Degrees of Knowledge Maritain

THE DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE
JACQUES MARITAIN
^ ^HE
7
DEGREES OF
KNOWLEDGE
GEOFFREY
BLES:
THE CENTENARY PRESS

SQUARE, LONDON
TWO MANCHESTER
TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND REVISED AND AUGMENTED FRENCH EDITION BY BERNARD WALL AND MARGOT R. ADAMSON
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
In the original
M.
dred which
that
exists
Maritain makes considerable use of the between the actual forms of certain French
close kin-
of Scholastic
words and
risk a
Latin. This involves considerable difficulties in trans-
lation into a
tongue not so closely related. At times, rather than misunderstanding of a philosopher who naturally
I
lays great stress
on
verbal exactitude,
angle of the sense rather than smoothness the English. Philosophy can never make easy reading, and Gavin Douglas' plea is as pertinent to-day as in his time:
this
have followed
FIRST PUBLISHED 1037
tf
5
4
For there be Latin wordis many one That in our tongue ganand translation snane Les than we mynis thar sentence andgravity
And yet scant weill exponit...

For ohjectum and subjectum also He war expect culdfind me termis two
In particular
I
$
|
H
would draw
and
tween
rational
real being,
the reader's attention to the opposition becorresponding to that between ens rationis
and ens reale; and
that, in general, it is in this sense that the
word rational
is
should primarily be understood.

In the original the
main
text,
which
is
Mowed by nine
here integrally translated,

to their great length
I
Appendices:
these,
owing
and
highly technical character, have here been omitted.
have given a brief
summary of their content.

the
No new matter is introduced in them, and in

critical
main they
consist
of
and technical
discussions
of points
with long quotations in support and enlargement of individual stages in the argument.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSB AND COMPANY LTD. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
treated in the text,
Behnard "Wall
GLASGOW
214556
Preface
-----_____
-
CONTENTS
F&GR
ix
i
Introduction. The Grandeur and Misery of Metaphysics
PART ONE
THE DEGREES OF RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
SHAFTER
I.
Philosophy and Experimental Science Critical Realism
II.
--------86
-
27
HI.
Our Knowledge of the Sensible World

Metaphysical Knowledge
-
165
24.8
IV.
PART TWO
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
V. Mystical Experience and Philosophy
VI.
-
305
3
Concerning Augustinian Wisdom
58
VII. Saint
John of the Cross, the Practician of the Con382 43i

473
templative Life
------
Conclusion.
Todo y Nada
A Summary of the Appendices
PREFACE
its design. The disparate and of the mind. 'No one', says Tauler, 'knows better the true meaning of distinction than they who have entered into unity,' and in the same way no one can be aware of the real meaning of unity without an equal grasp of the sense of distinction. Thus every attempt at metaphysical synthesis, particularly in relation to
Tm title of this book sufficiently declares

the confused are alike alien to the nature
the
complex
riches of
knowledge and
the mind,
must
distinguish in
order to unite.
And it is exactly towards such a discernment of the vari-
ous degrees of knowledge, their organisation and internal differentiation, that reflective and critical philosophy is primarily directed.
Idealist philosophers usually
as a generic
choose some particular
class
of sciences
type of the universe of knowledge and construct in relation
to this type their entire epistemology. Not only does this entail the systematic neglect of vast regions of apprehension, but it tends also to re-
duce the diversity of the

certainly
life
of the
spirit to a
noetic
monism, which
is
more sterile, if less pardonable, than the ontological monism of

all,
the
first
philosophers. (For, after
the mind, they claim, does
know
itself,
and what excuse can idealism offer if it despises the very structure
of thought itself?)
In revenge
things
see
many realists seem disposed to pay for their possession of
by an abandonment of the problems proper to the mind, and we
to-day a
new
'cultural'
dogmatism identifying with

it
dialectic
materialism the anti-idealism which

I
professes.
hope
critical
to show here that Thomist realism, while saving by a truly method the values of the knowledge of things, allows of an in-
timate exploration of the universe of reflection, and the establishment,

if I
may say so, of a metaphysical topology:

is
ing
at the
thus 'the philosophy of besame time and par excellence a 'philosophy of the spirit'.
More even
than the physical universe and corporeal organisms, the
x
spirit
PREFACE
possesses though immateriallydimensions, a structure, and in-
PREFACE
In this
xi
this
ternal hierarchy,
of causality and
values.
Contemporary idealism, which
book
have endeavoured to indicate the reasons for
move-
proper structure in the ends by refusing to acknowledge any nature or or a pure liberty, movement pure a either it of make to order spirit, in
in reality only achieves flattening
it
ment and
pass.
these transitions
and the main phases through which they
out in
its
entirety
on one single level

It is
of intellection,
as
if in a two-dimensional universe, a world of infinite
obvious, therefore,
a
platitude. Nevertheless
we
1
have justification for thinking that the four

sit latitudo, et
fields
of enquiry. After
why this book must explore very varied form of general introduction, whose theme is
first
dimensions of which
St.
Paul speaksquae
hngitudo,
at
et
once the grandeur and the misery of metaphysics, the
problems
sublimits, et profundum
concern not only the sphere or hypersphere
to
be dealt with are those which concern the experimental
sciences
and
of the contemplation of the saints, and fundamental structure of the things of the
supernatural orders.
but generally the whole organisation

spirit,
the degrees of knowledge
which they
represent.
At
this point,
before
in the natural or
going further,
it
becomes necessary to turn to knowledge as such, and to

ii)
establish (chapter
the principles of a philosophy of the intelligence;
Taken from the noetic angle which

length symbolises for us the
have chosen,
we may
so
say that
we
enter into the
dominion of
that critical metaphysic,

