CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION
The lower light, sense perception, by which we discern natural forms1, is, as it were, the vestibule of intellectual knowledge.
Through his sense faculties, man comes into contact with the physical world. At this point it seems necessary to determine
St. Bonaventure's position on a much-debated question of the Thirteenth Century, the solution of which is of great importance in psychology, namely: Can action proceed directly from the substance in contingent beings, or do these beings act through the medium of the faculties?
Theologians agree that the soul is an indivisible, immaterial principle informing the body. This one single principle of life, the vital force, possesses many faculties and powers which St. Bonaventure reduces to three: the vegetative, the sensitive, and the rational which last is subdivided into intellect and will2. These grades of life function in perfect harmony, with order and priority among the powers of the soul. The rational powers are higher than the sensitive powers and exercise sway over them; the latter, in turn, are higher than the vegetative powers. The order of their generation, however, is the reverse. The vegetative powers build and sustain the sentient organisms by which the activities of sensitive life are exercised. Sensitive and intellectual activities are parallel to each other: When the brain acts, a thought occurs.
Bodily growth, sensitive perception, and conscious thought' — all proceed from one common principle, the soul. They are distinct faculties, however, and each possesses its own special functions.
These faculties, according to St. Augustine, are not really distinct 1 "Secundum lumen, quod illuminat nos ad formas naturales apprehendendas, est lumen cognitionis sensitivae, quod recte dicitur inferius." De Reduc. art. ad Theol., n. 3, t. V, p. 320. Cf. supra p. 22.
2 "Et quoniam ipsa non tantum dat esse, verum etiam vivere et sentire et intelligere; ideo potentiam habet vegetativam, sensitivam et intellectivam." Brevil. 2. 9, t. V, p. 227. "Tota anima dividitur in cognitivam et affectivam.'' Ibid. "Aliquando secundum naturam ipsarum potentiarum, ut cum dividuntur potentiae animae in vegetabilem, sensibilem, et rationalem, vel ipsa rationalis in intellectivam et affectivam." II Sent., 24, 1, 2, 3, t. II, 566.
62 DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
from the substance. For him, the question of their relation is a purely theological one. Sacred Scripture says that the soul is the image of God. It consists, then, of three spiritual powers in one essence. While these powers or faculties — memory, understanding, and will, are not identical with the substance of the soul, still, they are not so independent of it that they can constitute separate essences3. Although they are not substances, all that is positive in their being must be reduced to the class of substance4. The human soul, for the very reason that it is a soul, a spiritual sub stance, can remember, know, and love itself. That is why we consider the faculties consubstantial with the soul5. The under standing and the will of man are integral parts of the soul. A more intimate union than the union of the faculties of the soul with the soul we can hardly conceive6. Still, the union of the three Divine
Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, is more intimate. It is not a union of a spirit and its faculties but an absolute, incomprehen sible unity of nature and substance, although there is perfect distinction of persons.
Among intellectual substances, the soul holds the lowest rank.
In God, knowing and being are one; God's substance is His being 3 "Si anima est expressa Dei imago, debet in se habere trinitatem, in qua sit vera distinctio." II Sent., d. 24, p. 1, a. 2, q. 1, ad 4, t. II, p. 561 b. "Dicendum quod, sicut dicit Augustinus et Magister recitat, imago attenditur in his tribus potentiis (scil. memoria, intelligentia, voluntas), tamen in comparatione ad unitatem essentiae et pluralitatem actuum, in quibus est distinctio et ordo et origo unius ab altero per modum quendam disponendi. Nam retentio speciei disponit ad intelligendum et intelligentia ad amandum, si quod intelligitur est bonum".
I Sent., 3, 2, 1, 1, t. I, p. 81 a.
4 "Prima enim agendi potentia, quae egressum dicitur habere ab ipsa substantia, ad idem genus reducitur, quae non adeo elongatur ab ipsa substantia, ut dicat aliam essentiam completam." II Sent., 24,
1, 2, 1, ad 8m, t. II, p. 562 b, 563 a.
5 "Istae potentiae sunt animae consubstantiales et sunt in eodem genere per reductionem.'' I Sent., 3, 2, x, 3. Concl., t. I, p. 86. "Potentiae animae, nec adeo sunt idem ipsi animae, sicut sunt eius principia intrinseca et, essentialia (matter and form), nec adeo diversae, ut cedant in aliud genus, sicut accidentia, sed in genere substantiae sunt per reductionem . . . Ideo dicuntur esse una essentia propter hoc, quod in una essentia radicantur et adeo adhaerent illi intrinsecus, ut non cedant in aliud genus." II Sent. 24, 1, 2, II, 560-61.
6 "Secundum autem harum potentiarum ordinem et originem et habitudinem, ducit in ipsam beatissimam Trinitatem. Nam ex memoria oritur intelligentia ut ipsius proles, quia tunc intelligimus,oCum similitudo quae est in memoria resultat in acie intellectus, quae nihil°aliud est quam verbum; ex memoria et intelligentia spiratur amor tanquam nexus amborum. Haec tria scilicet mens generans, verbum et amor, sunt in anima quoad memoriam, intelligentiam et voluntatem, quae sunt consubstantiales, coaequales et coaevae, se invicem circumincedentes."
