Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Page 25 text:

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.

Page 24 text:

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

Page 26 text:

ҮЙ ЫН 24 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW A Skin You Love To Touch R four solid years we are toiling In the throes of a Classical Course, From no sort of labour recoiling In our clamour for knowledge perforce. In Freshman we studied the nonsense у Of Cicero, Homer and Keats; With an ardour aroused by our conscience We performed most miraculous feats. In our Sophomore year while at College Our ambitions for learning were such, In the course of our search after knowledge We involved a Rhetorical touch. In our final two years I might mention We acquired a logical mind, We conceded whole-hearted attention To Aquinas and those of his kind. But why this mad search after learning Is a question I cannot quite hush; If good dollars we had all been earning, By now we might fairly be flush. Tis but two golden letters that fire us, For which we all study so much; Tis a parchment degree that inspires us, Tis that skin that we all love to touch. С, Scorr, 26.