Part 16 (2/2)

Habits are the grand conserving and perfecting-or the terrible undermining and destroying-force of life. They are the fruit of our past and the seed of our future. In them the words of Leibniz find their fullest verification: ”the present is laden with the past and pregnant with the future”. By forming good habits we escape the disheartening difficulties of perpetual beginnings; and thus the labour we devote to the acquisition of wisdom and virtue has its first rich recompense in the facility it gives us to advance on the path of progress.

It has been truly and rightly said that all genuine education consists in the formation of good habits.

80. POWERS, FACULTIES AND FORCES.-A natural operative power, faculty, or force (d??a??, _potentia_, _facultas_, _virtus agendi_) is a quality which renders the nature of the individual agent apt to elicit certain actions. By _impotence_ or _incapacity_ (?d??a?a, _impotentia_, _incapacitas_) Aristotle meant not an opposite kind of quality, in contradistinction to power or faculty, but only a _power of a weaker order_, differing _in degree_, not _in kind_, from the real power which renders an agent proximately capable of acting; such weaker capacities, for instance, as the infant's power to walk, or the defective eyesight of the aged.

It is to the individual subsisting person or thing that all the actions proceeding from the latter are ascribed: _actiones sunt suppositorum_: the ”_suppositum_” or person is the _principium_ QUOD _agit_. And it acts in accordance with its nature; this latter is the _principium_ QUO _agens agit_: the nature is the substance or essence as a principle of the actions whereby the individual tends to realize its end. But is a created, finite nature the _immediate_ or _proximate_ principle of its activities, so that it is operative _per se_? Or is it only their _remote principle_, eliciting them not by itself but _only_ by means of _powers_, _faculties_, _forces_, which are themselves accidental perfections of the substance and _really distinct_ from it, qualities intermediate between the latter and its actions, being the _proximate_ principles of the latter?

No doubt when any individual nature is acted upon by other agencies, when it undergoes real change under the influence of its environment, its _pa.s.sive potentiality_ is being so far forth actualized. Moreover when the nature itself acts _immanently_, the term of such action remaining within the agent itself to actualize or perfect it, some _pa.s.sive potentiality_ of the agent is being actualized. In these cases the nature before being thus actualized was really capable of such actualization. This _pa.s.sive potentiality_, however, is itself nothing actual, it implies no actual perfection in the nature. But we must distinguish carefully from this _pa.s.sive or receptive potentiality_ of a nature its _active or operative powers_-_potentiae operativae_. These may be themselves _actual perfections_ in the nature, _accidental_ perfections actually in the nature, and perhaps really distinct from it.

That they are indeed _actual_ perfections of the nature is fairly obvious: it is an actual perfection of a nature to be _proximately_ and _immediately_, and without any further complement or addition to its reality, _capable of acting_; and this is true whether the action in question be immanent or transitive: if it be immanent, the perfection resulting from the action, the term of the latter, will be a perfection of the agent itself, and in this case the agent by virtue of its operative power will have had _the capacity of perfecting itself_; while if the action be transitive the agent will have had, in virtue of its operative power, _the capacity of producing perfections in other things_. In either case such capacity is undoubtedly an actual perfection of the agent that possesses it. Hence the truth of the scholastic formula: _Omne agens agit in quantum est in_ ACTU, _patiatur vero inquantum est in_ POTENTIA.

Furthermore, all such operative powers are _really distinct from the actions_ which immediately proceed from them: this, too, is obvious, for while the operative power is a stable, abiding characteristic of the agent, the actions elicited by means of it are transient.