Itiner. Ill, 5, t. V, 305 a.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 63
and His act7. Of the angels, this is not true; they possess knowledge of material things through the intelligible species or concepts impressed by God on the angelic mind. Possessing only intellect and will, they have no share in those faculties of the human soul which are exercised by means of bodily organs. Man's knowledge, however, is experimental knowledge; it must be acquired by the natural use of his faculties, through his senses and imagination.
Having no innate knowledge of truth, as the angels have, the rational soul is forced to gather its knowledge of material things through the senses. It must, therefore, be united to a convenient sense organ, the body. The sensible origin of our ideas about the external world finds expression in the well known adage: Nihil est in intellect'll quod non prius fuerit in sensu. The microcosm, man, unites in himself the perfection of the spiritual and material.
The organism, that is to say the body "informed" by the soul, is the seat of sensation.
"The light which enables us to discern natural forms", says St. Bonaventure, "is rightly called 'lower' because sense perception begins with a material object and takes place by the aid of corporeal light." Here the Seraphic Doctor brings to the fore the theory of light as evolved by St. Augustine and further developed by Grosseteste and his school. The forma substantialis of matter is lumen sive lux faciens ad distinctionem rerum corporearum8. The power of light, then, extends to the lower operations of knowledge and brings from potency to act not only the sense of sight but all the other senses9 * II.
The human body, like all extended beings, receives its first perfection from the form of corporeity — light. It has in its composition the nature and forms of the elements for which reason man is called a microcosm or a small world. Touch is the funda mental sense and the earth is its element. The earth, then, must predominate in quantity; otherwise the body would be incapable of exercising the sense of touch and the higher senses which depend upon it. Now the body operates by means of those elements which are most like the soul, namely, the higher forms of matter, —
7 "Ubi est prima et summa vita, cui non est aliud vivere et aliud esse, sed idem est esse et vivere; et primus et summus intellectus, cui non est aliud vivere et aliud intelligere, sed id quod est intelligere, hoc vivere, hoc esse est, unum omnia." St. Augustine, De Trin. VI.
10, Migne P. L., t. 42, col. 931.
8 De Reduc. art. ad Theol., n. 3, t. v, p. 320. Cf. supra, p. 22.
9 "Et haec virtus non est sensu perceptibilis nec solummodo operatur in sensu visus, sed etiam facit ad eductionem omnium sensuum in actum, sicut dicit Augustinus septimo super Genesim ad litteram."
II Sent., 13, 3, 2, t. II, p. 328. Cf. also II Sent., 15, 1, 3, t. II, p. 379, 381;
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
fire and air, endowed with active rather than with passive powers.
Warmth and the vital breath are the instruments of the sensitive faculty of the soul10, the subtle intermediary without which the living being cannot experience contact with the sensible world.
The fifth essence, light, by its active power in some way enters into the very composition of the body and, though of the order of forms, it plays the role of a fifth element.
Without a predominance of the elementary active faculties over the mass of the passive elements, the motive faculty of the soul could not reach the members which it wishes to move.
St. Augustine says that fire penetrates all the members and causes a movement in them, and, from experience, we know that cold has a paralyzing effect, deadens the feeling, and checks all activity.
Air and fire, then, confer upon members of the body their agility and vigor; earth and water, their solidity and compactness of mass* 11. These elements which in nature derive their movement directly from the heavens, are in the human microcosm unified and vitalized by the soul which moves the nerves and muscles by means of light12.
Since there are five corporeal substances, namely, the four elements and the fifth essence, light, man is endowed with five senses through which as through so many doors, the sensible world may enter. In his Third Book on Genesis13, St. Augustine shows that earth corresponds to touch; water, to taste; air, to hearing; fire (warm vapor), to smell; the fifth essence, light, to sight. By the sense of sight, then, the soul comes in contact with luminous and colored bodies; by touch, with solid and terrestrial ones. The three intermediate senses afford a passage to the three intermediate elements: taste, to liquids; hearing, to air; smell, to the vapor resulting from a mixture of air, heat and moisture14.
Thus does St. Bonaventure justify the number of the senses: there are five and only five — a number required and sufficient to acquaint the microcosm man with the macrocosm in which he
10 "Calor enim et spiritus sunt instrumenta virtutis sensitivae."
II Sent., 15, 1. 3. Concl., t. II, p. 380.
