses of the "universale quod est accidens," and on the
sub-distinction of the secondary sense according as the " universale quod est
accidens " is conceptual or perceptual in nature.

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and tentatively to multiply encounters with members of the
black tribe. Without any need for words, and indeed without
any capacity at all for speech, the dog reaches a conclusion
very much like the propostions "All white men are enemies"
and "All black men are friends."
It is easy to see that this process by which the animal comes
to regard all white men as enemies and all black men as friends
is that very process "of discriminative attention to some
feature given in experience " which Geach tells us "is thoroughly incoherent." 74 It is also clear that it is the very process
which the birth of conceptual thought in man presupposes
and from which the primitive concepts directly take rise, both
those of the theoretical and those of the practical order. From
one point of view, the development of awareness is a unitary
process proceeding from singular impressions through memory
and experience to the formation of general categories:
Out of sense perception comes to be what we call memory, and
out of frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops
experience; for a number of memories constitute a single experience.
From experience again-i. e., from the universal now stabilized in
its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a
single identity within them all-originate the skill of the craftsman
and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of becoming and skill in the sphere of being.
We conclude that these states of knowledge are neither innate
in a determinate form, nor developed from other higher states of
knowledge, but from sense-perception. It is like a rout in battle
stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until
the original formation has been restored. The soul is so constituted
as to be capable of this process. 75

So true is it that there is a communality between the highest
attainments of animal intelligence and the origin of the primitive concepts in man-the " species intelligibles ipsae " of I,
q. 85, a. 2, ad 3-that Aquinas, in commenting on the text just
cited from Aristotle, expressly remarks on the confusion which
•• Geach, op. cit., p. 19.
•• Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Bk. II, Ch. 19, 100a 4-13.

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will result if one does not keep in mind the distinction between
the essential and accidental universal, both of which are proper
to man, but the latter of which is attainable in an improper
sense even by some among the animals. 76 Pierre Duhem, in
his remarkable history, summed the matter up in a line:
"Aristotle [in this followed by Aquinas and H. H. Price, and
opposed by Geach] believes that a part of the truth directly
grasped by the senses is carried up to the level of the theory,"
i. e., of the theoretical understanding of the structure of the
world. 76 "
•• In II Post. Anal., lect. !'lO, n. 593: "Posset autem aliquis credere quod solus
sensus, vel memoria singularium sufficiat ad causandum intelligibilem cognitionem principiorum, sicut posuerunt quidam antiqui, non discernentes inter
sensum et intellectum; et ideo ad hoc excludendum Philosophus subdit quod
simul cum sensu oportet praesupponere talem naturam animae, quae possit pati
hoc, idest quae sit susceptiva cognitionis universalis, quod quidem fit per intellectum
possibilem; et iterum quae possit agere hoc secundum intellectum agentem, qui
facit intelligibilia in actu per abstractionem universalium a singularibus."
That the danger of confusion here is indeed more real than apparent can be
seen from H. H. Price's gloss, in Thinking and Experience, pp. 60-61, on this
very passage of Aristotle's text. If we keep clearly in mind Adler's decision to
restrict the term " abstraction " preclusively to the perceptual order, then in my
judgment the interpretation of Aristotle from The Difference of Man, fn. 9, p.
is unexceptionable. Cf. Price, op. cit., pp. 60-61; also pp. 35, 43,
56,
73, and 341-358.
76 " Pierre
Duhem, Le systeme du monde de Platon a Copernic (Paris: Hermann, 1913), I, p. 140. Yves Simon, in a brilliant "Essay on Sensation " (in
The Philosophy of Knowledge, edited by R. Houde and J. Mullally [Philadelphia:
J. P. Lippincott Co., 1960], pp. 89-91), in the course of unravelling the knotty
problem of the "truthfulness" of sensation-i.e., of whether, over and above
yielding information about the useful or harmful effects of surrounding agents upon
our bodies (over and above their undoubted pragmatic reliability in ordinary
course), the senses also provide an avenue to the grasp of what things are (ways
to a world of scientific intelligibility) -sets himself to determine " what relation
there is between the sense qualites as sensed and the same qualities as understood." His answer to this question contains observations parallelling those of
Price indicated in fn.
above, namely, that it is not the singular as such and
for its own sake that captures the everyday interest of animals. On the contrary,
the Practical Man, the Scientific Man, the Philosophical Man, and the brute
animal alike have this minimum in common: that the best of their attention
"goes to the regularites observed in changing situations." Yet it is important to
add here that in a footnote on this text (fn. 38 on p. 90) Simon calls attention

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E. The Proper Contrast Between Animal Intelligence (" Vis
Aestimativa ") and the Perceptual Roots of Concept-Formation in Man ("Vis Cogitativa ").
Only in this way can the proper contrast between the vis
cogitativa and the vis aestimativa, between perceptual and
conceptual abstraction, be drawn:
Whenever a man apprehends something singular, as when on seeing
some colored object I perceive this particular man or this particular
animal, it is through the operation of the vis cogitativa . ... But in
the case of brute animals, the awareness of singular existents is
brought about through the operation of the vis aestimativa . ... The
vis aestimativa achieves this awareness differently than does the
vis cogitativa. For the cogitativa apprehends the individual as
existing under a common nature, which is possible for this perceptual or sensory capacity only by virtue of existing in a human
subject, who is able to perceive this man precisely according as
he is this man [existing in his own right, and not merely as something to be eaten, feared, etc.], and this stick of wood according
as it is this stick of wood. The aestimativa, by contrast, does not
apprehend any individual object according as it is under a common
nature but only to the extent that it is a term or principle of some
action or experience, as the sheep knows this particular lamb
principally as something to be suckled, or knows this grass only
under the aspect of food. And because the brute animal can only
apprehend things in relation to itself, whatever does not have
some relation to its own actions or passions is in no way perceived
by the animal's vis aestimativa. For the intelligence in animals
is entirely absorbed in actions and experiences so as to seek out
what satisfies it and avoid what does not, without any concern for
or awareness of the reality of things in themselves. 77
to the logical fate of the position that, over and above its pragmatic significance,
sensation as such has no theoretical import for philosophy: " if sense impressions
do not resemble bodies, except fortuitously, how can they supply regular information about the effects that their nature exerts, upon ours? The great metaphysical myths of occasionalism and preestablished harmony will soon be needed
to account for the dependability of the senses, with regard to utility and harmfulness, in a system which denies them all dependability with regard to the real
state of affairs."
77 In II de Anima, lect. 13, n. 396-398:
" Si vero apprehendatur in singulari,
utputa cum video coloratum, percipio hunc hominem vel hoc animal, huiusmodi
quidem apprehensio in homine fit per vim cogitativam . . . in parte sensitiva;

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JOHN N. DEELY

Such 1s the real contrast between human and animal intelligence, both of which " abstract " in the precise sense thoroughly incoherent to Geach. (So much the worse for Geach.)
We notice more regularities than animals do, because a knowledge
of "how nature works " gives us a certain satisfaction in itself,
though in some men the satisfaction is small. The animal achieves
the ideal which the Practical Man only approaches; he only notices
the constant conjunctions which are directly relevant to his biological needs. His inductions, such as they are, are based upon these
regularities. He does not bother his head with generalizing about
others, and so his generalizations are few, and very closely bound
up with action. When A recurs, its occurrence is not so much a
premiss from which B can be inferred, as an opportunity for Bseeking action; or in other cases ... an urgent signal forB-avoiding
action. The animal mind is the Pragmatist's paradise. 78
quia vis sensitiva in sui supremo participat aliquid de vi intellectiva in homine,
in quo sensus intellectui coniungitur. In animali vero irrationali fit apprehensio
intentionis individualis per aestimativam naturalem ....
"Differenter tamen circa hoc se habet cogitativa, et aestimativa.
Nam
cogitativa apprehendit individuum, ut existens sub natura communi; quod contingit ei, inquantum unitur intellectivae in eodem Rubiecto; uncle cognoscit hunc
hominem prout est hie homo, et hoc lignum prout est hoc lignum. Aestimativa
autem non apprehendit aliquod individuum, secundum quod est sub natura
communi, sed solum secundum quod est terminus aut principium alicuius actionis
vel passionis; sicut ovis cognoscit hunc agnum, non inquantum est hie agnus,
sed inquantum est ab ea lactabilis; et hanc herbam, inquantum est eius cibus.
Uncle alia individua ad quae se non extendit eius actio vel passio, nullo modo apprehendit sua aestimativa naturali. Naturalis enim aestimativa datur animalibus, ut per
earn ordinentur in actiones proprias, vel passiones, prosequendas, vel fugiendas,"
as St. Thomas accounts for elsewhere (In I Met., lect. 1, n. 14) in the following
Darwinian terms: "In hoc vero, quod cognitionem animalium determinat per
comparationem ad regimen vitae, datur intelligi quod cognitio inest ipsis animalibus
non propter ipsum cognoscere sed propter necessitatem actionis." This contrast
between the human and the brute perception of the singular is expressed in contemporary discussion with extraordinary clarity by Adler in The Difference of
Man, fn. 14 p. 334.
The senses, thus, know indeed the singular; but concern with the singular
precisely as it is singular-that is the privilege of the Poetic Man and a
function of intellect as enrooted in the senses-a point made beautifully in what
may well be Jacques Maritan's greatest book, Creative Intuition in Art and
Poetry (New York: Pantheon, 1953). The "world" of the animal is one of
objects organized along the lines of generalized action exceptancies in terms of
the " friendly " and the " hostile." and that is a sphere of accidental universals as
much as it is of singulars. See the remarks of Yves Simon cited in fn. 76a above.
78 Price, op. cit., pp. 42-43.
Cf. IV Contra Gentes, c. 38, n. 5.

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These lines by Price, a profound author whom Geach has
understood as poorly as he has St. Thomas, serve as an exact
commentary on the text from St. Thomas last cited.

F. The Sphere of Animal Consciousness and the World of
Human Awareness.
The animal achieves the ideal which the Practical Man only
approaches: so true is this, writes St. Thomas, that when it
is a question of immediate action, the difference between the
essential and the accidental universal (insofar as it is based on
the difference between perceptual abstraction and conceptual
abstraction) is effectively suppressed. For the experience accessible to animals differs from the art which man develops
only by virtue of the difference between perceptual thinking
and conceptual thinking, 79 very much the difference between
vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa; but when it is a question
of immediate action, inasmuch as all action has reference to
what exists in the physical world, this difference becomes
irrelevant, so much so that the experienced animals will be
able to respond with more effective intelligence than would a
man given only theoretical instruction and placed in the same
situation! 80 Yet in the long run, because the experienced
animal would possess only know-how, without any knowledge
of why (" experti autem sciunt quia, sed nesciunt propter
quid" 81 ) , the human being will be able to change the situation
by virtue of applying his theoretical, i.e. conceptual, knowledge of it, in ways totally beyond the comprehension of the
animal, which will thereupon adapt itself to the changed c1r•• See text cited in fn. 67 above and that in fn. 80 below.
In I Met., lect. 1, n. 20: "quantum ad actum pertinet, experientia nihil
videtur differre ab arte. Cum enim ad actionem venitur, tollitur differentia,
quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et singulare: quia sicut
experimentum circa singularia operatur, ita et ars; unde praedicta differentia
erat in cognoscendo tantum. Sed quamvis in modo operandi ars et experimentum
non differant, quia utraque circa singularia operatur, differunt tamen in efficacia
operandi. Nam experti magis proficiunt in operando illis qui habent rationem
universalem artis sine experimento."
81 Ibid., n. 24.
80

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JOHN N. DEELY

cumstances with a cunning and thoroughness that can only
further stir the admiration of the Practical Man, who, try as
he might, is condemned by his nature to fall short of his animal
ideal.
The order of animal intelligence, even at its summit, is one of
the strictest pragmatism; there is in it neither a speculative
nor a practical order of estimations. That distinction depends
on seeing that there are things and aspects of reality independent of one's ambit of interest and activity, just what the brute
animal in principle cannot and in fact does not see. The
animal world is exclusively a world of safe and dangerous
places, pleasing or unsettling circumstances, edible or distasteful objects, threatening or familiar individuals. It has
frequently enough been assumed, Jacob von Uexkiill has remarked, "that all animals with eyes saw the same objects." 82
Nothing could be less true (save perhaps Geach's interpretation
of Aquinas) . "The animal's 'environment' is altogether different from the natural scene; it more nearly resembles a
poorly furnished room." 83
Animals are perfectly adapted to their sharply defined and and delimited environment-perfectly
adapted to it, but equally imprisoned within it, so that they cannot overstep the frontier in any
way whatsoever: they cannot even find an object though armed
with senses that are apparently well adapted to the purpose, unless,
that is, the object fits into their selected partial world. This selected
reality, selected by the biological necessities either of the individual
or the ... r-.pecies, so limited and sharply defined, is what Uexki.ill
calls Umwelt: ' environment ' in contrast to ' surroundings ' and in
contrast to 'world' .... An animal's field of relationships is not
its ' surroundings ' and certainly not ' the world.' Its field of
relationship is very clearly delimited 'environment':
a world
from which something has been omitted [namely, things in themselves, existentes in se], in which its inmate is enclosed and to
which it is, at the same time, perfectly adapted. 84
•• Jacob von Uexkiill, Der unsterbliche Geist in der Natur
cited in Pieper, op. cit., p. 85.
83 Ibid., p. 76 (Pieper, p. 85).
•• Pieper, op. cit., pp.

(1938), p. 63, as

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The world of human awareness, by contrast, is differentiated,
both by the nature of the knowledge it contains and by the
motivations of the men who inhabit it, into speculative and
practical realms, interpenetrating, no doubt, and mutually fecundating, but in principle distinct. The world of animal intelligence is one of unrelieved Pragmatism, a paradise or ideal
limit, as Price says, to which the Practical Man can only
approximate. It is the difference, as Adler has so clearly shown,
between the orders of perceptual and conceptual thinkers. 8 ;;
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the animal intelligence is able to achieve a quaedam participatio humanae by
forming for itself and its own well-being, and in an improper
sense, an " accidental universal," i.e., " a unification by the
mind [in this case the anima sensibilis seu solummodo sensitiva J
of several things under one aspect." 86

G. Rational Processes and Animal Intelligence:
Restatement.

Summary

Although in context St. Thomas is speaking of the operation
of sense as it operates in man under the influence of reason,
and, in general, when treating of this question, tends to play
down the attainments of the sensitive soul as such, 87 the foregoing discussions show that the following remarks can be
85 Adler summarizes
the issue whether concepts differ in kind or degree from
percepts in terms of the presently available evidence on pp. 161-162 in The

Difference of Man.
86 In II Post. Anal., lect. 20, n. 595. " anima stat per considerationem

quousque
perveniatur ad aliquid impartibile in eis [sci!., in sensibilibus], quod est universale."
87 E. g., in the
Summa Theol., I, q. 78, a. 4: "Considerandum est autem
quod, quantum ad formas sensibiles, non est differentia inter hominem et alia
Sed quantum
animalia:
similiter enim immutantur a sensibilibus exterioribus.
ad intentiones praedictas [sci!., sensuum internorum], differentia est: nam alia
animalia percipiunt huiusmodi intentiones solum naturali quodam instinctu, homo
autem etiam per quandam collationem [sci!., per experimentum]."
It is such
statements as these concerning that instinctive mode of operation of the vis
aestimativa wherein the notion of experimentum has no role (which are by far
the more common expressions in scholasticism) that have contributed to so
much misunderstanding in modern times over questions of human evolutionary
origins and of the capacities of the animal mind .

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JOHN N. DEELY

legitimately appropriated in response to our question, which
was never broached explicitly by Aquinas, namely, the question
as to what in principle is the animal mind able to attain at its
highest level of organization.
If it were the case that sense could apprehend particularities

in
an exclusive manner, so that by no manner or means could it
apprehend a universal aspect within the particulars, it would be
impossible that the knowledge of the universal should be in any
way caused in us by reason of the perceptions of our senses. 88
Since therefore, as a matter of fact, we clearly do derive some of
our intellectual knowledge from the objects which sense alone is
able to apprehend as such, Aristole considered it to be rather plain
that we must arrive at a knowledge of the first universal principles
through induction< For it is only through an inductive process
that the activities of sense are able to initially establish cognitive
generalizations within the organism's field of apprehension, inasmuch as the activities of sense are what bring the relevant singulars
into relation. 89
Moreover, these remarks indicate the manner in which the
transition from animal to man was achieved in the evolutionary
series without any sharp discontinuity in the phenotypic and
behavioral order, despite the irreducible difference in kind between perception and conception as ways of knowing:
When it comes to action, the distinction between art and experience, which is based on the difference between perceptual and
conceptual abstraction, is obviated, because ... that distinction
rests entirely on a difference in modes of apprehension. \Vhere it
is a question of action, however, what is important is the manip88 In II Post. Anal., lect.
n. 595: "Si autem ita esset quod sensus apprehenderet solum id quod est particularitatis, et nullo modo cum hoc apprehenderet
universalem naturam in particulari, non esset possibile quod ex apprehensione
sensus causaretur in nobis cognitio universalis."
89 Ibid.:
" Quia igitur universalium cognitionem accipimus ex singularibus, concludit manifestum esse quod necesse est prima universalia principia cognoscere
per inductionem. Sic enim, scilicet per viam inductionis, sensus facit universale
intus in anima, inquantum considerantur omnia singularia." How anyone could
miss this point if he has read St. Thomas with the minimum of scholarly care
is a mystery to me--e. g., see the Summa Theol., I, q. 84, a. 6.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

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ulation of singulars, and to this end any distinction in how those
singulars are known [whether by animal or properly human intelligence] is not directly relevant. 90
We see therefore how the relation must be understood, and
in what sense Price could say that "intelligent behaviour, no
less than thinking, depends on the awareness of universalia in
re," so that "even animals must have some awareness of
universals." 91 Without any confusion of the orders of sense
and intellect, of percept and concept, it is possible to say that
both sense and intellect apprehend universals, but in the former
case it is a question of a universal which exists only in relation
to the perceiving organism as an environmental factor, in
Uexkiill's sense, and in no other way; whereas in the latter
case it is a question of a universal which indeed exists in relation to me, but through which are seen realities as indifferent
to me and in themselves as well. Similarly, both sense and
intellect apprehend the singular, but in the former case the
singular is apprehended properly and essentially as an aspect
of environment, i. e., as something to be dealt with in the
forseeable future; whereas in the latter case the singular is
always apprehended as an aspect of the world, i.e., as a
particular being which exists or could exist quite apart from
my dealings and interests. Moreover, these apprehensions first
come about in both cases by that "thoroughly incoherent"
process Geach calls abstraction.
90 In I
lect. I, n.
" Cum enim ad actionem venitur, tollitur differentia,
quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et singulare: quia ...
praedicta differentia erat in cognoscendo tantum."
" Cum cnim ad actionem
venitur . . . sicut experimentum circa singularia operatur, ita et ars," unde
"tollitur differentia, quae inter experimentum et artem erat per universale et
singulare."
This text is cited in full in fn. 80 above. Further to this point,
see J. N. Deely, "The Emergence of Man: An Inquiry into the Operation of
Natural Selection in the Making of Man," The New Scholasticmn, XL (April,
1966), esp. pp. 153-176.
91 Price,
op. cit., p. 36. See, however, fn.
above, and the reference fn.
116 below.

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IV. Aquinas and Mr. Geach: A Study in Parody.
In conclusion, it is enough to merely juxtapose the following
two passages, to see how really insupportable is Geach's claim
that the opinions of St. Thomas in the Summa, like Geach's
own, are anti-abstractionist.
According to Geach:
We can now say something that goes for all concepts without
exception: Having a concept never means being able to recognize
some feature we have found in direct experience; the mind makes
concepts, and this concept-formation and the subsequent use of
the concepts formed never is a mere recognition or finding .... In
all cases it is a matter of fitting a concept to my experience, not
of picking out the feature I am interested in from among other
features given simultaneously .... ·what is logically distinctive
in the use of colour words [for example] is certainly not to be
reached, by an act of abstraction, from the seeing of red in things. 92
What relation is there between such a view and that expressed in the following words?
Abstraction occurs in two ways. One way is through the operations
of synthesizing and distinguishing, as when we understand that
one thing does not depend on another, or exists independently
of it. The other way is through an act of attention, as when we
understand one thing without taking any account of something
else. . . . In this second manner of abstracting, for the intellect
to consider one thing in isolation from another thing on which
it depends in actual existence does not involve error, as is clearest
when it is a question of abstraction from sensible objects .... If
we were to consider color and its properties without paying any
attention to, say, the apple before us which is colored, or even if
we express our consideration verbally, there is error neither in our
opinion nor in our speech. For being colored does not necessarily
imply being an apple .... The same remarks hold for any other
consideration of aspects of the sensible world ... : they can be
legitimately considered quite apart from any individual principles
not implied by them with necessity. This indeed is exactly what
it means to abstract a universal from a particular, or an intelligible
likeness from a sensible likeness, namely, to consider the nature
•• Geach, op. cit., pp. 40-41.

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involved without considering the instances represented as such by
the perceptual abstractions. 93
The distance between this view and that expressed by Geach
is logically and philosophically infinite.

A. The Problem of Particular Judgments.
That is why, in facing the question as to how a judgment,
that is, an intellectual judgment, being "inherently general,
can be tied down to particular things," 94 what for Aquinas
is the answer (intellectu convertendo se ad phantasmata)
strikes Geach as a "metaphorical term," "obviously a mere
label with negligible explanatory value." 95 What is metaphorical about saying that "even after conceptualizing the
perceptual attainments of sense, the operation of the intellect
continues to depend on sense," 96 especially after having made
it clear that " the agent intellect is not related to our capacity
for conceptual understanding as its object, but rather as causing the potentially intelligible objects of sense to become
actually so. Obviously, to function in this way there is re•• Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 1 ad 1: "dicendum quod abstrahere contingit
dupliciter. Uno modo, per modum compositionis et divisionis; sicut cum intelligimus
aliquid non esse in alio, vel esse separatum ab eo. Alio modo, per modum simplicis
et absolutae considerationis; sicut cum intelligimus unum, nihil considerando de
alio .... Sed secundo modo abstrahere per intellectum quae non sunt abstracta
secundum rem, non habet falsitatem; ut in sensibilibus manifeste apparet ....
Si vero consideremus colorem et proprietates eius, nihil considerantes de porno
colorato; vel quod sic intelligimus, etiam voce exprimamus; erit absque falsitate
opinionis et orationis. Pomum enim non est de ratione coloris; ... Similiter dico
quod ea quae pertinent ad rationem speciei cuiuslibet rei materialis, ... possunt
considerari sine principiis individualibus, quae non sunt de ratione speciei. Et
hoc est abstrahere universale a particulari, vel speciem in telligibilem a phantasmatibus, considerare scilicet naturam speciei absque consideratione individualium
principiorum, quae per phantasmata repraesentantur."
•• Geach, op cit., p. 65.
95 Ibid. It is useful to compare
Geach's glib dismissal here with the analytical
evaluation made by Jean Poinsot " De necessitate conversionis ad phantasmata,"
in his Cursus Philosophicus, III, 331-3.
•• Summa Theol. I, q. 86, a. 1: intellectus noster "etiam postquam species
intelligibiles abstraxit, non potest secundum eas actu intelligere nisi convertendo
se ad phantasmata, in quibus species intelligibiles intelligit."

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JOHN N. DEELY

quired, in addition to the agent intellect, the presence of perceptual attainments, proper functioning of the sensitive powers,
and deliberate effort on the part of the one seeking to understand, since we come to understand what is not known through
bringing it into some actual relation with what is known." 97

B. The Role of the lntellectus Agens in Concept-Formation.
Similarly, Geach's reference to the intellectus agens as being,
for St. Thomas, "the mind's concept-forming power" 98 shows
how completely he has misread even the texts he does cite,
such as I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3. To speak exactly, the intellectus
agens is not for St. Thomas our concept-forming power but
the proximate cause postulated as necessary for establishing
a proportion between understanding and nature, so that what
is only potentially intelligible of itself may be established in
a condition where it can actually be conceptualized. In other
words, it is the cause whereby our capacity for understanding
is placed in first act, on the basis of which that capacity is
able to form for itself conceptions and so actually understand
in actu secunda. This is the profound importance of the
"duplex operatio intellectus" described in I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3:
"Nam prima quidem consideratur passio intellectus possibilis
secundum quod informatur specie intelligibili. Qua quidem
formatus, format secunda vel definitionem vel divisionem vel
97 lbid., q. 79, a. 4 ad 3:
intellectus agens "non se habet ut objectum, sed ut
faciens objecta in actu:
ad quod requiritur, praeter praesentiam intellectus
agentis, praesentia phantasmatum, et bona dispositio virium sensitivarum, et
exercitium in huiusmodi opere; quia per unum intellectum fiunt etiam alia
intellecta. . . ." The problem of particular judgments in Geach is a totally
different problem from the question as it arises in St. Thomas. In the latter
case, it is a question of the manner in which the various powers of apprehension
work together to constitute a unified sphere of conscious awareness; in the former
case the problem stems from astonishment that a part of the cognitive dynamism,
in this case the intellect, does not seem to achieve the same results when it has
been cut off in analysis from its perceptual and roots, as it seems to achieve in
actual exercise where it exists and operates in living contact with the perceptual
order. See St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 10, a. 5, corpus.
•• Geach, op. cit., p. 130.

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compositionem, quae per vocem significatur." To speak exactly,
the intellectus agens is our abstraction making power: " it
must be said that the intellectus agens is the cause of our
concepts only inasmuch as it renders what exists under the
conditions of materiality in the order of sense as existing free
from those conditions at the level of intellect." 99 The elaboration and application of concepts, by contrast, i. e., the
actual exercise of understanding, belongs to what St. Thomas
calls the intellectus possibilis, not, indeed, entirely on its own
resources, in terms of which it is utterly passive, but as
"formed," i.e., placed in actu primo, by the intellectus agens
operative on the attainments of perceptual " thought " : " because it is not owing to the intellectus agens that sometimes
we understand and sometimes we do not, but to the intellect
which is in potency," in potency, that is, to natures rendered
intelligible actually. 100 This is why, in mentioning conditions
required for understanding and for the formation of concepts,
over and above the presence of the intellectus agens, St.
Thomas refers to the factor of our own sustained and repeated
efforts: "et exercitium in huiusmodi opere." 101 This is also
the reason why, as Aquinas clearly points out, if the intellectus
agens were not primo et per se et secundum naturam propriam
eius an abstractive power in just that sense so thoroughly
•• The English here is an excessively free rendering of St. Thomas, Summa Tkeol.,
I, q. 85, a. 1 ad 4: "Abstrahit autem intellectus agens species intelligibiles a
phantasmatibus,
inquantum per virtutem intellectus agentis accipere possumm
in nostra consideratione naturas specierum sine individualibus conditionibus, secundum quarum similitudines intellectus possibilis informatur "; or, as it is simply said
in q. 79, a. 5 ad
"dicendum quod intellectus agens causat universale abstrahendo
a materia."
100 Ibid., q. 79, a. 4 ad
"non est ex parte intellectus agentis hoc quod
quandoque intelligimus et quandoque non intelligimus; sed ex parte intellectus
qui est in potentia." So little does the intellectus agens have to do with the
making of concepts to fit experience in Geach's sense (and as Geach should have
surmised from q. 85, a.
ad 3) that Aquinas says that "from such a point of
view, the intellectus agens could just as well be something entirely separate from
the soul," as the Averroists contend-" Et quantum ad hoc, non differt utrum
intellectus agens sit aliquid animae, vel aliquid separatum" (q. 79, a. 4 ad 3).
101 Summa
Theol., I, q. 79, a. 4 ad 3.

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JOHN N. DEELY

incoherent to Geach, if it were without further ado our concept-forming power, "a man would be able to understand
whenever he so wished, which patently is not the case." 102
Just how great a distortion it is to refer to the intellectus
agens as being for St. Thomas the mind's concept-forming
power could hardly be plainer than an intelligent reading of
the text cited by Geach-I, q. 85, art. 2 ad 3-shows: for the
intellectus agens non format sed informat-- the agent intellect
does not form concepts; the intellectus possibilis, the capacity
for actual understanding, forms concepts for itself once adequately determined (" formatus est ") by the intellectus agens'
action on sense. It is these concepts formed by the understanding itself in actu secunda through which words signify,
whereas the informing of the understanding in actu primo can
neither be expressed in words directly 103 nor even doubted
interiorly when words are used to express outwardly conceptions in actu secunda that contradict what is seen by the
understanding in actu primo. 104
V.

Conclusion:

Toward the Roots of the Caricature.

That suffices to answer our two questions on which, as I
pointed out, the justice of Geach's "Historical Note" depended. It is not too strong to say, in view of the answers, that
Geach's interpretation has no justice at all, or as little justice
as it is possible for an interpretation to have.
This being the case, I would like to pose one further question:
Why did Geach come up with the analysis that he did, and
100 Ibid.
This is the expression of the objection. The reply to it in effect is a
statement of the conditions under which the activity of the intellectus agens would
alone suffice for understanding, i. e., of the conditions under which it would be
true to refer to the intellectus agens as "the mind's concept-forming power"
(Geach, op. cit., p. 130): " si intel!ectus agens compareretur ad intellectum
possibilem ut objectum agens ad potentiam, sicut visible in actu ad visum;
sequeretur quod statim omnia intelligeremus, cum intellectus agens sit quo est
omnia facere. Nunc autem non se habet ut objectum ... "-i.e., since however
these conditions do not obtain. . . .
103 See text of Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. £, ad 3, as cited in fn. 20 above.
10 ' See Aristotle,
Metaphysics, Bk. IV, ch. 3, 1005b 8-34; St. Thomas, In IV
Met., lect. 6.

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in particular, how is it possible that he could have misrepresented St. Thomas so grossly? I think the answer to this
question can be found on pp. 12-13 of Geach's book, where
he tells us that he is concerned only with sufficient, not necessary, conditions for having a given concept. The sufficient
condition for Geach is intelligent word-use, and, he tells us,
"I shall not try to draw any sharp line between what is
' sufficiently like ' the central and typical cases and what is
not; I do not think we shall go far wrong if we concentrate
henceforward on concepts exercised linguistically." 105
Quite apart from the fact that St. Thomas's doctrine of
the intellectus agens does not even pertain to this level of
conceptualization except indirectly (the whole question to
which the doctrine of the intellectus agens is the answer bears
entirely on the necessary conditions for conceptual thought),
it is interesting to note how this way of approaching the
subject of mental acts neatly avoids the really difficult and
interesting problems involved in human knowing. I will mention just three examples.
On the very first pages of his book Geach puts to one side
the whole problem of knowledge in what properly constitutes
it as knowledge, namely, how through mental acts we are aware
of realities which are other than us. This whole problem, as
Price so well shows, arises from the experience of being mistaken or disappointed, from the discovery that what I thought
to be there and what is there in my mind never existed or
exists no longer in the natural world. 106 But Geach wants
nothing to do with "such odd statements as 'some objects
of mental acts do not exist,' " 107 and he tells us " I shall
accordingly state my problems not in the form 'What sort
of objects do these mental acts have? ' but rather in the form
'Such-and such object-expressions are used in describing these
mental acts; what is the logical role of these expressions? "m
Geach op. cit., p. 13.
See Thinking and Experience, pp. 75-143, passim.
107 Geach, op. cit., p. 2.

105
106

1os Ibid.

