Armónicos no característicos

Can we set aside the cited passage from the De veritate, in which the agent intellect’s abstraction from sensible things is made the origin of the knowledge of ens, as a view later explicitly rejected by St. Thomas, or even as something about which he ceased to speak? On the contrary, we fi nd the very same doctrine carefully worked into ST 1–2. Thus, speaking of the fact that the intellectual habitus (something like a “knack”) called “the understanding of principles” [intellectus principiorum] is partly but not entirely naturally pre-existent and inborn, St. Thomas says that while by the very nature of the intellectual soul, it belongs to man that imme- diately, once it is known what a whole is and what a part is, he knows that every whole is greater than its part, still what a whole is and what a part is he cannot know except through intelligible species received from the phantasms (ST 1–2.51.1: 978b24–31). Obviously, if St. Thomas meant to exclude ens from the number of objects known through intelligible

species received from the phantasms he would have to say so, since such

a doctrine would at least strongly suggest there was a completely inborn

habitus after all.

Next, we should note the doctrine that the virtues, including the in- tellectual virtues (understanding, the sciences, and wisdom), are caused

3. Fabro gave the Latin of St. Thomas; the translation is my own, but the italics are Fab- ro’s. The text is De veritate 11.1 (Leonine ed., lines 266–275).

in us by the acts we perform. It is explained that where an agent has in itself both active and passive principles, it can act on itself, and in so do- ing, render the passive principle more appropriately disposed to the in- fl uence of the active. The active principle, as such, is not perfectible by the agent’s operation. In his examples of the development of intellectual vir- tues in these texts, St. Thomas constantly uses as active principle a per se

nota proposition. And he says that all this supposes the greater nobility

of the active principle: the understanding of principles is a more noble principle than the science of conclusions (ST 1–2.51.2: 979b41–51 and ibid. ad 2). Later on, when it is objected that the acts we perform cannot cause the virtues, because the acts performed prior to the presence in us of the virtues are less perfect than the virtue, St. Thomas says that the seeds [semina] naturally present in us prior to the existence of the virtues are more noble than the virtues themselves which are acquired through their power: thus, he repeats by way of example, the understanding of principles is more noble than the science of conclusions (ST 1–2.63.2.

ad 3).

But the ultimate step in this doctrine is seen when the virtue of wis- dom is presented as supreme among intellectual virtues. The objection is raised that the knowledge of principles is more noble than the knowl- edge of conclusions. Thus, since wisdom concludes from the indemon- strable principles, which pertain to the virtue of understanding [intellec-

tus], clearly understanding is a more noble virtue than wisdom. St. Thom-

as replies that the truth and knowledge of the indemonstrable principles depend on the notions of the terms: when one knows what a whole is and what a part is, immediately one knows that every whole is greater than its part. Furthermore, to know the notions ens, non ens, whole, part, and the others that follow upon ens, out of which as out of terms the indemon- strable principles are constituted, pertains to wisdom. The reason is that wisdom considers as its object the highest cause, God, and ens commune is the proper effect of the highest cause. That is why wisdom not only uses the indemonstrable principles, concluding from them, but even judges concerning them, and disputes against those who deny them. And he concludes that wisdom is a greater virtue than understanding (ST 1– 2.66.5.ad 4). Now, for this reply to be effective, it must mean that ens, precisely as known by priority to the indemonstrable principles, already has a nobility which is prior to the understanding of fi rst principles [intel-

lectus], i.e. already has in itself the status of seed of wisdom, is indeed the

most perfect of all our intellectual acts considered as to their intrinsic perfection.4 _{It is the ens whose knowledge is presupposed to the under-}

St. Thomas and the Seed of Metaphysics 37

4. Here I am speaking of absolute or intrinsic perfection, not of the perfection which can be obtained by adding notion to notion.

standing of principles which is the “proper effect of the highest cause.” That is why it has the role of seed of wisdom, wisdom which eventually is developed into knowledge of the highest cause.

If this perfection, right from the start, of the knowledge of ens sur- prises, one should consider that it is natural and is thus the “movement” in the mind of the very “generator” of mind. I am here referring to the extended application St. Thomas makes of the idea that the mover for natural movements is the generator, applying it to the cases of spiritual operation. Thus, the natural movement of the will is an infl uence of the fi rst cause, God (ST 1–2.9.6). So also, at ST 2–2.2.3, we read that in every inferior nature there is the movement of the nature superior to it, and that precisely it is the rational creature which has an immediate order to God. The sign of this immediate order is that creature’s attaining to something universal: “the rational nature, inasmuch as it knows the uni- versal notions bonum and ens, has an immediate order to the universal principle of being [essendi].” While, in this text, the superior movement primarily meant is the movement of faith, not the movement of natural intellect, nevertheless the grasp of the universal notion, ens, is the sign of the immediate relation to God.

Another notable text along these lines is ST 1–2.3.6 (732b29–39). There St. Thomas argues that something cannot be perfected by some other inferior thing, except inasmuch as the inferior has in it a participa- tion in something superior. Thus, since the form of the stone or of any sensible thing is inferior to man, the form of the stone cannot perfect the human intellect inasmuch as it (the form of the stone) is a particular form [talis forma], but inasmuch as in it there is a participated likeness of something above the human intellect, namely the intelligible light or something like that.5 _{Precisely, the form of the stone can have the role}

of an intelligible species only inasmuch as it is subsumed under the intel- ligible, ens, the likeness of the fi rst cause. That this is the correct interpre- tation of the text is confi rmed by the fact that it is in just this way that St. Thomas describes even angelic intellect. When an objector argues that the act of understanding and the act of being are identical in angels, be- cause they both have the same cause, namely the very form or essence of the angel, St. Thomas replies that though the very essence of the an- gel is the entire principle [ratio] of the angel’s being, it is not the entire principle of its understanding. The essence of the angel is compared to the understanding of the angel according to the intelligibility [ratio] of a more universal object, namely verum or ens. It is only as so taken that the essence of the angel is principle of understanding. That is, even the an-

5. Notice St. Thomas says “intelligible,” not “intellectual,” i.e. he is speaking about a perfection on the side of the object as an object.

gel’s very own essence is properly principle of intellection only inasmuch as it participates in the likeness of a higher principle, through the ratio

entis (ST 1.54.2.ad 2).

But let us not think that this knowledge of ens is completely innate (in the case of human intellect). It is the fruit of abstraction. On the side of the knower, as active, all that is innate is the agent intellect. Its initial act of abstraction is not an act of knowing, of understanding. Rather, for un- derstanding, one must have the operations of both agent and possible intellect.6 _{The abstractive power of the agent intellect is rather to be en-}

visaged as a light to shine upon the imagination.7 _{On the side of things}

known there are the intelligible species as representative of sensible and material things, in which things we fi nd the likeness of the fi rst princi- ple. The intelligible species are reduced as to a fi rst cause to a principle which is intelligible by its very own essence, i.e. to God, but they come forth from that principle through the mediation of the forms of sensible and material things, from which we gather science (ST 1.84.4.ad 1). The forms of sensible things, precisely as apt to generate science in us, are truly “something divine in things.”8

Having said enough to counteract the suggestion that what Fabro quot- ed from the De veritate was something later abandoned by St. Thomas, let us now consider more closely the abstractive character of our knowledge of ens.