11 Cf. Gilson, op. cit., p. 297.
12 II Sent., 15, 1, 3, t. II, p. 380 and 17, 2, 2, p. 422.
13 C. 4, n. 6, Migne, P. L., t. 34, col. 281. Cf. also XII De Gen. ad Litt., c. 16, n. 32, Migne, P. L. t. 34, col. 466.
14 "Homo igitur, qui dicitur minor mundus habet quinque sensus quasi quinque portas, per quas intrat cognitio omnium, quae sunt in mundo sensibili, in animam ipsius. Nam per visum intrant corpora sublimia et luminosa et cetera colorata, per tactum vero corpora solida et terrestria, per tres vero sensus intermedios intrant intermedia, ut per gustum aquea, per auditum aerea, per odoratum vaporabilia, quae aliquid habent de natura humida, aliquid de aerea, aliquid de ignea seu calida, sicut patet in fumo ex aromatibus resoluto." Itinerarium,
2. 3, t. V, p. 300.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 65
lives. There is another method of determining the adequacy of the senses but St. Bonaventure expresses his preference for this method of St. Augustine in which corresponding elements on the part of the faculty, the medium and the object lend joint support to the proof15.
Sensitive cognition may be defined as a vital reaction by which a sentient faculty, in response to an impression received from an individual material object, produces within itself an intentional representation of the object. In sensation, then, there are four elements to be considered, namely: (a) the sentient faculty,
(b) the sensible object, (c) the impression produced by the sensible object in the sentient faculty, technically termed "impressed image or species", (d) the formal act of perception or the actual representation of the object, technically termed the "expressed image or species".
In all sensitive cognition, the object must be united to the faculty by its impressed image or species. Just as nature has provided a variety of organs adapted to the faculties, so has she provided the various senses with various media for the convenient functioning of these faculties. Vibrations of light reflected from a body affect the eye; air waves set the powers of the ear in motion; soluble matter in the mouth affects the papillae of the tongue and palate; volatile particles of matter in the air affect the nasal organs; heat and cold affect the organs of touch. Thus each sense is well-defined and represents its object according to its character16.
Sight represents the object as colored; hearing represents it as sounding; taste and smell, as agreeable or disagreeable; touch, as hard or soft, large or small. These five sorts of representations can by no means be called mental creations; they are produced by the mind only after some sense organ has been acted upon by an external object. Whatever the character of the action, mediate or immediate, the result is an impression upon the organ of sense.
This impression scholastics term species impressa sensibilis.
The mere impression of an object upon the sense organ, how ever, is not sensation. We are constantly seeing, hearing, tasting.
15 In addition to this method of determining the five senses, namely, from a consideration of the nature of their objects and their media which Alexander of Hales explains in his Summa Theologica, the "Doctor Irrefragabilis" explains another method based on the manner of perception according as it takes place in close proximity to the sense object as in the senses of touch and taste, or at a distance from it, as in sight, hearing, and smell. Cf. De Vi Sensibili Cognitiva, q. 2. m. x. c. 3, t. II, pp. 433-43416 "Quia nulla fit apprehensio nisi per aliquam similitudinem et convenientiam organi et obiecti, pro eo quod sensus est natura determinata." De Reduc. art. ad Theol., n. 3, t. V, p. 320. Cf. supra p. 24.
5 St. Bonaventure, De Reductione
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
smelling, and touching objects, but before we can experience any of these sensations, our minds must first be acted upon by these objects, and having been acted upon, they must themselves react. Proper sensibles by their very nature affect the senses since they are qualities which cause alteration. The impression from the object causes a change in the sense organ. In function, it may be compared to the change wrought in a photographic plate by the object which has been photographed. The function of the change effected in the plate is to produce a likeness of the object which has been placed before it. The function of the change effected in the sense organ is to enable the mind to produce a mental representation of the object which acted upon the organ17. This mental act of sense perception is the species expressa sensibilis or the percept, the verbum mentis. Sensory cognition, then, is not the mere reception of an impression of the object in the living organic faculty, for sensory cognition is a vital immanent action, while the mere impression of the object is nothing more than a transient action of the object by which the faculty suffers an intrinsic modification. The impression received from the object determines the vital faculty and helps it to produce the expressed image or representation18. The faculty is incapable of producing it without an impression received from the object; and, on the other hand, the mere passive reception of the determination is not a vital act of perception. The subjective image or species is not that which is perceived in sensation but that by which the cognitive faculty directly and immediately perceives the object.
It is a formal sign by which not itself but the thing signified is directly and immediately perceived.
This psychic change of double aspect takes place within us and has nothing to do with the question of the medium which explains how the corporeal object manages to affect the organism. Certain scholastics confused these two questions. They regarded the impressed species not as an action produced in us, but as a material image which starts from the object, passes across the medium, and penetrates into the sense organ19. The leading scholastics, how ever — St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, Duns Scotus — all realized
17 "Ilia autem similitudo non facit completionem in actu sentiendi, nisi uniatur cum organo et virtute; et cum uniatur, nova fit perceptio, et per illam perceptionem fit reductio ad obiectum mediante similitudine ilia." De Reduc. art. ad Theol., n. 8, t. V, p. 322. Cf. supra p. 28.
18 "Species autem et similitudines rerum acquiruntur in nobis mediante sensu." II Sent., 39, 1, 2, concl., t. II, p. 903 a.