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JOHN N. DEELY

Once the essential question of knowledge has been exorcised,
of course, along with the problem of the necessary conditions
for concept-formation, Geach is certainly in a position to dismiss without detailed justification the researches of psychologists into animal intelligence. A more or less arbitrary fiat
will do: " The psychologists I am criticizing want to play down
the differences between human and animal performances, and
I want to stress them. The life of brutes lacks so much that
is integral to human life that it can only be misleading to say
that they have concepts like us." 109 I happen to entirely
agree with Geach on this issue; but it remains the case that
something a little more analytical than an " I want " vs. " they
want" is called for on this difficult question.
It is surprising that Mortimer Adler should have allowed
himself to read back his own thorough and deep analysis of the
contrast between percepts and concepts into Geach on this
point. After having carefully analyzed the studies bearing on
animal intelligence and having analyzed with equal care the
role that concepts play in human verbal behavior, Adler succeeds in showing that the highest perceptual attainments of
animal intelligence, which Adler terms "perceptual abstractions," cannot, in terms of the available evidence, "be regarded
even as a rudimentary concept of perceptible objects." 110
Concepts (understood as quite distinct from perceptual abstractions) and concept-formation (understood as quite distinct from
perceptual generalization and discrimination) are not needed and,
therefore, they cannot be justified as theoretical constructs in the
explanation of the observed behavior. 111

Then, having clearly worked out for himself the distinction
between concepts and percepts, and limited the use of the term
" abstraction " to describe the latter case, Adler writes as
follows:
Ibid., p. 17.
Adler, op. cit., p. 158.
111 Ibid., p. 162.

10 '

110

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Geach argues that the experiments that demonstrate an
capacity to recognize triangles or to discriminate between triangles
and quadrangles (functioning as perceptible cues or stumuli) do
not indicate that the laboratory animals have formed concepts of
triangularity and quadrangularity. In his view, the laboratory
data can be adequately explained without positing concept-formation in animals. To do so is to confuse perceptual abstraction on
the part of animals with human concept-formation which, Geach
convincingly shows, does not consist in a process of abstraction
at all.112
But that is not Geach's criticism, nor is it anything Geach
" convincingly shows." Geach does not say that the formation
of perceptual abstractions in animals makes sense, as long as
we do not confuse it with concept-formation. What Geach says
is " that the whole idea of abstraction ... is throughly incoherent." 113 What Adler could have said and should have said
is that he, Adler, has convincingly shown that no concepts
are formed solely on the basis of perceptual abstraction, i. e.,
that perceptual abstractions differ in kind even from concepts
of perceptible objects; and that Geach in wrong in regarding
the whole idea of abstraction as incoherent, although it cannot be applied with complete univocity to perceptual and conceptual processes.
Moreover, if one wishes to restrict the application of the
term " abstraction " to either the perceptual or the conceptual
order (although, as we have seen, Geach uses it so loosely that
it must be said to apply to both orders), one would be equally
Ibid., p. 137.
Geach, op. cit., p. 19. Although this judgment would certainly apply to
mental acts as construed by Geach! It would seem therefore that Dr. Adler has
some other works of Mr. Geach in mind, works to which he does not refer in
his notes, to support his remark that, along with Jonathan Bennet, Geach not
only "sharpen[s] the distinction [between perceptual and conceptual thought],
but also ably defend[s] it with reference to experiments on generalization and
perceptual abstraction in animals, and on problem-solving by trial and error and
by insight." (The Difference of Man, p. 137). Or perhaps he just has tongue
in cheek, for, as he commented three pages earlier, when it comes to the question
of the nature of the underlying psychological difference in kind between man and
other animals," Geach " simply fail[s] to discuss this point." (Ibid., p. 134).
112

113

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JOHN N. DEELY

justified in restricting its use to the conceptual order. 114 Thus,
when Adler says in criticism of Price, that the latter " fails
to see that not all our concepts " are " formed on the basis of
perceptual abstractions," and "that even those which arise in
this way are not formed by an abstractive process," 115 Adler
is using " abstraction " in his own sense, not in that of Geach
or St. Thomas; and to this fact Adler himself inexplicably fails
to advert. Unfortunately, Adler is correct in pointing out that
Price to some extent confuses " the distinction between perceptions, memories, and images, on the one hand, and concepts,
on the other," a confusion which results from "treatment of
general and universal ideas as if they were the same as abstract
ideas," i. e., as what Adler terms "perceptual abstractions." 116
The third example of problem-avoidance I want to mention
made possible by Geach's approach is evidenced in Geach's
glib assertion that although "having a concept never means
being able to recognize some feature we have found in direct
experience . . . this does not in the least prevent us from
applying concepts in our sense-experience and knowing sometimes that we apply them rightly." 117 That is all Geach says
on the question of how it is that our thoughts do apply to
1 " See, e. g., Summa
Theol., I, q. 85, a. 1: "Cognoscere vero id quod est in
materia individuali," i. e., what belongs to the perceptual order, "non prout est
in tali materia," i.e., not as it is perceptual but as it is intelligible and knowable
in concepts, " est abstrahere . . . Et ideo necesse est dicere quod intellectus
noster intelligit materialia abstrahendo a phantamatibus." i.e., perceptual abstractions in Adler's sense; "et per materialia sic considerata in immaterialium aliqualem
cognitionem devenimus, sicut e contra angeli per immaterialia materialia cognoscunt." (Thus Geach is at least consistent with the internal logic of his own
position: "In rejecting abstractionism, we deny a privileged position to 'sensory
concepts '" [p. 41]; and what for St. Thomas held true of an angel's intellection,
for Geach holds equally in human conception: in the primary application of
our mind to the material environment, "'sensory' concepts have not in fact any
privileged position" [pp. 41-42].) See also Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 8: "Primo
quidem, quod cognitio intellectiva aliquo modo a sensitiva primordium sumit. Et
quia sensus est singularium, intellectus autem universalium, necesse est quod
cognitio singularium, quoad nos, prior sit quam universalium cognitio."
115 Adler, op. cit., fn. 9, p. 321.
116 Ibid., fn. 12, p. 333.
117 Geach, op. cit., p. 40.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

AND CONCEPT-FORMATION

93

reality. But he never even asks the question whether our
concepts are that which we know, or that by which we know.
" In all cases it is a matter of fitting a concept to my experience,
not of picking out the feature I am interested in from among
other features given simultaneously." 118 Small wonder that,
according to Geach, "' senory' concepts have not in fact any
privileged position," 119 or that " a child with only a few concepts and only a small understanding of language may easily
possess concepts like door and book . . . before it has any
colour-concepts at all." 12 ° For doesn't a child sometimes say
"door" or "book" before it says" red" or" blue" or" green"?
What better proof of the order of concepts, once necessary conditions are no longer sought?
The jacket of Geach's book tells me that a writer in The
Philosophical Review found Mr. Geach's Mental Acts to be
"a splendid book" and that a reviewer in Mind considers
that "it may well become something of a classic." I think
that it is plain from the foregoing discussion that, while I
have found Mr. Geach's book provocative and stimulating
and have certainly learned from reflecting on his views, I
cannot go so far as to endorse the judgment of these reviewers.
The very appearance of such judgments seem to me to be
rather clear indications of the justice of applying a thesis that
has been put forward in other areas also to the problems in the
philosophy of knowledge: it is useful to divide the history
of Western philosophy by a line that separates the medieval
predecessors of Hobbes and Descartes from their modern successors.121 Despite the work of our historians, the properly
philosophical communications across this line are still far from
reliably re-established.
JoHN N. DEELY

Institute for Philosophical Research
Chicago, Illinois

Ibid. See the parenthesis in fn. 114 above.
Ibid., pp.
120 Ibid., p.
emphasis supplied.
121 Cf. M. J. Adler's "Foreword"
to Yves R. Simon's Freedom of Choice (New

118

119

York:

Fordham, 1969), esp. p. viii.

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF WAR:
ESTABLISHMENTARIAN MISCONSTRUCTIONS

M

ODERN analytical philosophy, as one sees in the
pages of Christian writers like Ian Ramsey, Peter
Geach, Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga, has
relevance to many sorts of basic problems about man, problems
that philosophers in the great Western traditions have tried to
to many sorts of basic problems about man, problems that
philosophers in the great Western traditions have tried to
solve 1 But recently not a few analytical philosophers, especially in North America, have been subjected to almost hysterical
pressures from within and without to make their work "more
relevant." Instead of being invited to cope merely with strings
of printed wisecracks from Russell and Gellner, then with ensuing letters in the London Times, participants at some recent
meetings of the American Philosophical Association 2 have been
disturbed by noisy confrontations over "relevance." Analytical admirers of genuinely systematic thinkers like Aquinas,
Aristotle, Hegel, Hume, Kant, Locke, Marx, Plato, Sartre, and
Spinoza have in many cases been moving over the years towards broadening the application of the tools of modern analysis.3 Among them some would say that such disturbances are
not necessarily bad. Perhaps more analysts should be moving
more quickly in this direction towards a broader view of their
field. But no progress is made when a journal noted for strong
1 As " serious philosophers " concerned over such relevance, we have often found
ourselves at odds over the question how much relevance modern Analytical Philosophy has or should have to such problems and the form that this relevance should
take. We are agreed, nevertheless, that such relevance is possible and desirable.
2 For example, in New York, December, 1969, and Berkeley, March, 1970.
3 See especially
works by Gregory Vlastos, Stuart Hampshire, Wilfrid Sellars,
and P. F. Strawson.

94

AQUINAS

AND THE JUSTIFICATION

OF WAR

95

analytical contributors simply bows to the demand for " relevance," when it prints a polemical paper that distorts and
wildly castigates the history and " relevance " of Christian
thought in order to further a dubious political thesis. When
such a paper is then rapidly placed in an anthology which will
command much wider attention, it is suitable for Christian
philosophers in particular, but also for any philosopher concerned with standards of historical exposition and critical
thinking, to examine the paper and strike back.
The essay that we are discussing, Professor Donald Wells's
"How Much Can the 'Just War' Justify?", appeared first
in an issue of The Journal of Philosophy during December,
1969 4 and was shortly afterwards anthologized by A. K. Bierman and J. A. Gould in Philosophy for a New Generation (New
York, 1970) . Some of its numerous errors will repay careful
examination by Christian philosophers of many kinds, especially for two reasons. First, it seems to reflect a good deal of
popular or easily popularizable confusions about ethics and war.
There are monsters of muddle in moralist dress that Christian
philosophers can really perform a "relevant " service by unmasking. Second, the dissection of these errors affords a pleasing chance to show how the allegedly sterile tools of analysis
can be used together with concrete (sometimes elementary)
political and historical points 5 to very good advantage. The
main analytical tool we shall use, and use often, is the old
and much maligned one of drawing "relevant" distinctions.
And so we must apologize in advance for a profusion of distinguishing numbers and letters in brackets.

I. An Introduction to Some Confused Modern
Thinking About War
Throughout "How Much can the 'Just War' Justify?,.
Professor Wells alternates to emotive advantage between two
largely incompatible views of war as if they were the same. The
• December 4, 1969 (LXVI, 23), pp. 819-829.
5 Cf. John King- Farlow, " The Concept of Mind," Inquiry

(1964), pp. 268-276.

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WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

one view (V1) holds that war, violence, and taking of life are
intrinsically wrong always.
In addition, however, there is an implicit contradiction which discussants of war and justice ordinarily recognize. Since the havoc
of war is normally classed with immoral actions and evil consequences, what the notion of " the just war" attempts to do is to
show that under some circumstances it would be "just " to perform immoral acts and to contribute to evil consequences. Some
justifications of war aim to show that actions deemed normally
forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed
under the aegis of war.
Since the history of ethical speculation has virtually no other
instance of the defense of immoral acts under the extenuating
circumstance of prudential risk, the "just war" concept needs
special attention. It constitutes an anomalous instance in moral
discourse, namely, a glaring exception to an otherwise accepted
prohibition of acts of human brutality. (pp. 819-820).
The other view (V2) maintains that war may have once been
justifiable in the Middle Ages and before but is no longer so
in the Twentieth Century's world of armaments that indiscriminately kill huge numbers of civilians.
The medieval hub of this argument was the doctrine of the " double
effect." A just belligerent intended only as much death as would
be proportional to the threat or the offense, and he would intend
to kill only combatants. It was presumed that we ought not to
kill non-combatants. In the Middle Ages the weapons made such
concern practical. Although the archer might shoot his arrow into
the air and not be too clear about where it landed, he was not in
doubt about whether he was shooting it at combatant enemies.
He might miss a small barn, but he hit the right city. Modern
weapons make such sensitivity about the recipients of our missiles
inoperable and unfeasible. (p. 826) .
The discussion of "intention" in the thirteenth century, when the
weapons were relatively limited in scope so that a king could
implement his wish not to harm non-combatants and could practice
some kind of proportionality, is something that modern men can
no longer carry out. (p. 827)
Since the notion of the "just war" has been revived after nearlv
two centuries of silence on the issue, it seems appropriate to look

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION

OF WAR

97

again at the medieval claims to see whether, if they had a defense
then, they have any rationale now. (p. 820).
Note that V2 itself leaves Wells's position ambiguous. Is he
saying (V2a) that all wars and violent uprisings must be unjustifiable even if they occur in militarily backward nations and
even if " total " civilians there who are genuine non-combatants
are most unlikely to be affected? If so, then what is so arithmetically magic about the Twentieth Century itself? Or does
he really mean (if he reflects harder) to say only (V2b) that
wars at any time which threaten mass destruction (by atom
or by spear) of genuine non-combatants must be unjustifiable,
but that wars at any time which involve death and suffering
only for the soldiers of both sides (and only a small number of
soldiers at that) may be justifiable? If he opts for v2b he
must get clearer still and clarify his postion about revolutionary
civil wars so that " soldiers " will cover more than the official
and uniformed troops of the government against whom the
revolt takes place. Also he must revise his formulations very
carefully to cover cases like the Viet-Namese war where the
distinctions between civilians and combatants, women-withchildren and combatants, the unarmed and combatants, etc.,
frequently break down.
Note that if view V2a is meant by Wells, he goes so far as
to (Ban- I) ban small-scale revolutionary civil wars that in
certain countries even today could result in the overthrow of
rigorously authoritarian (" tyrannical ") regimes. And he also
then bans from consideration (Ban- II) the possibility that
small states on the borders of another small state like Duvalier's
Haiti could conceivably be justified in invading that dictator's
country, even if it could overthrow a highly oppressive regime
with very little bloodshed. Moreover, if V2a is meant by Wells,
then he must further reject as a possibility (Ban- III) that
a major power could conceivably be justified in supplying
small-scale conventional weapons like rifles and grenades to
Haiti's more democratic neighbors or to democratic revolutionaries in Haiti. Similarly, if Wells is committed to V2a, he

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WILLI.A.M

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

would be precluded from saying that, had Twentieth-Century
Britain refused in the 1920's to relinquish the colonial area
which became the Irish Free Republic, then because of the
arithmetically magic number of the Twentieth Century the
I. R. A. would have been wrong to take more drastic, though
still relatively limited, means on behalf of an oppressed majority in that area. Nor could he allow that other nations could
have justifiably supplied the I. R. A. with arms. Nor could he
allow that England and France should have tried force to stop
Hilter from remilitarizing the Rhineland or from seizing Poland.
If Wells really means V2a and is willing to defy both Marxists
and Thomists on the question of the possible justifiability of
at least some among the wars of liberation today, then so much
the better we say, as admirers of St. Thomas, for both Marxists
and Thomists.

II. "A Just War is One Declared by the Duly Constituted
Authority" 6 •
Wells attacks the medieval Christian tradition, notably its
debts to the ideas of St. Thomas, because he thinks that it
made all but impossible the growth of a brotherly, united world.
Incidentally, the concept functioned as a defence of national sovereignty and of the "right" of nations to defend themselves in a
basically lawless world. It made national survival feasible, while
making international organization unlikely. (p. Sf!O).

But this attack derives, as we shall soon try to show, from a
confusion (Con£- A) of what is (Confd- i) 7 superficially explicit in St. Thomas's major doctrines about an " authoritative
sovereign" (and only transitorily relevant to Christian feudalism) with what is (Confd- ii) profoundly implicit in St.
Thomas's major doctrines and vitally relevant to a century
where many (not all!) forms of increasing internationalism are
both possible and very often desirable.
• D. Wells, op. cit., pp. 821-822.
7 For
(Confd-i) read " the first thing confused," for (Conf-A)
first confusion," etc.

read " the

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION

OF WAR

99

In order to clarify the value of this distinction let us now
note the main strategy of Wells's paper and digress briefly on
three further confusions in that strategy. He first mentions
three conditions of justification in Aquinas:
In order for a war to be just, three conditions had to be met: (1)
an authoritative sovereign must declare the war; (2) there must
be a just cause; and (3) the men who wage the war must have
just intentions, so that good actually results from the war (p. 820).
He next cites seven conditions recently put forward by a
Catholic thinker, Joseph McKenna, building on St. Thomas:
More recently, Joseph McKenna has revised the "just war" doctrine with an expanded list of seven conditions. They are: (1)
the war must be declared by the duly constituted authority; (2)
the seriousness of the injury inflicted on the enemy must be proportional to the damage suffered by the virtuous; (3) the injury
to the aggressor must be real and immediate; (4) there must be
a reasonable chance of winning the war; (5) the use of war must
be a last resort; (6) the participants must have right intentions;
and (7) the means used must be moral. (p. 821) .
He then concentrates mainly on attacking McKenna's conditions (I), (2), (5) and (6) .8 He is content to imply that
this "attack" is a sufficient answer to St. Thomas after explicitly tossing the the Angelic Doctor these two lean bones
of criticism regarding his three conditions:
In application of these criteria, the criticisms that did emerge of
particular wars were so few as to suggest that princes were basically moral men or that the criteria were too vague to be useful.
In addition, the critics were commonly persons not officially in
government, so that their protests were a kind of baying at the
moon. (pp. 820-821).
This pair of objections notably involves a confusion (Con£ B) of (Confd- iii) questions about the wisdom and relevance
of Aquinas's ideas with (Condf- iv) questions whether, if
8 The entire remainder o£ Wells's paper
(pp.
headings which state these four conditions.

is written under four

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WILLIAM N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

Aquinas's ideas were wise and relevant, politicians claiming to
be Christians thought carefully about their proper application
and made good use of them. But a far worse pair of confusions
seems to bedevil Wells's "attack" on McKenna's conditions
(I),
(5) and (6). The first of these confusions is (Con£ C): to treat (Confd- v) what is put forward as ONE necessary condition of justification among several necessary conditions that only TOGETHER, (as a SET), could constitute
a sufficient condition as if it were (ConJd- vi) a sufficient condition by itself. Thus on pp.
he dismisses McKenna's
first condition ("A just war is one declared by the duly constituted authority ") as being of no relevance at all to modern
war because so many modern leaders of States and Churches
seem to him immoral or amoral. Even if this " argument "
showed that the condition looked unpromising when taken
alone, it would not show that it could not combine usefully
with other necessary conditions to help with appraisals of
justification! The second of these confusions is (Conf -D):
to think of (Confd- vii) a proof, however sound, that something is not always a necessary condition of justification as
(Confd- viii) a proof that this something cannot often be a
relevant INDICATOR of justifiability.
To clarify Wells's confusion (Conf-D) consider simple,
" relevant " examples. Many relatively unconfused Christians
would agree that the expressions " authoritative sovereign "
and " duly constituted authority " should not be applied to
a revolutionary leader like George Washington in the 1770's
who instituted a guerilla organization and declared war on a
tyrannical regime and/or colonial oppressor. (They would
mean " should not " on pain of semantic, political, and philosophical confusion.) But they would not argue that therefore
revolutionary leaders like George Washington, Thomas Lord
D' Arcy and Eamon De Valera caused unjustifiable wars. Thus,
for such Christians, declaration of war by someone naturally
and unconfusingly called an "authoritative sovereign" or
"duly constituted authority" need not always be a necessary

AQUINAS

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OF WAR.

101

condition for justifying a war. But they would not therefore
deny that very often an excellent indication that a war is not
justified or at least not fully justified is the fact that generals
or war-lords have preempted their central government's duly
constituted powers and responsibilities for starting a war. And
some relatively unconfused Christians in the United States
hold that one of the reasons they should query American
involvement in Viet-Nam is that the heavy degree of involvement was due to President Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin declaration and not to an act of Congress, the American Constitution's
" duly constituted authority " for making decisions on so great
a degree of martial involvement. Such Christians, at least some
of whom largely approve and some of whom strongly disapprove of considerable American involvement in South East
Asia, would say that, under certain CONCEIVABLE 9 circumstances, Johnson's plunge into "escalated war" without a
formal Congressional declaration of war (A) could have been
fully justified-IF special time factors and the national interests of both America and Viet-Nam had truly made his immediately acting without Congressional assent imperative-but
(B) could not be justified under the actual circumstances in
1964. 10 Thus Wells's confusions (Con£- C) and (Con£- D)
seriously distort our understanding of how relatively clearheaded and morally concerned people do think about war-as
well as obscuring points relevant for any explanation of how
they ought to think.
9 For us to speak of the CONCEIVABLE
here is to imply nothing about the
justifiability of what is currently " actual."
10 St. Thomas
if he were with us might well say, in answer to a universal
parliamentary fanatic's complaint that he had failed to advocate parliamentary
democracy everywhere in the Middle Ages, that such a critic had shown no
understanding of human needs and tendencies in Europe at that period. He
might similarly oomment that those who today seek to impose a regime with
the trappings of parliamentary democracy on all men everywhere or a Soviet or
Maoist style regime on all countries everywhere are grossly insensitive to the
actual, historical circumstances in which different nations' needs for different
forms of society arise. Marx himself, who believed that different societies evolve
at strikingly different rates, might well show a considerable measure of agreement.
Wells himself would seem at p. 8Q4, paragraph Q, also largely to agree.

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WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

At any rate, the time has now come to look more closely at
what an English-speaking St. Thomas would mean by " an
authoritative sovereign" or a " duly constituted authority "
in cases where he would be using such terms technically in
the course of doing Thomist political philosophy rather than
Wells's kind of semi-philosophical polemical journalism. The
conventional use of such terms by journalists and arm-chair
politicians, and also the legal use of such terms by a state's
conventionally certified lawyers or judges and its power-wielding politicians, need not coincide for St. Thomas with their
philosophically proper use at all. Failure to explore this point
results in Wells's feeling able (a) to dismiss Aquinas with the
comment that many historical sovereigns-people to whom
these terms could apply conventionally or legally according to
their state's particular laws-have not been "very reliable or
sensitive" by Christians or humanist standards. (p. 821) The
same failure results in Wells's feeling able, as was briefly
mentioned before, (b) to ignore those implications of Aquinas's
political philosophy that are vitally relevant to peace and
international cooperation today. (Some of the most crucial of
these implications we shall shortly try to make clear.) For
Wells seems completely unable to grasp what Aquinas would
call in modern English " the technical, philosophical distinction
between a leader or governing group that has genuine, authoritative sovereignty and a leader or governing group only said
to have sovereignty by those who follow misleading conventions
or bad laws; the technical distinction between genuinely authoritative sovereignty and the pseudo-sovereignty of a tyrannical
power."
According to St. Thomas, at least two conditions must be
met by a ruler or ruling body if it is to have any authoritative
sovereignty at all. First, it must in its basic approach respect
the Natural Law, the body of moral truths which God gives all
sane men of all remotely sane societies the power to grasp, at
least dimly, by the Natural Light of Reason. Pointless killing
and cruelty, for example, are obviously to be deplored by sane

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION

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·103

members of remotely sane societies. (Compare Saint Paul on
"Gentiles" and "Conscience" in Romans 2: 14-15). Second,
it must try in creating its particular Positive Law8--Conventionally instituted statutes regularizing a feasible form of community life at a historical period for certain humans (who like
all other men have a natural need for organized society) -both
to enhance respect for the Natural Law and to promote the
citizens' Common Welfare (bonum oommune). St. Thomas did
not, despite the repeatedly scathing remarks of Wells about
modern Catholic and Protestant thinkers with any regard for
the Tho mist tradition 11 , preach a doctrine of supporting the
Establishment policies on war and economics for the Establishment's sake. Indeed, St. Thomas explicitly laid down criteria
for assessing the justifiability of violent revolutions against
tyrannical regimes. The revolutionary criteria would include
(RC- i) the persistent failure of the government to respect
the Natural Law and/or the Common Welfare; (RC- ii) its
failure to grant citizens effective means of peacefully gaining
redress against such tyrannical abuses of power; (RC- iii)
the strong likelihood that such a revolt would succeed in toppling the government and not merely result in a tyrannical
bloodbath; (RC- iv) the serious chance that toppling those
in power would lead to a much better government, not to mere
anarchy or to another form of outright tyranny. 12
There are some modern meta-moralists who would now
dismiss St. Thomas's appeals to Natural Law and the Common
Welfare as utterly unhelpful. They would argue that the diversity of societies, with their varying moral codes and fundamental
beliefs, makes his appeals to something like universal intuitions
of morality and fairness a piece of antiquated junk. 13 There
See his footnotes on pp. 821-823, 826-827.
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, bk. 1, ch. 6, ed. Matis (Turin,
1924).
13 Cf. the
excellent discussion of meta-ethics, social relativism, and ethical
relativism in E. Sprague and P. W. Taylor's Knowledge and Value (2nd edition,
New York, 1967), pp. 502-6. Aquinas himself was clearly aware of this diversity
of human societies' beliefs-see, for example, his reply to Anselm's ontological
11

10

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WILLIAM N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

may well be other meta-moralists who would simply dismiss
Aquinas's appeals to our ethical knowledge about matters of
social and sexual morality, fairness, etc., as examples of the
fallacious belief that ethical principles have a cognitive status.
And it may be legitimate or rational for them to do so, at least
until they can be convinced otherwise by reading or hearing
better meta-moralists. 14 But it is not open to Wells himself
to disagree with Aquinas's view that some fundamental moral
truths are universally graspable, that some value judgments
are true and correct, others false and incorrect. This course
is not open, upon pain of radical inconsistency, to a man who
proclaims as all but too obviously true and readily knowable
views: " There may be a credible case for claiming that the
medieval discussions of the just war added to man's moral
insights ... " (p. 828) ; 15 " If the just war ever had moral
significance in the past, it is clear today that it justifies too
much." (p. 828); 15 "we would still need to show that the last
resort ought, in this case, to be taken." (p. 825) etc. 15 ••• Wells,
in effect, appeals to a broad range of readers on the assumption
that, as sane and informed persons, they can already share
in many of his moral insights rather clearly and can be brought
with his help to clarify others as matters of moral knowledge.
If the Natural Law forbids us to cause pointless death and
pain, if the Natural Law urges us to have a brotherly concern
for all men everywhere according to the Golden Rule, and if
every society's Common-Welfare-in-the-Twentieth-Century
is
argument and its definition of "God" in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Like
Aristotle, Aquinas did not differ radically from the social relativist in the matter
of anthropological knowledge but rather in the matter of interpreting such kuowledge philosophically.
u For example P. T. Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis, 17 (1956), 33-42;
Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, especially pp. 125-65 (New York, 1962); G. E.
Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903); Peter Glassen, " The Coguitivity
of Moral Judgments: A Rejoinder to Miss Schuster," Mind, LXXII (1963),
137-40. Cf. John King-Farlow, "From GOD to IS and from IS to OUGHT,"
Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (1957), 136-48.
15 Our italics emphasize these " epistemologically loaded " words that commit
Wells to moral cognitivism.

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION

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now rather clearly linked with avoiding a nuclear holocaust,
then any modern government that St. Thomas would consider
authoritatively sovereign would be bound today to be greatly
concerned with the protection of world peace and with international cooperation. It is now, of course, vastly easier than
in the thirteenth century for a good leader or good government
to communicate quickly with foreign powers over great distances. It is obviously far clearer to governments that failure
to improve international relations may well lead to enormous
amounts of pointless (hence morally intolerable) human suffering or death; that such failure might lead to the extinction
of their own societies with all citizens. An authoritative sovereign concerned both with the Nat ural Law and with his
society's Common Welfare must surely find today that St.
Thomas's concept of authoritative sovereignty points far away
from narrow forms of nationalism.
Some might then complain (as we suspect Wells would in
reply) that St. Thomas, if he was politically wise at all, should
have been in his politics (Pol-l) a far more explicit and
outspoken advocate of international cooperation; (Pol- 2) an
open supporter of a strong centralized World Government.
Such complaints deserve the following replies among others.
(Pol- 1): To admire St. Thomas's political philosophy and
count it very relevant today is not to attribute omniscience
to him, or wisdom only to him and to no one else. St. Thomas,
like all human thinkers, was seriously limited in various philosophical and political respects by the times and traditions in
which he worked. Nor was political philosophy his most central
concern in his research and reflection. Perhaps, like most
other good philosophers, he could have helped mankind more
by devoting further time and effort to the area and to questioning harder the political assumptions of his day.
It
is questionable whether even now a strong centralized World
Government would be feasible for present nations with such
divergent interests and forms of life. It is tempting to say
that, because of nuclear armaments' threat to mankind, such

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WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

a World Government must quickly be made feasible and imposed upon mankind. Even if this could be done, however,
might not the consequence of imposing it be an intolerably
bloody succession of nationalist wars as well as an intolerably
inhuman suppression of personal liberty and communal aspirations? The appalling possibilities that might result from the
attempted imposition of one ideology on the whole world through
a self-perpetuating contest between one or more rival World
Governments have been brilliantly, perhaps very prophetically,
explored by George Orwell in 1984-. In spite of the nuclear
threat, or perhaps because of it, the forming of a genuinely
healthy type of strong World Government may only be feasible
if and when what Montesquieu called the Spirit of the Nations
will have changed greatly through some of the possibly more
beneficial effects of modern technology and " ideological dialogue " later on. Possibly, the common primary concern of all
genuinely philosophical and genuinely systematic philosophers
with a long tradition of ambiguous " proportionality " -talk
gradually help, through widening ordinary men's education in
serious philosophy, to change the Spirit of the Nations. Careless polemics would seem rather less promising.

III. "A Just War Uses Means Proportional to the Ends" 16 •
It never becomes clear exactly what Wells thinks he is " attacking " when he lashes out at " proportionality " as a
Thomistically inspired criterion. Perhaps the fault lies as much
with a long tradition of ambiguous " proportionality " -talk
as it does with him. At some places in the verbal fog we
suspect that he is again committing confusions ( Conf- C) and
(Conf- D), confusing (Confd- v) alleged necessary conditions with (Confd- vi) non-alleged sufficient conditions, confusing (Confd- vii) alleged necessary conditions with (Confd viii) assumed indications, etc. What he means by " proportionality " and what he has to say against it must largely be
18

See Wells, op cit.. pp.

