Part 2 (1/2)

Inasmuch, however, as being is not merely attributed to these modes extrinsically, but belongs to all of them intrinsically, it is also predicated of them by _a.n.a.logy of proportion_. This latter sort of a.n.a.logy is based on similarity of relations. For example, the act of understanding bears a relation to the mind similar to that which the act of seeing bears to the eye, and hence we say of the mind that it ”sees” things when it understands them. Or, again, we speak of a verdant valley in the suns.h.i.+ne as ”smiling,” because its appearance bears a relation to the valley similar to that which a smile bears to the human countenance. Or again, we speak of the parched earth as ”thirsting” for the rains, or of the devout soul as ”thirsting” for G.o.d, because these relations are recognized as similar to that of a thirsty person towards the drink for which he thirsts. In all such cases the a.n.a.logical concept implies not indeed the same attribute (differently realized) in all the a.n.a.logues (as in univocal predication) but rather a similarity in the relation or proportion in which each a.n.a.logue embodies or realizes some attribute or attributes peculiar to itself. Seeing is to the eye as understanding is to the mind; smiling is to the countenance as the pleasing appearance of its natural features is to the valley. Rain is to the parched earth, and G.o.d is to the devout soul, as drink is to the thirsty person. It will be noted that in all such cases the a.n.a.logical concept is affirmed primarily and properly of some one thing (the _a.n.a.logum princeps_), and of the other only secondarily, and relatively to the former.

Now, if we reflect on the manner in which being is affirmed of its various modes (_e.g._ of the infinite and the finite; or of substance and accident; or of spiritual and corporeal substances; or of quant.i.ties, or qualities, or causes, etc.) we can see _firstly_ that although these differ from one another _by all that each of them is, by the whole being of each_, yet there is an all-pervading similarity between the relations which these modes bear each to its own existence. All have, or can have, actual existence: each according to the grade of perfection of its own reality. If we conceive infinite being as the cause of all finite beings, then the former exists in a manner appropriate to its all-perfect reality, and finite beings in a manner proportionate to their limited realities; and so of the various modes of finite being among themselves. Moreover, we can see _secondly_, as will be explained more fully below,(54) that being is affirmed of the finite by virtue of its dependence on the infinite, and of accident by virtue of its dependence on substance.(55) Being or reality is therefore predicated of its modes by _a.n.a.logy of proportion_.(56)

Is a concept, when applied in this way, one, or is it really manifold? It is not simply one, for this would yield univocal predication; nor is it simply manifold, for this would give equivocal predication. Being, considered in its vague, imperfect, inadequate sense, as involving some common or similar proportion or relation to existence in all its a.n.a.logues, is one; considered as representing clearly and adequately what is thus similarly related to each of the a.n.a.logues, it is manifold.

a.n.a.logy of proportion is the basis of the figure of speech known as metaphor. It would be a mistake, however, to infer from this that what is thus a.n.a.logically predicated of a number of things belongs intrinsically and properly only to one of them, being transferred by a mere extrinsic denomination to the others; and that therefore it does not express any genuine knowledge on our part about the nature of these other things. It does give us real knowledge about them. Metaphor is not equivocation; but perhaps more usually it is understood not to give us real knowledge because it is understood to be based on resemblances that are merely _fanciful_, not real. Still, no matter how slender and remote be the proportional resemblance on which the a.n.a.logical use of language is based, in so far forth as it has such a _real_ basis it gives us real insight into the nature of the a.n.a.logues. And if we hesitate to describe such a use of language as ”metaphorical,” this is only because ”metaphor” perhaps too commonly connotes a certain transferred and improper extension of the meaning of terms, based upon a _purely fanciful_ resemblance.

All our language is primarily and _properly_ expressive of concepts derived from the sensible appearances of material realities. As applied to the suprasensible, intelligible aspects of these realities, such as substance and cause, or to spiritual realities, such as the human soul and G.o.d, it is a.n.a.logical in another sense; not as opposed to univocal, but as opposed to _proper_. That is, it expresses concepts which are not formed directly from the presence of the things which they signify, but are gathered from other things to which the latter are necessarily related in a variety of ways.(57) Considering the origin of our knowledge, the material, the sensible, the phenomenal, comes first in order, and moulds our concepts and language primarily to its own proper representation and expression; while the spiritual, the intelligible, the substantial, comes later, and must make use of the concepts and language thus already moulded.