is
on whose
following
way
in
characterises a type
of knowledge falls
which the formal light which on things and determines in them
foundation the whole body of the book
based.
The two
chapters have as their subject the philosophy of nature considered particularly in

its
relations
with the
sciences,
notably with physics, and

its
a certain line of intelligibility; breadth corresponds to the ceaselessly growing sum of objects thus known; height to the difference of level
created
metaphysical knowledge, particularly with regard to

ture
noetic struc-
and its
relations
with negative theology. With knowledge by faith

it,
among
its
the various forms of knowledge
telligibility and immateriality in the object,
by the degrees of infrom which follow, for

as to the diversities diversifies
and the 'super-analogy' which is proper to

ence. Chapter
we pass on to the degrees

is
of supra-rational knowledge, whose highest form
mystical experi-
and original manner of procedure; fourth dimension, depth, it presents to us those more hidden which depend on the way in which the spirit, in its liberty,
each object,
typical
still
is
consecrated to these problems, while chapters vi

cases
and vii deal with two eminent

'the depth'
of what has just been described

the question of the nature
as
of the things of the
spirit:
of
more its
objects
and its manner of conforming to
reality according
Augustinian
tive
wisdom and
the distinctive features and proper perspec-
to their final ends.
philosophy
is
between speculative and practical the simplest example of this diversification, but it is not
The
difference
of the
'practically practical' science
of contemplation
as it is
found
the only one.
But
of the
it is
not only the structure,
it is
the
movement
and
also
and the
elan
John of the Cross. The last chapter forms the conclusion to the whole book and deals with that doctrine of All and Nothing set out by the Mystical Doctor, and with the supreme degree both of knowledge
in St.
spirit
which need
to be
brought to
light,
that admirable law
and of wisdom which is

It is
accessible to
man in this life.

starts
of dissatisfaction with the very security of acquired

starting
certitudes
by which,
by design that I have endeavoured to cover so wide a field of prowith the ex-
from
the experience of the senses, the
mind
enlarges, raises,
blems and sketched the outline of a synthesis which
transforms
itself
from
stage to stage, absorbing itself in contradictory

testifying to the fact that
is
perience of the physicist and ends with that of the contemplative,
whose
and yet united spheres of knowledge, while

tlie
philosophic stability
is
guaranteed by the rational certitudes of meta-
striving
of an immaterial
life
for
its
perfection
a striving
to-
physics and critical philosophy.
Only in this way is it possible
to exhibit
wards an
object,
infinite amplitude, that is

infinite reality
to say, in the last resort, towards an in
the organic diversity and the essential compatibility of the zones of
an
which
it
must needs
some manner
possess.
knowledge
being, to
J pli.iii, 18.
traversed by the mind in this great movement in quest of which each one of us can only contribute a tiny fragment and
Xll
PREFACE
of misunderstanding the
activities
PREFACE
of
his comrades
xiii
that at the risk
absorbed in other tasks equally fragmentary, but which are reconciled in

the unity of die
tained from the theologians just as he applies that obtained from the biologists or the physicists.
themselves, like brothers ignorant
whole in the thought of the philosopher, almost despite of their fraternity. From this point of
Where
principles
the unbelieving reader
is
unable to accept the truth of the
view one could say also that the particular work to which metaphysics is called in the world of to-day is to put an end to that form of incompatibility
of temper which the humanism of the
classical
period roused
between science and wisdom.

Certainly
some
will reproach
in the
me
with the
fact that I
have not
re-
at least comprehend which rendered necessary such recourse, and can judge from outside the logical structure of the whole which is presented to him. Many of the parts of that whole-all in fact which are concerned with the degrees of rational knowledge-rely on reason aloneand the doctrines of science, notably those concerning the
of solution which I have assumed, he will
the methodological reasons
physico-
mained throughout
realm of pure philosophy and in the
latter
mathematxcal knowledge of nature, the philosophy ofnature, the divine
chapters have taken into consideration certitudes
which
in themselves
names and the rational knowledge ofGod, which

if they
are there put forward,
belong to another order.

a criticism, for
I
shall
not endeavour to clear myself from such

the philosopher takes
do not
it,
constitute the highest part
of the
edifice are nevertheless
am in fact convinced that when
central to
I
as the doctrine
of critical realism is its foundation.
as his subject the
study of anything which bears on the existential conactivity as a free personality
ditions
of man and his
and that
is
exacdy
in
.
what
tion
is
involved in a study of the degrees of knowledge which are
but meditation on certain themes which are linked up by a continuous movement. This is why certain themes of major importance
may add that this book was not conceived as a didactic treatise,
as a
much more
themselves above philosophy and imply by their essence a personal rela-
between the knowing subject and
its
final
end
he can only profact
ceed scientifically as long as he respects the integrity of his subject and,

therefore, those realities
in themselves, such as mathematical and theological knowledge, have not been made the objects of special chapters, without, for all that, the omission of any consideration or characterisation of them. They
of a supernatural order which are in

this clear in
im-
both demand a more special study,

is
alien to the philosophic design
plied in
it.
have already endeavoured to make
an
essay
on
here pursued. Particularly in relation to
would which the foundations of mathemarequired, in
the notion
of christian philosophy. 1
No
tics
philosophical pretensions can

is
much more
preliminary
work
is still
my opinion, be-
abrogate the fact that

nature, but
man
at
as
we know him
not in a
state
of pure
fore thomist philosophy can
propound
a systematic interpretation in
of a nature
once fallen and redeemed. The
first
obligation
for a philosopher is to recognise
what is; and if in some cases he can only

still
which all the critical problems offered by modern developments in the mathematic sciences find a solution. I have nevertheless attempted
(chapters
i, iii,
do so by adhering by faith to the First Truth, which although reasonable