AQUINAS

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gleaned from the following two vitriolic passages (the least
emotional parts of this section). He begins the section by
writing:
Franciscus de Victoria had observed ... that if to retake a piece
of territory would expose a people to "intolerable ills and heavy
woes" then it would not be just to retake it. We must be sure,
he continued, that the evils we commit in war do not exceed the
evils we claim to be averting. Now how do we measure the relative
ills? This is the problem of the hedonic calculus on which Mill's
system foundered. Since Victoria granted princes the right to
despoil innocent children if military necessity required it, it ceased
to be clear what proportionality meant or whether any limit at
all was being proposed.
In a recent paper on this issue Father John A. Connery stated
that the morality of the violence depends on the proportionality
to the aggression. What is required is some calculus to make this
measurement. The latitude with which conscientious persons have
interpreted this suggests (what was clear enough to Mill) that
we possess neither the quantitative nor the qualitative yardstick
for this decision. Pope Pius XII thought the annihilation of vast
numbers of persons would be impermissible. John Courtney Murray thought this prohibition was too restrictive. (pp. 822-823)

And shortly afterwards we read:
Not only do Christian prelates seem a fairly callous lot, but the
notion of proportionality has lost sense.
Where should we draw the line? Pope Pius XII decided that
Communism was such a cosmic threat that atomic, chemical, and
biological bombs could all be justifiably used. But where then
is the proportion? (p. 823)

The idea of proportionality in Christian thinking derives partly
from the Pentateuch but also very considerably from Aristotle's
discussions of proportional justice in Nichomachean Ethics,
V, 113061-1134al5. Rather than hasten to discuss whether
Wells and the numerous people he denounces here have been
true to the Pentateuch, or to Jesus' revisions of its moral approach, or to Aristotle and Aquinas, let us first note that
Wells rightly links medieval problems about justifiable violence
in war with medieval problems about justifiable violence in

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WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

punishment. 17 We shall next try to isolate what is wisest in the
long tradition of talk about proportionality and violence by
distinguishing two vastly different " proportional " approaches
to violence. Here we shall be making some use of A.M. Quinton's classic analytical paper "On Punishment," 18 not necessarily a use that he would entirely approve of. At the risk of
making this journal read like a philosophical horror comic, we
shall baptize these approaches (Ap -1), or "The Retributive-Deontological- Isomorphic- Proportionality Approach," and
(Ap- 2) or "The Teleological-Estimate Reasoning-Sense of
Proportion Approach."
Approach (Ap-1) states that if X commits a wrongful violent act of form F.. and gravity G.. against Y, then Y andfor
his lawful legates (such as his fellow citizens or his widow and
orphaned children) may-just-because-he (or his legates )-justmay-and/ or must-just-because-he (or his legates )-just-must
impose upon Y a violent penalty which is as closely as is humanly achievable of form F.. and gravity G... The variables
X and Y can have individuals, families, tribes, or other groups
within nations, as well as entire nations, for their values. The
variables Fn and Gn can range over the forms and gravities of
thefts, rapes, tortures, maimings, murders, destructions of property, civil insurrections, invasions by other nations, etc.
Approach (AP- 2) states that if X commits a wrongful
violent act of form F.. and gravity G.. against Y, and if such
defeasible conditions as X' s act being deliberate, X' s being sane
and adequately knowledgeable are met, then X should be
punished (civilly, martially, etc.) but only if (i) some appropriate and important good end (s) will thereby be served
and (ii) no greater evil consequence will result and (iii)
the form and gravity of the punishment to be prescribed is
properly judged by an agent or body with a wise" SENSE OF
PROPORTION" regarding the gravity of X's act, the importance and further beneficial effects of the good end( s) served
Cf. p. 820, para. 4.
Analyais, XIV (1954), 512-17. Reprinted in Contemporary Ethical Theory,
ed. Joseph Margolis (New York, 1966), pp. 474-84.
17

18

AQUINAS

AND THE JUSTIFICATION

OF WAR

109

and the possible harmful by-products of the punishment. Here
the variables can range roughly over the same things as in
(Ap- I), but the wiser the approach to the Approach the more
carefully the range will be reflected on and controlled. Approach (Ap- 2) retains an important retributive element from
Approach (Ap- 1). It does not prescribe "tellishment." It
does not license pseudo-punishments. It does not encourage
pseudo-retributive violence against innocent but irritating persons and groups merely on the grounds that a greater balance
of good ends will be served in the long run. As Quinton would
put it: punishment must be for guilt-personal or governmental guilt.
Insofar as Wells seems to be addressing himself to proportionality qua Approach (Ap-1), he is addressing himself to something which Jesus himself often seemed very eager to eject
from monotheist morality. (See the Gospels' versions of the
Sermon on the Mount, especially Matthew 5) . But Wells
might rightly reply that sometimes Christian leaders, philosophers, and laymen have lapsed back in their thinking into
some such " isomorphic " forms of really barbaric, irrational,
infantile retributivism. This may be especially true of certain
sadomasochistic and crudely pictorial interpretations by Catholics and Protestants of "estrangement from God" in the
Afterlife. 19 And lapses back into such infantile forms of irate
isomorphism also characterize the darker side of humanity,
whatever its creed, when men, even very good men, think about
the justification of violence in war and in civil and family
punishment. At any rate, insofar as Wells is addressing himself
to Approach (Ap -1) or something like it, he is himself lapsing
into barbarism by the kind of " arguments " he apparently uses
against it. The rational answer to (Ap -1) is not to suggest
first that "What is required is some calculus to make
this measurement " (p. 823) and then to claim that we can
no longer make such measurements, that perhaps one could
19 Wells, in making such a reply as this, could turn to the Nietzsche of On The
Genealogy of Morals to support his contention.

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WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

in feudal times when an army's retributive volleys would not
hurt civilians, but not now, and so on.
Nor is it a rational argrument to suggest that ideally such
a deontologically-minded and isomorphic-retribution-minded
measurement of proportion might be made to good purpose
by genuine saints, then to add that actual prelates and rulers
do not measure up in their mental and moral powers to the
standards of such saintly measurers. Surely one rational reply
that Christians, Jews, and other religious folk, as well as secular
humanists should make is this. "Approach (Ap -1) is infantile, barbaric, inhuman, immoral, irrational. It is contrary
to the Natural Law and the Golden Rule and the Rule of
Love and the Categorical Imperative, if you believe in any
of these. In secular talk, it is contrary to certain basic human
intuitions of decency and respect for all persons, which are
sound intuitions and count as moral knowledge even though
they often need to be socially nurtured. To try to attack
Approach (Ap -1) philosophically after accepting its insane
terms of mensural reference is itself a form of philosophical
insanity. This might be called a dogmatic reply, not an argument. But sane arguments, as St. Thomas saw-and as very
varied philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, Marcel, Marx and
Moore have seen-must start with the acknowledgement of
certain hard truths grasped in human experience, including
moral truths."
Insofar as Wells seems to be addressing himself to proportionality qua Approach (Ap- 2) or something like it, he seems
to presuppose the wisdom of using (Ap- 2) today in order to
show that it is unwise today. For his main " argument "
seems to be that the arrival of nuclear armaments makes
it impossible for us nowadays to advocate rationally any
form of martial violence on any scale. Why? Because
(Premise a) no one with a sane "Sense of Proportion" about
ends and means can advocate an all-out nuclear war in which
vast numbers of non-combatants will be killed. Because (Premise b) many of the political and religious leaders to whom
we once tried looking for improving our " Sense of Proportion "

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION

OF WAR

111

about war obviously disagree widely with one another and
obviously diverge greatly in view from what we ordinary mortals know that someone with a sane "Sense of Proportion "
would have to believe and have to reject on such matters.
These two must be among his real premisses. But how can
such a general conclusion about all future warfare in any form
conceivably be delivered by such premisses about nuclear warfare and the limitations of some leaders? A hidden assumption
seems to be (Premise c) that, because we ordinary mortals,
unlike so many leaders, can and do retain a " Sense of Proportion" about means, ends, and violence, we can see (or, be philosophically brought by Wells to see) that in a nuclear age no
one does or can retain a "Sense of Proportion " about means,
ends, and violence of any kind! This self-contradictory assumption goes perhaps together with another hidden and conflicting assumption (Premise d) that we the powerless still
have enough" Sense of Proportion" to see that if any individual obtains political or martial power in a so-called MilitaryIndustrial-Complex, it corrupts his "Sense of Proportion " absolutely. Such assumptions would seem to be needed as
premisses to explain why Wells arrives at his moralisms so confidently. This wild assortment of conflicting premisses may
help to explain the tangle of Wellsian confusions that we
discussed in Section I. This tangle in turn may help to explain
the conflicting premisses.

IV. Farewell to Anti-Martial Muddles?
Wells goes on to pour scorn on two of McKenna's other neoThomist conditions for justifying wars. These are (5) that
use of war must be a last resort (pp. 824-826) ; then finally
(6), that the participants must have right intentions. (pp.
826-829) But these discussions involve essentially the same
kinds of confusion we have already tried to diagnose: muddles
about necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, and useful
(usefully relevant) indicators; muddles about sorts of "proportional" retaliation, etc. He makes, in effect, the useful

WILLIAM N. CHRISTENSEN

AND JOHN KING-FARLOW

point that those with a "Sense of Proportion " 20 should seek
to study far more alternatives to a further arms race than the
nuclear powers encourage their citizens to study. But this very
point is largely made by utilizing assumptions shared by Christians about moral knowledge, about a "Sense of Proportion "
arising from man's Natural Light of Reason, about our remaining ability at least dimly to distinguish justifiable from
unjustifiable violence in the pursuit of various modern ends.
Wells seems unaware that he may well have been helped to
grasp some of his wiser, more "relevant" assumptions by
being born into a culture with a considerable Christian tradition, a culture shot through with Aristotelian and Thomist
ideas derived through Hooker and Locke and then the authors
of the American Constitution. Wells appears quite bizarrely
unaware of such a possibility-especially
because he has so
little but evil to say of Christian thinkers' " relevance " to the
modern world.
At this late stage we had better confess again to a sociological
prejudice. We have not attacked Donald Wells's essay on the
"Just War" as a purist exercise in analysis. We have attacked
him because we suspect that he is very much a man of our
period, that his confusions about war and justification may
be widely shared and shared at times by ourselves as men of
the same period. But part of the task of a philosophia perennis
which Christian analysts can endorse should be to dredge up
such confusions about matters so crucial to human politics and
morality. Then the confusions can be criticized in the light
of several analytical traditions: classical, medieval, rationalist,
empiricist, pragmatist, and modern. All the the traditions are
relevant to man and to his most important questions about
his existence.
WILLIAM

N. CHRISTENSEN

JoHN KING-FARLOW

University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
•• This extremely valuable term in ordinary language " A Sense of Proportion "
(which is not a literalistic mensural term) is, unfortunately, not used and discussed
in Wells's essay.

NEO-DARWINIAN REACTIONS TO THE SOCIAL
CONSEQUENCES OF DARWIN'S NOMINALISM

I

N OUR TWO previous articles in The Thomist 1 some of the
pros and cons concerning Darwin's special theory of evolution were considered. Indeed, scientists today are still
debating whether evolutions or revolutions dominate in the
production of natural changes. Statements such as the following seem to allow much room for either or both: " Evolution implies directed change. There is not and never has been,
in neo-Darwinian thought, any quibble about the fact that
change must come from random mutation at the molecular
level. ... We do not regard perpetuation of neutral mutations
as being evolution per se, but merely the pool from which
evolution can occur, given a directed push by natural selection." 2 Underlying the above statement is a whole new perspective on Darwin's original hypothesis. Much of the newer
viewpoint has come about through both the introduction of
new data and the need to " humanize " the original Darwin.
Here we will be concerned with the latter.
1. The Problem Inherited From Darwin. Along with the many
new directions Darwin's works have given to modern biology
there have also passed into our century several problems initiated, or at least made prominent, by the writings of the
Englishman. One such problem, perhaps the most widely discussed in one way or another, is generally referred to as the
problem of social Darwinism. This problem came to widespread popular attention directly as the result of Darwin's
espousal of a certain epistemological position which he claimed,
1

The Thomist, XXXlli

(1969), "Darwin

on Evolution:

A Re-Estimation,"

pp. 456-496; " Evolution After Darwin," pp. 718-786.

• From a letter to the editor, Science (August 1, 1969), p. 448.

113

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F. F. CENTORE

without himself ever realizing its full philosophical history and
import, was a necessary presupposition for the acceptance of
his special theory of evolution. The particular epistemological
position he espoused was one of the classical answers to the
so-called problem of universal predication. 3
2. The Problem of Universals. Perhaps the best way to put

the problem is in the form of a question: How is it possible
for one and the same term to apply equally well to many
obviously different concrete entities? Or how is it possible
to ever, at any time, use terms univocally? The use of univocal
language is, of course, absolutely necessary to the sciences of
logic and mathematics. And, insofar as the reasoning in any
science is to be carried on logically or is to employ mathematics,
that science also depends upon univocal language. The fact
of universal predication, then, is common to all the sciences
and is the beginning of the problem of universals quoad nos. 4
How, for example, can one say that Tom is a human being,
Mary is a human being, etc., and understand human being in
• Darwin's nominalism is quite well known among outstanding modem biologists.
E. Mayr, for example, states that the modern, synthetic theory of evolution
depended for its growth upon mainly " the rejection of two basic philosophical
concepts that were formerly widespread if not universally held: preformism and
typological thinking." (Animal Species and Evolution, Cambridge, Mass. [1963],
p. 4.) Although Mayr is historically inaccurate on at least two points (preformism
was held as a scientific doctrine; nominalistic positions were quite widespread,
especially in England), his recognition of the importance of typological thinking
in holding back slow change theories is accurate.
• The question of whether or not universals exist, and if so how and where, is a
later issue, one which arises in the process of attempting to solve the initial
problem.
The initial, logical, problem: How can we predicate univocally? The answer is
that the subjects are identical in that respect. The metaphysical problem: How
is such a thing possible or what is the nature of a class? Answer: An archetype
in God; an individual essence in the thing; a concept in the human knower. Of
course, many biologists find such an answer unscientific. R. Munson, for example,
who wants more morphology in taxonomy, is as much a positivist in this regard
as is, for instance, H. Lehman, who wants to emphasize the more hidden gene
pools. Munson states: "Most would agree that Mr. Lehman's critique of the
typological concept is judicious and correct." ("Biological Species: Mr. Lehman's
Thesis," Philosophy of Science, 37 [1970], p.

NEG-DARWINIAN

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115

the same way in each case even though each person is separate
and individual? How, again, can one say that a certain substance on earth is water, a certain substance on Venus is water,
a certain substance on Mars is water, etc., even though the
samples are separated by millions of miles?
With respect to the biological sciences, Dobzhansky, for instance, takes it as both an intuitive conviction and a fact of
experience that there are kinds or classes of things in nature.
Furthermore, these distinctions among classes of living things
are not merely differences of degree. 5 To this eminent biologist,
The living world is not a single array in which any two variants
are connected by unbroken series of intergrades, but an array of
more or less distinctly separate arrays, intermediates between
which are absent or at least rare. Each array is a cluster of individuals which possess some common characteristics. Small clusters are grouped together into larger secondary ones, these into
still larger ones, and so on in an hierarchical order. 6
The world, he goes on, is not a formless mass of randomly
combining genes but rather a great tapestry of related families arranged on a large but finite number of adaptive peaks.
Each living species occupies one of the available peaks while
the adaptive valleys below are deserted. Such clusters or
species or peaks are there, he insists, whether or not the classifier is looking for them. The problem of universals, then, with
respect to biology, asks how such classification is possible
given the vast plurality of living creatures in the world around
us.
3. The Classical Solutions. The problem of universals has
been of great interest to philosophers since at least the time
of Plato. 7 It would appear, though, that Darwin was neither
aware of this great tradition in Western thought in which he
played a role nor interested in becoming aware of it. This is
6

See T. Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (3rd ed., N. Y., 1951),

p. 259.

• Ibid., p. 4.
• See R. I. Aaron, The Throry of Univll'Tsala (2nd ed., Oxford U. Press, 1967).

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F. F. CENTORE

simply to say that he was not a professional philosopher. For,
indeed, it is hardly possible to imagine a self-conscious and
serious philosopher avoiding for any great length of time the
area of epistemology and its key issues.
There have been in the course of Western intellectual history four main answers to the problem of universals. One of
these is traditionally known as Realism. According to this
doctrine, one must postulate the real separate existence of the
thing said equally well of diverse objects. Hence, as with
Plato, one would say that somewhere in a separate heaven of
existence outside the last sphere of the material universe there
exists the One Perfect Triangle, Justice Itself, the One Perfect
Man, etc. 8 All men on earth, for instance, are considered to be
only reflections of, or participations in, this One Perfect Man
or Ideal Essence of Manness. Therefore, to say that Tom is
a man means that Tom is similar to the One Perfect Man,
a mere reflection of the Perfect Man's perfection. For Plato,
the Idea of Manness was not itself universal, i.e., it was not
actually all men, it was not both one and multiple at the
same time and in the same respect. Per se it was singular;
multiplicity came about by participation. 9
Another proposed solution to the problem of universals is
what may be called a Moderated Realism. According to Plato's
analysis of knowledge, each Idea was divine, perfect, unchanging, existing in its own right. These Ideas form a hierarchy,
a Realm of Ideas, for, as anyone who has reflected upon intellectual knowledge knows, some universal ideas are more universal than others, i.e., some terms are more comprehensive
8 See Phaedrus,
b-e.
• See Cratylus, 440 a-d. Another position, of minor importance, might also be
listed. William of Champeaux
maintained for a short time that
extramentally universals exist qua universal. This meant that one man was
actually all men simultaneously. It did not take long for Abelard to ridicule this
view to death. See E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle
Ages (New York, 1955), p. 154 and "The Glosses of Peter Abailard on Porphyry,"
Selections From Medieval Philosophers (ed. by R. McKeon, New York,
Vol. I, p.

NEO-DARWINIAN

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117

than others. This whole hierarchy, for Plato, also had a separate existence.
Now, according to many Christians who thought on the
subject, such a situation was impossible. There is only one
divine being, God. But a way was found both to salvage
what was in keeping with experience in Plato's analysis of
knowledge and to maintain a monotheistic theology. Such a
solution to the problem of universals was to regard the Ideas,
not as existing separately in their own right but as affectations
of God, that is, as ideas in God's mind. The hierarchies in the
world, both non-living and living, are the way they are, not
because individuals participate in a self-subsisting Idea but
because God has created them to be such after his own thinking
on the matter. 10
Such a view, it was thought, would adequately preserve our
experiences of the world as composed of concrete entities, which
are always individual and particular, as well as our experiences
of having concepts or ideas, which are always universal insofar
as their applicability to many diverse entities is concerned.
The universality of ideation comes about in the process of
knowing the nature or essence of something. According to
Aquinas, for instance, the essence or nature of the known object is the same both inside and outside of the mind, thus
assuring the objectivity of intellectual knowledge. What is
different about them is their mode of existing: physically
outside the mind and intentionally inside the mind. What
assures the universality of concepts is the fact that two things,
so to speak, equal to a third (the idea in God's mind) are, so
to speak, equal to each other. Thus, a whole collection of individual, concrete objects can belong to the same species (and
so on up the scale) because they all possess in common some
factor exactly corresponding to an idea in God's mind. Although the number of infima species could be disputed, in
general outline such an epistemological scheme of things was
10 See J. I. Conway, "The Meaning of Moderate
Realism," New Scholasticism,
86 (196!l). pp. 141-179.

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F. F. CENTORE

held by most of the outstanding monotheistic thinkers during
the Middle Ages, even including Abelard. 11
Another way to solve the problem, or at least attempt to
solve it, was that approach characteristic of those who adhered
to the metaphysical scheme of things traditionally known
under the name nominalism. It is in this tradition that one
finds Charles Darwin. Indeed, if one were a believer in historicism, one would say that it is what was to be expected,
for among his intellectual forebears can be counted such wellknown nominalists as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. 12
According to the solution embodied in Nominalism, it is
improper to claim that one can apply the same term to a
multitude of individuals in exactly the same way. To call
Tom, Mary, Sam, and Jane human beings, for instance, is to
do nothing more than to attach a name or label, or some other
mark of identification, to a collection of diverse creatures with
similar outward or internal characteristics. The traditional
nominalistically oriented philosopher, the most classical case
11 See ibid., pp. 168-170. See the Summa Contra Gentiles, I, c. 54 for Aquinas's
explanation of why God's having "ideas" does not destroy his simplicity.
12 See Aaron, op. cit., for a good account
of this aspect of British empiricism.
The popular tendency toward nominalism began with Occam. See Wm. of
Ockham, Philosophical Writings: A Selection (ed. by P. Boehner, Indianapolis,
1964), pp. 85 ff. The view is now quite widespread. See e. g., Concise Dictionary
of American Grammar and Usage (ed. by R. C. Whitford and J. R. Foster, New
York, 1955), p. 26: "Classification. Grouping items on a basis of some similarity,
as logical relation, physical resemblance, etc."
Its effect upon logic should also be noted. Cf. W. S. Jevons, Elementary Lessons
in Logic (New ed., N. Y. [1914], pp. 101-102):
It is necessary to distinguish carefully the purely logical use of the terms
genus and species from their peculiar use in natural history. A species is there
a class of plants and animals supposed to have descended from common
parents, and to be the narrowest class possessing a fixed form; the genus is
the next higher class. But if we accept Darwin's theory of the origin of
species, this definition of species becomes entirely illusory since different genera
and species must have according to this theory descended from common
parents. The species then denotes a merely arbitrary amount of resemblance
which naturalists choose to fix upon, and which it is not possible to define
more exactly. This use of the term, then, has no connection whatever with
the logical use, according to which any class of things whatever is a species,
provided it is regarded as part of a wider class or genus.

NEO-DARWINIAN

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119

would probably be Roscelinus
teaches that there
is nothing really common to a collection of diverse, concrete
individuals except the name. Given such a view, it is useless to
seek the basis of classification extralinguistically. And, since the
imposition of names is arbitrary, it is also useless to argue over
what is or is not a true species. In reality there is nothing but a
vast array of individuals, each totally unique, which may be arranged and rearranged at will to suit the purposes of the
classifier. As one can see, the doctrine of Nominalism lies at
the opposite extreme from that of Realism.
A variation on this third view also constitutes one of the
classical solutions. It is a Moderated Nominalism traditionally
known as Conceptualism. It appears that such thinkers as
Occam and Sir W. Hamilton (1788-1856) advocated such a
solution to the problem of universals. Conceptualists say that
there is more to the meaning of a word than a mere name
covering a collection of sense data. However, the more is not
outside the mind (as a realist would say) but only in the mind.
In other words, one could, because of an identity of meaning
within the mind, apply the same term equally well to many
different individuals even though, in reality, there is not an
essential sameness among the individuals themselves.
The building up of the concept unit, however, comes about
in the same manner for the conceptualist as for the nominalist,
namely, by a constant repetition of sense experiences showing
the knower similar characteristics and activities on the part of
the items later classified. There is a basis in extramental reality for the identification made intramentally, but the identity
itself is purely intramental; it is an accident or affectation of
the knower; it is not based upon an unchanging archetype. For
a conceptualist, saying Tom is a human being or Mary is a
human being means that they exhibit at this time certain
characteristics which may be mentally identified. Tomorrow,
however, the whole situation may change.
4. Da1Win's Nominalism. Darwin's epistemological preferences show up quite early in his Origin of Species. In Chapter

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F. F. CENTORE

II, dealing with the wide range of variations met with in
nature, Darwin has occasion to discuss the constant haggling
among naturalists about what is and what is not to be considered a species or variety. Darwin does not hesitate to show
his dissatisfaction with the whole business and concludes the
section by saying:
From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species
as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of
individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not
essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in
comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience' sake.U
Later, when summarizing the evidence for his special theory
of evolution, Darwin gives the reader his position again in
a clear fashion:
On the view that species are only strongly marked and permanent
varieties, and that each species first existed as a variety, we can
see why it is that no line of demarcation can be drawn between
species, commonly supposed to have been produced by special acts
of creation, and varieties which are acknowledged to have been
produced by secondary laws.' 4
The Englishman's program of erasing boundaries among living creatures and melting the biosphere into one flowing mass
of unique, interacting individuals did not stop at man. In his
Descent of Man Darwin states that it is equally difficult to
decide where non-man ends and man begins.
In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any
definite point when the term "man" ought to be used. But this
13 C. Darwin, The Origin of Species (6th ed.,
Modern Library ed.), p. 46.
D. L. Hull, "The Metaphysics of Evolution," The British Journal for the History
of Science, 8 (1967), pp. 809-887, claims that Darwin was not definite concerning
the status of species but rather took an amorphous position somewhere between
the realists and nominalists. However, regardless of what Hull thinks, Darwin's
position according to his own words was nominalistic.
u Darwin, op. cit., p. 860.

NEO-DARWINI.AN REACTIONS

121

is a matter of very little importance. So again, it is almost a
matter of indifference whether the so-called races of man are thus
designated, or are ranked as species or sub-species; but the latter
term appears the more appropriate. 15
As a side effect of his espousal of nominalism Darwin foresaw a great benefit for systematists. No longer must they
argue over what is or is not a true species. All they would be
called upon to decide is whether or not the observable differences among different forms are sufficiently great to deserve
a specific name. Once it is realized that what is called a class
is merely a collection of individuals arbitrarily linked together
on the basis of an arbitrary standard, the progress of biology
would be secured. 16 But how then can the biologist talk about
horse, elephant, dog, cat, man, etc.? The nominalistic answer
is that among all existing creatures some bear greater resemblance to each other than to others. When such similarities
are recognized by someone interested in looking for them a
label or name is arbitrarily chosen and used to cover the whole
group.

5. The Social Consequences. The implications for social interrelations of the original Darwinian position on species are
quite well-known and need not be labored over here. In a
system where along the entire length and depth of the great.
chain of being there are no ontological breaks from the first
few protein molecules up to the level of man, much room is
left for speculation as to what creatures are truly superior with
respect to other creatures. For Darwin, the only difference
between a species and a variety is that varieties are still seen
to be connected by intermediate forms while species are not.
At one time or another, however, all creatures were connected
by intermediate gradations. The fact that many intermediary
groups have died out, leaving the impression that certain
Darwin, The Descent of Man (2nd ed., 1874, Modern Library ed.), p. 541.
See Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 871. Cf. Chapter 14 wherein Darwin
presents his own method of classification based upon common parentage as revealed
in family resemblances of various kinds.
15

16

F. F. CENTORE

groups (species) are somehow precisely and eternally set off
from one another, does not detract from the fact that the
primates developed by a countless number of small steps from
the lower biosphere.
What this means is that even at the upper end of the scale
there are many gradations. With respect to the human species
it means that there is no such thing as the human species.
There are only groups of creatures which more or less resemble
each other. There are creatures which are not fully men, more
fully men, and fully men. And no naturalist, or systematist,
or philosopher can say where one ends and the other begins.
Consequently, since we think nothing of putting monkeys into
cages for our amusement, why could we not put certain aborigines into cages for the same reason? They certainly are closer
to the monkey than we are. And what is to prevent the
caucasian, who is superior to the mongolian or negro (who is
to say that he is not?) , from exploiting these other groups
just as they in turn use other creatures which they claim are
inferior to them. The result, of course, is that all systems,
whether religious, political, or economic, built upon the premise
that one must help his fellow human beings, become so restricted as to be meaningless since everyone is now free to
decide what is and what is not a human-type creature. All
sorts of totalitarian regimes are justified and there is no longer
any reason to be horrified as one human cuts up a semi-human
in the inevitable struggle for life.
6. The Two-Fold Approach of Neo-Darwinianism. Understandably, a good number of modern biologists in the Western
world, finding that they must spend a good deal of time living
among all sorts of their fellow creatures, outside of the laboratory as well as inside, are fearful of the consequences of consistently applying Darwinian views in their everyday lives.
But how does one avoid such consequences? There are various
methods available.
Undoubtedly the simplest method of removing a difficulty,
or a least pretending to do so, is to ignore it. Such an approach,

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however, is hardly worthy of consideration, even though many
biologists today, who are much more interested in getting on
with their day-to-day work than they are in such issues as
the problem of universals, as a matter of fact do use such
an escape route. But when they do begin thinking about such
issues, what approaches would they be most likely to take?
The developments in neo-Darwinian theory relative to our
topic which should be given careful consideration have taken
two main avenues. One I have designated the general solution
to the problem of universals, and the other I have named the
special solution. These two approaches toward a solution of the
consequences of Darwin's nominalism are logically independent
of one another, i. e., one is not a necessary presupposition of the
other nor is one a deduction from the other. De facto, however,
they are usually seen keeping company. Although not necessarily the case, there does appear to be an historical unity
present in that those adhering to the more general approach
will also be found supporting the more special solution.
Naturally, no commentator is in a position to judge the
inner motivations of individual biologists. One cannot say that
some particular thinker was led to propose, elaborate, or accept
the general neo-Darwinian view or the newer theory of speciation primarily to avoid the unwanted social consequences of
Darwin's nominalism. However, these newer developments can
be used, and have been used, by many theologians and philosophers, as well as scientists, to circumvent such difficuties. Our
main concern, then, is not to pass judgment on individual
motives but merely to see whether or not either or both of
the solutions will measure up to such an end, assuming they
the main points:
7. The General Solution. It is common today to find ncoDarwinian theorists claiming that natural selection does not
operate upon the individual creature as a whole, in the sense
that it must win the fight for life here and now with another
creature or some other aspect of its environment, but upon the
random mutations suffered by the creature. The mutations,

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so to speak, are the original script while natural selection, so
to speak, is the editor. Also, there is no orthogenesis, i.e.,
the mutations taking place are not ordained to any pre-established end result. This is what is meant by mutations being
random. The mutations themselves are very small and minor
when considered alone and need not favor the survival of the
creature at the times they occur. In fact, all evidence points
out that mutations which can be observed today are detrimental to the well-being of the creatures in which they occur.
To get around this fact, modern evolutionists usually claim that
the lack of survival value of observable mutations is so only
relative to our present environment. If the environment were
to change, it is claimed, the detrimental mutations might well
prove to be beneficial. The over-all appearance of the mutations-environmental change process, though, is one of slow
progress. Dobzhansky, in his typically clear style, gives us
the main points:
The statistical probability of survival or elimination, despite accidents, will depend on the degree of the adaptedness of individuals
and groups to the environment in which they live. This degree of
adaptedness is in part conditioned by the genetic endowment.
Therefore, carriers of some genotypes will survive, or will be
eliminated, more or less frequently than will the carriers of other
genotypes, and the succeeding generations will not be descended
equally from all the genotypes in the preceding generations, but
relatively more from the better adapted ones.H

According to the neo-Darwinian approach to evolution in
general, one must believe in a dependence of higher levels of
perfection upon an entirely chance process of a type never
dreamed of by Darwin. To claim that environmental changes
account for the adaptedness (i. e., the survival for a while
longer) of creatures with otherwise detrimental genetic endowment is to think, for instance, that the water-spider, which
builds its nest under water and fills it with air by bringing
the air down on its own body, somehow (through many
17

T. Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (Yale U. Press, 1962), p. 128.