If we consider, however, not the order in which we get our knowledge, but the order of _reality_ in the objects of our knowledge, being or reality is primarily and more properly predicated of the infinite than of the finite, of the Creator than of the creature, of the spiritual than of the material, of substances than of their accidents and sensible manifestations or phenomena. Yet we do not predicate being or reality of the finite, or of creatures, in a mere transferred, extrinsic, improper sense, as if these were mere manifestations of the infinite, or mere effects of the First Cause, to which alone reality would properly belong.

For creatures, finite things, are in a true and proper sense also real.

Duns Scotus and those who think with him contend that the concept of being, derived as it is from our experience of finite being, if applied only a.n.a.logically to infinite being would give us no genuine knowledge about the latter. They maintain that whenever a universal concept is applied to the objects in which it is _realized intrinsically_, it is affirmed of these objects _univocally_. The notion of being, in its most imperfect, inadequate, indeterminate sense, is, they say, _one and the same_ in so far forth as it is applicable to the infinite and the finite, and to all the modes of the finite; and it is therefore predicated of all univocally.(58) But although they apply the concept of being univocally to the infinite and the finite, _i.e._ to G.o.d and creatures, they admit that the _reality_ corresponding to this univocal concept is _totally different_ in G.o.d and in creatures: that G.o.d differs by _all that He is_ from creatures, and they by _all that they are_ from Him. While, however, Scotists emphasize the formal oneness or ident.i.ty of the indeterminate common concept, followers of St. Thomas emphasize the fact that the various modes of being differ totally, by all that each of them is, from one another; and, from this radical diversity in the modes of being, they infer that the common concept should not be regarded as _simply_ the same, but only as _proportionally_ the same, as expressive of a _similar relation_ of each intrinsically different mode of reality to actual existence.

Thomists lay still greater stress, perhaps, upon the second consideration referred to above, as a reason for regarding being as an a.n.a.logical concept when affirmed of Creator and creature, or of substance and accident: the consideration that the finite is _dependent_ on the infinite, and accident on substance. If being is realized in a true and proper sense, and intrinsically, as it undoubtedly is, in whatever is distinguishable from nothingness, why not say that we should affirm being or reality of all things ”either as a genus in the strict sense, or else in some sense not a.n.a.logical but proper, after the manner in which we predicate a genus of its species and individuals?... Since the object of our universal idea of being is admitted to be really in all things, we can evidently abstract from what is proper to substance and to accident, just as we abstract from what is proper to plants and to animals when we affirm of these that they are living things.”(59)

”In reply to this difficulty,” Father Kleutgen continues,(60) ”we say in the first place that the idea of being is in truth less a.n.a.logical and more proper than any belonging to the first sort of a.n.a.logy [_i.e._ of attribution], and that therefore it approaches more closely to generic concepts properly so called. At the same time the difference which separates both from the latter concepts remains. For a name applied to many things is a.n.a.logical if what it signifies is realized _par excellence_ in one, and in the others only subordinately and dependently on that. Hence it is that Aristotle regards predication as a.n.a.logical when something is affirmed of many things (1) either because these have a certain relation to some one thing, (2) or because they depend on some one thing. In the former case the thing signified by the name is really and properly found only in one single thing, and is affirmed of all the others only in virtue of some real relation of these to the former, whether this be (_a_) that these things merely resemble that single thing [metaphor], or (_b_) bear some other relation to it, such as that of effect to cause, etc.

[metonymy]. In the latter case the thing signified by the name is really in each of the things of which it is affirmed; but it is in one alone _par excellence_, and in the others only by depending, for its very existence in them, on that one. Now the object of the term _being_ is found indeed in accidents, _e.g._ in quant.i.ty, colour, shape; but certainly it must be applied primarily to substance, and to accidents only dependently on the latter: for quant.i.ty, colour, shape can have being only because the corporeal substance possesses these determinations. But this is not at all the case with a genus and its species. These differ from the genus, not by any such dependence, but by the addition of some special perfection to the const.i.tuents of the genus; for example, in the brute beast sensibility is added to vegetative life, and in man intelligence is added to sensibility. Here there is no relation of dependence for existence. Even if we considered human life as that of which life is princ.i.p.ally a.s.serted, we could not say that plants and brute beasts so depended for their life on the life of man that we could not affirm life of them except as dependent on the life of man: as we cannot attribute being to accidents except by reason of their dependence on substance. Hence it is that we can consider apart, and in itself, life in general, and attribute this to all living things without relating it to any other being.”(61)