is
iv) to
make
clear in this connection a
number of points
which seem
to
nevertheless
due to a grace which transcends reason, he is
a philoa fairly clear

this
sopher (though not purely a philosopher)
when he makes
use of
me particularly important, and which already indicate in manner in what spirit, in my opinion, a philosophy of
adherence in the discernment and scrutiny of the essential characteristics
mathematics should be elaborated.
and underlying reasons of what is before his eyes. Thus, although he borrows from a higher light which he joins to that of his reason, he proceeds always in accord with his proper
Those
who
consent to read the following pages closely will perhaps

rigorously keeping to
rejecting
perceive that while
mode, not
as
a theologian but as
its
Thomas' metaphysic, and

diminution designed to
prejudiced,
I
a philosopher, analysing the given subject in order to penetrate to
the formal line of St. any form of accommodation or

to the irrationally
clear the
ontological principles, integrating in his investigations information ob1
have on
make Thomism acceptable many points attempted to
ground
De laphilosophie chritiennt
1933.
As
have shown in an appendix to
this little
book,
and
restrict to
some
extent the frontiers of the thomist synthesis.
moral philosophy adequately understood is by necessity subordinate to theology.
The
xiv
PREFACE
and many
inconvenience of these forms of work, where many indications

alluring distractions ask to
PREFACE
I
xy
it is
be taken up and pursued,
is
that they need, in

philo-
choice
\
among
truth
is
the elements of the real,
an unlimited openness to
order to bring forth their full fruit, a spirit

sophical continuity in the reader
of collaboration and
them all.
j
on which it is generally vain to reckon,

of Thomism,
a
The
that
Thomism is
it
a universal work.
One
is
not a thomist
as
Be
that as
it
may, such
is
work is
in the spiritual tradition
because one has chosen

several others, as
in the
emporium of systems
one among
at a
doctrine
which
essentially progressive
it
and apt in the
assimilation of
irrepressible
one
may
tentatively choose a pair
of shoes
boot-
fresh materialdoes
vitality in
not proffer a singular proof of its
maker's until one sees another brand more suited to one's

lines it
feet.
On those
system,
having resisted for centuries that pedagogy industriously

it
would be more
stimulating to fabricate one's
own
charged with the desire to force

Matchless in
its
into
some ready-made framework?

all its
made
to one's
own
measure.
One
is
a thomist because
one has abanindividual,
coherence, closely knit in
parts as
it is,
Thomis
doned the attempt to find

that individual
in a system fabricated
by one
ism is nevertheless not what

distinguished from
this
all
we call
'a
system'.
When one says that it
who is
called Ego, philosophical truth,
other philosophical doctrines

as a
must not be taken
simple differentiation
by its universalism, of extent, but rather

parts,
intends to seek for the
as
one of nature. The word system evokes the idea of a mechanical con-
truthalbeit reasonlearning from every form of human thought, so that nothing that is may be neglected. Aristode and St. Thomas only hold for us
their privileged positions because, in their
and because one by oneself and by one's own
nection or of a
more or less
spatial
assemblage of component
is
supreme
and
it
susceptibility to
scale
the lessons
of the
real,
we
no
find in
risk
them
principles
consequendy a choice which, if not arbitrary,

is
and a
at least personal, as
of values
in
all artificial
constructions.
thanks to which, with

effort
of
system unfolds or progresses from

elements.
eclecticism or confusion, the
whole
piece to piece, starting

the essential
from its
initial
On the other hand, it

activity
of universal thought may be saved.

can those philosophers for
a metaphysical criterion, for
is
How
date
is
demand of Thomism
it is
that all construction
and mechanism
and
a
vital
should be rigorously subordinated to the
immanent
whom the category of the out-ofwhom thought must necessarily

it
grow old and be forgotten,

is
movement of intellection:
part lives
ones,
understand that if we consult the ancients
not a system, an arte/actum,
it is
spiri-
tual organism. Its internal links are the vital
connections by which each by the life of the whole. The principal parts are not the initial rather those which are dominant or central, each of which is al-
of observation which to-day is lost? None of the treasures of experience, none of the advantages and graces of the latter age
to recover a freshness
of thought, can replace the
rightful grace
of its youth,
that vir-
ginity
of observation,
that intuitive uprush
of the intelligence as yet un-
ready virtually the whole. 1 Thought does not there

1 Sudi
make
a personal
wearied by the spiced novelties of the real.

Distinguishing between the per se and the per accidens, thomists believe
that the progress
trine
for example are the
the seventeenth century a
on which Reginald the Dominican wrote in remarkable book (which is unfinished): ens est transcendens;
tria priiicipia
Deus solus est actus purus; absohta specificantur a se, rehtiva ah alio. These three principles contain all Thomism: but all Thomism is necessary to comprehend them. Thus Reginald's book, with its inevitable didactic dissections, is itself in relation to the doctrine
that it
ofphilosophy advances not only in the heart ofthe docwhich they hold for surely based, but also, as though by accident,
through the proliferations of all those unstable systems, whose uncertain

structure allows them to fling themselves more rapidly (and perish in the so
in a
expounds like an anatomical plate beside a living body. Doubtless it is the same certain measure with every great philosophical doctrine: none are exclusively and
by nature a system, an artefactum; thought in itself tends to the vital and the organic. But in all of them the price paid for unity and coherence is that the aspect of a 'system' prevails over that of 'living organism'. What I should hold as most remarkable in
doing) on the no vel aspects oftruth which the march oftimebrings to light.
Nevertheless, such an advance can only
ing, a
by nature be at most a becom-
Thomism and should call its particular privilege is

knit and a whole, with
it
that,
while being sovereignly
close-
on
the contrary the character
of a
living organism prevails

case
is
over
its
systematic aspect. It follows
from
this that in
its
no other
the difference
so
deep or so sensible between the doctrine itself and
didactic exposition.
movement or a potentiality, incapable of being grasped in its entirety at any moment of its progress, since there is no moment when it is not out hunting among opposed formulations and contrary systems, drawn by that modicum of truth which they all contain.
xvi
Is
PREFACE
PREFACE
philosophy only
this,
and can
it
If
it
so happens that there exists

vital assurance
know this state of virtuality? among men a doctrinal organism

only
principles, this will, after greater
xyii
formal and
founded on the
or
less delay,
of true
itself,
Parmenides and Melissa'.