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generations) suffered a long series of minor genetic changes
(no one of which need be of any immediate use to it-since,
if one judges by current standards, they were detrimental at
the time) which all led up to its present condition while still
living on the surface. Given the right environmental change,
however, the water-spider survived while its fellow spiders,
without such (previously) detrimental mutations, died out. In
this way, although detrimental to individuals, mutations are
said to be advantageous to the species.
In a broad way, such a theory does offer a solution to the
problem of social Darwinism. The main thrust of the newer
Darwinian view of evolution vis-a-vis our present topic is to
play down as much as possible the idea of nature as a bloody,
mean affair in which individuals within the same species or
in different species literally fight to the death with one another.
The notion that all nature is a jungle, red in tooth and claw,
has now been replaced with the more benign notion of differential reproduction. The idea that individuals or races must
literally fight and maim and kill each other has now been
replaced with the idea that some slight and minor variations
within the genes of living organisms will ultimately give the
offspring of those organisms so affected the right of survival
with respect to other organisms not so affected. Certainly,
survival is still the all-important criterion of success and, certainly, there is still much warfare to be observed in nature
but no longer must it be thought that surviving demands the
brutal elimination of one's fellow creatures. No longer must
biology teachers leave their students with the impression that
warfare must be deliberately and willfully fostered in order to
assure the adaptation of the fittest. The elimination of the
unlucky ones who lack the right genetic endowment at the
right time in the environmental history of the world will, of
course, still occur. But it will be a much more quiet and much
less obvious process.
Some thinkers find the differences between the original Darwinian view and the newer Darwinian process great enough

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to warrant a new name. J. N. Deely, for example, would
replace the term natural selection, with its negative overtones,
with the term evolutionary selection, which he feels conveys
a much more positive and progressive connotation. 18 The neoDarwinian view of the struggle for survival would also seem to
be the basis for a recent remark by Dobzhansky. With an air
of approval, Dobzhansky states that "Teilhard rejects social
Darwinism. 19
8. The General Solution Critiqued. Considered from the point

of view of what is peculiar to the neo-Darwinian position, as
opposed to what it has in common with the older Darwinian
program, there are at least three serious objections to the
general neo-Darwinian solution. If what it has in common
with the older view were to be taken into consideration there
would be other noteworthy objections, but that aspect of neoDarwinianism does not directly concern us here.
First of all, the general neo-Darwinian solution is at odds
with the well-established principles of modern mathematical
probability statistics. This is the only one of the three standard
senses o£ probability which can be used in this context, since
factual material and observations needed to ground the remaining two interpretations presently are not available. All
advocates o£ the Darwinian theory readily admit that to believe that some complex organ, such as the human eye, fell
together all at once accidentally would be scientific heresy.
Also, most neo-Darwinians today do not make much use of
large mutation jumps in their explanations. To believe that
some large, complex mutation or co-ordinated set of mutations,
resulting in some radically new function or organ, was neatly
co-ordinated with some chance environmental change thus accounting for the survival of the creature is regarded as repugnant to sound scientific reasoning. These same people, however.
18 See "The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," The Thomut,
33 (1969), p. US. Such views seem to be shared by F. J. Ayala, "Man in
Evolution," The Thomut, S1 (1967), p. 10.
19 The Biology of Ultimate Concern (N. Y., 1967), p. ISS.

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seem to think that a long series of minor genetic accidents,
occurring throughout many generations, can somehow have
been so correlated and in such a right sequence, although
detrimental at the times of occurrence, so as to have produced
more complicated and perfect creatures because some environmental change occurred at just the right time to favor their
survival. One wonders if such a view has been adequately
thought out. Given the many more factors which must be
correlated, within a very precise and limited sequential range,
the latter position is infinitely less probable than the two
former positions.
Consider a situation in which one is expected to spell out the
word mutation in our language by agitating a very large number
of small entities imprinted with letters of our alphabet. Conceivably, after a very long period of time, one might get them
or mu to fall into place. But what would be the mathematical
probability that the t or ta would fall into place after the mu?
The chances, of course, would be ridiculously small. Indeed,
with continued agitation, not only would the ta not fall into
its required place but the mu would fall out of place. To
base a theory, then, which is supposed to account for the
scientific intelligibility of the biosphere upon the chance mutations of a countless number of genes and chance environmental changes with which they must be co-ordinated is to
completely disregard the modern science of mathematics. 20
In the second place, the advocates of such a position must
contend with their colleagues in the physics department. In
20 It is common to hear mathematicians
complain that biologists either give
insufficient information upon which to base calculations or, if some parameters
are given, the calculations based upon them show neo-Darwinian theory to be
inadequate. See Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation
of Evolution (ed. by P. S. Moorhead and M. M. Kaplan, Philadelphia, 1967). Were
the specific objections answered? Not really. See the review of J. L. Harper,
Science, 160 (April 26, 1968), p. 408. Some scientists, hoping to avoid such
problems, think it best to introduce all sorts of "cheaters" into the calcuations,
thus making pure chance into non-chance. See Waddington's remarks in the
above volume and J. Bronowski, "New concepts in the Evolution of Complexity,"
Synthese, 21 (1970), pp. 242-243.

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physics we learn that entropy is the name given to the ratio
Q/T where Q is the quantity of heat energy transferred and
T is the absolute temperature at which the transfer takes
place. In the process of actually measuring entropy, however,
it is only the change in the ratio which can be observed. The
measurement of this is based upon the initial and final states
of the system measured and need not be concerned with the
absolute limits. Entropy is found to increase whenever a
body's available energy decreases or its internal disorder increases. Conversely, whenever available energy increases or
internal disorder decreases (e. g, in freezing) entropy decreases.
As far as anyone can tell today, the overwhelming rule in the
universe is the loss of available energy and increasing disorder
so that the total entropy in our world is forever increasing.
It might be urged at this point, especially following the work
of von Bertalanffy, that the classical law of thermodynamics
must be modified so as to take into consideration open systems
in non-equilibrium as well as closed systems (e. g., thunderstorms) in equilibrium. Consequently, today, the known physical law is that there is a general increase in entropy, but
this is the over-all result of a balancing of increase and decrease
(in living creatures and in some aspects of the geosphere).
However, even granting that such is the case, and that the
new more general law of thermodynamics cannot be used
against the theory of common descent (in part), it is equally
true that it cannot be entered as evidence for the theory. The
situation for past time, though, is quite different. Assuming
that life had a beginning on earth, and that the classical law
of thermodynamics that would hold now held then, increase
must have been the overpowering rule (since there were no
life processes to counterbalance it). This means that even
though there was not a reversal of the presently stated law
there was of the then operative law.
Third, one would expect that, according to the mutations-environmental change theory, assuming that the rate of random
genetic alterations is about the same all over the world, there

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would be more species and more variations within species in
those areas where environmental changes are more frequent
and more severe. This, however, is not the case. According to a.
recent article by three geologists, the number of different species
and variations thereon decreases as the distance from the equator increases. While they admit they have no proof, the authors
believe that the greater taxonomic diversity in the tropical
regions is due to the higher and more constant solar energy
level existing there. They do not call upon the neo-Darwinian
general solution for an explanation. Given the fact that environmental changes have been generally more frequent and
severe in the temperate latitudes it is understandable that
they would not have done so. If anything, their research would
seem to support a revolutionary view of change, due perhaps
to large scale mutations, rather than one of the slow change
theories. 21
21 See F. G. Stehli, R. G. Douglas, N. D. Newell, "Generation
and Maintenance
of Gradients in Taxonomic Diversity," Science (May 23, 1969), pp. 947-949. Despite the terminology, revolutionary change theories are more popular than one
might think. A. M. Brues, for instance, thinks that " evolution " was dependent
upon occasional "good" mutations. See her "Genetic Load and Its Varieties,"
Science (June 6, 1969), p. 1130. Advocates of the neo-Darwinian schemata would
make their case much more palatable to the critically minded if they were to
avoid fairytale-like narrations such as the following: "The ' discovery' of respiration by lungs permitted the descendants of a certain kind of fishes to emerge on
land, to exploit its food resources, and to evolve into amphibians. Most amphibians
continue, however, to be dependent on water for their developmental stages (tad
poles). This dependence was cast off by the 'invention ' of eggs protected by
shells, inside of which the embryonic development is completed. The family of
amphibians which in its ' gropings' hit upon this 'invention ' evolved into reptiles.
Some of the reptiles live in driest deserts, and many of them take no liquid water
at all, deriving their entire water supply from the food they eat. The next key
acquisition was probably that of the physiological mechanisms which maintain
a constant body temperature regardless of the temperature of the environment.
This may have happened independently in two groups of reptiles, which gave
rise respectively to birds and to mammals. Birds developed flight and the ways
of life made possible by flight. Mammals evolved a complex physiological
machinery for the development of their embryos inside the mother's body, for
feeding the infants on milk, and for parental care. These innovations were accompanied by increases in ilie brain size and by growth of mental abilities." (The
Biology of Ultimate Concern, N. Y. [1967], pp. 129-130.) The story is a little
too pat. It sounds more like the tale of the brave knight riding through the

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9. The Special Solution. In contrast to the general solution,
the special solution does not involve a general reorientation of
the whole Darwinian mode of thinking concerning the slow
changeover of species. It could, in fact, be used in conjunction
with the old Darwinian system. The main thrust of the special
solution is to establish a criterion for determining species, within the framework of what its advocates consider to be acceptable scientific boundaries, which will allow all creatures
presently regarded as human beings to continue to be so regarded, even though the general Darwinian or neo-Darwinian
scheme of things is followed. If this could be accomplished,
one would then have a basis for arguing that some universal
code of ethics could reasonably be established forbidding such
things as murder, rape, slavery, etc., among members of the
same species.
The program of the special solution is to reestablish the
notion of species on some grounds other than the classical
solutions. What those advocating the special solution hope
for is an explanation of species that is both concrete, meaning
opposed to the immaterial idea-isms entailed by the realistic
answers, and non-arbitrary, meaning opposed to the consequences of the nominalistic and conceptualistic answers.
The core of the hoped-for solution is to regard a species as
the development of a reproductive isolationism between Mendelian populations. As a result of such isolation each member
of the group possesses a common essential set of genes which
is always expressed through interbreeding. It is not necessary
that all members actually interbreed but only that such interbreeding is possible.
Hugh Lehman, following other gene theorists, favors this
"gene-pool" theory of species. One species differs from another
because there is some mechanism in nature which prevents
enchanted forest on his way to progress and happiness with the beautiful princess
than a scientific account of history. There are, of course, obstacles along the way,
but these are conveniently done away with by magic swords, frogs that are really
good elves in disguise, etc. Counterparts in the theorizing of some modern Darwinians are all too easy to find.

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creatures coming from one type of gene-pool from interbreeding
with those from another. This theory, of course, will only work
with sexual species. 22 In the case of sexual creatures, a genepool is defined by Lehman as " the most inclusive group of
breeding populations between which interbreeding sometimes
occurs in their natural setting." 23 To make the gene-pool
theory work, then, it is necessary that there be no interchange
of genetic material between distinct gene-pools. This is shown
to the biologist, and preserved in the species, by one species'
failure to successfully interbreed with other species.
As it happens, the gene-pool theory of species is also held by
most other outstanding advocates of the general neo-Darwinian
view on the mechanisms of species transformation. E. Mayr,
for instance, tells us:
Although the evolutionist may speak of broad phenomena, such
as trends, adaptations, specializations, and regressions, they are
really not separable from the progression of entities that display
these trends, the species. The species are the real units of evolution, as the temporary incarnation of harmonious, well-integrated
gene-complexes. And speciation, the production of new gene-complexes capable of ecological shifts, is the method by which evolution
advances. 24

And, as J. R. Beaudry relates:
The distinctness of the individuals does not destroy the reality
of the mass, since the individuals are not independent but are all
interrelated in space and in time by physical links, in the form
of gametes, which transmit the essential sets of genes to the distinct parts. The existence of a multiplicity of these different
essential sets of genes is expressed through different integrated
Most modem biologists will admit that arbitrariness and subjectivity
cannot be avoided when classifying asexual creatures. See E. Mayr, op. cit.,
pp. 27-29.
Lehman, "Are Biological Species Real? " Philosophy of Science, 34 (1967),
p. 164.
•• E. Mayr, op. cit., p. 621. Mayr would define a species as a relation. See his
"Footnotes On The Philosophy of Biology," Philosophy of Science, Vol. 36
(1969)' p. 198.

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groups of external and internal characters, which are often sharply
discontinuous but not completely so.25
But how do new species develop? In order to survive
(adapt) an organism must have a gene-pool which will give
it the internal and external physical characteristics needed to
adjust amid changing ecological conditions. Now, according
to the special solution, observable characteristics are decided
by genes. Everything then comes back to the genes, which
themselves cannot be observed. One is therefore forced to work
indirectly with genes and directly with what can be observed.
This means observing interbreeding and phenotypical characteristics.
The over-all result of such an approach is that, when talking
about a species, the modern systematist is not talking about
an individual's matching some ideal type but rather as belonging to a population. The characteristics of a population are
those of all its members taken collectively. There will be an
average condition but no single ideal pattern. The notion of
types has been eliminated. One must imagine instead a sort
of statistical bell curve with the various individuals constituting the population spread out along vertical lines going
up to the curve from a base line. The members are grouped
according to typical characteristics so that those in the middle
will represent the most common traits of a certain population
(species). Toward the fringes there are deviations. It is from
these deviations that new curves, representing new species, will
come forth by the process of natural selection. 26 The key
question, of course, is will the gene-pool theory of speciation
work.
•• J. R. Beaudry, "The Species Concept: Its Evolution and Present Status,"
Revue Canadienne de Biologie, 19 (1960), p. 225. See also F. J. Ayala, art. cit.,
p. 15.
26 See G. G. Simpson and W. S. Beck, Life (2nd ed., N. Y., 1965), p. 492. For
greater detail see S. Wright, Evolution and the Genetics of Population (Vol. I,
Chicago, 1968) .

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10. The Conditions for Classification. Let us analyze what
happens in the process of classification. Suppose, for example,
that one is a professor facing a class of students. Although
he may have doubts from time to time, there is really never
any question that the class is composed of human beings. If the
course is in philosophy, the question concerning the justification for classifying all the students (and the professor) as
human beings would sooner or later arise.
There are certainly numerous differences among the individual specimens. When surveying the human species as a whole,
one finds that individual specimens run to great extremesfrom three to seven feet in height, from chalk white skin to
dark brown skin, from very thin to very fat, people with no
legs, people with six fingers and people with no fingers, those
with much hair to those with no hair, idiots and geniuses, the
very weak and the very strong, etc., to say nothing about
male and female. Yet, when classifying Tom, Mary, Sam,
Jane, etc., as human beings, all of these differences fade into
the background. But what exactly is it that does not fade
into the background? Is it fitting within some preconceived
(even if it is only a tentative decision) specified morphological
set of dimensions? 27 Is it some function or ability possessed by
the specimens but not had by other creatures? 28 Regardless
of what standard or standards are used, however, it is clear
that it must apply equally well to each and every human being.
27 The specifications cannot be set up inductively,
i. e., after an investigation of
numerous individual specimens within the species because, obviously, to know that
the specimens are in the species the specimens would have to be regarded as such
before the various measurements (height, brain size, amount of hair, etc.) are
made. Neither can the morphological criteria be some distinct or indistinct image
or picture, for every image, even if it undergoes many and rapid changes, is at
every moment just one image capable of fitting just one individual.
28 In
the Scholastic tradition of Aquinas, for example, speciation is decided
upon the principle that actions follow upon nature, the secular version of the
Biblical dictum "By their fruits you shall know them." Accordingly, judging by
their acts, centaurs, mermaids, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc., if they possessed
extramental existence, would be humans, i.e., internal and external physical appearance is irrelevant.

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It is not the case that each student is more or less human than
the others. There is rather some common denominator possessed equally by all.
To put it otherwise, while the students in the course are
obviously differentiated by thousands of peculiarities both large
and small, they are also alike in at least one positive way
and this way, of course, cannot be the fact that they are all
different. Although each one is the same as the others in
being different, each one is also the same in being human. Now
this likeness or similarity or family resemblance is something
affirmed among individuals, not between an individual and
the common trait. We say, for example, that Tom is a man,
Mary is a man, etc., not that Tom is like a man, Mary
is like a man, etc. Rather, it is the case that Tom and
Mary are alike in being men. If the likeness were between an individual and the common trait, the systematist
would be in the embarrassing position of having to specify
what it is that the specimens are like. That is, if Tom is like
a man and Mary is like a man, one can rightly ask to be shown
this man that Tom and Mary are like. Tom and Mary, in
a word, are not like human beings, they are human beings.
Consequently, in the process of justifying class membership
based upon likeness or similarity one must be careful to indicate, once it is granted that the students are all alike in
being men, precisely in what way the members of the population are identified as belonging to the same species.
By way of generalization, then, admittedly all classification
is based upon similarity. But, to stop here would be to have
performed an incomplete analysis. Similarity entails both difference and identity. If the items to be classified were not
different in at least one respect there would not be a plurality
of items at all; there would be no question of classification
because there would be no items to classify. Without difference
there would be only identity. On the other hand, one must
not overlook the need to search out the identity aspect among
the items classified. Without identity in at least one respect

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there would not be any classes or categories at all at any
level; there would be no question of classification because each
item in the universe would be totally unique, totally unlike
any other item in the world. There would be plurality but
no unity.
Hence, the two conditions for classification would be the
following: (1) One must be able to designate in at least one
respect how the items (at least two) are different from one
another. (2) One must be able to designate in at least one
respect how the items classified are identical with one another.
The next question that arises, after the identity factor has
been established, is whether or not the identity is objective,
i.e., existing independently of the knower, or subjective, i.e.,
a product of the knower's own thinking. The two realistic
solutions to the problem of universals would make it objective,
either by reference to a Realm of Ideas or to God. The two
nominalistic solutions would make it subjective. The nominalist would say that the identity is only in the name, and
naming is an arbitrary process entirely dependent upon the
knower. Likewise, the conceptualist would say that to him, at
this time, according to the idea he has formed, certain creatures
can be put into the same class because to him they appear
to have certain traits in common. And furthermore, it is
just those characteristics decided upon by the conceptualist,
rather than some others, which should be used as the basis
of classification. Indubitably, in order to escape the undesired
social consequences of Darwin's original nominalism, which
gave scientific support to a totally subjective view of morality,
the new solution must be objective. This does not mean that
the new solution must be realistic, for it may have hit upon
a basis for classification which is both concrete and universal.
However, as we will see, the question as to the objective or
subjective status of the special solution to the problem of
speciation will not arise and is thus irrelevant.
11. The Special Solution Critiqued. The gene-pool theory of
speciation suffers from several serious defects, some of which

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are more scientific, meaning open to experimentation, and
some of which are more philosophical, meaning more dependent
upon reasoning alone without the need of laboratory experimentation. The more scientific objections are two in number,
while the more philosophical number at least three.
With respect to the first group, it must be well-known to
the advocates of the gene-pool theory that interbreeding or the
lack of interbreeding is not a safe guide to species differentiation. A hundred years before Darwin's Origin, Buffon propounded his famous and immensely influential reproduction
standard of speciation. In fact, one of the arguments used by
Buffon against the possibility of species transformation was
the infertility of hybrids. This same argument against the
common ancestorship of several presently existing species was
also used by Kant as well as by numerous other philosophers
and scientists. The belief was so wide-spread that Darwin
felt called upon to discuss the issue at length. In the course
of so doing, he marshalled much evidence to show that members of supposedly different species can in fact produce offspring
which are then also capable of reproducing under the right
circumstances. His conclusion on the matter is that
With respect to the almost universal sterility of species when
first crossed, which forms so remarkable a contrast with the almost
universal fertility of varieties when crossed, I must refer the reader
to the recapitulation of the facts given at the end of the ninth
chapter, which seem to me conclusively to show that this sterility
is no more a special endowment than is the incapacity of two
distinct kinds of trees to be grafted together; but that it is incidental on differences confined to the reproductve systems of the
inter-crossed species.

Modern experimentation has tended to support Darwin's
view on hybridization. Thinking of a gene-pool as revealed
by the most inclusive group of breeding populations, then,
can be dangerous to a theory which hopes to supply a basis
for a plurality of species. Under the right breeding conditions
•• Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 853-854.

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the most inclusive group of breeding populations could well
be expanded far beyond the limits that any working biologist
would care to see set up. As unlikely as the prospect may
sound at the moment, future experimentation may well show
us the grandchildren of a man and monkey mating. According
to the breeding standard of the gene-pool theory this would
mean that we are presently mistaken in regarding men and
monkeys as belonging in two different categories.
A second difficulty concerns the manner in which a gene-pool
theorist would test for humanness when there is no possibility
of testing for interbreeding. Imagine a case in which a specimen, either male or female, due to some physical defect, cannot
interbreed or even attempt interbreeding. Would this make
the subject non-human? It might be argued that the problem
would never arise since in all cases the specimen would be the
offspring of two humans. But where did the parents come
from? Other humans? And their origin? Other humans. This,
of course, will get us nowhere. If one is to look to filiation as
the standard of species determination, one may know in what
species a certain creature belongs, but in so doing the gene-pool
theory becomes irrelevant. If one is to take Simpson and Beck
seriously when they say that the best and only direct way
taxonomist can be sure of species ties is that an individual is
living with his own kind, then one is certain to be very much
disappointed, for it turns out that the whole gene-pool theory
is merely an especially involuted way of begging the question. 30
30 See Simpson and Beck, op. cit., p. 493. A subsidiary
point might be injected
here. One criterion used to determine the adequacy of a scientific theory is the
degree to which the theory can assimilate much diverse information tangentially
related to the core of facts and problems which originally gave rise to the theory.
In this respect any one of the four classical solutions is superior to the gene-pool
theory. How, for instance, according to the gene-pool theory, would a geologist
distinguish one species of rock from another, or a chemist one chemical substance
from another, etc.? In other words, the gene-pool theory is highly restricted
(to sexually reproducing organisms). The others, however, were desigued to be
used universally. Mayr admits this (see art. cit., p. 199) but takes it as a strong
point of the theory!

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F. F. CENTORE

Among the more philosophical problems with the special
solution one must list the following. The first is one which
is usually obvious to the philosopher but generally not so
obvious to the biologist, who is raised and educated immersed
in hordes of specimens. Namely, it makes no sense to talk as
if a population of cucumbers, for instance, contained something
other than cucumbers. A population or gene-pool, as an abstraction from individual specimens, is no more concrete than
a species, which is also an abstraction when considered with
respect to individual cases. If the systematist does not know
what he is about beforehand, he will have as much trouble
placing a given specimen in some population as he will have
placing it in some species. Unless he has some idea (at least
tentatively) about upon what he is going to use the various
measuring techniques open to him before he begins to measure,
he will be like the boy who was sent out to pick cucumbers
but instead spent the day in the watermelon patch because,
as he claimed, he didn't know the difference. 31
The second difficulty in this group is concerned with an apparent inconsistency in the use to which advocates of the
special solution put the complicated chemical entities called
genes. It is typical for modern biologists to have recourse
to gene differences to explain phenotypical differences. One
person has blue eyes rather than brown because the genes in
his particular genotype are dominated by genes producing blue
eyes. A reduction in phenotypical differences, as in the case
of twins, is said to result from the fact that the gene structures
of the individuals involved are very much the same. Yet,
amid their many gene controlled differences, the blue-eyed
person and the brown-eyed person, the two twins, etc., are
identical in being persons. If this identification, necessary for
placing even two individuals in the same class, is to be explained by genes also, the critically minded inquirer is entitled
to ask whether the genes used to explain the differences are
81

See note 27 above.

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the same ones used to explain identity. I£ the same principles
are to be used to simultaneously explain both diversity and
identity, the gene-pool theorist is put into a rather peculiar
situation. I£ different genes are to be postulated for each of
the two functions, questions immediately arise as to exactly
where the identity genes are located, how many are there,
would having just one be sufficient to make a human human,
and a host of similar queries. In the light of what follows,
however, all such questions will be seen to be moot.
We now turn our attention to the main difficulty inherent
in the gene-pool theory of speciation. The gene-pool theorists
are on the right track, we believe, when they seek something
giving more unity and uniformity than a phenotypical approach to species. Nevertheless, they fail to come to grips
with the root of the problem. They seem to think that the
problem of speciation can be resolved by replacing the term
" species " with something such as " coming from a group
possessing common essential sets of genetic endowments."
Such an approach is thought to mean much more than merely
a switching of labels, i. e., replacing " essence " with " genepool " or the like.
Now, the special solution's recourse to essential sets of genes
is open to two interpretations. It can mean essentially the
same genes (i.e., members of the same species have the same
genes), or it can mean sets of genes which are essentially the
same (i.e., members of the same species have a certain proportion of their genes which are of the same type).
If the former alternative is chosen, it must mean that there
are some material entities (genes) which are somehow identical
in each member of the same species. But this is surely impossible. Your genes cannot also be in me. Whether on the superficial phenotypical level or on the less obvious gene-pool level
no two creatures have the same bodies. Gene structures, consequently, being complex chemical compositions, i.e., material
parts of bodies, cannot be the same. There will always be
at least a difference in space-time coordinates.

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If the latter alternative is chosen we come upon another
problem. To carry our analysis one step further, as tempting
as the move might appear, one must avoid trying to solve the
problem of speciation by moving to some lower, more fundamental level of material entities and seeking therein the identity factor required for classification. The general tendency
since the beginning of our century has been to seek answers
to biological issues by analyzing living organisms in terms
of their smallest parts. The importance of the cell, recognized in the last century, has been augmented in this century
by a rather thorough investigation of its parts, especially
the nucleus. As a result, the nucleus has given way to many
subdivisions, the chromosomes being of special interest. The
most recent widespread trend has been to investigate living
things in terms of their molecular structures. It seems likely
that the next move will be to the subatomic or quantum level.
It is not difficult to see, however, that to employ quantum
level entities as the core of a proposed explanation of speciation
would be simply to continue the process begun when biological
theorists moved from the phenotypical level to the genotypical
level in their efforts to circumvent the problem of speciation
inherited from Darwin. To try to answer the above objection
to the gene-pool theory by claiming that certainly the genes
in one human cannot be identical with those in another but
that it might be possible for humans to have genes which are
essentially the same, meaning that the genes have something
in common, 32 would be to raise the questions concerning in
what way the genes are identical and in what way they are
different. Although we are no longer talking about Tom, Mary,
Sam, Jane, etc., belonging to the same species, we are still talking in the same pattern. This time around, however, one would
be saying that genes (humanizing genes in this case) belong
82 This appears to be what Dobzhansky is saying when he states that " To be a
man one has to have a human genotype, and an ape genotype will not do regardless of any amount of training and of any known environmental influences."
(The Biological BMis of Human Freedom, N. Y. [1956], p. 25.)

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to the same species, are of the same type, etc. But what is
the basis for regarding them as belonging to the same population or class? It must be that genes of a certain type are of
a certain type because they possess essentially the same. . . .
Here, of course, is the crux of the matter. What is the taxonomist to look for? Subgenes? But would not a subgene-pool
theory prove to be as inadequate as a gene-pool theory, and
for the same reason, mainly because advocates of such views
fail to take seriously the need for identity? 33
Conclusion. With respect to the general solution, it is
safe to say that it cannot be held with much more than a
dubious probability. It is what all theories are and should
be, a tentative effort to unify into an explanatory schema
what data is presently available. To defend it as final would
be most unscientific.
With respect to the special solution, the reader should now
be alerted to at least two things. First of all, whenever anyone
claims to have classified any two or more items under some
one heading the immediate response should be: " Could you
please tell me in what way the items classified are identical? "
If the answer given has recourse to material entities occupying
space, having weight, undergoing physical displacements, chemical changes, etc., we should immediately realize that the person's thinking on the subject is very likely faulty in at least
one of the following ways: either he does not fully appreciate
the problem of universals and the conditions for its solution,
or, he does not fully realize the impossibility of basing identity
upon material entities.
And second, the hope of the advocates of the special solution
of finding an answer to the problem of speciation which avoids
what they regard as the evils of the standard classical solutions,
that is, their dream of locating among the beings they study
concrete universals, remains unfulfilled. Hence, since the spe33 Also, such a view would seem to multiply
entities unnecessarily in that it
would require identity factors for millions of genes, whereas, according to either
of the realistic views, only one idea would be required for man.

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F. F. CENTORE

cial solution is inadequate, the question as to the objective or
subjective nature of the identity factor involved in the special
solution does not arise. Today, the scientific world still awaits
a solution to the social consequences of Darwin's nominalism. 34

F. F. CENTORE
St. Je:rome's College
University of Wate:rloo, Ontario
Canada

"'Some thinkers, such as A. R. Wallace and M. J. Adler, have proposed reducing the number of true species (i.e., special creations) to a maximum of four
(mineral, plant, animal, man) and regarding all other " species " as races or
varieties. This approach, however, fails to explain how one concept can apply
equally well to all the members of the race. Perhaps the answer resides with a
rereading of some texts, e. g., I Cont. Gent., cc. 51-54, 65. According to
Aquinas, God's esse, as imitable in an infinity of ways, can be the prototype of
all currently existing forms whether essential or accidental.
Before closing, an ethical sidelight might be of interest. Assuming that it is a
crime to kill a human being, and that humanness is decided by genes, no modem
(gene-pool) theorist should ever favor abortion. Since the complete genetic code
becomes present at conception all abortions would be crimes. Ethicians, however,
should be warned against using the gene-pool theory as an argument against
abortion since their argument would be ill-founded.

THE ACT OF FAITH IN AUGUSTINE AND AQUINAS

T

HE FORMULATION OF the act of faith is today in the
process of change, and this is to be applauded. The critique made of the traditional formulation is that the
original message and datum of faith has been handed down to us
within a cultural and philosophical framework and embodiment
which is no longer comprehensible and therefore no longer
credible to and for the men of our day.
This critique is partly correct and partly dangerous if it is
not carefully understood. The task of relating faith to the
needs and agonies of the men of each and every generation is
one of the most serious obligations of Christians themselves
but, above all, of their pastors. It is a continuous and on-going
dialogue between the apostolic generation and the present
generation, and it is this solicitude and dialogue which characterize the " Catholic and apostolic faith." The very nominations of " Catholic " and " apostolic " give us the two
traditional poles of the dialogue in an effort to be faithful to
the past as well as to the present. It is this principle of
dialogue which has characterized the very life of the Church
during its two-thousand year tradition and, in fact, represents
a perfect definition of the word " tradition." The preaching
of the Church must be in continuous and living dialogue
with the present generation by faithfully translating the everancient, ever-new apostolic witness and message through the
many and various languages of men in time and space. This
double tension and polarity of the Catholic faith, therefore,
represent its original past as well as its dynamic present, command and measure its activity which was inaugurated at
Pentecost and continues unabated and faithful to the present day. The Catholic faith would be fallacious and vacuous
without this fidelity and continuity in and to the present from
143

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PETER J. RIGA

the past. This tradition has also emphasized the very important and crucial role which the apostolic powers invested above
all in the successor of Peter in the See of Rome have played
in this faithful elaboration, transmission, and interpretation
of the Catholic and apostolic faith. It has always emphasized
that this prerogative is not of human origin but of divine right.
This dynamism of the faith is related to the world of men
in a twofold way: the first is in the area of action where men
in fact actually live and breathe; the other is in the area of
thought where wisdom governs the actions of men in a total
and, as it were, a finalized way. The reality of today is that
never has faith and the Church been needed so badly as now,
even if the modern world admits this only in spite of the
inability of many within the Church to relate their faith
efficaciously to the needs and problems of modern man. We
have behind us in the past one hundred years two great councils as well as a great wealth of theological, spiritual, liturgical,
and moral research, development and investigation; this, above
all, in the light of the fact that the previous theology has been
and continues to be impotent to perform the task of efficacy,
that is, of relating the Catholic faith to the needs and understanding of the modern world. In order to have arrived at
the point where we now are in our development, it is, and continues to be, evident that the bark of Peter has had some rough
seas to traverse as any history of the Church of the past one
hundred years will patently reveal: modernism, church and
state, evolution and psychiatry, social teaching and birth control, clerical discipline and collegiality-and many more. Thus,
the transmission of the Catholic faith as efficacy for today's
world has been and continues to be a troubled and turbulent one.
If this is indeed the case today, then it becomes all the more
important to examine the notion of faith in its historical developmental sense, so as to see clearly what the task of the
modern theologian must be in separating the notion of divine
faith from its developmental cadres. It is only in this way that

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he can safely confront the modern experience and relate divine
faith to this new experience. We think that we can do no
better than to investigate this tradition as it has come down
to us principally in the two great proponents of the Catholic
tradition, St. Augustine of the fifth century and St. Thomas
Aquinas of the thirteenth century. 1 In this way, the theologian
can rethink the present with the examples of tradition before
his eyes. We shall also give a small expose of Scripture to
further set our bearings for the present task of theology today.
1 The bibliography
in this area is enormous. We shall confine ourselves to
the most salient works for this limited study. R. Aubert, Le Probleme de l'Acte
de Foi (Louvain, 1960); W. Betzendorfer, Glauben U. Wissen bei des grossen
Denkern des Mittelaters (Gotha, 1931); F. Bourassa, "Adoptive sonship: Our
Union with the Divine Persons," Theological Studies, 17 (1952), pp. 309-355;
L. Boyer, ['Incarnation et l'Eglise-Corps du Christ dans la Theologie de S.
Athanase (Paris, 1943); V. Capanata, "La deificacion en Ia soteriologia Augustiniana, Augustinus Magister, II (Paris, 1954), pp. 745-754; E. M. Carney, The
Doctrine of Saint Augustine on Sanctity (Washington, D. C., 1945); L. Cerfaux,
Christ in the Theology of St. Paul (New York, 1964); La Communaute Apostolique
(Paris, 1943); M. D. Chenu; "La psychologie de Ia foi dons Ia Theologie du
XXIII• siecle," Etudes d'histoire litteraire et doctrinale du XIII• siecle, pp. 163191 (Paris-Ottawa, 1932; L. Ciappi, "The Presence, Mission and Indwelling of
the Divine Persons in the Just," The Thomist, 17 (1954), pp. 131-144; J. Cottiaux, "La Conception de Ia Theologie Chez Abelard," RHE, 32 (1932)), pp.
290-299; J. De Guibert, "A propos des textes de S. Thomas sur Ia foi qui
descerne," RSR, 9 (1919), pp. 30-34; J. De Wolf, La justification de la foi chez
S. Thomas d'Aquin et le P. Rousselot, (Bruxelles-Paris, 1946); J. Dupont,
Gnosis: La Connaissance religieuse dans les epitres de S. Paul (Louvain, 1949);
J. Engert, "Psychologic u. Erkenntnistheorie des Glaubensaktes bei Th. V. Aquin,"
Studien zur theologischen Erkenntnislehre (Regensburg, 1926), pp. 65-127; "Foi,"
in Dictionaire de la Theologie Catholique, t. 2, C-2230-2240; E. Gilson, Introduction
to the Study of Saint Augustine (New York, 1961); H. Lang, Die lehre des hl.

