Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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22 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW к in the sense that it requires an intellectual determinant distinct from itself in order to come into action, and active inasmuch as it is the direct efficient agency producing this determinant. In the early ages of life, the mind may be compared to an uninscribed tablet, tabula rasa, a purely passive power, intellectus possibilis, capable of being brought into action; and this is shown by the fact that it is about sensible material things that the abstract judgments of the child are first elicited and that it is to concrete phenomena that we invariably recur to illustrate our most abstract concepts. As the passive intellect is a mere potency incapable of determining itself to action, it must necessarily require some external determinant of the same nature to bring itinto play. This intellectual determinant which is the direct cause of the act of in- tellection is called in scholastic language the species intelligibilis. As soon as it is present, the act of intellection by the passive power follows as a necessary con- sequence. So far, then, is the view of Aristotle and St. Thomas on this matter. But the question now arises: how is the intellectual determinant itself produced? It is evident that it cannot be due to the mere impress of the sense image upon the higher faculty, for a material object cannot directly modify an immaterial power. If this were admitted, then there should arise the greater difficulty of explaining that the mere contact of a material object with the intellect should produce upon the latter an effect which it does not itself possess either formally or eminently; in brief there should be ascribed to the latter a power of producing something greater than itself. It is to give an adequate answer to this question that St. Thomas calls into play the action of an intellectual abstractive force, intellectus agens, which, reacting upon the sensuous stimuli of material images in imagination, prescinds from these images what is concrete, material and individual in them, and picks out for itself what is conformable to its nature, thus placing in the intellect, as a primary stage of intellec- tion, the abstracted intellectual determin- ant, i.¢., the species intelligibilis, which forthwith immediately modifies the passive power of the same faculty so that it can know the essence of the material object. The process of the origin of intellectual ideas as advocated by Aristotle and St. Thomas is then briefly this: an impression of an external object is wrought upon the senses which results in a sensuous phantasm in the imagination. This phantasm, which is the last modification of the sensible faculties, brings into action the active intellect which in turn produces a species intelligibilis of it. This abstracted portion immediately modifies the passive intellect to know, to have an idea or an intellectual cognition of the object of the senses. This then is the solution advanced by Aristotle and St. Thomas to account for the origin of intellectual ideas. Although it does not come home to us with that certainty which is wont to dispel all fear of error, although it may not thoroughly convince us that it is the only adequate explanation to account for the mutual relations of the sensitive and intellectual functions in the human mind, still, when we remember that the whole question ‘is speculative, penetrable by no other human resources than that of hypothesis aided by conscious experience, if we shall judge it by the plausibility and harmony of its inter- pretation, we must say in all sincerity and good faith that it is vastly superior to any other attempt to solve the same difficulty. If in it we do not see with the same irresist- ible evidence as we do that twice two is four, it is because no such evidence is attainable in this matter; if in it we fail to recognise the force of demonstration, it is because in this limited field of action it cannot be effected. But on the other hand we must say this in its favour, that, unlike all other solutions of the same problem, it carries with it the conviction of possibility and that it does not come into conflict with or destroy any other evident truths. Un- like Exaggerated Spiritualism, it does not reject the testimony of conscience by advo- cating the unpalatable doctrine of two mutually exclusive souls in man. Unlike Sensationalism, it does not do away with