Finally, in order to
philosophic than the expression ens mobile- this in effect 'liberates at one stroke the plulosophy of nature from the enterprises of
less
incorporate into
progressively
the
realise in itself, this
virtual philosophy,
which
will
become by
same
act
and just to
that
of chapters
and
ni, it is
extent capable of being grasped, demonstrated, livingly

ganically activated. It
is
formed and
avoid a possible misunderstanding of die subject perhaps not unuscful to emphasise

that in the
or-
course of die allusions there

die standpoint
object
in this way, in
my opinion, that Thomism is des-
made
of those
critical
tined in the course
of its
own progress to actualise the progress of philo-
sophy.
nth June,
1932.
POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION

The text of this second edition is practically a reproduction of that of
the
first.
them from the point ofview of the history of science and were endeavouring to characterise from that angle the evolution of the contemporary theories of physics, without doubt it would have been necessary to emphasise the name of Planck and die physics of the Quanta, radier than that of Einstein and the theory
ofRelativity.
In fact
;
of this book.
If we were considering
have adhered to and philosophic problems which are the

I
to the
new physics,
we
have a right to think that
if Einstein has overpassed
and
Certain additions and modifications have been
made
in the
notes. Certain bibliographic references in the notes to
books which have
powerfully renewed Newtonian and classical physics, he has nevertheless remained, like Lorenz and Poincare\ on the same path of progress,1
so that the relativist revolution
]
appeared since the publication of the

asterisk.
first
edition are indicated
by an
is,
physics, less radical
and less
essentially
in regard to the development of an innovation than the discovery

is
by Planck of radiation by
quanta. It
its
in
its
With regard to would not wish to

et Aristote (Paris,
abandonment of the mac-
the theory
fail
of judgment
attention to
(cp.
infra,
chap,
ii),
I
.
roscopic point of view and
entry into the world of the

physics has
Quantum
to
draw
of his
thesis
Mean, 1913, a new, revised of 1905 on L'Objet de la metaphysique selon Kant

to
Mgr. Sentroul's Kant and augmented edition

et Aristote),
dieory of the atom that the
new
most decidedly broken
from the physics and mechanics of the ancient world. Hence the exceptional historical importance of the theories of Louis de Broglie,
Schrodinger and Heisenberg.
away
which righdy insists (pp. 61-73, 291-306) on the fact ment is an identification in the mind which responds
same
ideas are put
that a true judg-
an identity
in
But here we
noetic structure
are only considering the
new
physics in regard to the
the thing, or 'the conformity of an identification with an identity'.
The
forward in an
article
savoir' {Revue neo-scholastique de phihsophie,
on 'La Verite et le progres de May-Aug., 1911).
die relations
of the physico-mathematical knowledge of nature, and and distinctions which it is necessary to mark between it
With
regard to
my
definition
his litde
should mention
that, in
of the philosophy of nature, I book De subjecto naturalis philo-
scopic physics, while,
^The theory of Relativity constitutes, in short, the apotheosis of the old macroon the other hand, the Quantum dieory has arisen from
the
-
sophiae, Cajetan has
shown very
clearly
why
it is
necessary to as-
of the philosophy of nature (which is neither part of metaphysics nor a form of knowledge righdy 'subordinate to* metaphysics) being taken under the formal reason
bility,
sign as the proper subject
of muta-
which
restrains it
without depriving
sensibile,
it
of its analogical
character;
and
why
words on the necessity which the physicist finds of recogof a privileged sense of temporal variability and the persistence of physical unities in time': there from this, even in twn-qumic relativity, a cerinterest his
with particular
study of the corpuscular and atomic world.' (Louis de Broglie, 'Rclativite et Quanta' Revue Ae mtaphysiq< a et de la morale, July -Sept., 1933). In these very suggestive pages M. Lows de Broglie recalls how the theories ofRelativity and of the Quantum now conrront one another after having grown up almost independently, and points out the difficulties of any reconciliation between them. The philosopher will keep in mind
nising the existence
Mows
the expression ens
though legitimate in
tain
itself, is less
dissymmetry between time and space.
XVU1
PREFACE
j
and the philosophy of nature. Moreover

cular importance to the physics
it is
necessary to attach
partij
question notions which, since
of Relativity, because they bring into they play a fundamental part in the philo.
sophy of nature, such
as
those
of space and of time,
are,
by
that very
'
fact, particularly subject to
and in particular danger of any confusion be-
tween the two mental disciplines.

ist
May,
1934.
INTRODUCTION
THE GRANDEUR AND MISERY OF METAPHYSICS
One might have
metaphysics
thought
that, in
epochs of speculative incompetence,
would at least shine out by its modesty. But the same period which ignores its grandeur, ignores alike its misery. Its grandeur is that it is wisdom: its misery, that it is human.
utters the name of God. But it does not know His we cannot describe God like a tree or a conic section Truly Thou art a hidden God, Thou the true God of Israel! So Jacob asked in
It is
it
true that
name. For
the
morning of the
angel: 'Tell me,
the answer:
truly
Why askest thou my name?'*
what is thy name? And he received