Thomas v. Aquin von der Gewissheit des iibernaturlichen Glaubens (Augsbourg,
1929); "Pistis," Theological Dictionary of the Ne:w Testament (Grand Rapids,
Michigan, 1968), pp. 174-228; F. Prat, The Theology of St. Paul (London, 1954),
2 vols; W. H. Paine Hatch, The Idea of Faith in Christian Literature from the
Death of Saint Paul to the close of the Second Century, (Strasbourg, 1925) ;
J. Quasten, Patrology (Westminster, Maryland, 1950-1958), 3 vols.; P. Riga,
" The effect of God's love on man according to Saint Augustine," The Thomist,
32 (1968), pp. 366-386; A. Stolz, Glaubensgnade V. Glaubenslicht nach Thomas
V. Aquin (Rome, 1933); A. Turrado. "La inhabitacion de Ia S. Trinidad en los
Justos segun Ia doctrina de San Augustin," Augustinus Magister, I (Paris, 1954),
pp ..583-593; E. Walter, Glaube, Hoffnung und liebe im Neuen Testament (Fribourg,
1940).

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PETER J. RIGA

Holy Scripture
It is a truism to say that the link between the natural and
the super-natural is the act of faith which is, at once, both a
human and a divine action. It is at this precise point that
these two realities meet and are joined in the divinization of
the person professing faith by the act of God's self-communication to man. It is not our objective here to go into any
detail as to the thematization of this faith in modern context
since this is beyond the scope of the present article. 2 The
act of faith is both the act of rational man as well as the fruit
of God's self-communication to man ("grace") which, as
tradition has called it, is the beginning of eternal life in us
(inchoatio vitae aeternae in nobis). The history of the theology of faith (and of grace) is filled with attempts to reconcile these aspects into one harmonious whole (the human
[natural] and the divine [supernatural]). Faith as an act is
essentially supernatural, because it requires absolutely and
unconditionally the free self-revelation and communication of
God (which can be, as tradition has called it, the fruit of
grace); yet it also depends on man's free will, because it is
only an act which is properly human, and therefore free, which
can give this act its moral and meritorious character on the part
of man. This act on man's part must also be reasonable, for
the intelligence will acquiesce in the evidence only where there
is reasonable certitude. It is true that some theologians during
the rationalistic period attempted to go too far in showing
that faith was reasonable by making it almost seem as if
faith were the result of a syllogism, while still others tended
simply to emphasize its divine character (the credo quia absurdum of Tertullian). But both extremes (rationalism and fideism) are at opposite poles of the true Catholic teaching of
faith. 3 Thus any investigation worthy of note must begin with
• Some very fine work in this area has already been done by Karl Rahner,
Hearrn-s of the Word (New York, 1969) and Spirit in the World (New York,
1968).
8 For the teaching of the Councils, see the sixteenth
Council of Carthage in

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the revealed data in order to see its implications and then go on
to the elements of tradition in order to see how this tradition
has interpreted and applied this data in history.
The word Pistis (faith) in the Bible is a complex term, and
its meaning is much broader than the notion of faith, at least
as it is commonly accepted today .4 The Synoptic gospels call
this grace the decent of the messianic kingdom from heaven to
earth in the person of Jesus, and it is to this reality that all men
are called. 5 Men of goodwill will respond to this invitation
of God. 6 Pistis is, then, also the response of man to this gratuitious offer of divine gifts. This act of faith and response
is conceived as a vital and living act of a man who unites his
entire person to this kingdom and promise of God. The man
of faith binds himself completely to Christ as his vital insertion
into the divine work to which in Christ he submits himself
with his whole heart and being. Faith is an absolute confidence in the efficacy of the redemption wrought in and by
Christ from on high.
The notion of pistis in the Bible has a complex character.
There is an intellectual element, a trust and confidence, a hope
in the realization of the promises of God and, finally, a new
life and a new man which the man of faith receives and becomes in faith. That is why the Bible often speaks of faith
as the justification of man. 7 It would be worth our effort to
examine each of these elements more in detail.
First of all, there is the intellectual character of faith. In
order to give oneself over to Jesus completely there must be
some understanding of his person and his message. Further
418 (D. S. 225-230), the lndiculus Coelestini of 435-42 (D. S. 238-248) the Second
Council of Orange (}f 529 (D. S. 373-376, 385, 396-397), the Council of Trent,
1545-1563 (D. S. 1520-1583).
• See the article, "Pistis" in The Theological Dictionary of the N(}W Testament
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1968), pp. 174-185.
• Mt. 9: 6; cf. P. Antoine, "Foi," Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible,
II (1938), c. 278.
"Lk. 2:14.
7 Cf. F. Prat, The Theology of St. Paul, II, pp. 253-280.

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PETER J. RIGA

development of this is known as the Symbola fidei, that is,
the clarification in history of the original datum given to us
in Christ in the original sources of revelation. This character
is made clear in the gospel of St. John where the evangelist
speaks of the veracity of God revealed to us in Christ and
in the truths which Christ has given to us from God. 8 This
faith implies a total confidence and giving of oneself over
to Christ because he is true and worthy of this confidence
and surrender. The doctrinal aspects of salvation appear
clearly in the teaching of St. Paul's major epistles. The Apostle
was at great pains to continuously inculcate and penetrate
the great Mysterion of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus. 9
Throughout these passages it is always a question of intelligent
faith in the mystery of God who is Christ.

Prolegomena
Christian faith always presupposes a general faith such as
the very general religious experiences of the universe, as well as
the mystery of men. This can be called faith in the broadest
sense of the word, even though it is an implicit faith in the action of a personal God in the world and his providence for the
world. This form of faith was found throughout the ancient
world 10 and can be found in the modern world as well. 11 Christian faith as an explicit enunciation presupposes, at least in
some general sense, a desire for redemption, that is, a desire for
ultimate hope and meaning of human existence. We see this
in the Acts where Paul became angry at the indifference of
many of the Greek philosophers of Athens over precisely this
question. They were interested in the trivia and hairsplitting,
not in the concrete and ultimate meaning of human existence.12 It was the same with Christ who became angry only
8 Cf. L. Cerfaux,
Christ in the Theology of St. Paul, pp. 86-90.
• Cf. Rom. 10: 16-19; I Cor 2: I-II; Gal. 4:9, 10; Col. 2: 2-3; Eph. 3: 8-9; 4:13.
10 E. Walter, op. cit., pp. 10-15.
11 K. Rahner,
Do You Believe in God? (Westminster, Md., 1969), pp. 8-20.
12 Acts
17:17.

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at the Pharisees who were always busy about the minutiae
of the law but neglected love, justice, and compassion-the
foundation of the mystery of man and of God. 13
Thus, as a general description, the specific notion of Christian
faith appears essentially as a personal acceptance of a divine
attestation, announcing to men that the possibility of salvation has now been given to them. It is to this end that men,
implicitly or explicitly, have always aspired in all of their
human dreams and longing. Yet this message of salvation
is not (nor could it be) accepted by man because of its ironclad internal logic but for the unique reason that God's authority has attested to its truth. The preparation and the
acceptance of faith has been prepared for in the heart of man,
but the actual gift of that can only be by the supernatural
gift of God Himself. In this way, it is clear that faith cannot
be explained in any pelagian, semi-pelagian, gnostic-or any
other philosophical way, for that matter. As a message of salvation freely given by God to men it is an historical act. It
comes to men by the mediation of the preaching of Christ and
continues today, by his authority, in the preaching of the
Apostles and their legitimate successors. " Faith comes from
hearing." Christ is the faithful witness to what he has seen
in heaven and has related this to men. 14 It is to this word of
God in Christ that the Apostles bear witness (martyres),
namely, to God's Word revealed and confirmed in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus. 15 Therefore this testimony
and word of the Apostles is not simply the word of man but
also, by the power and efficacy of God, the word of God to
men. Yet only those who are well disposed do in fact receive
this message of salvation. Christ often speaks of this moral
preparation in the Scriptures. 16
The acceptance of God's word has a definite moral character,
18 Mt. !!3: 1-!!6.
"Jn. 1:16.
15 L. Cerfaux, La Communate
Apostolique, pp. 24-!!8.
18 See in particular
Jn. 3: 19-21.

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PETER J. RIGA

since man in fact freely submits to this word as God's message.
Man then has the grave responsibility of accepting or rejecting
this message in his own life. It is not our objective here to
thematize the ways or means God uses to communicate this
choice to every man, but it is a teaching of the Catholic
faith that God offers this choice to each and every man who
lived or ever will live on the face of the earth. Depending
on how each man is interiority disposed to God's grace, he
will either accept it unto salvation or become ever more blind
tending toward rejection of this gift of salvation. This theme
of "belief-blindness" is particularly well-developed in the gospel of St. John where Christ preached to the unbelieving
Jews (prototypes of all unbelievers), which is further a theme
of the prophets of the Old Testament. St. Paul also brings out
the blindness of the pagans to the announced message; they
were not well-disposed to the Word because their lives were
corrupt and evil. A good moral life is the excellent preparation
and necessary pre-disposition for receiving God's word in the
act of faith. 17
Another element of the prolegomena of the act of faith given
to us in Scripture is the testimony which God gives to us himself in the word addressed to man. First of all, God confirms
this apostolic message by means of signs and wonders. The
idea of a guarantee conferred on the testimony of a prophet
was a fundamental idea of the Old Testament. 18 St. Peter
recalls this to his listeners in his first discourse at PentecosU 9
Christ appeared as a man approved by God through his miracles and prodigies, the principal one being his own death and
resurrection which put the divine seal of approval on the
work and word of Jesus.
"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses." 20 The miracles of Jesus were prodigious events both
See Romans, cc. 1-2, concerning this moral blindness.
See our study of "semeia" or signs in P. Riga, "Signs of Glory," Interpretation 17 (1963), pp. 402-424.
17
18

Acts
•• Acts

10

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as sign of the establishment of the kingdom on earth among
men as well as apologetic motive for belief. In other words,
these miracles authenticate Jesus as the one sent from God to
bring the good news of salvation to men. 21 They are the
revealing signs of the presence and personal action of God,
authenticating the mission of the Son of God. Christ was under
no illusion as to the power of these signs to convince those
who were badly disposed to receive this word. Indeed, in the
gospel of St. John Jesus considers imperfect any faith which
is born simply from a contemplation of the signs themselves. 22
Miracles are an invitation by God to go beyond their pure
materiality to their spiritual meaning and content. The great
proof of the apostolic mesage will be the great sanctity of
life of the Apostles themselves as the great apologetical motive. It is St. Paul who recalls these events of the Spirit for
the benefit of those who are tempted to doubt/ 3 but even
more important than this is the example of his own life, conviction, ardor, and power of persuasion. 24 What convinces the
faithful is not the human word of preaching as such but the
action of the Spirit acting in the faithful who hear this word
of God preached.
Added to this visible action and confirmation of and by the
Spirit there is also his secret and invisible action in the hearts
and souls of the listeners of the Word of God. This interior
appeal of grace to faith guides and directs the soul to recognize
the messengers of God's Word as well as the divine character
of that word announced. Thus, in order to receive this word
efficaciously as salvation, one must be disposed as a little
child/ 5 for only in this humble and obedient way can one be
reborn of water and of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God
21 Jn. 2: 11; 11: 47-53; 12:32, 37; 18: 32; 20: 30 and compare these texts with
Ex. 10:1-8; 11:9; Deut. 4:34; 7:19; Num. 14:11; 29:1; 5:22.
22 Jn. 2:18;
4:48, 53; 5:36; 6:32; 43; 8:21; 9:1-9, etc.
•• Hebrews 2:4.
•• I Thess. 1:5.
25 Mt. 11: 25-26; Lk. 10:21.
•• Jn. 3:15.

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announced can be efficacious for salvation only if informed
by the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself spoke in the light and force
of the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who gives the power of salvation to this Word of Jesus. Thus, the Christian is created
by the announced evangelical word and the Spirit. Both the
word and the Spirit are an inseparable entity precisely because
the Spirit is always the Spirit of Jesus. 27 That is why the carnal
man, that is, the man who does not possess this Spirit of Jesus,
cannot perceive or understand the things of God. These truths
are madness and stupidity for such a man/ 8 and for this reason,
no one can confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior except in the
Holy Spirit. 29 Moreover, it is the Spirit himself who illuminates
and informs the heart and mind of the believer, and it is he who
gives him the knowledge (gno8is) 30 of the mystery of God. 31
Scripturally speaking, then, faith is always in relationship
to the Spirit who inhabits the spirit and heart of the believer
in a sort of dialectic. The gospel of St. John sees in the grace
of faith an illumination, a knowledge which alone can introduce us into the secret (mysterion) of the divine mysteries.
St. Paul also knows that faith in a sense is a real beginning
even here on earth of the goods of the kingdom (" first fruits
of the Spirit") .32 This knowledge of the heart for St. Paul
consists above all in rendering account to the Christian of the
incomprehensibility of the mystery of God which surpasses
all forms of knowledge here below. 33 Paul insists on the imperfect knowledge of this mystery here below " as in a glass
darkly," 34 as well as the mortifying aspects of the knowledge
which comes from faith which is veiled, enigmatic, and inRom. 8:9.
•• I Cor.
•• Ibid.,
3.
3 ° Cf. J. Dupont, Gnom:
La Connaissance religieuse dans les epitres de S. Paul,
pp.
81 Eph. 1:17.
32 I Cor.
Rom. 5:11,
Col. 1:18; II Cor.
83 Col.
34 I Cor. 13:
27

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direct. Faith thus plunges the mind directly into the terrible
and invisible abyss of God's mystery and, as such, is an incomprehensible scandal to the carnal man, that is, to the man who
is proudly self-sufficient and unheeding to the Word and the
witness of the Apostles in whom and by whom God speaks to
men. For Paul, this knowledge of faith of the believer is the
knowledge of a pilgrim 35 which will always remain essentially
imperfect as long as man travels this life on earth. 36
St. John, on the one hand, has the tendency to place faith
and a certain vision together and to emphasize that in faith we
have a view already of the world to come and consequently
a real foretaste of eternal life even now. Thus faith for St.
John is an immanent principle of the soul,S7 permitting it
to experience at least in some real but imperfect way the gifts
which God has given to man. 38 We can safely say, then, that
the notion of faith in the gospel of St. John is at the origin of
that Oriental tradition in Christianty which chose to underline
the illuminating character and mystery of faith. St. Paul, on
the other hand, tends to oppose faith and vision which in
its own turn will be emphasized by the Western tradition. It
is superfluous to add that these two approaches to the mystery
of faith are not contradictory but rather mutually complementary.
Let us conclude this brief scriptural-prologomenal section
of our study by saying that, in sum, Christ (and the Apostles)
does not preach a series of truths or doctrines (although these
can be found scattered among the New Testament writings)
but rather the very person of Jesus " who is the way the truth
and the life." 39 To be a Christian, then, is to have faith and
total commitment in the person of Jesus as saviour of the
whole world. 40 It is in this act of faith that the Christian
86 Heb. 11: 13; 13:14.
•• Cf. J. Dupont, op. cit., pp. 42-50.
37 Cf. Jn. 1:14, 18, 51; 2: 11; 3:5, 36; 4:53, 5:24, 25; 6:35, 40, 47-50; etc., throughout the whole of the gospel.
88 Walter, op. cit., pp. 39-44.
•• Jn. 14:6.
•• Jn. 4:U.

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becomes a sharer in the very mystery of Christ wherein one's
whole life and being is animated by this trust, confidence,
and love in Jesus which is, in sum, what the act of faith is
for the Scriptures. In him and by him we become what the
Fathers of the Church termed " Sons in the Son of God."
This view of faith is a far view from any mere adherence to
a doctrine, a system, a moral code or any set of truths or
beliefs. Christianity is essentially a belief in and a relationship
to a person, the person of Jesus Christ. As we have seen, this
faith is not a " blind faith," for it engages man in the totality
of his being. Man has reasons for such a total engagement
as evidenced in the miracles and prodigies given to us in Scripture, above all of the great sign of the resurrection of Jesus;
but the faith is not and cannot be the product of a rational
conclusion, precisely because it is the mystery of God's selfrevelation and self-communication of himself in Christ to men.
Such a mystery is infinitely beyond the rational powers of
man. That is why tradition has rightly called the gift of faith
a " supernatural gift " given only by God himself in the communication of the Spirit of Jesus. Only in this self-communication (" grace ") can man begin to comprehend the mystery of
God.

The Fathers of the Church

It will also be worth our while in this short study to investigate, however briefly, the act of faith as developed in the
early Fathers of the Church! 1 The reality of the matter is
that not too much scholarly work has been done in this particular area so that our knowledge of the act of faith from
the death of the Apostles up to St. Augustine is skimpy. One
of the reasons for this is that the early Fathers of the Church
never made any attempts to write an orderly treatise of the
act of faith but were rather interested in a pastoral and prac"For this section we owe much of our material to W. H. Paine Hatch,
The idea of faith in Christian literature from the death of St. Paul to the close
of the sreond century, (Strasbourg, 1925) .

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tical approach. Therefore what knowledge we do in fact have
comes from a general analysis of their works.
Another object of these early Church Fathers was to attempt an integration of the intellectual and philosophical elements of the Greek philosophy of the day (at least certain
aspects of this philosophy) into the complex which is the act
of faith. Their endeavor was to present the Christian faith
within certain intellectual philosophical cadres understandable
by the people of their day. It was just this which Clement of
Alexandria attempted in his Stromateis or " Miscellaneous
Studies." For him, the only true gnosis (knowledge) was that
which presupposed the faith of the Church, apostolic in its
foundation and possessing Divine Revelation. While always
loyal to this, Clement explained and supplemented it with the
ideas of Greek philosophy, which he also regarded as a divine
gift to mankind. His motive was apologetic in nature. St. Cyril
of Alexandria attempted the same thing in his Katechesis
wherein he applied philosophical reasoning and cadres to the
text of the Creed itself. The thought of these early Fathers
with regard to the act of faith must not be sought in any
ex professo exposition but rather in their occasional sermons,
writings, and discourses of an apologetical nature. 43 In our
present study we can only give some salient points.
The exposition of faith of the early Fathers of the Church is
a dogmatic one in the profound sense of that word, that is,
where an exact knowledge of supernatural realities plays an
essential role. We have only to read a few of their anti-gnostic
writings to see this clearly as well as some of the passionate debates which these same Fathers had with their nonbelieving contemporaries. This culminated in the dogmatic
statements of the early councils of the Church (Nicaea, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon) where the philosophical
categories (if not their original signification) were used in the
•• Ibid., pp. 10-86.
•• For a more detailed view of each of the Fathers, see J. Quasten, Patrology
(Westminster, Md.,
8 vols.

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PETER J. RIGA

explication of the faith (prosopon, ousia, hypostasis, sunergeia). On the one hand was the absolute necessity of remaining
faithful to the original datum of divine faith and, on the other, a
solicitude to explain this faith to the men and women of
their time against heresy. This effort was motivated by the
conviction that the knowledge of God is one and was absolutely
necessary for the divinization of man. 44 The intellectual character of the faith was accepted by these Fathers as something
beyond doubt, but their conceptualization of this faith was
much more than a simple intellectual adherence to a doctrine
or to a set of doctrines. Faith was, for them, the reception
into the believer himself of God himself who communicates
himself to man who is thus "divinized." 45 We see this in the
frequent interchange and even equivalency of the words fides
and fidelis as referring to the Christian life in its totality .46
Faith is here presented not simply as an objective acquisition
of knowledge but rather as a real participation of the soul in
the divino-human life of the Incarnate Word. The consequence
of this is an "illumination" of the soul and the intelligence
which permits the Christian to contemplate in an obscure but
real way the divine reality, the fullness of which will be his
only after death in the beatific vision. This was the common
interpretation of the Fathers of Hebrews: "Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not
seen." 47 They explain that it is in virtue of faith that we await
from God the fullness of divine goods as yet unseen by mortal
man: the resurrection, glory, immortality. Yet, these goods
are truly ours even now in an imperfect but real way, efficacious for our moral conduct, in the very act of faith. Thus
u L. Boyer, l'Incarnation et l'EgliseJ ... , pp. 37-39 .
.. For a further development of this theme, see J. Gross, La divinization deJ
I'homme d'apres les Peres Grecs (Paris, 1948), pp. 50-68; W. J. Burghardt, The
Image of God in man according to Cyril of Alexandria (Washington, D.C.,
1957)' pp. 58-106.
•• Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Catech., 10 (P G 6, ss, col. 517) and Salvianus,
De Gubernatione Dei, L, III, C. 2 (P L 53, col. 58) .
•• Heb. 11: 1. estin de pistis dpizomenon upostasis.

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faith is conceived as a union (even in the now, however
obscurely) with the divine goods, that is, with God Himself.
It is an existence in us of what we hope for fully in the future
or, in the words of Clement of Alexandria, " a contemplation
of grace." 48 It gives man in part the power of divine vision
which he lost in the sin of Adam. Thus faith is seen by the
early Fathers as a type of illumination of the soul or even of
a "spiritual eye." 49 The great temptation of some of the
Greek Fathers was gnostic in origin, that is, to leave the
humble knowledge of faith from the authority of God in order
to go into a "learned" knowledge of faith by means of philosophical categories and systems. In this there was danger of
heresy as evidenced in the case of N estorius, Origen, and even
of Clement of Alexandria himself.
In any case, these early Fathers insisted that this religious
knowledge by faith must develop into a true gnosis, that is,
into a deeper, more mature faith of personal commitment. The
foundation of this faith, however, must always remain firmly
embedded in the adherence to the word of God; it must be
accepted by the believers only because of the authority of
God who reveals himself in and by this word. The Fathers
also emphasized the good and bad disposition of the soul
in the reception of this word. It is an impossible work-even for
God himself-to instruct or convince one to believe who did
not wish to believe. All these Fathers were unanimous in
saying that no divine truth can dawn on him who does not
control and train his passions. Christianity, says Clement of
Alexandria, is a light which enters the soul by way of obedience
to God. 50 This good moral disposition represents man's part
in the act of faith, but the part of God is even of greater
importance. Many of these Fathers made reference to the
direct work of the Spirit of God in the act of faith, who indeed
inhabits the heart of man and thus makes faith possible for
•• Strom., II, 4.
•• Cf. Clement of Rome, Episfle to Corinth, LIX, S.
50 Strom., I, III, c. 5.

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mortal man. Without the Spirit of God who inhabits the soul
of man, man is spiritually blind, deaf and even dead. "No one
can understand unless God and his Christ give him understanding." 51 All subsequent tradition will follow Justin in this
respect by saying that, if some are converted and others are
not, it is because the former are docile and open to the teaching of God (by a good moral life) while others resist this
grace due to the bad disposition of their souls brought about
by a bad moral life. During the Semi-Pelagian controversy
much will be made of the fact that the Church prays for sinners
and the conversion of those who do not believe as a proof
of the necessity of divine aid both in the act of faith as
well as in the act of repentence. 52 Not only this, but the mere
will to want to believe is itself the fruit of God's grace. 53 The
force of this divine action is so great, according to Origen,
that it draws souls to the faith almost in spite of themselves. 54
This action of grace is further described as the action of a lover
upon the beloved. 55
Yet, for all of this, the Fathers of the Church insist on the
rational and reasonable aspects of the act of faith. Tertullian
himself who used to flaunt Credo quia absurdum est to the
pagans does not hesitate to establish the adherence to the
Christian faith as an act which is eminently reasonable. 56
Yet, these Fathers do emphasize that, in order to understand
the value of the proofs for the Christian faith (which are real),
the person must already be illuminated by God's grace. This
was above all necessary for the case of prophecy which is a
more powerful proof than that from miracles. This last em51 St. Justin, Dial. with Tryphon, VII. c. 109.
•• Cf. Indiculus Coelestini, D. S. 246.
58 See the many treaties of St. Augustine on this subject:
De Gratia et Libera
Arbitrio, De Correptione et Gratia, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, De Dono
Perserverantiae, all of which can be found in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 24
(Desclee de Brouwer, 1962).
5 • In Lk, VII
(P G 13, col. 1819)
5 " St. Jerome, In Math.,
L, I, c. 9; V, c. 9 (P L 26, col. 561).
58 See his Adversus
Praxean, c. 5 (Tertuliani opera, pars iii: ed. Aemilius
Kroymann: Vienna and Leipzig, 1906) .

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phasis was made most probably in view of the Fathers' difficulties in explaining away some of the pagan phenomena
which appeared as miracles. Consequently, any form of rationalistic " demonstration " of faith was an impossibility since
it was above all a divine gift. These Fathers would not have
rejected the possibility of a certain credibility of divine faith
which would be purely natural, yet such a problem never arose
for them nor did they formulate it as such. They did recognize
that various pagan philosophers (particularly Plato who was
called "clivus" by some of the Fathers) had discovered some
important truths, even certain divine truths, but at the same
time they emphasized that certain monstrous errors were made
by these same philosophers. It showed clearly that without the grace of God human reason left to itself leads to serious aberrations and that thus reason alone can never be a
true judge of the Christain faith.
Thus the " proofs " of the Fathers for the Christian faith
had to be conceived in a different way than we would understand the meaning of " proof " today. There was a " certain
indecision on the precise point which separates natural knowledge from supernatural faith." 57 This is clear since " to introduce any rational element into the actual assent of faith
would be to destroy its absolute certainty, since full rational
evidence of the fact of revelation is not (as a rule) to be
gained from the signs of credibility." 58 Even when the Fathers
invoke the notion of miracle as "proof," it is less to prove the
divine origin of a doctrine than to show the omnipotence of
God to reason itself. The faith which requires miracles is
considered to be an inferior type of faith (" imperfect ") , and
it gives less honor to God. This does not imply that the
Fathers professed a sort of fideism since they emphasized
time and again that there is no opposition between reason
and faith, only that faith is of a more eminent and divine
67 Dictionnaire de la Theologie Catholique, t. !l, c. 2240.
•• Art. "Faith," in Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, !i
(New York, 1968), p. 825.

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order for which it is necessary to receive divine grace to understand. This is only another way of saying that the believer
never gives his assent to faith after any intrinsic demonstration
of the faith itself. This would be to destroy the whole notion
of faith. A man believes not because he has " seen " the
rational and intrinsic demonstration of faith but simply because God has revealed this to him on his own sovereign
authority.
With these preliminaries discussed, we are now ready to
examine the views of St. Augustine with regard to the act of
faith.

St. Augustine
The study of Augustine is important if for no other reason
than that the church has officially adopted some of his teachings in her own Councils. 59 In general, we may say that Augustine's theology of the act of faith is dependent upon St. John
and St. Paul as well as the Alexandrian school of thought. 60 We
may add to this the psychology of belief seen in his own
conversion to the faith as given to us in his Confessions. 61
Since Augustine was a deep intellectual, it will be normal to
find in his works a rational defense of the Christian faith
against the many heretics of the fifth century.
As we have said with regard to the other Church Fathers,
it is not possible to find any systematic treatment of the
act of faith in Augustine; we must therefore be content with
a simple gathering from his occasional writings and sermons.
His observations on the motives of faith which will give the
act of faith its credibility will be brought into focus in the
present article; these include the moral and psychological conditions in man necessary for the reception of faith itself. On
the other hand, against the Pelagians Augustine insisted on the
Cf. Council of Orange in 529, D. S. 373-376, 385, 396-397.
E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augmtine (New York, 1960),
pp. 165-171.
61 Oeuvres de Saint
Augmtin, 13-14 (Desclee de Brouwer, 1962).
59
60

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gratuity and freedom of the gift of faith to the Christian
precisely· because it is supernatural and thus in absolute need
of divine illumination.
Like St. Paul, Augustine underlines the difference between
simple faith (as an adherence to testimony) and the scientific
knowledge which directly penetrates its object. It was Augustine who wrote lntellectum valde ama, yet he is very conscious
of how imperfect the indirect manner of knowledge really
is. Faith is given and received on divine authority and cannot in any way contradict human reason; on the contrary,
the divine illumination in and by faith serves to purify and
stimulate the life of the spirit, thus giving it a true understanding and knowledge of heavenly realities. That is why
Augustine often repeats the words of Isaiah: "Unless you
believe, you will not understand." This is not a form of
fideism in Augustine, and it is important to understand exactly
how he used this phrase from Scripture.
In this formula, the intelligence of which Augustine speaks
designates a religious knowledge where, under the influence of
divine charity, faith grows ever more deeply and profoundly
into a theological elaboration and a mystical penetration of
its object who is God himsel£.62 The Beatific Vision is the
object of faith; here below we can only hope to grow and
penetrate this object of our faith which can really know no
terminal point. In order to attain this height of mystical penetration, we must always begin by believing the essential truths
given to us by divine authority. It is for this reason that all
forms of rationalism are explicitly rejected by St. Augustine
for the real "demonstration" of faith can only be done by
that human reason which has first been illuminated by the
divine light of faith itself. It is only in this way that a man
can penetrate the depth of the divine mystery first revealed to
us in Christ. This adherence is not a blind faith but one that
has been motivated by reasons. In this sense we believe in
•• De Utilitate Credendi, I, S; X, !l8; XI, !l5.