19 "... species tenet rationem formae, virtutis et operationis, secundum quod habet respectum ad principium, a quo manat, ad medium, per quod transit, et ad terminum, in quern agit." Itiner. II,
5, t. V. p. 300 b.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION
that a clear distinction was to be drawn between the psychic immutatio wrought by the object in the sense, and the physical phenomena which take place in the medium20.
How is it possible for a sensible object to act upon an organ from which it is separated by some distance? In our study of inanimate nature, we learned from St. Bonaventure's theory of the metaphysics of light that light is not a substantial element, a form which cannot exist without matter; that it is the funda mental and most noble form, one which confers corporeity itself; that it is found everywhere, in terrestrial bodies as well as in heavenly ones21. Light multiplies itself by instantaneous diffusion and, since the form is inseparable from prime matter, the latter is involved in this self-diffusion. Every luminous substance by virtue of its luminosity is radioactive; for immediate action it requires only the presence of an appropriate organ upon which it may act, as is the case in visual sensations. The same is true of the generation of other species. Every object, then, must be endowed with a sort of radioactive power which permits the luminous body to project its form at a distance, but the sensible object can exercise this power only in proportion to the quantity and the purity of its light. Whether we perceive it or not, every body in its perfect state is continually emitting a radiation which reveals its presence and discloses its nature on the condition, of course, that there be present an organ adapted for the reception of the impression. This radiation is not a form, for it emanates from the entire object and represents it in its entirety, form and matter combined. It is not pure matter, for, if it were, the formal element would not be represented. It has an essence which can be explained only by reduction for which reason St. Bonaventure terms it a similitude) or likeness. It has no right to existence except that which it possesses by reason of its origin. It has no existence of its own; its being is reduced to that of its source22. Since this likeness emanates from the whole object, it expresses the object, represents it, and permits it to be known23. These are the images,
20 Cf. M. De Wulf, Scholasticism Old and New translated by P. Cof fey, London, 1907, p. 131.
21 II Sent., 12, 2, 1, t. II, p. 302 b.
22 "Si autem sunt similitudines, sic sunt in genere per reductionem et reducuntur ad idem genus, sub quo continentur ilia quorum sunt similitudines, ut patet in similitudine albedinis et coloris, quae quidem non est albedo, sed ut albedo, non est color, sed ut color." II Sent., 24,
1, 2, 1, t. II, p. 563.
23 "Haec autem sensibilia extenora sunt quae pnmo mgrediuntur in animam per portas quinque sensuum. Intrant inquam non per substantias suas, sed per similitudines suas, primo generatas in medio et de medio in organo exteriori et de organo exteriori in interiori et de hoc in potentiam apprehensivam; et sic generatio speciei in medio et de
68 DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
natural forms, or species, as they are sometimes called, to which St. Bonaventure refers when he says that perception takes place only when the sensible form is brought into contact with the sense organ and the sentient faculty.
St. Bonaventure's theory of sense perception is in perfect accordance with his theory of the union of the soul with the body and with that of the relation of the soul to its faculties. Since he does not accept the so-called Aristotelian definition of the soul as merely the form of the organized body, he cannot agree with St. Thomas in maintaining the existence of a faculty of the soul which is entirely passive in regard to exterior objects. Since in his opinion the faculties are consubstantial with the soul without, however, being identical in essence with it, St. Bonaventure conceives the soul as undergoing an action on the part of sensible objects, as St. Thomas says, but since the soul is a knowing substance and illumined by God, he cannot concede that it sub mits in a passive manner to the action which the exterior world exercises on even the lowest of its faculties. The place which St. Augustine attributes to the bodily senses in the genesis of sensation has its root in the Saint's firm adherence to Plato; his doctrine harmonizes with his conception of the soul as govern ing the body and making use of it. For St. Augustine, sensation is essentially passive on the part of the body and essentially active on the part of the soul24. It is not the object which impresses its own likeness upon the soul, but it is the soul which engenders in itself the likeness of the object. St. Bonaventure does not accept St. Augustine's interpretation any more than he does that of St. Thomas. For him, the soul is composed of matter and form; after having informed its own spiritual matter, it informs the corporeal matter. Since the soul is the form of the body and since it is itself composed of matter and form, it must, of necessity, descend to the level of the sensible and submit to its action.
Unlike organic substances and the souls of animals, the human soul is not wholly immersed in matter; its higher operations are intrinsically independent of the organism. Unextended, inde pendent, and simple, it encompasses every part of the body, giving it its substantial perfection, its actual existence, and its life; in the human nature the soul is the formal principle of all activities. Every faculty, even this lowest form of the cognitive medio in organo et conversio potentiae apprehensivae super illam facit apprehensionem omnium eorum, quae exterius anima apprehendit."
Itiner., 2. 4, t. V, p. 300.