”It might still be objected that the one single being of which we may affirm life primarily and princ.i.p.ally, ought to be not human life, but absolute life. And between this divine life and the life of all other beings there is a relation of dependence, which reaches even to the very existence of life in these other beings.

In fact all life depends on the absolute life, not indeed in the way accident depends on substance, but in a manner no less real and far more excellent. This is entirely true; but what are we to conclude from it if not precisely this, which scholasticism teaches: that the perfections found in the various species of creatures can be affirmed of these in the same sense (_univoce_), but that they can be affirmed of G.o.d and creatures only a.n.a.logically?”

”From all of which we can understand why it is that in regard to genera and species the a.n.a.logy is in the things but not in our thoughts, while in regard to substance and accidents it is both in the things and in our thoughts: a difference which rests not solely on our manner of conceiving things, nor _a fortiori_ on mere caprice or fancy, but which has its basis in the very nature of the things themselves. For though in the former case there is a certain a.n.a.logy in the things themselves, inasmuch as the same nature, that of the genus, is realized in the species in different ways, still, as we have seen, that is not sufficient, without the relation of dependence, to yield a basis for a.n.a.logy in our thoughts. For it is precisely because accident, as a determination of substance, presupposes this latter, that being cannot be affirmed of accident except as dependent on substance.”

These paragraphs will have shown with sufficient clearness why we should regard being not as an univocal but as an a.n.a.logical concept, when referred to G.o.d and creatures, or to substance and accident. For the rest, the divergence between the Scotist and the Thomist views is not very important, because Scotists also will deny that being is a genus of which the infinite and the finite would be species; finite and infinite are not _differentiae_ superadded to being, inasmuch as each of these differs _by its whole reality_, and not merely by a determining portion, from the other; it is owing to the limitations of our abstractive way of understanding reality that we have to conceive the infinite by first conceiving being in the abstract, and then mentally determining this concept by another, namely, by the concept of ”infinite mode of being”(62); the infinite, and whatever perfections we predicate formally of the infinite, transcend all _genera_, _species_ and _differentiae_, because the distinction of being into infinite and finite is prior to the distinction into genera, species and differentiae; this latter distinction applying only to finite, not to infinite being.(63)

The observations we have just been making in regard to the a.n.a.logy of being are of greater importance than the beginner can be expected to realize. A proper appreciation of the way in which being or reality is conceived by the mind to appertain to the data of our experience, is indispensable to the defence of Theism as against Agnosticism and Pantheism.

3. REAL BEING AND LOGICAL BEING.-We may next ill.u.s.trate the notion of being by approaching it from another standpoint-by examining a fundamental distinction which may be drawn between _real being_ (_ens reale_) and _logical being_ (_ens rationis_).