'It is
impossible to utter this

"'
wonderful name, which is above every other name in this age and
in all the ages to come.'2
they be neo-Kantians or neo-positivists, idealists, Bergsonians, logistics, pragmatists or neo-Spinozists, or neo-mysricists, one ancient sin works in the roots of all philosophies
Whether
modem
the old error
of nominalism. Under varied forms, with more or less perception, they all criticise knowledge by concepts for not being a supra-sensible intuition of the uniquely existent, like the scientia intuitive
the theosophical visions
with so
the fact
of Spinoza or of a Boehme or a Swedenborg which Kant much regretdenounced as illusory. They cannot forgive it for
that it does not, like the senses, know an immediate contact with existence: but only with essences and possibilities, and only attains actual existence by falling back upon the senses. They fundamentally mis-
conceive the value of the abstract, that immateriality more enduring than all outward things, for all that it is impalpable and unimaginable,
1 2
Gen. xxxii, 20.
Pscudo-Dionysus,
De
Divinis Nomlnibus,
i,
(St.
Thomas,
-
lesson 3.
Eph.i.21).
1
Cp r
St Paul
M.D.K.
! ;
'
INTRODUCTION
the spirit
which
secb for
at the heart
of
things.
What
is
the cause of
\

commands
us to fly with our arms.'
this incurable
nominalism? Because with a
taste for the real they lack
No,
ask
you
the sense of being. Being as such, detached

is
from the matter

necessities, its
its
in which
it
incorporated, being with

its
its
pure objective
laws which
\
do not weigh,
for
constraints which
.
do not bind,
invisible evidences,
But we have no wings! Arms? Atrophied wings, which is quite another matter. They would spring again if you only had a little courage if you understood that the earth is not the only
foothold and that the
air"
to fly with wings
is
them
only a word.
is
j
not a void.
How can one
speculate about
geometry in space
if
one does not
To invoke against a philosopher a mere factual

cular historical condition
see
impossibility a partiis
the figure in space? How is it possible to dissertate on metaphysics if one
possibly the truth,
does not see the quiddities in the intelligible? This difficult feat of mental
of the intelligence, to say, 'what you offer us but our mental structure has become such
that
gymnastics
is
undoubtedly necessary for the poet;
it is
no
less so for the

j
metaphysician. Li both cases nothing can be attempted without a

tain original talent.
can no longer think in the terms of your truth, for our minds "have changed like our bodies"1 'is no argument at all. It
is
we
cer-
nevertheless the best
Jesuit friend
of mine
asserts that
man,
since
j j
Adam's
fall,
has
become so
inapt in his intelligence that the intellectual
perception of being ought to be regarded like a mystical gift supernaturally accorded to certain privileged persons. This
of course is truly a
be opposed to the present rebirth of metaphysics. It is only too true that eternal metaphysic does not fit in with the modern mind, or more exactly that the latter does not fit in with the former. Three centuries of mathematical empiricism have so bent the modern mind
,
that can
single interest in the invention
of engines
pious exaggeration. Nevertheless

for us an
it
remains the fact that this intuition is

its
awakening from dreams, a sudden step out of sleep and
a conceptual network, which procures for the mind a certain practidomination over and a deceptive understanding of nature, where thought is not resolved in being but in the sensible itself. Thus progressing, not by adding fresh truths to those already acquired, but
cal
to a for the control of phenomena
dreaming milky way. For man can sleep in

ing he wakes from animal sleep;
many fashions. Each momfrom human sleep when the intelH-j

\
gencc
strips off its
bonds (and from divine sleep

as
at the
is
touch of God).
a grace
substitution
by the of new engines for engines grown out of date; manipula-
The
birthright
of the metaphysician
one,
of the poet
of
the
natural order.
The
who
flash
throws his heart into things like an arrow
patiently, conquests
or a lighted match, sees

inseparable
by divination
of the
in the very
stuff of the sensible,
from it
the
ting things without understanding them; gaining over the real, pettily, which are always partial, always provisional; acquiring a secret relish for the matter which it seeks to trap, the
modern
spiritual light
which
shines for him

sensible,
that
is
mind has developed in this lower order of scientific demiurgy,

ing instincts. But, at the same time,
a form of
with the glance of God. The other, turning away from the
sees
by
science, in the intelligible
detached from perishing things,
multiple and marvellously specialised sensitiveness, and admirable huntit has become miserably enfeebled
defenceless in regard to the proper objects
same
spiritual light
is
held captive in
the breath
some
idea. Abstraction,
which
and
of the
intellect
which
it
death for the one,
of the
other's nostrils; imagination,
the
has basely renounced, and has

universe
cogs.
by winch he perishes, are the other's life. Both living by the rays which fall from the creative Night, the one feeds on a linked intelligibility multiform as the reflection of God in the world, the other on a like intelligibility only divested and determined by the very being of things. They play see-saw together, each rising to heaven by turns. The spectators mock at this game; they are sitting on the solid earth.
discontinuous, the unverifiable,
become incapable of appreciating the of rational evidence otherwise than as a system of well-oiled Hence it must necessarily be opposed to all metaphysicsthe
old
up with some pseudo-metaphysicthe new form of positivismone of those metaphysical counterfeits where the
positivist
gameor
take
experimental method, in
the pluralists, or
its
grossest form, as
with the pragmatists and
more
subtly, as in Bergsonian intuition, or
more
1st
'Ramon
June, 1925.
Fernandez, ^'Intelligence et
M.
Maritain', Nouvelle revue jremcaise
'You
are like a dabbler in black magic,'
it
has been said to me, 'who
'
4
religiously, as
ifi.
INTRODUCTION
tlie integral action of the Blondelians with their attempt

the phenomenal, the lying flood of the brutally empiric if is is not and that there is more in the effect than in the cause? It contemplates its conclusions as it ascends from the visible to the invisible, it suspends them in a realm of intelligible
what
says,
to experience everything mystically, invades the

tion.
domain of pure intellecj
not that
I"
what
modern mind runs against us. Oh well, hills are there for the climbing! The intellect has not changed, it has only drifted into habits. Habits can be corrected. They have become
All this
is
true.
The
current of the
'
second nature, you say? Nevertheless, the
first
nature
is
always
there;
causation, which world and which nevertheless transcends it, in no wise contradictory to the system of sensible sequences studied by experimental science, but which remains stricdy different: the
is
implicit in this
and the syllogism will endure as long as mankind.