24 XII De Gen. ad lift., 16, 33, Migne, P. L., t. 34, col. 467. St. Bona venture likewise emphasizes the active character of sensation when he says: "In potentia sensitiva . . . activa potentia est ex parte animae, passiva ex organo." IV Sent., 50, 2, 1, 1, Concl., 1046.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 69
faculty, sensation, is closely united to the higher forms of spiritual activity which are continually acting upon it and rendering it fruitful.
We have seen that by means of the percept the mind acquires knowledge of a particular aspect of a particular thing, but the power of the mind, as sentient, is not limited to the formation of percepts. It is endowed with the additional power of combining percepts and discriminating between one percept and another.
Though the acts of the several senses are distinct, there is in the mind, as sentient, the power to assemble the percepts resulting from these acts and to employ them for self-direction as effectively as if all the percepts were produced by a single sense. This power of assembling implies the power of discriminating. The mental power which assembles the percepts is the power which discrimi nates between them. One of the functions, therefore, which the mind exercises in relation to the percepts which it has formed, is to bring the different percepts into combination with one another and to discriminate between them. No sense can fully apprehend its object unless it brings to its aid this higher faculty of comparison. It is one of the sense faculties of the mind; it is called the Common Sense25. Through its mediation, a genuine stream of thought passes down to the lowest activity of our senses to enrich and complete it26.
Every sense conveys to the mind information about the external world. This information reveals the fact that there are some objects in the world which are capable of imparting pleasure to the mind, if, through sensation, it can be brought into contact with them; that these same senses can convey to the mind in formation about objects which are capable of causing pain. The formal objects of the senses are colored extension, sound, odor, sapidity, and extended pressure or resistance27. Sense pleasure is the satisfaction or repose which the faculties of a sentient being find in the possession or enjoyment of their proper objects28. It is, therefore, an accompaniment of the natural, normal exercise of these faculties. If there be an excess or defect in the object pre sented to it, pain results. If the stimulus is normal, the feeling is pleasant or agreeable; if the stimulus is abnormal, for example, too
25 "Omnes sensitivae exteriores (scil., vires) uniuntur in origine et in sensu communi et distinguuntur in organis." IV Sent., 50, 2, 1, 1, concl., t. IV, p. 1045.
26 IV Sent., 12, 1, dub. 1, t. IV, p. 286.
27 "Quia vero sensu percipimus non solum haec sensibilia parti culars, quae sunt lux, sonus, odor, sapor et quatuor primariae qualitates, quas apprehendit tactus." Itiner., c. 2, n. 3, t. V, p. 300.
28 "Ad hanc apprehensionem, si sit rei convenientis, sequitur oblectatio." Ibid., n. 5. p. 300.
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
intense light or too intense sound, the accompanying reaction is unpleasant29. It is the internal or common sense which establishes these relations and combines the impressions that we experience30.
Sensations resulting from perception possess different qualities.
The quality of the sensation is determined by the character of the impression made upon the sense organ and the condition of the organ itself. According to the relation established between the sense organ and its object, the impression received may be that of something beautiful, pleasant, or salubrious31. Beauty does not belong exclusively to things, as the Greeks thought, nor is it merely an attitude of the subject; it is mid-way between the object and the subject and consists in the correspondence of the one to the other. On the part of the exterior object, it consists in symmetry or harmony of parts, and hence it is an unfolding of the perfection of the object, its unity and form. On the part of the subject in contact with the object, beauty implies a psychic impression which begins with sensation, includes an act of con templation by the intelligence, and culminates in the enjoyment of contemplation32. The impression of beauty is reduced to pro portion33 ; it supposes an harmonious arrangement of parts accord ing to the laws of number, supplemented by other sensible qualities of which adaptation to the organ constitutes the fundamental condition. The second affective quality, agreeableness, may supplement the first and is often mingled with it as, for instance, when we delight in the beauty of form and the blending of color in a rare painting. The third affective quality is experienced principally in the sensations of taste and touch, the actions of which senses are directly connected with the needs of life34. These
29 "Quia sensus tristatur in extremis et in mediis delectatur."
Itiner., 2. 5, t. V, p. 301.
30 Itiner., 2. 6, t. V, p. 301.
31 "Delectatur autem sensus in obiecto per similitudinem abstractam percepto vel ratione speciositatis, sicut in visu, vel ratione suavitatis, sicut in odoratu et auditu, vel ratione salubritatis, sicut in gustu et tactu." Itiner., 2. 5, t. V, p. 300.
32 The twofold definition of "beauty" is according to St. Augustine, VI de Musica, c. 13, n. 38, Migne, P. L., t. 32, col. 1184. Cf. St. Bonaventure. Opera Omnia, t. I, p. 544, n. 8; t. IV, p. 1025, n. 3.
33 "Omnis autem delectatio est ratione proportionalitatis. Sed quoniam species tenet rationem formae, virtutis et operationis, secundum quod habet respectum ad principium, a quo manat, ad medium, per quod transit, et ad terminum, in quern agit: ideo proportionalitas aut attenditur. in similitudine, secundum quod tenet rationem speciei seu formae, et sic dicitur speciositas, quia "pulchritudo nihil aliud est quam aequalitas numerosa," seu "quidam partium situs cum coloris suavitate."