But what is the nature of this operative power in relation to the nature itself of the agent? It is an actual perfection of this nature. It is, moreover, unlike acquired habits, native to this nature, born with it so to speak, naturally inseparable from it. Further still, operative powers would seem to be all _properties_ (69) of their respective natures: inasmuch as it is only in virtue of the operative power that the nature can act, and there can be no nature without connatural operations whereby it tends to realize the full and _final_ perfection of its being, the perfection which is the very _raison d'etre_ of its presence in the actual order of things. The question therefore narrows itself down to this: Are operative powers, which perfect the nature of which they are properties, really distinct from this nature, or are they only virtually distinct aspects under which we view the nature itself? For example, when we speak of intellect and will as being faculties of the human soul, do we merely mean that intellect is the soul itself regarded as capable of reasoning, and will the soul itself regarded as capable of willing? Or do we mean that the soul is not _by itself_ and _in virtue of its own essence_ capable of reasoning and willing; that it can reason and will only through the instrumentality of two realities of the accidental order, really distinct from, though at the same time _necessarily_ rooted in and springing from, the substance of the soul itself: realities which we call _powers_ or _faculties_? Or again, when we speak of a man or an animal as having various _sense faculties_-internal and external, cognitive, appet.i.tive, executive-do we merely mean that the living, sentient organism is itself directly capable of eliciting acts of various kinds: of imagining, desiring, seeing, hearing, etc.? Or do we mean that the organism can elicit these various acts only by means of several accidental realities, really distinct from, and inhering in, itself?

If such operative powers or faculties are naturally inseparable from the substance in which they inhere, if they are so necessarily consequent on the nature of the latter that it cannot exist without them, are they anything more than virtually distinct aspects of the substance itself? On this question, as we have already seen (69), scholastics are not agreed.

St. Thomas, and Thomists generally, maintain that intellect and will are really distinct from the substance of the soul, and likewise that the sense faculties are really distinct from the substance of the animated organism in which they inhere.(342) In this view the distinction is not merely a virtual distinction between different aspects of the soul (or the organism) itself, grounded in the variety and complexity of the acts which emanate from the latter: the faculties are real ent.i.ties of the accidental order, mediating between the substance and its actions, and involving in the concrete being a plurality which, however, is not incompatible with the real unity of the latter (69).

The following are some of the arguments urged in proof of a real distinction:-

(_a_) Existence and action are two really distinct actualities; therefore the potentialities which they actualize must be really distinct: for such is the transcendental relation between the potential and the actual that any potential subject and the corresponding perfection which actualizes it must belong to the same _genus supremum_: the one cannot be a substance and the other an accident.(343) Now existence is the actuality of _essence_ and action is the actuality of _operative power_ or _faculty_.

But action is certainly an accident; therefore the operative power which it actualizes must also be an accident, and must therefore be really distinct from the substance of which it is a power, and of which existence is the actuality. This line of argument applies with equal force to all created natures.(344)

In the Infinite Being alone are operation and substance identical. No creature is operative in virtue of its substance. The actions of a creature cannot be actualizations _of its substance_: _existence_ is the actualization of its substance; therefore its actions must be actualizations of potentialities which are _accidents_ distinct from its substance; in other words, of operative powers which belong indeed necessarily to its substance but are really distinct from the latter.

This argument rests on very ultimate metaphysical conceptions. But not all scholastics will admit the a.s.sumptions it involves. How, for instance, does it appear that the created or finite substance as such cannot be _immediately_ operative? Even were it immediately operative its actions would still be accidents, and the distinction between Creator and creature would stand untouched. The operative power must be an accident because the action which actualizes it, the ”_actus secundus_,” is an accident. But the _consequentia_ has not been proved, and it is not self-evident. On the theory of the real distinction, is not the operative power itself an _actual perfection_ of the substance, and therefore in some sort an actualization of the latter? And yet they are not in the same ultimate category, _in eodem genere supremo_. The nature which is the potential subject, perfected by the operative power, is a substance, while the operative power which perfects the substance by actualizing this potentiality is an accident. Of course there is not exactly the same correlation between substance and operative power as between the latter and action. But anyhow the action is in some true sense an actualization of the substance, at least through the medium of the power, unless we are prepared to break up the concrete unity of the agent by referring the action solely to the power of the agent, and isolating the substance of the latter as a sort of immutable core which merely ”exists”: a mode of conceiving the matter, which looks very like the mistake of reifying abstract concepts. And if the action is in any true sense an actualization of the substance, we have, after all, a _potentia_ and _actus_ which are not in the same ultimate category.