It is less difficult
my pen over the paper-my hand-the imagination

be
in
dis-
movement of
internal sense
and
for the philosopher than for the artist to
-the will-the intellect-and the

nothing created could act; such a
it
First Cause,
agreement with his period. There is little parallel between the two
cases.
series is
The one pours

real
his spirit into a creative

It is
it
work, the other ponders on

in the first case
the
with the understanding mind.
by depending on
the determination of vasomotor modifications or the associations of images which axe in play while I write. Metaphysict]
in
assists,
it
no way
without whose morion in no way opposed to, though
the intellect of his time
and pressing
all his
to the limit, in the concentration

that the artist has a chance of
demands a certain purification of the intellect;

tain purification
also presupposes a cer-
of
all his
languor and
fire,
of the
will,
and the strength
to devote oneself to
what]
reshaping the whole mass.

is
to grip hold
else,
of the
But for the philosopher the first question object first of all, to cling on to it, lost to
is
serves
no object, to useless Truth. Nothing nevertheless is more necessary to man than this
useless thing./
everything
with such tenacity that a break
at last affected in
a
the opposing mass,
making
possible a
new
alignment of forces and
What we need b not truths which will serve us, but a truth which we may serve. For this is the food of the mind, and the mind
is
new orientation.
It is
the best part
equally true that metaphysics brings

It
no
harvest to the yield of
of ourselves. Unuseful metaphysics brings order not the so-called law and order of a policeman, but the order which springs from eternity
into the speculative
experimental science.
in the
can boast of no discoveries and

Its
no
inventions
is
world of phenomena.
heuristic value, as the phrase goes,

it
and practical intelligence. It gives his equilibrium andhis motion back to man, which are, as we know, to gravitate towards
the stars
entirely nil.
Nothing can be expected of

is its is
from
that point
of view.
with
his
One does not do manual work in heaven.

Here exactly
greatness:
useless, as
reveals to
him
It
the hierarchy
head while hooked on to the earth by his two legs. It of authentic values through all the extent
limits, the harmony and and this is far more important for
have
we
not
known
it
it
for a thousand
of being.
verse
gives a centre to his ethics. It maintains justice in the uni-
years? Metaphysics for

it is
old Aristotle said,
serves
above
all
servitude; useless because supra-utile,
no purpose good in itself

]
of knowledge, making clear the natural
subordination
of the various
sciences:
and by itself. For, let it be understood, if it could serve the science of phenomena, could yield for its harvest, it would be vanity by that very
to go beyond that science while not in itself surpassing Every metaphysic, be it that of Descartes, of Spinoza or of Kant, which measures itself, not against the mystery of being, but only by the state of positive science at any given
fact,
it.
human beings than

!"
in wishing
the most luxuriant proliferation of the mathematics of phenomena: for what is the use of gaining the world and losing right'
reason?
We
are so
weakly
that the limpid peace dispensed

less
by a
sane
metaphysic
may
perhaps be
favourable to experimental discovery
moment,
not of
is
radically false in prin-
ciple. tions,
True metaphysics, in
can also say:
its
my
own way and aware of its own

is
of a spirit submerged in the sensible; it Jiay be that the natural sciences prefer to fish in troubled waters. Perap
,
than the dreams or the sharpness
limitaits
kingdom
this
world.
axioms in despite of the world, which
It
holds to
it:
the benefits
We have & the right to hold

of the dispersion.
ourselves sufficiendy burdened with
strives to
hide diem from
for
Metaphysics places us in the world of the eternal and the absolute,
INTRODUCTION
sure in itself
less easily

achieve.
felt
mates us pass from the spectacle of things to the knowledge of reason-
more
and more
clear than the certitudes
of mathematics
the
What metaphysician, not to speak of the ancient Brahmins, has
though
grasped
to the science of the invisible world of

it is
divine perfections discovered in their created reflections.
Metaphysics
is
not a means,
an end, a
fruit,
a true and delectable
more keenly than Plotinus this burning desire for the supreme unity? But the ecstasy of Plotinus is not this supreme act, rather is it the vanishing point of metaphysics, and metaphysics alone does not suffice to procure
it.
The good fortune which
Plotinus
knew
good, the knowledge of a
free
man, the most
free
and most
four times during the
natively
activity,
royal knowledge, the entry into die large leisure

speculation,
of that great
where the intelligence alone can breathe, on the mountainnot even die roughest sketch of the joy of our
is won by the mediods of science: and and vexation of spirit. For the ancient maledic-
Porphyry lived with him suggests a brief contact with an intellectual light in its nature of greater force, the spasm of a human mind in contact with a pure spirit. If we believe Porphyry when he says
six years that
:op
of causation.
all
For
that
it is still
rightful
home. This wisdom

is
was born in the thirteenth year of the reign of Severus, heard Ammonius at Alexandria, that he came to Rome when he was forty, that he died in the Campagna, and when he describes to us
that his master that he
his state
therein
great travail
of health and way of life,
his kindness to the
orphans committed
tion, maledicta terra in opere tuo,
weighs more tragically on our
reason
that
than on our hands. Forward! Unless
by some
blessed chance of
Fortune on whom the pagans were not wrong to meditate, the exploration
of the supremely
intelligible
promises most of all a lot of
useless
way of teaching, of composing, of pronouncing Greek, his handwriting, etc., why do we not believe him when he says that the philosopher was inspired by a daemon who lived with him, and which showed itself, in a sensible form, at his death? 'At that moment a serto his care, his
labour,
truths.
and the
terrible sadness
of the vision of gashed and mutilated
pent passed under the bed in which he was lying and glided into a hole
in the wall;
The gods
trines to
are jealous
of metaphysical
wisdom that heritage
of doc-
tonishing
and Plotinus gave up his soul in death.' 1 What would be aswould be if the metaphysical eros, there where Christ does not
which
we are alone
is
able to attain without too great an inter-
dwell, did not call forth
some form of collusion with superhuman