Itiner., 2. 5, t. V, p. 300.
34 "... quae tunc est proportionalis, quando agens imprimendo replet indigentiam patientis, et hoc est salvare et nutrire ipsum, quod maxime apparet in gustu et tactu." Itiner., 2. 5, t. V, p. 301.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 71
sensations are of a vital nature; they are pleasant and salubrious but may become unpleasant and painful when there is dis proportion between the object and the faculty. Hence we see that every external sense perceives its own proper object; that the central sense combines, coordinates, and distinguishes the sensible qualities in one and the same concrete object; that, since the soul is the proximate formal principle activating all the potencies of man, the sensitive power of the soul is capable of discerning and judging at the very moment it is acted upon by the object.
The term "memory" signifies the power by which past mental states, or states of consciousness, are retained in the mind, re called, and recognized35. For human memory, both sense faculties and intellectual powers are required. The product of sense activity is always particular; abstract ideas are universal. No sentient power can produce them and no sentient power can retain them; they are produced and retained by a spiritual power. Yet, intellect cannot act without the co-operation of sense. Hence the power of retention which is attributed to the memory is not a property, of the organism alone, nor of the soul alone, but it is shared some how by both. The memory is a treasure-house which stores away the percepts produced by the senses, and reproduces them upon demand. By reproducing and recognizing past mental experiences, it gives continuity to mental life.
Another faculty concerned with the sense image or phantasm is the imagination. While the memory retains, reproduces, and identifies images of the past, the imagination forms these images into new combinations which bear little resemblance to the original percepts upon which they were based. It is the act of identification which distinguishes memory from imagination.
The imagination is unconcerned with identification and, for that matter, with reality; its work is to construct a new image, not out of new materials, but out of the elements contained in the phantasms which are stored away in the memory36.
Besides the common sense, the sense memory, and the ima gination, which are called the internal senses, there is another internal sense faculty, the sense appetite. It is animal judgment
(instinct) in the animal, or animal intelligence in man — a power 35 "Dicendum quod actum memoriae contingit accipere per modum habitus, et iste est retinere speciem et esse dicitur per modum habitus, quia continue tenet et dicit magis statum sive conservationem quam actionem." II Sent., 7, 2, 1, 2, concl., t. II, p. 193.
36 "Quia vero imaginaria est earum rerum quarum imagines in interiori sensu exprimuntur." I Sent., 16, 2, t. I, p. 282. Cf. also II Sent.,
7, 2, 1, 2, concl. and ad 3, t. II, p. 193; II Sent., 8, 2, un., 3, t. II, p. 229.
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
which, blindly in the former and directed by intelligence in the latter, estimates the utility or the harmfulness of the sense pro perties of an object37. This information arouses the mind to desire the object represented as promising pleasure, and to loathe the object which threatens pain. The mind experiencing this sense attraction or repulsion is called the sense appetite. Appetite manifests itself by movement, but since man possesses free will, the sensuous appetite, no matter how strongly it impels, cannot control man's conduct, provided, of course, that his reason func tions normally.
Sense consciousness, when modified by pleasure or pain in a noticeable degree, may be either a sensation or an emotion.
Sensation is concerned with the present object; emotion may concern the past, present, or future. Strong emotion is sometimes called passion. If an object is proposed to us as a future good, we desire it. If it is in our possession as a present good, we enjoy it.
We hate the evil which deprives us of it. If the evil only threatens to overtake us in the future, we seek to avoid it. When we lose a beloved object, we become sad. If the good appears attainable, we indulge in hope; if unattainable, we fall into despair. If we are threatened with an impending evil, we fear. If the evil becomes surmountable, we take courage; if it actually overtakes us, we become angry. Intensity of emotion changes pleasure to delight, sadness to dejection, hope to presumption, fear to cowardice, anger to madness.
As we review St. Bonaventure's theory of the origin of knowl edge, we find that, with the other scholastics, he has based it on the teaching of Aristotle. We have noted his distinction between the five external senses and the internal senses; the former re vealing to us some exterior object which some one sense (sensibile proprium), or many together (sensibile commune) perceive38;
37 "Potentia sensibilis apprehensiva enim dividitur in exteriorem et interiorem; prior comprehendit quinque sensus exteriores, posterior vero sensum communem, imaginationem (phantasiam) aestimativam et memoriam." Cf. t. V, p. 300, footnote 6. Cf. Augustine, XI de Trin. c. 9, n. 16, Migne, P. L., t. 42, p. 996.