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 21 A € cleverly disguised absurdity. In founding his ri Mens ia he begins by thrusting from the mind all forms of knowledge what- soever, in order that doubting all he may establish some clear rule of certitude. This done, he finds in thought such a clear and forcible idea of the ego that he is inevitably led to hold it as a necessary truth. Thus he has discovered his rule of certitude, which is a clear idea. But here we must remark that if he begins by doubting all he must also doubt the fact that he can arrive at certitude. The absurdity of his doubt is thus apparent, and, logically pursued, it would ultimately lead to ab- solute scepticism. His division of three kinds of ideas in the mind does not help his theory of the origin of intellectual ideas in the least; for if, as he holds, the intellec- tive and sense faculties are entirely opposed and unrelated, then it is superfluous to admit of ideas that have any connection with the senses. Like Plato and the Ontologists, Des- cartes has failed precisely because he has rejected the universal testimony of con- sciousness by denying the possibility of interconnection between the mind and the senses, and thus his theory must stand condemned, as theirs is, in failing to give an adequate account of the phenomenon which he undertook to explain. In complete opposition to the theory of Exaggerated Spiritualism, stands the doc- trine of the other extreme, namely, Sen- sationalism or Empiricism. Although the tenets of Empiricism can be traced back to the first period of ancient philosophy, it is on the whole a more genuine product of modern philosophical thought. Unlike the idealism of Plato and Descartes which holds that the object of thought is some- thing that is directly and of itself knowable, Empiricism, as expounded by John Locke (1622—1704), Condillac and Helvetius, sought to explain the problem of intellec- tual cognitions by denying any essential distinction between the object of the intel- lect and that of the senses. For the Empiricists, those thoughts which seem to us more refined products of mental reflec- tion are nothing else than higher modifica- tions of sensible perfections, and accord- ingly sense experience is quite adequate to account for all our so-called intellectual cognitions. A logical corollary of this theory is a denial, on principle, of the existence of anything that is not purely material, and consequently an affirmation that man is a mere aggregate of sense or- ganisms without any substantial principle “the soul;” briefly, the natural outcome of Empiricism is Materialism. Empiricism cannot logically and con- sistently be accepted for if man is governed by no other principle than a бо, if, moreover, the intellect and the senses are identical inasmuch as their proper objects are identical, then, most assuredly, man's perceptive faculty cannot go beyond the limits to which it is assigned. If man’s power of knowing is merely a sensitive power, if the mind itself is only the result- ing outcome of an aggregate of sensuous states, then it can at best have merely sensitive cognitions and it can do no more than know sensible material things. But man’s mind, as perceived from experience, does more than know material things; it is capable of uniting, of comparing and of forming abstract concepts of the materials furnished by the senses; how therefore'can these facts be explained without a superior power? This indeed is the fundamental defect of Empiricism. It denies in man the existence of an intellective power, and by so doing renders impossible the explanation of those higher supra-sensuous states with which the mind is endowed. Midway between Exaggerated Spiritual- ism and Empiricism lies the Peripatetic theory of intellectual abstraction. This theory, formulated by Aristotle and ad- vocated and confirmed by St. Thomas, starts from the truth that the cognitive powers of man are twofold: the intellect and the senses, of which the former is superior to the latter. The concrete formal object of the senses is some concrete indi- vidual phenomenon; that of the intellect a universal mental abstraction. According to Aristotle and St. Thomas the senses are purely passive faculties; the intellect partly passive and partly active; passive Ee ЧН a

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 23 = = — those higher cognitions of the human mind such as the idea of virtue, of truth, of goodness, and in fact of all that is im- material, by claiming the essential identity of man's intellect and senses. No; it builds up, but does not destroy. Considering the plausibility of its tenets and its successful interpretation of the phenomena, it is without doubt the most logical and coherent doctrine that has ever been advanced on the question of the origin of intellectual ideas. While not a demons- trated truth, it is a highly probable and plausible theory. Е. В. Уйдет, '24. То Mr FATHER, How true is the love of a long gotten friend Whom you knew in your childhood days, happily spent; And many the hours can memory lend When beside him you played or to stroll with him went. But have you e'er thought of a father at home, —One who proudly preserved you from childhood till now, Who guarded you safely where'er you did roam, And gave you his all e'en by sweat of his brow? Have you thought of the worry he suffered for you, Of the joys he relinquished that you might enjoy: Of how willing his hand and his heart, ah! so true To the helpmate who left him her motherless boy? Thus years will have fled in the dim retrospect, And the warmth of his heart will have chilled in the grave; But remembrance of him you will never neglect, For the love of a father who life for you gave. К. МсАвоге, '27.