These considerations carry us, of course, right into what is perhaps the most fundamental of all metaphysical problems: that of the mode in which finite reality is actual. In its concrete actuality every finite real being is essentially subject to change: its actuality is not _tota simul_: at every instant it not only _is_ but is _becoming_: it is a mixture of potentiality and actuality: it is ever really changing, and yet the ”it” which changes can in some real degree and for some real s.p.a.ce of time persist or endure identical with itself as a ”subsisting thing” or ”person”. How, then, are we to conceive aright the mode of its actuality? Take the concrete existing being at any instant of its actuality: suppose that it is not merely undergoing change through the influence of other beings in its environment, or through its own immanent action, but that it is itself ”acting,” whether immanently or transitively. If we consider that at this instant its _existence_ is ”really distinct” from its _action_ we cannot mean by this that there is in it an unchanging substantial core, which is actually merely ”existing,” and a vesture of active and pa.s.sive accidental principles, which is just now actual (though always in a state of flux or change) by ”acting” or ”being acted on”.(345) Such a conception would conflict with the truth that the existing substance is ever being really and actually, though accidentally, determined, changed, modified, improved or disimproved, in its total concrete existing reality. Even when these changes are not so profound as to destroy its substantial ident.i.ty and thus terminate its actuality as an individual being, even when, in other words, they are not substantial, they are none the less real and really affect the substance. Since they are real they necessarily involve the recognition of really distinct principles in the concrete being and preclude the view that the distinctions which we recognize in the ever-changing modes of its actuality, as revealed to us in time and s.p.a.ce, are all _merely_ conceptual or logical distinctions projected by the mind into what would therefore be in fact a simple and immutable reality. The denial of any real distinction between successive actual states, or between co-existing principles of those states, in any finite being, would lead logically to the Eleatic doctrine, _i.e._ to denial of the reality of change. On the other hand, while recognizing that change is a reality and not a subjective mental illusion, and that real change can be grounded only in a plurality of really distinct principles in the finite individual being, we must at the same time hold that this plurality of really distinct principles in the individual does not destroy a real unity, stability, and self-identical continuity of the individual being in the mode of its actuality throughout time. Not, of course, that this stability or sameness of the individual throughout time is complete and adequate to the exclusion of all real change, but it is certainly a _real_ continuity of one and the same individual being: to deny this would be to remove all permanence from reality and to reduce all real being to flux or change, _i.e._ to the p??ta ??? of the Ionian philosopher, Herac.l.i.tus.

We cannot get a true conception of any finite reality by considering it merely from the _static_ point of view, which is the natural standpoint of abstract thought; we must view it also from the _dynamic-kinetic_ standpoint, _i.e._ not merely as an essence or principle of existence, but as a power or principle of action, and of consequent change, evolution, or decay. And the philosophy which is the latest fas.h.i.+on among contemporary systems, that of the brilliant French thinker and writer, Bergson, has at all events the merit of emphasizing this important truth, that if our philosophical a.n.a.lysis of experience is to be fruitful we must try to grasp reality not merely as it presents itself to abstract thought at any section drawn by the latter through the incessant process of its _fieri_ or continuous actualization in time, but also to grasp and a.n.a.lyse as far as possible the _fieri_ or process itself, and bring to light whatever we find that this process implies.

These considerations may help the student to estimate for himself the value and the limitations of the argument which has suggested them.

(_b_) A thing cannot be really identical with a variety of things that are really distinct from one another; but the faculties of the soul are really distinct from one another; therefore they must be really distinct from the substance of the soul. The minor premiss is supported by these considerations: The vegetative and sentient operations of the human individual are operations of the living _organism_, while the higher operations of rational thought and volition are operations of the _soul alone_, the spiritual or immaterial principle in the individual. But the immaterial principle cannot be really and adequately identical with the animated organism. Therefore the _powers_ or _immediate principles_ of these two cla.s.ses of functions, belonging as they do to two really (though not adequately) distinct substantial principles, cannot be really identical with one of them, _viz._ with the soul itself, the spiritual principle. Again: The exercise of certain functions by the human individual is subordinate to, and dependent on the previous exercise of other functions. For example, actual volition is necessarily dependent and consequent on actual thought: we cannot will or desire any good without first knowing it as a good. But the immediate principle of any function or activity cannot be dependent on or subordinate to itself. Therefore the immediate principles of such controlling and controlled activities-intellect and will, for example-must be really distinct faculties.(346)

(_c_) Suppose the substance or nature of an agent-the human individual, for instance-were really identical with all its powers or faculties, that these were merely the nature itself viewed under different aspects, so that there would be in reality only one operative power in the individual, then there would be no reason why the individual could not or should not at any instant elicit one single action or operation which would be simultaneously an act of thinking, willing, seeing, hearing, etc., _i.e._ which would have at once in itself the modalities of all human activities.