38 In his treatment of the senses, Aristotle states that the term "object of sense" covers three kinds of objects, two kinds of which are directly perceptible, while the remaining one is only incidentally per ceptible. Of the first two kinds, one consists of what is perceptible by a single sense, the other of what is perceptible by any and all of the senses. By the special object of this or that sense, he means that which cannot be perceived by any other sense and in respect to which no error is possible; thus color is the special object of sight, sound of hearing, flavor of taste. Touch discriminates more than one set of different qualities. "Common sensibles" are movement, rest, number, figure, and magnitude; they are not peculiar to any one sense, but common to all. There are certain kinds of movement which are per-
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 73
the latter as its name indicates, informing from within. In studying the internal senses, we have learned that the function of the common sense is to make us aware of our external sensations and to distinguish between them; that that of the imagination and sense memory is to store up traces of past sensations, to recall and combine them, thus contributing to the production of thought in the absence of the external object. Aristotle refers but vaguely to the vis aestimativa or instinct of the animal and to the vis cogitativa in man, but the Arabians who exercised a wide influence over the doctors of the Thirteenth Century wrote long commentaries on these functions. Such are the preliminary steps which neces sarily precede the first operation of thought. Beyond this stage the lower animals cannot go; it is for man alone to advance.
Without failing to recognize the fact that our knowledge is finite, we maintain that through our senses we may form some correct judgments of matter and its properties. Our senses afford us proof of the existence of our own bodies and of other bodies, of their nature and attributes. Not only can we predicate of them secondary qualities, as that sugar is a substance exciting a sweet taste in the palate, but we may also know their primary and more intellectual qualities, for example, such laws of motion as help to form the science of mathematics. Though the judgment may at times err in its interpretation of the object exciting the sensation, the senses never err in making their report. Thus, it is reasonable for man to trust his senses; in so doing he is not driven by blind instinct but is acting according to his intelligent nature. We assume, of course, as our standard for testing the validity of the senses, a state of organism which is normal.
In all that concerns the origin and nature of sensation and our abstract knowledge of the corporeal world, St. Bonaventure, like his master, Alexander of Hales, holds to the peripatetic ideology.
The proper sphere of abstraction, then, is limited to the material world39; in all that concerns the soul and God, the intervention ceptible both by touch and by sight. Cf. Aristotle, II De Anima, c. 6, and St. Augustine, XI de Trinitate, c. 9, n. 16, Migne, P. L., t. 42, p. 996.
39 "Utrum omnis cognitio sit a sensu. Dicendum est quod non.
Necessario enim oportet ponere, quod anima novit Deum et se ipsam et quae sunt in se ipsa sine adminiculo sensuum exteriorum . . . Quod
"omnis cognitio habet ortum a sensu" intelligendum est de illis quae quidem habent esse in anima per similitudinem abstractam." II Sent.,
39, 1, 2, t. II, p. 904. "Deus est praesens ipsi animae et omni intellectui per veritatem: ideo non est necesse, ab ipso abstrahi similitudinem, per quam cognoscatur: nihilominus tamen, dum cognoscitur ab intellectu, intellectus informatur quaedam notitia, quae est velut similitudo quaedam non abstracta, sed impressa, inferior Deo, quia in natura inferiori est, superior tamen anima, quia facit ipsam meliorem." I Sent.,
3, 2, 1, 1, concl., n. 3, t. I, p. 81 b.
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
of the senses and of species abstracted from sensible data is powerless. Man knows directly the spiritual being which is himself and that which is above him, for, as the soul turns back upon itself, it beholds itself in its being and in its faculties, and in beholding itself, it discovers God in virtue of a naturale iudicatorium. Man is placed in the universe of things where he finds the corporeal and temporal footprint which leads the way to God.
Then he enters his mind which is the eternal and spiritual image of God, and this is to enter the truth of God. Thence he rises above to the eternal, spiritual first cause, and this is to rejoice in the knowledge of God's majesty. Thus, by a threefold illumination, man recognizes the triple existence of things: in matter, in the intelligence, and in the arte divinaM. Our minds, likewise, have three outlooks or aspects: one upon the corporeal world without, another into and within itself, and a third above itself41.
The term aspectus is a very important one for Bonaventure.
The "aspects" of thought have reference to the various acts by which a single faculty, the intellect, animated by a single dis position, that of the superior reason, examines the fundamental modes of the existence of things from • the viewpoint of their highest significance42. Each of the three principal aspects of the soul — sensualitas, spiritus, and mens — is subdivided into two de grees according as it considers objects as they appear to the mirror which reflects them (per speculum) or as they are in the mirror itself while it reflects them (in speculo)iZ. Thus, the faculties of the soul are ordered hierarchically in six degrees: namely, sense, imagination, reason, intellect, intelligence, and apex mentis or synteresis scintilla44.
Our knowledge of the corporeal world starts with sense ex perience, but the reception of the species sensibiles in the passive memory does not complete the process of knowledge. The intellect presupposes sensation and operates on the materials supplied by 40 "Secundum hunc triplicem progressum mens nostra habet tres aspectus principales. Unus est ad corporalis exteriora, secundum quern vocatur animalitas seu sensualitas; alius intra se et in se, secundum quern dicitur spiritus; tertius supra se, secundum quern dicitur mens."
I finer. I, 4, t. V, p. 296.