We derive all our knowledge, through external and internal sense perception, from the domain of actually existing things, these things including our own selves and our own minds. We form, from the data of sense-consciousness, by an intellectual process proper, mental representations of an abstract and universal character, which reveal to us partial aspects and phases of the natures of things. We have no intuitive intellectual insight into these natures. It is only by abstracting their various aspects, by comparing these in judgments, and reaching still further aspects by inferences, that we progress in our knowledge of things-gradually, step by step, _discursive_, _discurrendo_. All this implies reflection on, and comparison of, our own ideas, our mental views of things. It involves the processes of defining and cla.s.sifying, affirming and denying, abstracting and generalizing, a.n.a.lysing and synthesizing, comparing and relating in a variety of ways the objects grasped by our thought. Now in all these complex functions, by which alone the mind can _interpret rationally_ what is given to it, by which alone, in other words, it can know reality, the mind necessarily and inevitably forms for itself (and expresses in intelligible language) a series of concepts which have for their objects only the _modes_ in which, and the _relations_ by means of which, it makes such gradual progress in its interpretation of what is given to it, in its knowledge of the real. These concepts are called _secundae intentiones mentis_-concepts of the second order, so to speak. And their objects, the modes and mutual relations of our _primae intentiones_ or direct concepts, are called _entia rationis_-logical ent.i.ties. For example, _abstractness_ is a mode which affects not the reality which we apprehend intellectually, but the concept by which we apprehend it. So, too, is the _universality_ of a concept, its communicability or applicability to an indefinite mult.i.tude of similar realities-the ”_intentio universalitatis_,” as it is called-a mode of concept, not of the realities represented by the latter. So, likewise, is the _absence_ of other reality than that represented by the concept, the _relative nothingness or non-being_ by contrast with which the concept is realized as positive; and the _absolute nothingness or non-being_ which is the logical correlative of the concept of being; and the static, unchanging self-ident.i.ty of the object as conceived in the abstract.(64) These are not modes of reality _as it is_ but _as it is conceived_. Again, the manifold logical relations which we establish between our concepts-relations of (extensive or intensive) ident.i.ty or distinction, inclusion or inherence, etc.-are logical ent.i.ties, _entia rationis_: relations of genus, species, differentia, proprium, accidens; the affirmative or negative relation between predicate and subject in judgment;(65) the mutual relations of antecedent and consequent in inference. Now all these logical ent.i.ties, or _objecta secundae intentionis mentis_, are relations established by the mind itself between its own thoughts; they have, no doubt, a foundation in the real objects of those thoughts as well as in the const.i.tution and limitations of the mind itself; but they have themselves, and can have, no other being than that which they have as products of thought. Their sole being consists in _being thought of_. They are necessary creations or products of the thought-process as this goes on in the human mind. We see that it is only by means of these relations we can progress in understanding things. In the thought-process we cannot help bringing them to light-and thinking them after the manner of realities, _per modum entis_. Whatever we think we must think through the concept of ”being”; whatever we conceive we must conceive as ”being”; but on reflection we easily see that such ent.i.ties as ”nothingness,” ”negation or absence or privation of being,”

”universality,” ”predicate”-and, in general, all relations established by our own thought between our own ideas representative of reality-can have themselves no reality proper, no actual or possible existence, other than that which they get from the mind in virtue of its making them objects of its own thought. Hence the scholastic definition of a logical ent.i.ty or _ens rationis_ as ”that which has objective being merely in the intellect”: ”_illud quod habet esse objective tantum in intellectu, seu ... id quod a ratione excogitatur ut ens, c.u.m tamen in se ent.i.tatem non habeat_”.(66) Of course the mental process by which we think such ent.i.ties, the mental state in which they are held in consciousness, is just as real as any other mental process or state. But the ent.i.ty which is thus held in consciousness has and can have no other reality than what it has by being an object of thought. And this precisely is what distinguishes it from _real being_, from _reality_; for the latter, besides the ideal existence it has in the mind which thinks of it, has, or at least can have, a real existence of its own, independently altogether of our thinking about it. We a.s.sume here, of course-what is established elsewhere, as against the subjective idealism of phenomenists and the objective idealism of Berkeley-that the _reality_ of _actual_ things does not consist in their being perceived or thought of, that their ”_esse_” is not ”_percipi_,” that they have a reality other than and independent of their actual presence to the thought of any human mind. And even purely possible things, even the creatures of our own fancy, the fictions of fable and romance, _could_, absolutely speaking and without any contradiction, have an existence in the actual order, in addition to the mental existence they receive from those who fancy them. Such ent.i.ties, therefore, differ from _entia rationis_; they, too, are _real_ beings.

What the reality of purely possible things is we shall discuss later on. Actually existing things at all events we a.s.sume to be _given_ to the knowing mind, not to be _created_ by the latter.