I
in-
mingling of error
is
itself constandy
misunderstoodman's grasp on it
it
tellectual natures, rectores hujus mundi.
ever precariousand
how
could
be otherwise?
Is
there a more
But
let
us return to our theme.
said that metaphysics suffered not
splendid paradox than this of a divine science

free exercise
won by human means, a

culled
only from the

also
common necessity of abstraction and discourse: it suffers

to
itself. It is
of liberty, such
as is
proper to
spirits,
by a
nature
'in
from an infirmity proper

is
a natural theology, whose
every sense enslaved'?
object par excellence

possesses the
most pure degree of abstraction / because it is at the farthest remove from the senses; it opens out onto the I immaterial, on a world of realities which exist and can only exist in Vseparation from matter. But our means of ascension also our
r- Metaphysical wisdom
thing that
that this
The Principle of everywhat it would know. And how can it fail to desire knowledge should be perfect and complete, the absolute and
the Cause
of all
causes.
is,
this is
mark
tian priest
Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, ii, 25. Later (chap, x), Porphyry tells us how an Egypwho had come to Rome proposed to make visible to Plotinus the spirit who
this
limits.
Of necessity
and by
its
nature, abstraction, the condition of all
dwelt within him, and evoked

possible*,
daemon,
who
turned out to be a god.
'It
was not
human
with its multiplicity of partial and complementary views, its slow elaboration of concepts, all the complications and the immense machinery, which are so much heavier than the air, of the wmged apparatus of discourse. Metaphysics wishes purely to contemplate, to overpass reason the unity of a simple gaze.
It
science, involves,
he continues,
'to interrogate this
daemon or hold him for any long time vis-
ible to the sight,
because one of his friends, a witness of this scene to whom the birds had been confided and who was holding them in his hands, stifled them from jealousy
perhaps terror. Thus Plotinus was assisted by one of the most godlike daemons: constantly he directed thither the sublime glance of his spirit. This was the cause of his Writing his treatise, On the he
or
and enter into pure
Daemon
in
whom we
have received participation, where
intellection, aspires
to
endeavours to give the reasons for the differences

assistance
among
the beings
who come to the
approaches it like an asymptote, and cannot
ofman.'
8
fulfilling
INTRODUCTION
knowledge whereby
it
which makes the substance of

First
Cause
is
natural to
man
while
in his essence, in that his actual life? If the desire to see the
all
may know him
9 and be the sorcerer never so adept he cannot escape the horns of this dilemma.
This then
is
the while 'conditional* and

in us
the misery
'ineffectual', for this desire precisely lacks
any natural proportion
of metaphysics (and
also
its
greatness)
It
with its object

if he
is
rouses the desire for the
it is
specially natural to the metaphysician,

fail
who cannot
sting.
worthy of the name,
to feel the sharpness
of its
But
supreme union, spiritual possession consummated in the very order of reality, and not only in idea. And
it
cannot
satisfy it.
It is
metaphysics can only enable us to
He
is
in Himself, in the
are
which
found
in
know God by analogy, not by what community of the transcendental perfections infinitely different ways at once in Him and
another
wisdom
that
we preach,
all
to the Jews a scandal

effort, the gift
it
and to the
Greeks madness. Exceeding
human
of deifying grace
origin in the in-
in things: a true, a certain, an absolute
and the free largess of the uncreated Wisdom,

sane love
has
knowledge, the highest
its
delight
of the reason, and one which it is worth the pain of being a man to know, but which remains infinitely far from being vision, and which
Wisdom for each one of us, its end in the unity of the spirit with Him. One alone gives us access thither, Jesus the crucified,
of that
We
only accentuates the burden of the mystery. Per speculum in aenigmate. understand only too well how the most perfect fruit of
the
intellectual life leaves
man still unsatisfied.

most general terms, the
intellectual life does not
In fact, stated in the

suffice for us. It
demands a complement. Knowledge brings to our souls all forms and all good things, but stripped of their proper existence and reduced to the condition of objects of thought. Present, as though
grafted in us, but in a
the Mediator raised between heaven and earth. When, alike crucified upon a gibbet, with his hands and his feet cut off, they asked al Hallaj 'What is mysticism?' he replied, 'You see here its lowest degree.' 'And its highest?' 'Thou canst not come thither: yet to-morrow thou shalt see what cometh. For it is to the divine mystery, where
it is,
that I bear
is
witness,
and that remains hidden from

It is
thee.'*
Mystical
wisdom
but
not
beatitude, the perfect spiritual possession
of divine
reality;
it is its
beginning.
mode of being which

their rightful
an entrance here below into the incomprehensible light,
is
essentially incomplete,
a taste, a touch, a sweetness
they cry out to be completed, they engender in us a driving force, the

desire to reunite
the seven gifts the wisdom
them with
of God which will not pass away, for what of the Holy Ghost began in faith they will continue in
and
real existence, to possess
them not
of beatitude.
in idea, but in reality.
The love
thus roused projects the soul
towards a union which will be real, which the intellect alone, except in the extreme case of the vision of God/ is incapable of procuring. Our
fated-unless by some inhuman deviation-to tad by avowing its indigence, and one day pour "itself out in desire. It is the problem of Faust. If human wisdom does not upset into heaven and the love of God, it will relapse on Marguerite. Mystical possession of toe most holy God in eternal charity, or physical possession of the poor flesh in the fleetingness of time, one or die other must be the end
intellectual life
is
We cannot pardon those who deny or who corrupt this; gone astray
in inexcusable
metaphysical presumption, since they
know
the divine
transcendence and yet will not adore it.
thus
The doctrines which certain Westerners