41 "Aliquando vero fit divisio potentiarum secundum aspectus, sicut dividitur potentia cognitiva in rationem, intellectum et intelligentiam, secundum quod aspicit ad inferius, ad par, et ad superius."
II Sent., 24, 1, 2, 3, concl., t. II, p. 566.
42 "Les aspects de 1'ame correspondent aux divers actes par lesquels une seule et meme facultd, l'intellect, animee d'une seule et meme diposition, celle de la raison superieure, examine successivement, au point de vue de leur signification la plus haute, les objects de degres les plus diffdrents." Gilson, op. cit., p. 365.
43 Cf. ibid., p. 366. 44 Cf. Itiner., c. 1, n. 6, t. V, p. 297.
THE "LUMEN INFERIUS" — SENSE PERCEPTION 75
the sentient faculties. From the species sensibiles, which exist as a representation in the soul, a species intelligibilis must be formed, for whatever is received into any faculty must accommodate itself to the nature of the faculty. Censequently, the image of the external object received into the intellect must be something spiritual45. This is the function of the intellect — to divest the object presented by sense of its material and individualizing conditions and to apprehend the universal and intelligibile form embodied in the concrete physical reality46. The image is no longer a concrete, individual representation of a single object; it applies with equal truth to any object of the class. It is no longer change able and variable, but possesses a definite and unvarying character.
Thus, free from materiality, it is prepared for entrance into the realm of immaterial thought. It is a true, perfect image, an ideal object, worthy of the noble faculty which conceived and pro duced it.
In this process, the intellect plays a double part. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it manifests itself, on the one hand, as an active agent inasmuch as it operates on the object presented by the sentient faculty and renders it intelligible; on the other, as a passive agent inasmuch as it manifests modifiability, passivity, and susceptibility to the reception of different forms. The solution of the problem seems to consist in identifying the passive intellect with the matter of the soul and the active intellect with its form47, and no interpretation would seem more logical, especially should one maintain the hylomorphic composition of the soul, as does
St. Bonaventure. However, this very solution which, it seems, would simplify his doctrine of illumination and render it more intelligible, St. Bonaventure refuses to accept, as does every true follower of St. Augustine, for the reason that he cannot concede the existence of a purely passive element in the human soul.
In our study of sensation, we saw that St. Bonaventure completed the sensuous act by the reaction of the sentient faculty upon the impression received by the sense. In our study of intellectual knowledge, we likewise find him endowing the passive intellect with a sort of spontaneous activity; he conceives it as turning toward the sensible and receiving from the active intellect the power to abstract48. If the passive intellect were purely passive,
45 "Est incommutabilis, incircumscriptibilis, interminabilis et omnino spiritualis." Itiner. II. 6, t. V, 301.
46 "Diiudicatio igitur est actio, quae speciem sensibilem, sensibiliter per sensus acceptam introire facit depurando et abstrahendo in potentiam intellectivam." Itiner. II, 6, t. V, p. 301 a.
47 Cf. Gilson, op. cit., p. 349 ff.
48 "Appropriatur autem intellectus agens formae et possibilis materiae, quia intellectus possibilis ordinatur ad suscipiendum, intel-
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
it would neither know nor possess the faculty of knowing; it would be as any organ of the body would be if separated from the soul which informs it.
Thus, in the conceptions of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, the terms, active and passive intellects, have entirely different significations. In the doctrine of St. Thomas, the passive intellect receives and preserves the forms which have been stripped of their individuating notes by the active intellect; in the doctrine of St. Bonaventure, the passive intellect turns toward the sensible and receives from the active intellect the power to strip it of all materiality and form a judgment concerning it. According to the latter interpretation, it is impossible for either intellect to exercise its activity without the aid of the other; they are dependent upon each other, -the activity of the one sharing in the passivity of the other and vice versa. There is no question here of two really distinct faculties49. The active and passive intellects are merely modes of mental activity, and the mind, like the will, is reduced to the substance of the soul. Scholastics solve the problem in terms of the general theory of double causality in which agents which are diverse and distinct in nature contribute each in its own way to a common result and produce one effect. lectus agens ordinatur ad abstrahendum; nec intellectus possibilis est pure passivus; habet enim supra speciem existentem in phantasmate se convertere, et convertendo per auxilium intellectus agentis illam suscipere, et de ea judicare. Similiter nec intellectus agens est omnino in actu; non enim potest intelligere aliud a se, nisi adjuvetur a specie, quae abstracta a phantasmate intellectui habet uniri. Unde nec possibilis intelligit sine agente, nec agens sine possibili." II Sent., 24, 1, 2, 4, concl., t. II, p. 569.
49 "Et ita cum cogitamus de intellectu agente et possibili, non debemus cogitari quasi de duabus substantiis, vel quasi de duabus potentiis ita separatis, quod una sine alia habeat operationem suam perficere, et aliquid intelligat intellectus agens sine possibili, et aliquid cognoscat intellectus agens, quod tamen homo, cuius est ille intellectus, ignoret." Ibid., p. 571.