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order to understand as well as understand in order to believe.
There is a constant dialectic between the two. 63 This activity
of reason which must precede the faith consists not only
in grasping the sense of what we must believe (for we do not
adhere to words but to ideas) but also to believe is in a sense
to think with an assent. 64 Augustine also notes the reasonable
and prudent character of our adherence to the faith by a careful
examination of the title of the authority to which we adhere:
"No one believes anything without first thinking that it must
be believed." 65 Augustine's main argument for this reasonableness of faith is the fact that everyone accepts the authority
of the Holy Scripture; only later does Augustine appeal to the
miracles, prodigies, and extraordinary events of the Holy Spirit
as motives for the faith. 66
Secondly, Augustine, by insisting on the obscure and imperfect character of faith (which in its function professes things
which it cannot as yet see), leaves aside various elements which
we have seen emphasized in the gospel of St. John. Yet, in his
development of the moral and supernatural character of faith,
Augustine remarkably has the same doctrine as the fourth
gospel. 67 Augustine's own conversion had shown him the correlation between the bad will (and its consequent moral disposition) , the act of faith, and spiritual blindness. Thus we
find a rather contradictory attitude in him concerning the
act of faith: he is a firm believer in the reasonableness of
the act of faith and yet, at the same time, its betrayal by the
bad disposition of the heart. He insists on a moral preparation
for the act of faith as well as a humility of heart and this
accounts for Augustine's continuous attempts to transform
the intimate disposition of his listeners.
••" Ergo intellige ut credas, crede ut intelligas," Epi$t. 120, 18 (P L 88, col. 458).
•• " Credere est cum assensione cogitare," ibid.
65 De Praed. Sanct., II, 5 (P L 44, col. 968) .
•• Cf. Serm. 88, 1 (P L 88, col. 540) .
•• See his Tractatus in Joannem, nos. 2, 28, 26, 27, 29, 84, 86, 88, 40, 47, 48, 49,
58, 69, 79, 95, 106, 110, 115.

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It is love which asks; it is love which seeks; it is love which
knocks; it is love which makes us adhere to revelation, and it is
also love which maintains fidelity once faith has been given.68

It is this love to which we must attribute the meritorious
aspect of faith as well as-from a negative point of viewthe responsibility for unbelief. Augustine always attributes
the abandonment of faith to man alone, never to God, for
God never abandons his own. It is man who always freely
and willfully separates himself from God since God is never
neglectful of his aid even to the worst sinner. It can be easily
seen how great a part the free will of man plays in the act
of faith. 69
As we have seen in the Scriptures and in the early Fathers,
so too faith for Augustine is a much more complex reality than
a simple speculative adherence to truth or to a set of truths:
Let us begin by making a distinction between our faith and that
of the unclean spirits. To have faith is to believe; but James
tells us that the devils themselves believe and tremble . . . It
serves nothing to proclaim that Christ is the Son of God. Peter
said it and heard this response: Blessed art thou, Simon; the devils
said it and this was their response: Be silent .
. . . They said the same thing as Peter but the Master looks at
the root and not the flower . . . It is fear which makes the demons
speak but it is love which inspired the words of Peter. Thus he
adds hope to faith; to hope itself is added charity. 70
The devils submit because they have no choice but to confess
the magnalia Dei, the wonderful works of God. But meritorious faith and justifying faith alone is that which believes in
God. It is for that reason that we can say that " we believe
in God and in his Son, Jesus."
He who has faith in Christ, credit in Christum, who also loves
Christ; for if one has faith without hope and without charity,
one believes that Christ exists but one does not believe in Christ. 71
•• De Moribus Ecc., 50, 1, 17 (P L S!l, col. 1S!l4).
•• Epist. ad Vitalem, 16 (P L SS, col. 985).
•• Serm 158, 6 (P L S8, col. 865).
71 Serm 144, !t (P L S8, col. 788).

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And again Augustine adds:
What does it mean to believe in Christ? By believing to love, by
believing to go to him to be incorporated as his members. 72

This is the knowledge which comes from faith but a knowledge as well which implies a firm purpose of doing God's entire
will for us. It is such faith alone which is salvific, for it is a
faith which operates by charity. In this way Augustine identifies the faith of bad Christians with that of the devil; it is
not worthy of the name of faith. 73 Modern theologians might
well question this aspect of Augustine's teaching, but we must
always remember that Augustine always had a pastoral view
in mind and not properly a dogmatic one. It is for that reason
that St. Augustine's teaching on faith must be seen in the
context of a living faith.
One of the clearest aspects of Augustine's teaching on the
faith-act is that faith informed by charity is even now in
time the very beginning of eternal life. Above all, even if
faith is reasonable and a good moral disposition necessary,
it is above all the pure gift of God. This was the constant
teaching of Augustine against Pelagius who exaggerated the
part of man in the act of salvation by reducing grace to
revelation and a preaching of doctrine. Faith for Pelagius was
an affair of man's free will in corresponding to God's will and
commandments. Augustine had no difficulty in showing that
this was contrary to the Catholic faith. His arguments were
mostly taken from the Holy Scriptures. According to these
texts divine aid is indispensable for doing any good whatever
and above all to believe in the above-mentioned sense. The
sixteenth Council of Carthage (418) inculcated this same doctrine.74 Still later, Augustine had to combat what subsequently
became known as semi-pelagianism, which professed that grace
is needed for any salutary act except that of the beginning of
••" Quad est ergo credere in eum? Credendo amare, credendo diligere, credendo
in eum ire, eius membris incorporari," In Joann. 29, 6 (P L 85, col. 1681).
•• De Praed. Sanct., 8 (P L 44, col. 965) .
"D. S. 221-280.

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faith which is entirely in the hands and free will of man
(initium fidei). Augustine saw very clearly that this was not
logical, for why must we stop at the beginning of the act of
faith? For St. Augustine, the initial aspect of faith is the result
of the internal action of the Holy Spirit and not of man's free
will. Referring to II Cor. 3:5, Augustine says that the decision
to believe is already the work of God's grace in us. 75 In short.
no salutary act whatever is possible without the grace of God
which is the very foundation stone of Augustine's teaching on
grace.

St. Thomas Aquinas
The scholastic influence on St. Thomas is evident in his
treatise De Fide in the Secunda Secundae (qq. 1-14). He
treats it as a theological virtue in its religious value and only
later does he treat faith in its various psychological aspects.
In this respect he is similar to Augustine in the treatment of
both of these aspects, but Thomas inverts the order and importance: faith is above all a theological virtue and only
consequently does he consider its psychological effect on man.
Augustine, on the other hand, put great emphasis on the moral
and psychological preparation for the act of faith in man. This
distinction may seem trivial, but it does show the various
ways and emphases which the notion of the act of faith has
received in history and down to our own day. In this there
is nothing new or extraordinary.
The very first question which Thomas asks is: what is faith?
" Faith is a habit of the spirit which begins eternal life in us
and which makes the intelligence adhere to those things which
are not apparent." 76 Man is destined one day to enjoy the
Beatific Vision and, since it infinitely surpasses all the natural
powers of man, these same powers are radically incapable of
attaining this objective and must therefore have a superior
adaptation, a raising of the human faculties which is precisely
•• De Praed. Sanct. !i!, 5 (P L 44, col. 96!i!) .
78 " Fides est habitus mentis quo inchoatur vita aeterna in nobis, faciens intellectum assentire non apparentibus." Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 4, a. 1, corp.

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PETER J. RIGA

the work of the three theological virtues in man (faith, hope,
charity) . Faith puts the mind and intelligence of man in
possession of certain supernatural principles, making it conformed to the very knowledge of God and as such can be considered as the first beginning of eternal life (Beatific Vision)
in man. Yet this participation in the divine light and intelligence remains in life as yet imperfect. 77 Faith does not put
us into any direct contact with the Divinity but in an elevated
human way (by faith and by grace) we attain the Divinity by
judgments and affirmations which are more or less complex. 78
This is because, although God is supremely simple, our finite
human minds can only imperfectly understand the Divinity,
thus the complex of truths and doctrines in the act of faith.
This reaches us by the human word of the apostolic message
given and preached in the name of God which, as Scripture
puts it, is "faith from hearing." 79 What is essential in this
knowledge is the truth of the propositions to be believed, and
these cannot be forced on the spirit of man like a metaphysical
evidence. Man must first consider the authority of the one who
is revealing. The result is that, if one or another of these truths
from revelation could be established by human reason (v. g., the
existence of God) , this truth could no longer be accepted on
faith. 80 One believes for the simple reason that God has said
so and for no other. This first truth who is God in the very object of knowledge which is superior to its own proper human
object:
The formal object of faith is the First Truth according to which it
is revealed in Sacred Scripture and in the doctrine of the Church
which proceeds from the First Truth. 81
17 De Veritate, q. 14, a.
ad 9; Ill Sent. d. 23, q. 1, a. 1 ad 4; Summa Theol.,
II-II, q. 2, a. 8.
•• Ill Sent. d. 24, q. 1, a, 1; De Verit., q. 14, a. 12; Summa Theol., II-II, q. 1, a. 2.
•• Summa Theol. II-II, q. 6, a. 1.
80 Ill Sent. d. 23, q. 3, a. 2; De Verit., q. 18, a. 3; Summa Theol., II-II.
q. 6, a. 1.
81 " Formale
objectum fidei est Veritas prima secundum quod manifestatur
in Sacra Scriptura et doctrina ecclesiae quae procedit ex Veritate prima." Summa
Theol., II-II, q. 5, a. 8.

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167

Thus the essential element of faith is the divine testimony for
which the infallibility of God alone is the absolute guarantee
for its truth. Thus faith is a type of indirect knowledge because it is by intermediary, but it remains superior to every
other form of human knowledge. 82 Yet, if it remains true that
from the part of the object there is perfect knowledge (God) ,8 '
still the human mode of understanding is very imperfect since
the human intelligence is made to know its object directly.
In the case of faith, its object (God or First Truth) is not
immediately present or evident, since faith concerns those
things which cannot be seen and are not apparent. The object
of faith is mystery and will always be obscure to human reason.
The objection at this point would seem to be that we cannot have an absolute and firm assent to such a truth. However,
says Thomas, we must remember that faith is a theological
virtue and that thus God intervenes in the human faculties
in order to elevate them and render them capable of a mode
of knowledge which is superior to its own proper human abject:
When a man adheres to faith, he is elevated above nature; there
must be in him a supernatural principle which moves him from
within; this principle is God. This faith ... comes from God who,
by his grace, moves us interiorly. 84

It is in this way that " grace creates faith," 85 a statement
which is repeated many times in the writings of Aquinas by
making continuous reference to Scripture and St. Augustine.
In this way, he repeats the Augustinian theme that both
Revelation and our assent to Revelation are both the pure
grace of God.
The problem now was the same for Thomas as it was for
Augustine: how can we explain that the divine action alone
is responsible for the act of faith and yet that the act is a
perfectly free act on the part of man. In the works of his
Ill Sent. d. !i!S, q. !i!, a. 4.
Ill Contra Gentes, 50, c. 40.
8 • Summa Theol., II-11, q. 6, a. 1.
85 " Gratia facit fidem," ibid., q. 4, a. 4, ad 8.

89

83

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PETER J. RIGA

maturity St. Thomas gives a position which is balanced and
nuanced. He says, first of all, that there is a proximity between the first truths of faith and the first truths of the natural
order. In both cases there is a certain correlation between
external sensible evidence and an interior light (in the case
of natural reason the intellectual agent, whereas in the case
of the act of faith we have the grace of God) .86 St. Thomas
puts this grace of God in relation to the will in the assent
of faith which is properly intellectual. It is for this reason
that Aquinas concludes:
The light of faith does not move by way of the intellect but rather
by way of the will.87
In order to understand this formula it is necessary to understand the important place of the will in the psychology of
faith for St. Thomas. The whole Abelardian and Victorian
schools of theology had already shown 'chat faith proceeds
much more from affective elements than from those of natural
reason properly speaking. 88 Ironically, in spite of their philosophy, these schools came to the orthodox conclusion that the
essential of faith consisted in love. As we have seen, for St.
Thomas faith is the assent to the true on the authority of the
one who reveals this truth, and thus faith is formally an act
of the intelligence . Yet, Thomas does recognize the large part
which the will plays in the act of faith. Love renders the act
of faith meritorious and, as it were, informs and gives life to
faith and the adherence itself is a work of love so that the
act of faith IS an act intrinsically determined by affective
elements.
Faith has certitude from these elements outside of cognition,
existing in the genus of affection.89
•• In Boeth de Trin., q. 8, a. 1, ad 4.
"Lumen fidei . . . non movet per viam intellectus sed magis per v1am
voluntatis," ibid., q. 8, a. 1, ad 4.
88 Cf. J. Cottiaux,
"La conception de Ia theologie chez Abelard," RHE, 82
(1982)' pp. 290-299.
89 " Fides habet certitudinem
ab eo quod est extra genus cognitionis, in genere
affectionis existens," III Sent. d. 28, q. 2, a. 2; q. 1, ad 1.
87

THE ACT OF FAITH IN AUGUSTINE

AND AQUINAS

169

This certitude of the faith does not come from any objective
evidence but rather from the pressure of the will to believe:
The intelligence can adhere to something without being, for all
that, fully brought to its proper object but by adhering with one's
will, by choice to one part rather than to another. 90

Faith is not a matter of psychological attitude. It is evident
(as seen above) that faith is a form of indirect knowledge
since it comes from the testimony of another (the First Truth,
God); it is also clear that the necessary absence of any argu·
ments which would give us absolute certitude will always give
us some hesitation. But faith, explains St. Thomas, must be
distinguished from this type of proof or probation. In faith
the cogitatio coexists with an absolute or categorical adherence, since this adherence is not caused by the proper
work of the intelligence but by the will.
For assent is not caused by knowledge but by the will.91

Thus the act of faith is an assent where the intelligence, like
a captive, bends to the order of the wil1.92 But the will must
have a motive for adhering and assenting which is none other
than the authority of the Divine Word who reveals:
The will is inclined to adhere to inevident revealed truths because
they are proposed by God, much like a man believes in things
which he has not seen because of the testimony of an honorable
man who has seen them. 93

Man decides to believe because he sees, at least obscurely,
that God desires and wishes him to believe. This is the
necessary condition for arriving one day at the possession of
God as he is in himsel£.94 This decision of the will cannot
•• Summa Theol., II-II, q. l, a. 4.
91 De Verit., q. 14, a. 1: "non enim assensus ex cogitatione
causatur sed ex
voluntate."

•• Ad Hebr., c. 8, lect. I.
•• III Sent. d. 23, q. 2, a. I, ad 2.
•• De Verit., q. 14, a. 9, ad 9.

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PETER J. RIGA

be explained principally by the fact that knowledge of the
truth is good for the intelligence; rather, it is embedded in
a more profound appetite and desire in man, that is, in the
desire which each man has to appropriate to himself the
divine promises. This is why the scriptural definition of faith
in Hebrews 11: I is put in relation to our hope. This is so
because faith appears as the means of arriving at final beatitude which the will wants to possess and make its own. This
desire of the will, as it were, creates pressure on the intellect
to seek and to give its assent. What really motivates faith
is the desire of our last end which is supernatural. This does
not imply that the will is necessarily under the influence of
charity, yet no being aspires to any end without having
already experienced in some way the good of this last end at
least inchoatively. This "taste" for the last end of man is
infused in man by God. 95
Thus faith is always and fully under the influence of grace.
This comes to man in the infused gift given to him at baptism,
but it is also present in the divine impulses given throughout
life.96 Without these continuous impulses (instinctus) from
God man would not decide to believe. 97 Thus the role of grace
on the intellect in the movement of man toward faith is
influenced by the divine attraction and as such is indispensable
because it works on the heart of man and incites the will
on to challenge the intelligence: to believe. This is meritorious for, although man is moved to believe, precisely because
there is no absolute certitude to be seen by the intelligence
the intellect adhers to the divine truths with merit. 98
What is the position of St. Thomas with regard to the
credibility of faith? One wonders how this question can be
fully answered since the question itself is a preoccupation of
modern theologians and not of St. Thomas. 99 On the other
· •• Ibid., q. 14, a. !l.
•• In Joan., c. 6, lect. 4, n. 7.
•• Ad RCYm., c. 8, lect. 6.
•• Summa Th.eol., TI-TI, q. 2, ad 9, ad 8.
•• H. Lang, op. cit., pp. !l5-87.

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AND AQUINAS

171

hand, Aquinas did ask whether it is rational to believe or
not. The external motives for faith and the arguments ex
convenientia are well distinguished in St. Thomas. When he
speaks of the humanae rationes which lead us on to faith he
understands by this the signs from God such as miracles and
prophecy as well as signs from the rational arguments coming
from dogmas themselves. 100 This will have great influence on
his apologetics and on his claims that they can influence the
will of those who do not as yet believe. 101 Miracles can be
invoked in order to establish some form of quasi-empirical
basis for belief, and the truth of a particular dogma is invoked
in order to show that it is not rationally contradictory to
hold that truth. The miracle acts as sign, as something which
points to a power beyond that of natural powers both of nature
and of reason. 102 St. Thomas also appeals to miracles as a
motive for faith and the acceptance of Christianity. His teaching on miracles is remarkable since it has a great similarity
to that of Sacred Scripture.
A miracle is transcendent and of divine origin, which he
proposes as an excellent guarantee of the divine authenticity
of the doctrine which is taught in Revelation. It is a testimony
rendered by God to the truth of a particular doctrine; it is
also a testimony to the authenticity of the apostolic preaching
of the Word who speaks in the name of God. 103 This element
of Thomas's teaching of faith is of primary importance for him.
Thanks to miracles, it becomes evident that the word of the
prophet (and the preacher) is in reality the word of God
expressed in the human word.
The faithful believe a man not because he is a man but insofar
as God speaks in him which he can gather from certain actions. 104
Ill Sent., d. !!4, q. 1, a. !!; q. 2, a. 3.
Summa Theol., Joe. cit., a. 10.
102 De Potentm, q. 6, a. 9; Summa Theol., III, q. 55, a. 3. See also B. Douroux,
La
de la foi chez S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris, 1956), pp. 53-63.
108 Summa
Theol., II-11, q. 178, a. l.
10 • Ill Sent., d. 23, q. 2, a. 2; q. !!, a. 3.
100

101

172

PETER J. RIGA

Some theologians have expressed the opmwn that for St.
Thomas only a miracle can vigorously constitute a proof for
the divine authenticity of the doctrine, and yet this does not
seem to be the case since we see so many who do not believe
in spite of the many signs which have been worked. St.
Thomas explicitly says that it is an inferior type of faith
which needs miracles to corroborate its authenticity. 105 For
a particular individual, moreover, a miracle is neither sufficient
nor necessary that one truly believe:
He who believes has a sufficient motive to lead him to believe.
In effect, he is guided by the authority of the divine teaching
which miracles have confirmed and, moreover, by the interior inspiration of God who himself invites us to believe. Therefore the
believer does not believe lightly. However, he does not have a
sufficient motive to lead him to actually know and that is why
the reason of merit is not taken away. 106

This response of St. Thomas places us squarely before the intellectual element of the act of faith. The human spirit does
not believe without having grave and serious reasons for believing.107 The above text gives us what the ingredients of our
faith really are: an exterior proposition which does give us
an evident credibility and an interior adherence which is aided
by divine inspiration, which gives the soul its interior illumination. But then, where does the merit reside in believing
if there are so many reasons to believe? It resides in the fact
that these reasons for belief are never such that they cause us
actually to see the object of our faith directly or even to
know profoundly the mystery of our faith. Hence, the interior
inspiration by God is alone sufficient to induce man to accept
the faith and its truth.
St. Thomas gives us no indication on the way the Holy
106
100

In Joan., c. 4, lect. 7, n. 8.
Summa Theol., II-II, q. !!, a. 9, ad 8.

107 St. Thomas
concludes this section by saying that the incredulity of the
Jews would have been just as culpable even if there had been no rniracle&-a very
disputed theological point. Cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 100, a. 4, ad 1.

THE ACT OF FAITH IN AUGUSTINE

Spirit moves the soul interiorly,
cerning the Spirit himself:

AND AQUINAS

173

but he has this to say con-

As the Apostle says of those who are moved by the divine instinct,
it is useless that they seek further confirmation from human
sources. Let them follow their interior instinct, for they are moved
by a principle which is preferable to human reason. 108
Thus any analysis of the act of faith poses no great difficulty
for St. Thomas/ 09 since it is very natural for the believer to
rely on the Divine Word for any proof of his belief: " not
because of anything else but God himself." 110 Moreover, we
do not need to have a knowledge of natural truths before
believing, something which might otherwise be logically presupposed for the act of faith. 111
A miracle, of course, cannot bestow faith on the person who
sees the miracle. Certain favorable dispositions are necessary
and indispensable to appreciate its value and to draw from
it consequences for the faith. 112 In the face of a miracle one
must always ask whether one is in the presence of a diabolical
trick, for demons can perform various prodigies. Thus the aid
of divine grace is necessary to discern with certitude that one
is in the presence of a true miracle in favor of faith. 113 Hence,
a miracle alone does not and cannot prove that the one who
performs the miracle is sent from God as his prophet and
messenger-especially
when he preaches in contradiction to
the true doctrine of the Church: 114
Neither the view of a miracle nor a persuasive word ... are
sufficient cause of the faith of the believer, and the proof is that,
among those who see the same miracle and listen to the same
words, there are those who believe and others who do not; that
Ibid., I-II, q. 68, a. 1.
De Verit., q. 14, a. 1.
110 Ibid.
108
109

111 "Ad hoc enim sufficienter fides inclinat ut qui rationem ad hoc habere non
potest, fide eis assentiat." (III Se:nt., d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1.)
110 De Pot., q. 6, a. 9, ad 17.
113 III Cont. Gent., c. 154.
1"

Ibid.

174

PETER J. RIGA

is why we must admit another cause, interior to this one, bringing
man interiorily to adhere to what is of faith. 115
In other words, motives can give various types of certitude and
St. Thomas explicitly recognizes this; 116 but no one can give an
absolute certitude, and that is why he often uses the term
opinio in this respect. The term is described variously as

opinio vehemens, opinio fortificata, opinio rationibus constructa, all of which constitute a "probable certitude " which can
be produced by sincere testimony. 117 This is the the strongest
natural certitude which St. Thomas knows. Thus it is possible
in certain circumstances to attain a very real natural certitude
of the fact of Revelation, but there is not for man any natural
evidence for this, and hence only the intervention of God's
grace can procure an absolute certitude for him.
Thus the whole theology of faith in St. Thomas is centered
in a religious and supernatural context, as we have seen was
the case for St. Augustine. There is a large place for the rational
and for reason in the act of faith, but these acts of natural
reason accompany faith without being in any way its true
cause. 118 The true cause of faith can only be the interior
divine action of God himself, the First Truth.
Faith has certitude from the divinely infused light ... The principles of faith are known by the divinely infused light. 119
PETER

J. RIGA

Saint Mary's College
Saint Mary's College, California

116
116
117

Summa Theol., II-II, q. I, a. 6.
III Sent., d. 24, a. I; Summa Theol., II-II, q. 5, a. 8.
"Quae in pluribus veritatem attingat etsi in paucioribus a veritate deficiat,"

Summa Theol., II-II, q. 70, a. 2.
118 De Verit., q. 14, a. 2, ad 9.
110 In Joan., c. 4, lect. 5, n. 2, and J. Alfaro, "Faith",
Sacramentum Mundi:
An Encyclopedia of Theology, 2 (New York, I968), p. SI7.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Trinity. By KARL RAHNER. Translated by Joseph Donceel. New
York: Herder and Herder, 1970. Pp. 120. $4.95.
It has become commonplace to lament the neglect of theological treatment of the mystery of the Trinity. Lonergan and Rahner stand nearly
alone as exceptions to the failure, at least as far as constructive theology,
in distinction from biblical and historical theology, is concerned. Each
brings to his endeavor a common commitment to Transcendental Thomism,
a qualified Kantian hermeneutic of St. Thomas initiated by Joseph Marechal. Lonergan's work is more in continuity with traditional Augustinianism-Thomism; if the methodology differs markedly, at least the same set
of questions is raised. Rahner, in contrast, strikes out more originally and
offers a newer alternative to Lonergan's study; he accepts the achievement
of St. Thomas as an authentic, in-depth illumination of the mystery, but
he sees little advantage for the contemporary faith-quest in remaining
within the categories that suited an earlier moment of faith-consciousness.
His is more an attempt to surpass the Thomistic synthesis without denying its own principles of intelligibility. His departure from a traditional
approach, however, is hardly as radical as that of Robert Melville (" Creation and the Trinity," Theological Studies, March, 1969), and it attempts
to harmonize continuity of dogma (the definitions of Nicaea, Lateran IV,
Lyons, Florence) with genuine newness of theological concept and language.
In part, this is accomplished by recovering a pre-Augustinian, Greek rather
than Latin, mind-set in contemplating the mystery. What really dominates Rahner's thinking (or re-thinking) throughout, however, is German
Existenz Philosophie, or at least that ontology of existence deriving from
Heidegger that has taken such deep roots in Continental Catholic thought
(and somewhat differently in Reformed and Evangelical theology).
The present volume is a translation of Chapter Five of the Second
Volume of Mysterium Salutis published in 1967. This prompts the question as to why the publishers chose to not include the earlier chapters,
reputable in their own right, for example, those on the Trinity in the
Bible by R. Schulte and F. J. Schierse. It is a concise study dealing with
three main points: 1) the method and structure of the dogmatic treatise
itself (a re-working of the article in the Schriften--Vol. IV of Theological
Investigations); 2) the official doctrine of the Church; and 8) Rahner's
own attempt at a new synthesis. This entails such economy of treatment
that central structural elements are too often merely stated, resulting in
highly convoluted, at times torturous, literary expression that renders trans-

175

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BOOK REVIEWS

lation exceedingly difficult. This may account for using the word " monotheism " as opposite to Trinitarianism, when seemingly the more proper
term in the former case is "Unitarianism," and referring to the Persons
as "different" (p. 101) rather than "distinct," which prior term at least
connotes distinctness of essence. Likewise, to write that "the Father
communicates Himself " (p. 102) suggests that the Father, though identified with his own essence, communicates that essence precisely as distinctly subsistent in a way constitutive of Fatherhood. Generally speaking, there is a tendency to be overly polemical and negative towards
traditional Trinitarian theology; the charge of neglecting the Trinity of
the " economy " is well taken, but it is a rather sweeping dismissal to
assert: "in the usual presentation of the scholarly treatises on the Trinity,
there is first developed a concept of " person " derived from experience
and philosophy .... " (p. 43) This is not the case in St. Thomas's tract
in the Summa Theologiae where " person " is the last of the three formal
concepts to emerge (the other two being procession and relation), and this
is true generally of the other classical thinkers.
These, however, are negative remarks and may seem somewhat picayune.
In a more positive vein, it is possible to single out the following central
structural elements in the first two sections of the book. I) The triune
character of God is unconcealed for us only in a revelation that occurs as
an oikonomia, i.e., the Word is uttered to us and the Spirit is breathed
forth within us (" in reality the Scriptures do not explicitly present a
doctrine of the ' immanent ' Trinity "; p. 22) . 2) Faith-reflection manifests that God is this Trinity within himself, i.e., the "economic " Trinity
is the" immanent" Trinity. 3) God of the New Testament-o (l£6,- (and
so Elohim and Yahweh of the Old Testament) is not the Godhead or
the Triune God but the First Person of the Trinity. 4) The creative and
saving activity of God ad extra is necessarily Trinitarian, not simply in
the sense that the Three who act retain their hypostatic ordering (
to one another but rather that " when God freely steps outside of himself in self-communication . . . it is and must be the Son who appears
historically in the flesh as man. And it is and must be the Spirit who
brings about the acceptance by the world ... of this self-communication."
(p. 86) 5) On the above assumption, sanctification cannot be merely
" appropriated " to the Holy Spirit but is in a genuine sense proper thereto; indeed " each one of the three Divine persons communicates himself
to man in gratuitous grace in his own personal particularity and diversity." (pp. 34-35) All of this amounts to a considerable nuancing of
the traditional formulations in which a Western mentality has dominated.
It betrays a decidedly Origenist character, and on the spectrum of orthodox theological sententiae, ranging between the opposite heterodox extremes of Modalism and Subordinationism, certainly faces towards the
latter.

BOOK REVIEWS

177

This does pose the question as to whether or not the distinctness of
Persons is not being conceptually overstressed. Two indications of why
that question might be validly raised can be noted here. First, is the
hesitancy felt in the face of statements such as " the Father and the
Spirit subsist in pure distinction from--not in equality with-the Son .... "
(p. 12, Note, italics supplied) To speak of one absolute subsistence in
God does seem misleading (as Rahner observes, p. 84, Note), but is it
not equally ambiguous to speak of the three relative subsistences in
abstraction from the numerically one essence? Surely this is what Rahner
means: that real distinction in God is purely a matter of mutual relatedness without taking into consideration the essence. But the Persons subsist in relative distinction and in essential identity. St. Thomas's caution
on this point is that subsistentia (or persona) predicated of God signifies
relation, not formally as relation but as obliquely connoting essence: " persona significat relationem in recto et essentiam in obliquo; non tamen
relationem inquantum est relatio, sed inquantum significatur per modum
hypostasis" (Summa Theol., I, q. 29, a. 4). Another way of saying this
is that the integral notion of relation involves not only the aspect of
esse ad but that of esse in as well.
Second, there is Rahner's understanding of the grace state as essentially
Trinitarian in structure (point 5, above). With the fact there can be no
dispute, but the terms of theological explanation still appear today to
demand an option between two opposed positions; the presence of and
communion with each of the Divine Three in their proper, hypostatic
character must be seen as either intentional or ontological in kind. Rahner,
finding the former inadequate and inclined to understand it as ultimately
reducible to mere appropriation, opts for the latter. Unquestionably there
has to be some ontological basis for the intentional union, and moreover
this can be achieved only in virtue of divine causality. The problem lies
in whether or not this causal influx can be ascribed to each Person in a
proper and unique way without denying thereby the unity and simplicity
of the divine essence which subsists triunely. Rahner is entirely logical in
refusing to explain this personal self-bestowal in extra-causal categories.
In terms of efficiency there can be no question here of three causalities but
only of one causality that subsists in a threefold real but only relatively
distinct manner; such causality, being the ipsa substantia Dei, is hypostasized triunely. But is there room at the heart of this for (in Rahner's
phrase) a "quasi-formal" causality on the part of each Person?
The controversy is by now a long-standing one and need not be reopened here. It must be said, nonetheless, that the Melchizedek-like phrase
"quasi-formal causality" can readily be given place in an intentional
theory of presence wherein each Divine Person is objectivized to the graced
soul as term of its cognitive and affective striving, thereby exercising a
specifying causality that is reductively of the formal order. On the other

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BOOK REVIEWS

hand, Rahner is by no means convincing in his attempt to extend the
formula to ontological presence, where it would mean that the Persons
are somehow intrinsic " forms," within the soul in an entitative (though
accidental) way. At bottom, I am inclined to think his discontent with
mere intentional presence is rooted in the Transcendentalist tendency to
equate being with knowing.
Intentional union is in fact greater than that which is strictly entitative;
when the knower and the known become one (and correlatively the lover
and the beloved) the perfection and actuality of the known and loved
become that of the knower and lover. Moreover, since the presence here
is achieved as a result of the dynamism of the human subject, there is
question not simply of a pure formal union of the intentional order but
of an underlying tending, both cognitive and affective, of the human person to the Divine Persons, i. e., of an intersubjectivity which becomes
through grace connatural to the human subject.
It is in the final section of the book, however, that Rahner attempts
his own original synthesis. Its dominating principle is that the one selfcommunication of God is characterized by two distinct, inner, mutually
related moments. (cf. pp. 84-85) This dual communication-known
by
faith in the Incarnation and the descent of the Spirit-can be experienced
in terms of four double aspects: origin-future; history-transcendence;
offer-acceptance;
and knowledge-love in which the first members of
each set on one hand and the second members on the other constitute a
unity. It is the nature of man as the one to whom God communicates
himself that accounts for the tension between these moments in each
instance, i.e., origin explaining the gratuity of the communication versus
future bespeaking its historicity in man; history as the presently achieved
conditions of grace versus transcendence as the open horizon of grace in
man who is still becoming; the offer of grace versus its acceptance in freedom; and, finally, knowledge versus love because these constitute a transcendental duality-they are " originally distinct and neither can be considered as a mere moment of the other." (p. 93) This bipartition in the
bestowal of grace reflects the duality of the "economic" Trinity (the
missions of the Son and the Pneuma) and sheds light on the two nonfree intra- Trinitarian processions. What Rahner is saying in essence is
that God's self-donation to man is at once, but distinctly so, historical
and historic. God's presence and concrete " thereness " in the world of
time and space is itself the opening up of a future that is not merely
evolutive and so pre-empted in the beginning but genuinely historic (a
process that is not historisch but geschichtlich). The tension here is not
arbitrary but mirrors an analogous and real opposition in God himself.
Necessary recourse to an Unoriginate Source to explain both the two
processions and the two missions completes the Trinity.
One implication of the approach Rahner here adopts is an eschewing of

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the term "person "-a word "not absolutely per se necessary to faith"
(p. 104) -in favor of " distinct manner of subsisting." (p. ll3) But
just how much of a gain is this? It does serve to preclude the tendency to
think of three conscious subjectivities in God; moreover, Rahner does
explicitly preclude any Modalistic interpretation of the formula. Less
certain is whether " manner " or "mode " adequately safeguards the
Divine Simplicity (at least in the popular mind), and whether the precise
meaning of " subsisting " is any less alien to contemporary man than
that of ontological " person." It is questionable whether we can make do
without recourse to "persona," "hypostasis," and "subsistentia" in the
highly refined intelligibility these words began to assume for Christian
faith from the time of the Cappodocian Fathers in the East and St.
Hilary in the West. Strangely enough, little attention has been paid by
contemporary writers to the relationality that is indigenous to these terms,
for example, in the Thomistic tradition as represented by Capreolus and
in the gnoseology of Merleau-Ponty.
At any rate, Rahner's achievement here is constructive, of high originality, and profoundly illuminating. If it only opens the way to work yet
to be done, it does mark a recovery of the speculative challenge in Trinitarian theology. St. Thomas noted that only an understanding of the
Trinity provides the key for unlocking the mysteries of creation and salvation (Summa Theol., I, q. 32, a. I, ad. 3) -thus the immense consequences of this theological endeavor of Rahner.
WILLIAM

J. HILL, 0. P.

Dominican H ouae of Studiel
Washington, D. C.