Even in regard to these, however, we must remember that the mind in knowing them, in interpreting them, in seeking to penetrate the nature of them, is not purely pa.s.sive; that reality as known to us-or, in other words, our knowledge of reality-is the product of a twofold factor: the subjective which is the mind, and the objective which is the extramental reality acting on, and thus revealing itself to, the mind. Hence it is that when we come to a.n.a.lyse in detail our knowledge of the nature of things-or, in other words, the natures of things as revealed to our minds-it will not be always easy to distinguish in each particular case the properties, aspects, relations, distinctions, etc., which are _real_ (in the sense of being there in the reality independently of the consideration of the mind) from those that are merely _logical_ (in the sense of being produced and superadded to the reality by the mental process itself).(67) Yet it is obviously a matter of the very first importance to determine, as far as may be possible, to what extent our knowledge of reality is not merely a mental _interpretation_, but a mental _construction_, of the latter; and whether, if there be a constructive or const.i.tutive factor in thought, this should be regarded as interfering with the validity of thought as representative of reality. This problem-of the relation of the _ens rationis_ to the _ens reale_ in the process of cognition-has given rise to discussions which, in modern times, have largely contributed to the formation of that special branch of philosophical enquiry which is called Epistemology. But it must not be imagined that this very problem was not discussed, and very widely discussed, by philosophers long before the problem of the validity of knowledge a.s.sumed the prominent place it has won for itself in modern philosophy. Even a moderate familiarity with scholastic philosophy will enable the student to recognize this problem, in a variety of phases, in the discussions of the medieval schoolmen concerning the concepts of matter and form, the simplicity and composition of beings, and the nature of the various distinctions-whether logical, virtual, formal, or real-which the mind either invents or detects in the realities it endeavours to understand and explain.

4. REAL BEING AND IDEAL BEING.-The latter of these expressions has a multiplicity of kindred meanings. We use it here in the sense of ”being _known_,” _i.e._ to signify the ”esse _intentionale_,” the mental presence, which, in the scholastic theory of knowledge, an ent.i.ty of whatsoever kind, whether real or logical, must have in the mind of the knower in order that he be aware of that ent.i.ty. A mere logical ent.i.ty, as we have seen, has and can have no other mode of being than this which consists in being an object of the mind's awareness. All real being, too, when it becomes an object of any kind of human cognition whatsoever-of intellectual thought, whether direct or reflex; of sense perception, whether external or internal-must obtain this sort of mental presence or mental existence: thereby alone can it become an ”objectum _cognitum_”.

Only by such mental mirroring, or reproduction, or reconstruction, can reality become so related and connected with mind as to reveal itself to mind. Under this peculiar relation which we call cognition, the mind, as we know from psychology and epistemology, is not pa.s.sive: if reality revealed itself immediately, as it is, to a purely pa.s.sive mind (were such conceivable), the existence of error would be unaccountable; but the mind is not pa.s.sive: under the influence of the reality it forms the intellectual concept (the _verb.u.m mentale_), or the sense percept (the _species sensibilis expressa_), in and through which, and by means of which, it attains to its knowledge of the real.

But prior (ontologically) to this _mental_ existence, and as partial cause of the latter, there is the _real_ existence or being, which reality has independently of its being known by any individual human mind. Real being, then, as distinguished here from ideal being, is that which exists or can exist extramentally, whether it is known by the human mind or not, _i.e._ whether it exists also mentally or not.

That there is such real being, apart from the ”thought”-being whereby the mind is const.i.tuted formally knowing, is proved elsewhere; as also that this _esse intentionale_ has modes which cannot be attributed to the _esse reale_. We merely note these points here in order to indicate the errors involved in the opposite contentions. Our concepts are characterized by abstractness, by a consequent static immutability, by a plurality often resulting from purely mental distinctions, by a universality which transcends those distinctions and unifies the variety of all subordinate concepts in the widest concept of _being_. Now if, for example, we attribute the unifying mental mode of universality to real being, we must draw the pantheistic conclusion that all real being is one: the logical outcome of extreme realism. If, again, we transfer purely mental distinctions to the unity of the Absolute or Supreme Being, thus making them real, we thereby deny infinite perfection to the most perfect being conceivable: an error of which some catholic philosophers of the later middle ages have been accused with some foundation. If, finally, we identify the _esse reale_ with the _esse intentionale_, and this with the thought-process itself, we find ourselves at the starting-point of Hegelian monism.(68)

5. FUNDAMENTAL DISTINCTIONS IN REAL BEING.-Leaving logical and ideal being aside, and fixing our attention exclusively on real being, we may indicate here a few of the most fundamental distinctions which experience enables us to recognize in our study of the universal order of things.