But universal experience testifies, on the contrary, that the operations of the individual are each of some particular mode only, that he cannot elicit every mode of human activity simultaneously, that he never elicits one single act having a variety of modes. But why could he not, if his substance or nature itself were the one and only _proximate principle_ of all his modes of activity? Because the conditions for the _full and adequate_ exercise of this one single or proximate principle (at once substance and power) are never realized! But it is arbitrary to a.s.sume the existence of a power which could never pa.s.s fully into the act connatural to it. And moreover, even if these conditions are partially realized we should see as a consequence of this some human activity which would manifest _in some degree at least_ all the modalities of the various human actions of which we have experience. But we have no experience of a single human activity manifesting _in any degree_ the modalities of the numerous and really distinct human activities which experience reveals to us. Hence the variety of these really distinct modes of activity can be explained only by the fact that the human individual elicits them through proximate operative principles or powers which are really distinct from one another and from the nature itself of the individual.(347)

The problem of a.n.a.lysing and cla.s.sifying the forces, faculties, or powers of the subsisting things and persons in the universe of our experience, belongs partly to Cosmology and partly to Psychology.

In the latter it becomes mainly a problem of cla.s.sifying our mental acts, functions, or processes-our states of consciousness.

Apart from the question whether or not our mental faculties are really distinct from one another and from the human nature or substance itself of the individual, the problem of their proper cla.s.sification is important from the point of view of _method_ and of _accurate psychological a.n.a.lysis_. We have seen already (69) that the greatest scholastic philosophers are not unanimous in declaring the distinction to be real. But it is at least a virtual distinction; and even as such it gives rise to the problem of cla.s.sification. It will be sufficient here to indicate the general principle on which the cla.s.sification proceeds: Wherever the _acts_ are _adequately distinct_ they proceed from distinct powers; and the acts are adequately distinct when they have adequately distinct _formal objects_.(348) _Potentiae specificantur per actus et objecta._ The operation or act is the correlative of the power or faculty; and the _formal object_ or _term_ of the operation is the _final cause_ of the latter, the end for which it is elicited. On this basis Aristotle and the scholastics distinguish two mental faculties of the higher or spiritual order, intellect and will; and in the lower or sense order of mental life they distinguish one appet.i.tive faculty, sense appet.i.te, and several cognitive sense faculties. These latter comprise the internal sense faculties, _viz._ the _sensus communis_ or unifying and a.s.sociating sense, the imagination, sense memory, and instinct; and the external sense faculties comprise sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.

81. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITIES.-(_a_) _Qualities __ have contraries_. Health and illness, virtue and vice, science and error, etc., are opposed as contraries. This, however, is not a _property_ of qualities; it is not verified in powers, or in forms and figures; and it is verified in accidents which are not qualities, _e.g._ in _actio_ and _pa.s.sio_.

(_b_) _Quality is the basis or _”fundamentum”_ of all relations of similarity and dissimilarity._ This attribute seems to be in the strict sense a _property_ of all qualities. Substances are _similar_ in so far as they have the same kind of qualities, _dissimilar_ in so far as they have different kinds. _Similarity_ of substances is the main index to _ident.i.ty of nature or kind_; but it must not be confounded with the latter. The latter cannot always be inferred even from a high degree of similarity: some specifically distinct cla.s.ses of things are very similar to one another. Nor, on the other hand, is full and complete similarity a necessary consequence of ident.i.ty of nature: individuals of the same species are often very dissimilar, very unlike one another.

(_c_) _Qualities admit of varying degrees of intensity._ They can increase or diminish in the same substance, while numerically (and specifically) distinct substances can have the same kind of quality in different degrees. This is manifest in regard to ”habits,” ”pa.s.sions” and ”sensible qualities”. On the other hand, it is clearly not true of ”form” or ”figure”. Different individuals can have the same kind of ”natural power”

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