Early Christian Fathers. The Library of Christian Classics, volume I. Ed.
by Cyril C. Richardson. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970.
Pp. 415. $2.95.
The Macmillan Company of New York and Toronto has at last undertaken to reprint in paperback form some of the excellent translations which
first appeared in the Library of Christian Classics published by the Westminster Press of Philadelphia. The present volume, as edited by Dr. C. C.
Richardson, the distinguished Washburn Professor of Church History at
Union Theological Seminary in New York, still remains the superb, solid
piece of work it was when it first appeared in 1953.
The editor has distributed his chores as follows: E. R. Hardy has the
difficult First Apology of Justin Martyr and some important selections
from lrenaeus; E. R. Fairweather translates the anonymous Epistle to

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Diognetus; M. Hamilton Shepherd handles the Epistle of Polycarp to the
Philippians, as well as the moving anonymous document called the Martyrdom of Polycarp; and the editor himself, with the lion's share, wrote the
general Introduction, and translated the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,
the Didache, the First and Second Epistle of Clement (so-called) , and the
Embassy for Christians of Athenagoras. In accord with the policy of the
series, the special introductions which preface each section discuss the
major problems connected with each work and supply a very ample bibliography (up to 1950); but for further literature the student can easily
consult the bibliographies of Altaner and Quasten, F. L. Cross, The Early
Christian Fathers (London, 1960), as well as the reviewer's Mentor-book,
The Fathers of the Primitive Church (New York, 1966). There are also
the parallel volumes which have appeared in the Penguin-Pelican series,
Ancient Christian Writers, and the Fathers of the Church Series.
The Richardson text can still serve the serious student as a first-rate
initiation to the problems of early Christian literature; of related texts it
only lacks the Epistle of Barnabas, Hermas, the Acts of the Scillitan
Martyrs, and the account of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne under
Marcus Aurelius. Of course, it is only natural that a number of problems
have somewhat changed in emphasis over the course of the years: the
theology of Ignatius, the problem of the early martyrs, the Didache, the
structure of the Epistle to Diognetus. Methodius of Tyre, as he is here
called, is now more correctly referred to as Methodius of Olympus; and
it is less certain now that Athenagoras' speech (which Richardson translates as "A Plea") was really a fiction and not actually delivered: see
the note by J. H. Crehan in his volume on Athenagoras in ACW 9!3
(Westminster, 1956), p. 9!7. But these are minor points which merely
serve to make the study of the early Church all the more fascinating.
It would appear that with the trend of Catholic theology since the
Second Vatican Council there was a certain neglect of the patristic writers'
sources, at least in the English-speaking world. This, it would seem, was
a sad mistake. Let us hope that the reappearance of the present text, in
a series which was one of the pioneers in patristic translations in America,
will augur a welcome renaissance in the study of those precious sources
that are preserved in the treasury of ancient Christian literature. For the
student will find that the Richardson text will prove a very useful key to
unlocking a long neglected hoard. The volume is well-indexed and heavily
bibliographical; and it is to be hoped that the entire series of Westminster
translations can be reprinted by Macmillan in the same format, and that
teachers and students will offer encouragement to the publishers to keep
such invaluable books of reference available at all times.
HERBERT

Fordham University
Bronz, New York

MusURILLo, S. J.

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181

Theology of Ecumenism. Theology Today Series: 9. By MicHAEL HuRLEY,
S. J. Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, 1969. Pp. 96. $0.95.
Within its small compass this is an admirable book. Perhaps the title
is misleading, since it is not really occupied with a discussion of ecumenical
problems, such as the Churches are faced with today, or with the origins
and progress of the ecumenical movement. It deals in the main with the
ecumenist himself, the reasons why he should be impelled in his search
for ecumenism, the obstacles he will have to overcome in his search, the
real impediments against a coming together as against the reputed obstacles to reunion, the line to be followed in drawing prospective converts to
the Church, the crucial necessity for the Church herself to be always
striving for aggiornamento as the one real objective of ecumenism. You
finish each chapter with a sense of satisfaction; each follows in logical
order, dealing with the common objections to a hope for reunion and
reviving faith in what appears to be a desperate case. Immediately after
the Second Vatican Council hopes were riding high and reunion of the
Churches appeared to be just around the corner; but as the years have
gone by, as the difficulties have not diminished in any way, as the road
seems to be without end, and the short cuts to unity such as intercommunion have been ruled out of order, hope is giving way to despair;
on many sides there is the inclination to throw down the sponge and to
abandon a policy which appears devoid of any tangible results. The author
revives both one's faith and one's hope.
What pleases me most in this treatment of the subject is the strong
chain of reasoning, the arguments marshalled in order, so that it is impossible to avoid the conclusions, so well are they linked together; and
yet the central point of this book is that the real obstacle to union is not
difference in dogma, not even a different explanation given to articles of
belief. The real obstacle lies in the historical development of the past,
the prejudices and animosities that have been formed over the years, the
unwillingness to accept that one has been wrong in the past, the irreconcilability of positions which have been reinforced by the consequences of
history. The real differences do not follow from different beliefs; in fact,
beliefs have so little to do with the attitudes of the various churches that
their differences in belief can be reconciled in a short time when theologians and scholars meet and discuss these matters in an atmosphere of
real honesty. But the factors which have really caused opposition and
resentment in the past cannot be overcome except by charity, a realization that the true love of God must entail an acceptance of the truth
whatever the difficulties, a real regret for our own sins of the past and
a readiness to undo their consequences, a courage to shed prejudices which
have grown up and become second nature. These are the roadblocks which
human pride and human sensitivity have set up and which only the
power of charity can overcome.

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I have said that this little book is admirable: it is admirable not alone
in its power of reasoning; it is yet more admirable in its healthy optimism,
in its courage in the face of difficulties, in its readiness to confront the
future whatever the snags might be. It is an admirable blend of reasoning
and faith and is stimulated by a charity that is stronger than both.

J. RAYMOND
Archbishop's House
Nagpur, India

Il Corpo Mistico e le sue relazioni con l'Eucaristia in S. Alberto Magno.
By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Preface by Andre Combes. Studi di Teologia
Medievale della Pontificia Universita Lateranense, 1. Rome: Pontificia
Universita Lateranense, 1969. Pp. 211.
The Lateran University's new series of monographs in medieval theology
opens with a reprint of Msgr. Piolanti's 1939 study of Albert the Great's
teaching on the Mystical Body. No changes are made except for the
laudatory preface by Msgr. Combes and a new paragraph by the author.
A good introduction situates Albert within a third and fuller period of
development of medieval theology on the Mystical Body. Piolanti then
describes the many works containing Albert's teaching on this subject;
unfortunately the Mariale and the Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis,
no longer accepted as Albert's works, are used in some areas of his study.
which therefore needs revision in these places.
In the first of two main parts Piolanti organizes Albert's texts in a clear,
generally satisfactory order, studying Christ as Head together with his
members, the various causes of the union in the Mystical Body, and the
consequences of this union. Albert teaches that, while Christ is Head of
the angels, he is Head of men in the fullest sense because, besides being
as God principle of their spiritual life (as he is of angels'), he has a conformity of nature with men. Christ's fulness of grace as Head originates
from and is demanded by the grace of union but is formally constituted by
his sanctifying grace. Lacking a concept of physical instrumental cause,
Albert holds that Christ causes grace only by his divine nature: as man
he influences the reception of grace by his members through his merit,
mediation, and exemplar causality. These, plus sharing human nature
itself, he includes under Christ's conformity of nature with his members:
Piolanti, however, misinterprets the texts by equating conformity with
exemplarity alone and by overlooking conformity of nature. (p. 68)
Albert enriches Anselm's theology of merit and satisfaction by empha-

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sizmg the mystical union with Christ of men who thereby share his
merits and satisfaction. Members of the Mystical Body include not only
men on earth but also the blessed in heaven and souls in purgatory.
Sinners present a greater problem: they belong to the Mystical Body
only through faith and as subjects of its authority (here and elsewhere
Piolanti confuses issues by linking the Mystical Body with interior elements and the Church with exterior elements, a later view abandoned
today). Albert's use of some of the scriptural metaphors (body, spouse,
temple, vine) relating to Christ and his members is described all too
briefly. His valuable discussion of the Holy Spirit presents this Person as a
parallel operator of effects whose author is Christ, on whom he depends.
Albert furthers the theology of the communion of saints by insisting that
this is not, as his predecessors held, only or mainly a communion of sacraments but rather a communion of goods.
The second main part studies the important relationships of the
Eucharist with the Mystical Body. Although Albert lacks great originality
here, his personal inspirational style and approaches are interesting, as is
his use of natural science to develop Eucharistic symbolism of the Mystical
Body. For him the grace of unity by incorporation in Christ is the work
of the Eucharist alone. As for the relationships of the other sacraments
such as Baptism, Penance, and Matrimony, Albert develops in a number
of texts a richer doctrine than the three texts quoted by Piolanti would
indicate.
The author's presentation is clear and concise if sometimes repetitious.
His interpretation of the texts is, with a few exceptions, accurate. Although
Piolanti carefully situates Albert's positions within the history of theology,
he rarely looks for possible development within Albert's own thought. His
work has the merit of using Albert's less formal theological writings, but
it treats insufficiently Albert's use of metaphor and analogy, and underplays his scriptural bases. Finally, the book is marred by well over a
hundred printing errors that should have been corrected in a reprint.
Msgr. Piolanti's study was in 1939 a valuable contribution in the light
of the scholarship and problematic of the Mystical Body at that time, and
its reprinting at this time furnishes a still-useful guide to Albert's thought.
But it is regrettable that the undoubtedly busy rector could not find time
to revise his work in view of recent historical research and with an eye to
contemporary insights into the Mystical Body that would have prompted
him to further probings and research in Albert's doctrine.
WALTER

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
Toronto, Canada

H. PRINCIPE,

c. s. B.

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The Spirit and Power of Christian Secularity.
ScHLITZER, C. S.C. Notre Dame:
1969.

Edited by ALBERT L.
University of Notre Dame Press,

$10.00.

This symposium makes a broad contribution to the current study of
Christian secularity and the challenges implied in this. One notes the unconvinced attitude of many of the contributors as regards the claims of
the new secular theology, as much as one feels with them the frustration
about the secular-secularity-secularism vocabulary. For this reason, the
title of the volume might seem a little pretentious. However, it is certainly
a spirited and frank discussion of a vital issue; and certainly the book is
of interest to the specialist in this field.
Martin E. Marty leads off the discussion with " Secular Theology
as a Search for the Future."
He gives a good documentation of the
whole mood and aspiration of the thing we call "secular theology." He
shows rather well that, as it seeks for a viable future, this theological strain
does clarify some Christian emphases but leaves an element of confusion
behind. It is a concentration on the future that refuses, in some degree.
to face to the full eschatological dimensions of Christian hope.
William Cantwell Smith brings his historical erudition to bear in " Secularity and the History of Religion." (33-59) He admits the difficulty of
defining both secularity and religion and therefore proceeds in an explanatory manner, studying the interrelation of the two terms in some of
their possible combinations. His most interesting opinion is that this
secular concentration is entirely normal in the history of religious experience in that the whole of reality is grasped and illumined by religious
faith in some form or other. Illustrations are offered from the religion of the
ancient Egyptians, from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Hence, a truly
secular theology is by no means a modern concern, since all the great
religions have been concerned for the whole of life. The danger is that
the vital religious spirit can be evaporated and man be left with no
overall view of reality and life.
Bernard Cooke follows with "Secularity and the Scriptures." (71-87)
He briefly points out the inclusive power of faith in the Old and New
Testaments. The Old Testament accepted God as the Creator and sees
him acting within the events of history; it shows how the Chosen People
accepted and incorporated the secular realities of the kingship and the
Wisdom teaching. In the New Testament, there is the fundamental event
of the Incarnation embracing all aspects of the world. A secularity does
emerge that is a challenge to a truly Christian theology: the whole world
is claimed by God in Christ. From this there flows the necessity of
considering everything in relation to Christ.
Louis Dupre takes up " The Problem of Transcendence in Secular

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185

Theology." (100-113) He admits that the Transcendent cannot be named
on purely empirical grounds, but he demands that there be an affirmation
of the Transcendent as a logical outcome of the religious act. This act
requires a commitment. And such a commitment must be to a transcendent
reality. Otherwise there is no reason why anyone should give a special
place to Christ when he demands man's fidelity. Dupre makes interesting
comments about the parallel between secular theology and the negative
element in traditional theological thought, though he admits the cause
of the negation is different: in the latter, the very sense of the Transcendent; in the former, the exaltation of human autonomy. He goes on
to say that, in our times when there is such an acute sense of the contingency and relativity of man, it is not the time to play down the
presence of the Transcendent in human existence no matter how " secular "
one's theology might be.
" Secularization and Sacrament: Reflections on the Theology of Friedrich
Gogarten " (123-144) is the contribution of Theodore Runyon. He attempts to gain a surer understanding of the secular movement, and of
God-man relations through a use of the analogy of the Eucharist, and
the sacraments in general. Though he rejects what he terms the medieval
understanding of the Eucharist in terms of transsubstantiation,
he does
admit a more " secular " understanding of Eucharistic presence. Man
must live in the utter relativity of faith, yet at the same time he can
experience the world as the sacrament through which God gives himself.
The Eucharist is a celebration of this mediation of God's presence through
the secular.
E. Schillebeeckx presents " Silence and Speaking about God in a
Secularized World." (156-180) He illuminates the origin of the God-less
presuppositions of modern thought. On the other hand, he stresses that
the phenomenon of an increasing control over the resources of the world
is not necessarily committed to an atheistic interpretation. However, we
must seek out new ways of speaking about God, especially by legitimating
the basic religious question. This is to be done by analyzing the prereflexive trust that people have in the goodness of life and in the promise
of the future. In this way, theology will begin to speak once more about
God from the depths of human experience.
An appendix, "Israel's Moment of Freedom," by Walter Brueggenmann
concludes the book. (201-213) Interesting contrasts are drawn between
the comprehensive secularity of David and the stifling secularism of
Solomon.
Each contribution is followed by a well reported discussion. Here many
illuminating comments are made by the rather prestigious list of participants. Many issues and much intricate discussion obviously arise out
of theology's current "secular" concentration. Nonetheless, it emerges

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rather clearly that the real issue is the Incarnation; not so much how
the Incarnation can be fitted into a modern world view but how the
modern world in all the exuberance of its hope and achievment as in
all its experience of triviality and failure can be seen to stand already " in
Christ." The question must be asked, " What is the reality of a world
made in and through and for Christ? " . . . how does God claim our world
as his Own?

A. J. KELLY, c. ss. R.

Redemptorist Seminary,
Wendouree, Vic.
Australia.

The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry. Edited by Joseph Bobik. Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970. Pp. 312. $9.50.
Four years ago, Notre Dame inaugurated a lecture series which yearly
brings four or five outstanding philosophers to its campus, each for a
week of lectures, seminars, and talk. The topic that year was the nature
of philosophical inquiry, and the speakers were Stephan Korner, Martin
Versfeld, A. J. Ayer, Stephen Pepper, and 0. K. Bowsma. The present
volume, ably edited by Joseph Bobik (who contributed a helpful summarizing Introduction) , contains the public lectures, three from each philosopher except Korner, who condensed his three lectures into one. Perhaps
the most useful thing a reviewer can do is to sketch a rough map of
the ground covered by each of the lecturers.
For Korner, the task of philosophical inquiry at its highest level, the
task of the metaphysician, is to deal with " categorial frameworks," the
categorization of what is and what is knowable, the a priori assumptions
which underlie what we say. The metaphysician has the empirical task
of exhibiting the frameworks proposed by various philosophers; and, in particular, Korner argues that neither the method of phenomenological analysis used by Husser! nor the method of philosophical analysis is autonomous, for each can be shown to employ unquestioned a priori framework
assumptions. The metaphysician also has the job of modifying old, and
proposing new categorial frameworks: there is none that is absolute, none
is satisfactory for all human thinking at all times.
Martin Versfeld, who describes himself as "most at home in the atmosphere of existential phenomenology," develops and subscribes to Platonic
philosophy as he understands it. To philosophize is to come to know oneself, to grow in rational self-consciousness. The modern world adds to
Plato's insight a stronger sense of history and of the significance of time;
and so today we regard metaphysics as an essentially historical discipline

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which matures progressively, not only in the individual but also in the
human race. Versfeld also characterizes the philosopher as one whose
desire is to know the truth about truth, a desire which, however, can
never be fully satisfied since it is only in knowing being that he can know
truth-and he can never know being fully. He concludes with a lecture
in which he develops and defends the classical doctrine of truth as adequatio; for if there is a discipline such as metaphysics, a search for the
truth about being, it is only adequatio which describes its nature as metaphysical knowledge.
A. J. Ayer proceeds to pin down the special province of philosophy by
arguing against the tenability of the following current views: the philosopher deals with reality as a whole; or, is a sage good at telling people
how they ought to live; or, is one who judges the pronouncements of
those, ordinary men and scientists, who investigate the world at first hand.
The philosopher is rather one who clarifies, one who analyses what we say.
But this is not all. For the words we use carry a theoretical loading, and
it is not clear that the common sense conceptual scheme underlying common usage is to be preferred to all other conceptual systems or theoretical
backgrounds. The most preferred conceptual system or background or
metaphysics is that which best meets the criteria of intelligibility, explanatory power, and convenience; such systems are judged as instruments
rather than as ways of seeing more clearly into the nature of reality. Of
the four theoretical backgrounds which Ayer considers, one, absolute idealism, has most difficulty in achieving intelligibility; another, divine agency,
fails to explain; and of the remaining two not eliminated, one, physicalism,
is to be preferred to the other, Berkeleainism, on the grounds of convenience in saying what we want to say, problem solving, etc.
Stephen Pepper argues that the method of philosophy is the method
of hypothesis, of tentative search for insight; and that which characterizes
philosophy by contrast with science is comprehensiveness of hypotheses,
the fact that hypotheses are world hypotheses. There are a limited number of such world hypotheses, each developed out of a root metaphor or
basic model, each an attempt to furnish a comprehensive insight into the
world. Pepper particularly discusses his "new" world hypothesis (and
how he arrived at it) , " selectivism," developed from the metaphor of the
means-end relation, whereby the power of the drive for the end charges
the drive for the particular means which gets us to the end. Pepper also
discusses analytic philosophy, which he finds does not take adequate
account of the fact that common sense is a domain partly characterized
as one of confusion, vagueness, and contradictions, offering only partial,
not comprehensive, insight. His last lecture is a discussion of Sartrean
existentialism as a world hypothesis, which he evaluates as being like
mysticism in lacking " scope," in not taking into account all the facts;
Sartre's existentialism is, though, permanently valuable as subsumable

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under selectivism in its descriptive analyses of human purposive activities.
0. K. Bowsma, like Wittgenstein, sees the main task of philosophy to
be that of dispelling by plain talk various " misunderstandings," illusions
of sense and understanding. He proceeds not so much like one who, standing back and looking at philosophy, reports what he sees but rather, by
exhibiting philosophy in action, demonstrationes ad sensum of Wittgensteinian analysis. He displays the art of dispelling illusion in probing for
the misunderstanding involved in asking a question like, " What is consciousness? "; in Descartes' Cogito; and, at length, in Anselm's ontological
argument, which leads him to the conclusion that Anselm lifted a collection of sentences out of their natural home in Scripture and put them
in new and strange surroundings-in which environment they cause all
sorts of difficulties.
One gathers from the Preface that there will be other volumes coming
from the Notre Dame lecture series and that we can anticipate sets of
lectures, similar to this excellent collection, on approaches to ethics, on
the historiography of philosophy, and on epistemology.
RoBERT L. CuNNINGHAM
University of San Francisco
San Francisco, California

Christian Philosophy in the 20th Century. An Essay zn Philosophical
Methodology. By ARTHUR F. HoLMES. Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press,
1969. Pp. 57. $4.95.
The subtitle which the author has given to his work, An Essay in
Philosophical Methodology, identifies for the reader the nature of his proposal. It is not a question of history, or of Christian philosophy in the
twentieth century, or of discussions of which Christian philosophy was the
object notably during the last forty years. The author intends to define
what a Christian philosophy ought to be today in view of the situation
created by the currents of contemporary philosophy. He is convinced that
Christian philosophy must exist; its features must be determined. Rather
than engaging in theoretical discussions, the author applies himself to
creating before our gaze the image of Christian philosophy such as he
has conceived of it, by means of an historical dialogue, that is, the
concrete confrontation of Chrisian thought and the philosophical currents
of our time.
The idea of Christian philosophy, which is clarified little by little in
the course of this work, is sketched out in the first chapter which serves

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as an introduction. To accept the idea of a Christian philosophy is evidently to reject the dilemma: either Christianity or philosophy. (p. 2) It
is thus to recognize that Christian faith must exercise an internal influence upon reason, transform life, thought and the view that it brings to
the world, "interpret the meaning of all things in the light of the revelation which God has made of himself in Christ." (ibid.) Christian philosophy should not be, however, a crypto-theology. It differs from theology
in its method, which is philosophical, and in its matter, since philosophy
is not concerned with certain problems of the theological order, and, on
the other hand, certain philosophical problems have no theological interest. (ibid.) It differs from the philosophy of religion in the extent of its
horizon. It indeed embraces all philosophical disciplines. It is sensitive to
the influence of the Christian perspective, although certain philosophical
problems are not susceptible of being treated or clarified by the Christian
faith. (p. 3)
Christian philosophy thus remains truly philosophy, but "philosophy
framed from a perspective which is its own." (ibid.) It is philosophy, since
it is open to the array of objects envisaged by philosophy. It is not the
whole of philosophy but one tradition beside many others and, like the
other traditions, it is pluralistic. For it must, as all philosophy, confront
horizons which are ever changing by expanding, because a true philosophy
does not exist which does not need ceaselessly to criticize itself, to renew
its formulas and its expressions, in a word, to refine itself. ( p. 3-4) Holmes
continuously returns to and clarifies throughout his work the perspectivist
and pluralist conception of philosophy in general and of Christian philosophy in particular. He comes back to it at length at the end of the
first chapter (p. 29-38) after having reviewed the recent polemic between
the partisans and the adversaries of the historical existence of a Christian
philosophy, in the patristic era and in the Middle Ages (negative response of Brehier, Wild, Dooyeweerd), with the Reformers or with modern
philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, Hegel (p. 8-15) and having discussed the conceptions of Blonde!, Gilson, Maritain, Nedoncelle, Dooyeweerd, Gordon Clark. (p. 15-28)
The perspectivist and pluralist conception of Christian philosophy defended by Holmes is put to the proof in the course of the work by confrontation with the situation created in philosophy by recent changes. Chapters
2-4, which represent more than half of the work, are dedicated to the
examination of the present state of philosophy which is characterized by
the revolt against scientism (chapter 2) and the appearance of two new
philosophical methods: existentialism and phenomenology on the one hand,
(chap. 3) and analytical philosophy on the other. (chap. 4) These new
philosophies are opposed to the classical metaphysic. Holmes, however,
thinks that they are open to some authentic metaphysical perspectives,
and even more, that they necessarily imply metaphysical positions. The

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two final chapters endeavor to draw out a conception of metaphysics
which satisfies the demands of contemporary thought, while avoiding
following them in their erroneous conclusions, a conception which avoids,
on the one hand, rationalistic and scientistic dogmatism and, on the other
hand, skepticism and relativism. Such conceptions are indeed equally
incompatible with Christian philosophy as well as with the demands of
contemporary philosophy.
I have summarized with great care the contents of Holmes's work.
It is difficult to say more without becoming involved in developments
which go beyond the limits of a book review. Right to the last page
Holmes's exposition proceeds in the form of a confrontation with the
most diverse philosophical positions, from Descartes to Casserly and
Dilley, through Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dilthey, Jaspers, Husser! and
the different forms of existential phenomenology, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein and other representatives of analytical philosophy, and, finally,
a good half-dozen contemporary metaphysical theorists. Consequently, the
work offers the positive benefit of a vast and well-documented panorama
of a great part of modern and contemporary philosophy. Its unity is
assured by the general conclusion which emerges and which consists essentially, it seems to me, in the fact that contemporary philosophy has
broken with the cult of system, and, more particularly, with a form of
speculation in which the human subject figured uniquely as the builder
of the system. The problem of the raison d'etre and end of human existence becomes part and must become part of philosophy, if one asks of it
not only coherence but also truth, and in particular truth regarding the
destiny of man and the universe.
It is difficult not to agree immediately with the author on this point.
Consequently one would also immediately admit that Christianity, which is
essentially a revelation concerning the true salvation of man, finds itself
today in a new situation with regard to philosophy in the measure in which
philosophy affirms the need to take into consideration the question of
the meaning and the " why " of human existence. Thus Christianity is
actually in a more favorable condition to encounter philosophy helpfully
and to direct it towards its true " perspective." A philosopher who puts
himself in the Christian " perspective," who consequently accords to the
faith the primacy which belongs to it, wthout impairing the rigor of
philosophical interrogation, represents the Christian philosopher demanded
by the present situation. No doubt, as Holmes says so well, (p. 33) his
message will have the best chance of being heard and taken seriously.
What, however, will be the philosophical content of his message? On
this point Holmes shows himself to be comprehensive. This is deliberate,
seeing that he holds for, as we have said, pluralism as part of the human
condition of philosophy. This is not then, on his part, a concession to
relativism, of whatever kind it might be, but the expression, it seems to

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me, of the evident disproportion which exists between the totality of the
aim of philosophy and the limited character of the approaches permitted
the human spirit. Everyone should recognize, I think, that the era of a
unique, adequate philosophy will only dawn the day when human discourse shall have succeeded in identifying itself effectively with the totality
of reality and of the purpose which is pursued throughout its long history.
Within the limits of which he must be conscious it remains for the
Christian philosopher to justify theoretically the choice which he will make
of this or that "perspective." The final section of the work (p. 226-240)
considers the specific criteria of "the philosophical decision." Holmes
refuses, with reason, to allow patterns of thought, conceived for other
tasks, to determine a priori that which must be, in philosophy, either
conformity to experience or logical coherence, whose necessity is certainly
imposed here as for all knowledge of truth. But the truth sought by
philosophy, Holmes repeats once more, has reference to human existence
in its totality and to the universe in its totality. (p. 227) Thus it also
has its own criteria of validity.
In the final analysis, it is a philosophy of the nature of philosophy
which Holmes gives us, intended for the philosopher who today will
want to call himself a Christian as much as a philosopher. His philosophy
will not be systematic, in the sense that one understands rationalism, nor
purely historical or existential without the search for a truth susceptible
of being demonstrated. It includes the fundamental problem of the meaning of human existence, without neglecting however other forms of truth.
It is a total philosophy the idea of which is present everywhere in the work
of Holmes and of which we are shown how urgent it would be to define
the epistemological status. A metaphilosophy, whose necessity is enjoined,
and which could exploit many of the avenues of approach. Among them
must be included, besides those already used by Holmes, those of Gadamer
for example, that is, philosophers of the hermeneutic school who have been
inspired by Heidegger.
Before concluding, I would like to make a remark concerning St. Thomas
Aquinas, as the title of this journal, The Thomist, invites me. I will not
insist on the citations borrowed from Dooyeweerd (p. 23) and Wild
(p. 8-9). The latter citation especially is so surprising that it seems to
emanate from some impassioned caricaturist rather than from a scholar
anxious to understand objectively the author of whom he is speaking. I
would rather recall that in St. Thomas there are two forms of truth
which together constitute the whole field: speculative truth on the one
hand, practical truth on the other. The latter, which St. Thomas sometimes also calls veritas vitae, is not that of the artisan, hence of the
technician, but of the human being who judges according to a right appetite when it is a matter of making a decision in the moral order. For St.
Thomas, ethics is a matter of truth, not firstly of the will, even the will

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of the legislator. A somewhat attentive reading of the tract on prudence
in the Summa Theologiae, clarified in case of need by the excellent commentary which Pere Deman has given in the French translation published
by the Revue des Jeunes, suffices for arriving at an undersanding of the
importance of this mode of truth, and that it corresponds exactly to the
existential truth whose necessity contemporary philosophy has so correctly
underlined. Theological rationalism in general, but also voluntarism, to
which the advent of legalism in moral corresponds, allowed us to forget the
existence of the veritas vitae, its specific character, its indispensable role
in the constitution of a human being authentically oriented to the last
end. But it is also the notion of orientation to the final end which would
have to be recaptured in order to rid it of so many erroneous interpretations of which it has been and of which it continues to be the object. In
any case, it is to the ensemble: speculative truth and practical truth, that
our contemporary problem of philosophic truth must be brought back.
Many perspectives would be modified by it.
Mr. Holmes invites us to reflect on the synthesis of different forms of
truth in their unity with a view to defining the status of Christian philosophy. I would wish that, after this work whose aim seems to have
been above all to clear the ground, he will give us the positive contribution
for which the present work gives us hope.

L. B. GEIGER, 0. P.
Albertinum
Fribourg, Switzerland

Language and Illumination. Studies in the History of Philosophy. By S.
MoRRIS ENGEL. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969. Pp. 150. 19.80
guilders.
Even though all these essays have appeared at least once before in print,
it is useful to have them drawn together here, mainly because Dr. Engel
has a somewhat off-beat approach that deserves the reinforcement that this
book affords. He characteristically brings his scholarship in the literature
of the history of western philosophy into contact with current interests
among philosophers of language. Thus in contrast to the frequently ahistorical bias of many linguistic philosophers today, his studies add a sense
of depth-and challenge-to contemporary concerns.
The " illumination " of the title works in both directions, I think: from
present to past and from past to present. The first two essays, for example,
on the linguistic theories of Hobbes and Locke, respectively, assume the
standpoint of modern interests and techniques. Hobbes's credentials as
semantical analyst are considered and found not, after all, to be so im-

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pressive as some current thinkers suppose. Engel argues that Hobbes was
less interested in dispassionate logical analysis than in the substantive
defense of his philosophical position. Locke, in contrast, is defended as
much more sophisticated-if
the whole context of his discussion of
language is considered-than modern conceptual analysts normally notice.
In the other direction, from past to present, Engel raises pertinent questions about the adequacy of current linguistic philosophy on the strength
of stubborn historical facts that fail to fit modern doctrines. His study
entitled "Isomorphism and Linguistic Waste," to choose the best example,
challenges the widely accepted view that " category-mistakes " and " systematically misleading expressions" (to use two of Gilbert Ryle's famous
formulations) are in fact philosophically fruitless and damaging. Engel
argues, on the contrary, that philosophical illumination has frequently
come from speaking of one subject matter in terms of another, something
he terms " isomorphism," and that such attempts " to throw light upon
two ostensibly different phenomena by revealing the common logical structure of both" (p. 41) have often been quite deliberate rather than due
merely to the insidious power of language to bemuse. His bold example,
for this study, is Schopenhauer. Engel stresses here that, rightly or
wrongly in specific cases, one of the prime (and proper) functions of
philosophy is the " attempt to lead us to see similarities where our
ordinary language tends to hide them from us or is as yet incapable of
embracing them." (p. 48) Ryle's identification of such a function as mere
linguistic mystification, therefore, is in reality a rejection of (or a failure
to see) the synthesizing, unifying, creative function of philosophy itself.
The history of philosophy permits us to know " quite well why thinkers
like Schopenhauer speak in the very odd way they often do and what
that speech means. To charge them with using misleading language is to
miss the whole point." (p. 54)
The range of interests shown here is wide. There are themes from
the philosophy of religion, as in Engel's essay on "Kant's 'Refutation'
of the Ontological Argument " and in his treatment of the problem of evil
as illuminated by "isomorphism." There are themes from ethics, as in
the essay "Reason, Morals, and Philosophic Irony." And there are
technical problems in the history of philosophy, such as "An Early
Nietzsche Fragment on Language" (somewhat weak), and" On the' Composition ' of the Critique: A Brief Comment," or " Kant's Copernican
Analogy: A Re-examination" (fascinating examples of scholarly detective
work). This range makes for pleasant reading for those who enjoy the
essay form on its own terms and who, in consequence, are not disappointed
by absence of continuity or overall progression among the studies.
The book is well made and handsomely printed by Martinus Nijhoff.
FREDERICK

Dickinson College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania

FERRE

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The Visages of Adam. Ed. by H. A. Nielson, New York: Random House,
1970. Pp. 385. $3.75.

Belief, Knowledge, and Truth. Ed. by R. R. Ammerman and M. G.
Singer. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. Pp. 532. $4.95.
The purpose of Visages of Adam is to offer a selection of readings for
an introductory course in Philosophical Literature or the Philosophy of
Man, to present the basic points of view that are strongly in evidence
today bearing upon the personal, interpersonal, and religious dimensions
of human life. The criterion for selecting the readings is their relatedness
to the question of how one is to regard his own existence.
A division into three parts purports to present relevant readings on how
philosophers consider man: as a subject in himself, in relation to his
perceptual environment, and as a creature. The theme of the anthology
is that philosophical problems raised by Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius etc.,
find their resolution in a kind of Kierkegaardian fideism. The order of the
materials, etc., is presented in a manner presupposing an unmentioned
acceptance of the existential phenomenological approach to the study of
man.
The first part expresses three views of man: the conditions of the individual via Socrates' defence of himself in the Apology and Aristotle's
discussion of happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics; cosmological approaches
to man are conveyed by Lucretius's view of death and Schopenhauer's view
of the will. The Christian resolution of what the editor considers to be the
problematic nature of the above views is represented by Kierkegaard's
insistence that the true man is conscious of living as an individual responsible to God and by Marcel's dynamics of the human personality. The
second part primarily presents the difficulties of defining a social virtue
in concreto according to Plato together with Aristotle's views of the State
and the individual as contrasted with Engel's defence of Dialectical Materialism and its moral consequences. Again, the view is that what the
philosophers cannot resolve is resolved via faith represented by St.
Augustine.
The third part views man as a creature via Pascal's assertion that, due
to the conflicting tendencies found in man as a result of his sinfulness,
man can only attain to " truth "via the grace of God, and via Kierkegaard's
view that only God can truly teach because he can convey Truth and the
conditions for understanding it. This is followed by Nietzche's proclamation of the death of God and Maritain's observation that absolute
atheism in a reflection of the prevalence of the practical atheism of many
believers.
It is questionable whether these readings as presented adequately serve
as the basis of a course in the Philosophy of Man, etc. The theme of the

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195

book tends to absorb philosophy into theology via a kind of fideism. The
insufficient introductory material leaves the student confronted with a
series of conclusions of different authors but without the required knowledge of their place in the total corpus; moreover it fails to convey the
nature of philosophy as a definite discipline. The failure to present the
student with any Anglo-American philosophy and classical or scholastic
thought on the nature of the soul is an unfortunate defect in the presentation of the views prevelant today. Finally, in choosing the anthological
approach to the teaching of philosophy, is not the purpose to show what
men have said about things rather than how the truth of things stands?
The editors of the anthology, Belief, Knowledge, and Truth, neither
attempt to provide the reader with the history of what philosophers have
said in regard to belief, knowledge, and truth, nor readings which could
provide the basis of comparison of the various major schools of philosophy
on these epistemological issues. Rather they have chosen to provide a
good preamble to an intensive study of the problematic nature of defining belief, knowledge, and truth in the Anglo-American philosophical
tradition. The various schools of this tradition-Analytical
Philosophy,
Pragmatism, and Critical Realism-are represented in this rather extensive anthology. The consideration of belief, knowledge, and truth in these
schools was generated for the most part from their reaction to the context these terms were given in the empiricism of Locke and Hume and
the Critiques of Kant. There is more than a topical unity to the reading
because in many instances the readings are specific critical commentaries
on the preceding readings.
The discussion of belief revolves around the view that belief, whether
it concerns a natural belief in regard to the veracity of one's knowing
powers or involves one in a religious faith, is a kind of unanalyzed knowl·
edge which, when reflected upon and analyzed, is found to be merely
opinion and not sufficient in its certitude to be called knowledge. The
discussion of knowledge is permeated by the difficulty of properly defining the given in sensation in precise empirical terms and the resulting
difficulty of performing an act of induction that would suffice to produce
concepts marked by sufficient certitude to be called true.
In the section on truth, one is confronted with a theory that truth
consists in the correspondence in identical linguistic terms of our judgment to the judgment of another or others even though the terms might
have different meanings for each individual. This is contrasted primarily
with the coherence notion of truth as the logical connection of the contents
of experience into a systematic significant whole and the pragmatic notion
of truth as the expedient way of our thinking. However, it seems to be
the case that all of these theories of truth presuppose what I would term
the view of truth as the intentional conformity of the mind to reality, or,
more properly, the adequation of the intellect (or man's other knowing

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powers) to that which is known. For, when one purports any of these
other theories of truth stating that truth consists in some other relationship of the mind to its object, the proponents of these theories are in fact
claiming that their theory of truth is the result of an adequation of their
intellect to the real operation of the human knowing powers, etc.
Notwithstanding the above, if I have understood the intentions of the
editors and what they hope to present, they seem to have adequately
accomplished their goal. Nevertheless, I do believe that the presentation
of a well-written introduction to each of the three segments of the book
would make a significant improvement in this book as a source-book in
epistemological reading from Anglo-American philosophy.
JosEPH CALIFANO
St. John's University
Jamaica, New York

Truth and the Historicity of Man. Proceedings of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association, Volume XLIII (Washington, D.C.), 1969.
The endeavor of the 1969 convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, as reflected in its published proceedings, was directed toward working out an understanding of truth adequate to the
requirements of contemporary thought with particular attention to religion and morals. The theme was set by W. Noris Clarke's presidential
address, which proposed the challenge of "facing up to the truth about
human truth" and emphasized the relevance of conceptual and linguistic
frameworks in an effort to explain how truth can be characterized by both
" absoluteness and relativity, permanence and mutability, universality
and cultural peculiarity." Further epistemological studies were offered
by Edward MacKinnon ("The Role of Conceptual and Lingustic Frameworks ") and David Burrell (" Truth and Historicity:
Certitude and
Judgment"); the former was concerned especially with applications in
the philosophy of science and theology, while the latter, stressing the
objectivity-subjectivity
problem, was oriented toward ethical considerations.
The other three major papers were devoted specifically to moral
philosophy. Leo Ward, recipient of the Aquinas Medal from the Association, addressed himself to the problem of moral norms, particularly the
love-versus-law issue raised in different ways by existentialist and situationist ethicians. James M. Gustafson's paper, "What Ought I To
Do?," pointed up the factors which particularize the prudential judgment

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and make for relativity in certain moral decisions; Ralph Mcinerny's
complementary paper, "Truth in Ethics: Historicity and Natural Law,"
offered basically a summary of Thomistic teaching on the permanent
and the flexible aspects of natural law.
In the panel discussions also the most voluminous material was devoted to ethics. The first paper, "Authority and Morals," by R. L.
Cunningham, relied upon an exclusively naturalistic and functional view
of authority in order to dismiss the binding force of papal teaching on
moral matters, specifically contraception. Gerald Dalcourt, who some
years earlier had proposed wisdom instead of prudence as the primary
cardinal virtue (International Philosophical Quarterly, 1968), here suggested somewhat analogously that agape rather than justice should be
listed as the principal moral virtue; actually his description of agape
approximates what conventional Thomists would have called " justice and
the allied virtues." The final paper in the ethics section, which is also
the longest of all the panel discussion offerings, is John N. Deely's "Evolution and Ethics." The author argues that evolutionary thought has
not reduced all ethics to relativity and that it has, in fact, served to vindicate the classical insistence on the continuity between the philosophy
of nature and ethics.
BRUCE

A. WILLIAMS, 0. P.

St. John's University
Jamaica, N. Y.

Jean-Paul Sartre: His Philosophy. By Rene Lafarge. Tr. by Marina
Smyth-Kok. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970.
Pp. 208. $6.50.
One more book has been added to the already densely crowded literature on Sartre. In less than 200 pages, widespaced with generous margins,
Notre Dame University Press has translated Rene Lafarge's book, originally published in French two years ago. The author gives us a bird's eye
view of Sartre's philosophy, covering everything from Nausea through
the Critique de la Raison Dialectique with special emphasis upon Being
and Nothingness. Since that road at that speed has been covered many
times before, one cannot help wondering if the book has not come too
late. In some ways this is indeed so, since much of the content has already been said, and at much greater length. However this would not do
this latest excursion full justice. Lafarge, unlike some other summarizing
commentators, knows his topic very well. I was impressed by the sharpness of his insights and by his great skill in showing the connection between the literary work and the purely philosophical publications. Much
as we admire Nausea, its unstructured mode of presentation remains a

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challenge. Lafarge has done an excellent job in situating Nausea m the
general philosophy of Sartre. Indeed, the chapter on Nausea is m my
opinion the best of the entire book.
The author is French, ostensibly writing for a French audience. He
writes in that fluent prose that seems to tackle difficult problems with
such facility and ease, a style that the non-French reader may even
find flippant. But this is not intended by the author. It is simply the
way the French write for one another. Lafarge belongs to that class of
French intellectuals who, consciously or unconsciously, still believe that
most of the world's culture lies within their own borders. The result,
of course, is that very few non-French writers are mentioned, with the
exception of Hegel, Marx and occasionally Heidegger.
I should add that Lafarge is a follower of Maritain.
(Incidentally,
the original French edition was published in Toulouse, where Maritain
lives in semi-retirement in the house of Les Petits Freres de Charles de
Foucauld.) To some this may appear to be a guarantee of orthodoxy;
to others it may appear as a handicap. In the discussion on God Lafarge
turns to a Thomistic approach to refute the atheistic existentialist.
Whether the statement that "the contingent implies the Necessary"
is cogent, however, can in my opinion be dealt with on the condition
that the Necessary is distinct from the contingent. It seems to this
writer that Thomism has still not faced its greatest foe, which is not so
much atheism as it is pantheism. It seems futile to fight a fierce battle
against atheism when a much more subtle enemy is at the door, in the
form of monism.
No one will deny that the facts are infinitely complex. Last year in a
long conversation with Sartre on the notion of God, I had the definite
impression that atheism is a hard conquest and that Sartre has both won
the battle and yet not won it. "Let us put it this way," said Sartre,
" I am an atheist and an unbeliever. At times though, almost by distraction, I catch myself in the act of being a theist. It is as if centuries
of Christianity get hold of me. But, of course, I shake this off quickly!
You know, I am an atheist; un athee et un incroyant." Sartre, elaborating
upon this theme, stated that ideas have a certain mobility, that in the
restlessness of the mind they come and go but that there is nonetheless
one which is predominant and habitual. This is the one which betrays
the assent of the man.
All in all, Lafarge has attempted to take an objective position in his
discussion of Sartre. He even concludes with the statement that we must
not underestimate Sartre's eloquent plea in favor of man, his freedom
and his dignity. Nothing could be more true. It has taken a while for
Thomists to evaluate at their just measure the contribution of the adversary, be it Sartre or anybody else.
WILFRID

Georgetown University
Washington, D. 0.

DEBAN

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Judaism and Ethics. Ed. By DANIEL

SILVER. New York:

KTAV

Publishing House, 1970. Pp. 338. $10.00.
This is a collection of essays originally published in the CCAR Journal,
the scholarly publication of the Central Conference of American Rabbis,
representative of Reformed Judaism. Excellent in literary quality and
nobility of ethical sensitivity, these essays range from the abstract to the
concrete, but unfortunately the abstract predominates. In the following
I will mention the topics that seem to be of special interest.
Irwin M. Blank raises the question: "Is there a Common Judaeo·
Christian Ethical Tradition", and concludes that after the third century
there is none and that " where specific ethical responses coincide, they are
coincidental." The principal reason he gives is as follows:
Judaism and Christianity are making different and irreconcilable assertions
about what it is possible to know about God. Therefore, their answer to the
question what if anything can man do to being good in the universe will be
m disagreement. For Christians the ultimately real is already the embodiment
of the god. Therefore, man can only bring some good into the universe.
For the Jew Torah expresses whatever can be known of the ultimate reality.
Man can know and fulfill its requirements.
Therefore, the "ought " is not
to know God, which is impossible, because he is the Unique One, but to do
His Torah. It must follow that where the sense of both the " ought" and
the concept of the " good " do not correspond, the ethical system which flows
from them will manifest this lack of correspondence. (p. 104 f.)

This is not very convincing. On the one hand, Christian theology also
emphasizes the mystery of God and the fact that he is known to us
through his dealings (Torah is a Covenant) with us. On the other hand,
it would be an impoverishment of the Jewish tradition to ignore its
mystical side, the I- Thou encounter which Buber has made known to
all of us. Nor can it be sustained that the faith of the Jew is in Someone,
while the faith of the Christian is in something (death and resurrection of
Jesus) as Blank (relying this time on Buber) asserts. (p. 102) As the
Jew believes in the God of the Exodus, so the Christian believes in
the God who sent his Son to die and rise for us. In both cases our
faith is first of all in God, but we know him through his acts in history.
It would seem that Rabbi Blank is too anxious to establish Jewish
identity by finding some unique Jewish teaching that non-Jewish cannot
accept. He bolsters his case by an excessive reliance on nco-orthodox
Protestant theologians who in their eagerness to be followers of Paul
have a way of minimizing the Jewish elements in the Christian tradition.
D. H. Silver, Eugene Lipman and Arthur Gilbert are on sounder grounds
when they emphasize that the unique Jewish witness is not to be found
in the exclusive possession of truths inaccessible to others but rather in the

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vitality of a People, a living community which by its suffering, courage,
restlessness, humor, and profound realism continually arouse the world
to seek God in the fullness of his mystery and to carry out his will in
the search for justice on earth.
I was particularly impressed by the essay of Steven S. Schwartzchild
"On the Theology of Jewish Survival " for its profound faith in the destiny
of this People and his repudiation of the idea that Jewish survival depends
on military victories. He gives three reasons from Jewish tradition for
saying that the Six-Day War should not be called a "miracle": (1) all
miracles must be in accordance with the Torah and halachah; (2) military
victories as such are never miracles; (3) many great rabbis preferred not
to live in the days of the Messiah if this meant witnessing the humiliation
of the Gentiles by the Jews. Would to God that Christians had always
kept these three points in mind as a remedy against triumphalism!
Granted the unique witness of Israel, this volume shows plainly enough
that Jews and Christians today are struggling with much the same ethical
problems and modes of solution. A comparison of the essay by the
Protestant theologian James A. Gustafson with the essays of Abraham
Edel, Norbert Samuelson, Emil L. Fackenheim, and Richard G. Hirsch
proves this convergence. Gustafson says that today two basis issues must
be met by moralists: (I) How do we get some objectivity into ethics?;
(2) What is the role of the community in forming values? Modern ethics,
he says, tends to be:
1)

2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)

dynamic rather than static,
open rather than closed,
a morality of love rather than law,
insistent on the liberty of the individual conscience,
future rather than past-oriented,
visceral rather than cerebral,
situational rather than universal in its norms,
conscious of God as acting in history rather than transcendent,
favoring creative responsibility rather than conformity.

It is really difficult to see anything but Christian-Jewish agreement on
this problematic. We cannot even say that Judaism takes "law" against
"love," since, as Jacob Neusner and Samuel Sandmel show in their
essays, the translation of Torah as " Law " is misleading. It means
the "divine design of the world" and is like the New Testament logos.
It is a "way" or "wisdom " rather than a mere code. However,
Sandmel in discussing the matter again falls into the trap of identifying
the Gospel with St. Paul's interpretation of the Gospel (and a Lutheran
Paul at that). Today it is recognized that the New Testament contains
a plurality of theologies which must be balanced if we are to get the

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201

right perspective on the Gospel. To make Paul's version an exclusive
norm inevitably leads to a one-sidedness which perpetuates the division
between Jews and Christians.
Not only our problematic but our methods of ethical reasoning have
much in common. Nor bert Samuelson, using linguistic analysis shows
that we must find a middle-way betwen contextual (situational) ethics
and Kant's ethics of autonomy. Eugene Lipman neatly summarizes the
Jewish ways of making conscientious decisions: "Consulting recorded
Torah maximally; I must consult the passionate, the compassionate and
learned maximally; and I must pray." (p. 268) Finally, he uses "Yom
Kippur " for all it is worth if the action turns out to have been a sin.
(p. 269) The modern Christian follows the same path, although for
him Torah includes the New Testament, and his Yom Kippur is the
sacrament of penance.
Certainly, also, a Christian theologian like Harvey Cox would agree
with Julian N. Hartt's view that the modern image of man in relation
to God which is ethically most helpful is probably not that of man as
"darling of God," "victim," "stranger," or "plastic man," but rather
as " The Player " who needs to learn to " dance before the Lord." Many
Christian theologians would also agree with Hans Jonas's eloquent essay
in which he warns against losing the Biblical view of man as a limited
creature made to praise God's wisdom in creation rather than as an
exploiter and master of the world through scientific technology. However,
others (including myself) would find more help in the " messianic ethics,"
based on the thought of the 19th-century Jewish thinker Herman Cohen,
and proposed here against by Michael Meyer, which is:
1. future oriented,
2. prophetic,
3. seeking the salvation of the community,
dividual,
4. envisioning a " God of the Future."

rather than just the m-

Meyer, however, wishes to find a contrast between Christianity and
Judaism by arguing that Christians look for individual salvation, Jews
for community salvation. Again, the Christian has to reply: "Well, I
prefer to agree with you."
On particular concrete issues it sometimes appears that these reformed
Jews are rather conservative. Thus Lou H. Silberman argues that according
to Jewish tradition the marriage of a Jew to a Christian has "no validity
from the standpoint of Jewish Law." (p. 198) Julius Kravetz also argues
that attempts to find justification for progressivist ethical positions on
abortion, conscientious objection, and the civil rights of the accused, in
Jewish tradition are on shaky grounds. It is true, for example, that this

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tradition does not regard abortion as murder but, nevertheless, forbids
it except to save the life of the mother. (pp.274-276) On such points
Jews and Christians alike are left with the problem of traditions undoubtedly encapsulating fundamental values and yet lacking credibility to " contemporary man." More clearly relevant seem Gunther Plaut's beautiful
essay on the virtue of hospitality to the stranger, Solomon B. Freehof's
on Jewish attitudes to death, and Samuel G. Braude's discussion of
" obeying God rather than man."
It is regrettable that more essays of this latter type are not included,
since they show that in Jewish ethical tradition there are many insights,
forgotten or overlooked, often rich in human compassion and humorous
realism, that would greatly contribute to a modern ethics that is not content with abstraction but seeks to take full account of the complexity of
man's life.
BENEDICT AsHLEY, 0. P.
Institute of Religion
Texas Medical Center
Houston, Texas

Evolving World, Converging Man. By RonERT FRANCOEUR. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Pp. 222. $5.95.
This book is a popularization of contemporary evolutionary science and
certain elements of recent theology. Its purpose is to trace the development of the interplay between the developing scientific image of the
world and the emerging religious-philosophic image of man, and to present a simplified synthesis of the latest scientific views and modern religious and philosophic interpretations of man and his place in the universe. The author relies heavily on the basic philosophical and theological
thought of the Jesuit priest and scientist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
although, for purposes of simplification and synthesis, Teilhard's ideas
are reduced to schematic concepts that have lost all nuance and subtlety.
This is, then, a book for the general reader. It is not at all a scholarly
work; there is no documentation, even where references would seem to be
necessary-as in the case of quotations. It will be of some value, however, to the philosopher or theologian who is unfamiliar with contemporary evolutionary thinking and who wants a light, interesting, and readable essay on current ideas about evolution and what pertinence these
ideas might have for Christian philosophy and theology.
The first three chapters are a broad sketch of evolutionary theory.
The first chapter sets the scene with a description of how man's view

BOOK REVIEWS

of the world and his place in it has changed since the beginning of
human history; the emphasis is on the importance of the evolutionary
dimension of modern man's worldview. The second chapter is a broad
outline presentation of evolutionary history from the origins of the universe through the Pre-Cambrian, the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the
Cenozoic periods up to the appearance of man. A third chapter traces
man's evolution. This chapter makes use of the most recent scientific
evidence and will be especially interesting for those who are not professional anthropologists.
Chapters four and five are an attempt to synthesize the evolutionary
ideas of the first three chapters with contemporary Christian philosophy
and theology. Chapter four is a summary of much theological re-thinking
of the doctrine of creation in terms of an evolutionary framework. It depends largely on the theologies of Eulalio Baltazar, Karl Rahner, and
Langdon Gilkey, as well as Teilhard de Chardin and others. The theology is very superficial, and, for that reason, not fairly reflective of the
ideas drawn from several of the theologians who are referred to. But it
is an interesting attempt at synthesis. The fifth chapter is less successful.
Basically, the author tries to use recent theology of death and of original
sin to explain the negative side of human reality in a way that is consistent with both science and Catholic doctrine. It is Catholic doctrine
that suffers. Even a superficial treatment of this kind cannot afford to
overlook the essential data of the Church's teaching on original sin.
Further, the author shows no real understanding of, or even familiarity with, Catholic theology of original sin since the Council. Like the
fourth chapter, this one depends to a great extent on Teilhard de Chardin's thought; but Teilhard's ideas, sketchy enough in Teilhard's own
essays, are reduced here to caricature. No matter how simple and popular
the writing, there has to be more to say about original sin than that it
is the negative aspect of the human condition. The chief weakness of
both these chapters is that they do not take the work of theologiansmen like Piet Schoonenberg, Karl Rahner, and Ansfried Hulsboch, who
have dealt with these problems at length and in depth-with sufficient
seriousness. This is, then, " pop " theology at its poorest.
A concluding chapter looks ahead to man's future and to the possibilities for his future evolution. The descriptions of contemporary scientific advances and the directions they indicate are provocative and not
without interest. The book ends with a sixteen-page selected annotated
bibliography which could be useful, particularly to teachers of philosophy
and theology.
Readers of Francoeur's earlier Perspectives in Evolution (Baltimore:
Helicon, 1965) are advised that the book at present being reviewed and
which covers exactly the same material is, by comparison, somewhat
shallow. The explanations are even more simplified than in Perspec-

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BOOK REVIEWS

tives, there is almost no scholarly apparatus, and the theology shows
very little progress. On the other hand, the present book is more up-todate scientifically.
RoBERT L. FARreY, S.J.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Understanding Genesis. By NAHUM M. SARNA. New York:
Books, 1970. Pp. 267. $2.45.
The Bible as Literature. By T. H. HENN. New York:
versity Press, 1970. Pp. 270. $7.00.

Schocken

Oxford Uni-

The first of these books appeared four years ago as Vol. I of the
Melton Research Center series of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America. Happily, it has been republished as a Schocken paperback.
Nahum Sarna is a qualified biblical scholar and his approach-though
eschewed by most orthodox Jews-includes the modern scientific perspective. However, his Jewish bias is immediately manifested in the
Introduction, where he designates Benedict Spinoza as the founder of the
scientific approach to the Bible.
Sarna is at home with the principal pagan creation myths. He uses his
knowledge to good effect in contrasting the Babylonian Enuma Elish
story with the Genesis account to illustrate that in the latter "There is
no connection between the Creator and his handiwork."
(pp. 10-11)
The " second " account of creation is employed to show the anti-fertility
bias of the Old Testament. The Christian reader looks in vain for a
treatment of Gen. 5: 15; here the typically Jewish optimism regarding
human nature surfaces. Mankind needs no redemption from sin because
Adam and Eve's disobedience did not constitute a "Fall." The Gilgamesh epic is adroitly handled in the treatment of the Flood and the
Tower of Babel. Chapter 4 contains interesting insights on biblical chronology in the lives of the patriarchs. A whole chapter (6) is devoted to
Gen. 14, where Melchizedek is treated as a proper name and is referred
to Ps. 110! Sarna's explanation on p. 117, however, is a bit simplistic.
Chapter 9 on the binding of Isaac is excellent. Rejecting the theory
that the story represents God's rejection of child sacrifice as a primary
theme, the author insists that its main significance is to illustrate Abraham's growth in the spiritual life: he has passed the supreme test on his
willingness to kill Isaac. Four more brief chapters bring the book to an
end. The Onan incident is not mentioned, nor are the blessings of Jacob
on his twelve sons treated. Perhaps the most telling omission, however,

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BOOK REVIEWS

is Sarna's neglect of source criticism, which he employs very sparingly.
Although admitting the " non-unitary origin of the Pentateuch " on p.
xxiv, he obviously has mixed feelings regarding the validity of the documentary theory. This book has a wealth of positive insights amply justifying the paperback reprint.
The Bible as Literature is the work of a noted poet and literary critic,
Professor T. R. Henn, President of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge.
Understandably, the book deals largely with the Old Testament: the
Hebrew Scriptures present a greater variety of literary types, and (perhaps) the author feels more at home in this area. A wide spectrum of
topics is treated: biblical themes, languages, poetic forms, the problem
of evil, the Holy War, together with analyses of a few individual books.
To review a work such as this (much less to write it) demands expertise in two fields: English literature and biblical exegesis. This reviewer pleads something less than competency in the former field; however, a few observatons may be in order. After giving his reasons for
opting in favor of the King James Version, Henn then all but demonstrates on pp. 41-44 that it is " now so obsolete as to demand wholesale
revision." He refers to "Rahner " on p. 20; one must consult the index
to learn that the author is referring to Hugo rather than Karl. Literary
allusions abound throughout the text; it is almost anti-climactic to find
a chapter (14) expressly devoted "to invite attention to some of the
many ways in which English writers have made use of the Bible. . .. "
When Henn ventures into the area of exegesis he comes up with some
interesting insights. Certain of his conclusions, predictably, leave something to be desired. In his analysis of Job (in which he uses lengthy
citations from one of his favorite poets, Blake) Henn overlooks the ultimately redeeming value of suffering it teaches: the intimacy with God
which adversity is capable of affording the sufferer. The author's defense
of the Holy War on p. 218 is a bit superficial; Nahum Sarna gives a more
profound and biblical reason in his book: Israel had been designated as
God's rod to chastise the Canaanites for their gross sins (cf. Lev. 18:2425; I>eut. 9:4-6).
There is an urgent need today to supplement form criticism with
traditional, extra-biblical literary criticism in our approach to Scripture.
This book may be a solution. However, it seems to this reviewer that
a more direct, comprehensive coverage of the whole Bible is required.
MARTIN

University of DaUas
Irving, Texas

HoPKINs,

0. P.

BOOKS RECEIVED
George Braziller: The Pragmatic Movement in American Philosophy, by
Charles Morris. (Pp. 221, $6.50); Agony & Epitaph, by Albert
Hofstadter.
(Pp. 283, $7.50) .
Bruce Publishing Co.: Sex: The Radical View of a Catholic Theologian,
by Michael F. Valente. (Pp. 158, $2.95).
The Catholic University of America Press: Ancients and Moderns.
Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Vol. 5, ed.
by John K. Ryan. (Pp. 368, $12.95).
Columbia University Press: Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the
Making of the Christian Synthesis, by John Herman Randall, Jr.
(Pp. 251, $7.95).
Harper & Row: Was Jesus Married? by William E. Phipps. (Pp. 289,
$5.95).

Harvard University Press: The French Institutionalists. Maurice Hauriou, Georges Renard, Joseph T. Delos, ed. by Albert Broderick.
(Pp. 395, $15.00).
Holt, Rinehart, & Winston: Evolving World, Converging Man, by Robert
Francoeur.
(Pp. 233, $5.95) .
Inter-Varsity Press: The Living God. A Personal Look at What the
Bible Says about God, by R. T. France. (Pp. 128, $1.50).
Martinus Nijhoff: Einstein and Aquinas: A Rapprochement, by John
F. Kiley. (Up. 164, guilders 20.70).
Organizaci6n de los Estados Americanos: Los "Fundadores" en la Filasofia de America Latina. Bibliograffas Basicas, VII. (Pp. 208).
Oxford University Press: Concordant Discord. The Interdependence of
Faiths, by R. C. Zaehner. (Pp. 464, $15.00).
Royal Vangorcum Ltd.: Being, Nothing and God. A Philosophy of
Appearance, by George J. Seidel. (Pp. liS Hfl. 16).
Shocken Books: Theism and Empiricism, by A. Boyce Gibson. (Pp.
280, $8.00) .
University of Dallas Press: The Paradoxical Structure of Existence, by
Frederick D. Wilhelmsen. (Pp. 175) .
University of Notre Dame Press: A New Chapter for Monasticism, by
John Moffit. (Pp. 350, $12.00).
The Westminster Press: God, Why Did You Do That? by Frederick
Sontag. (Pp. 172, $2.65) .

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