EastI
offer us as the
itself,
am
not referring to oriental thought

distinctions
wisdom of the whose exegesis dediscriminationin
mands a multitude of
x
and the
finest
Loufe Massignon,
Al Hatty martyr
m: Pans, 1922. 1 cite the case of al Hallaj here because, in so far we may risk conjecthis great Moslem mysGod, and who witnessed follow Jesus, was possessed of both grace and the infused gifts (that he belonged to 'the soul' of the Church) and so was able to be raised to authentic mystical contemplation. This is the view reached by the R.P. Mardchal, in as review of M. Massignon's admirable book Marechal,
tic,
mystique de I'Islam, exicuti a Bagdad,
k z6 man,
Jk)
fkce itTi
fn^\y T^mlhctt "T f G^ *** ,nd * *** "to***

supe^Sedfr?J?? êmaturahsed by the hght of glory
ttit^T ihM r ^^k

beC
CS
turing the secret
tl'
**
G d 'tonally* *".
a
l
***
("'"
** /*
rem),
of hearts, everything
leads
one to think that
who was condemned for teaching the union oflove with
to the last point to his desire to
actuating the intellect
"
intelligence
is
like the
hand whereby the blessed layholdon
(].
Recitercltes de science re-
%^May-Aug., I9 23).C
infra,
chap, v, p.
10
INTRODUCTION
facile,

wisdom
have held in abomination, and whose crying
falsity,
themselves arrogant and
present a radical negation of the
of the
saints.
Claiming to reach the height of contemplation by

*
metaphysics alone, seeking for the perfection of the soul apart from
charity,
whose mystery is
Film,
natural faith
unigenitus
them impenetrable, substituting for superand the revelation of God by the Incarnate Word
to
qui est in sinu Patris, ipse ennaravita. self-styled secret
combined with so much zeal, is for the rest of us a subject of astonishment and sorrow.* It is not by faith, Baruzi, that this 'just man' of yours lives. This Ueopath' is not suffering from God, but from the sickness of the Sorbonne.
The contemplation of the

in line
effort
,
tradition inherited
from unknown masters of knowledge, they

add to
his stature,
lie: for
they say to
man
that he can
can enter by
his
own
is
saints is not in line with metaphysics, it is with religion. This supreme wisdom does not depend on the of the intellect in quest of the perfection of knowledge, but on
the gift
his
of the whole
It
power
into the superhuman. Their esoteric hyper-intellectualism

It
End.
man in quest of a perfect rectitude with regard to has nothing to do with that 'stultification which Pascal
May 1925,
and R. Gamgou-Lagrange
la
nothing but a specious and pernicious mirage.

absurdity and the soul to the second death.
reduces reason
to
iDom.
Phil. Chevalier, Vie spirituelk,
ibid
July-Aug., 1925;
and the
little
book of Roland
Dalbiez, Saint Jean ie
There is another way in which vain philosophy can be the foe of wisdom: not by subjecting the wisdom of die saints to metaphysics, but in more or less confusing them, and, in the worst cases, cleverly confounding
it
M. Baruzi.
Croix aprh *
In the second edition of his book Jean Baruzi has had the merit of suppressing some shocking passages and the preface indicates that he is more appreciative to-day of the scale and difficulty of the problems on which he touches. Nevertheless,
at the
his
with a metaphysic which
is
corrupt to the core.
It is
in
this
thought has in
no way developed. Does he not
bottom
still
say
(p.
674) that 'when the
way
that an attentive
all
and penetrating mind,
after fifteen years
of fer-
vent research and
the effort of the
most minute and impassioned eru-
dition, has been led to a tragic disfiguration of the very mystical hero whose inward drama he had desired to retrace. Alas As though a philosopher, assisted by even the most exhaustive historical information or the most intuitive of Bergsonian sympathies, could penetrate to the
!
mystic has attained a certain noetic purity, he separates himself from what Leon Brunschvieg, with profound observation ... calls "naturalistic psychism" and adopts instead "intellectualist idealism" '? Misunderstanding the very essence of the mysticism of St. John of the Cross, it is not surprising that he likens it (by certain superficial analogies taken for basic ones, pp. 676-7) to the mysticism of Plotinus (which in itself is
heart of the
life all
of a
saint, relive
Cross! Here
that there
is
the false keys
by himself the soul of St. John of the of philosophy break, for the simple reason
is
from what M. Leon Brunschvieg calls 'intellectualist idealism'), and that, independent of any question of influence, John of the Cross unites with neo-Platonism 'by the most intimate movement of his thought' (p. 677).
sufficiently distant
that
he should hold
no keyhole;
the only entry here
through the wall. What-
ever
my friendship for you, my dear Baruzi, I must own that in attempt-
he defends himself against ever having had any of 'transposing from the mystical to the metaphysical plane', or of representing John of the Cross as absorbed in a God opposed to the living God of Christianity'. I myself have never criticised his intentions; but his philosophy and the interpretations which it inevitably suggests.
intention
If he has loyally underlined that uamty (p. 6j6), the whole of his
contingently
'this
In the preface to the second edition,
ing to illuminate
St. John of the Cross with a Leibnitzian glow, in wrenching from his contemplation what for him was the life of his life infused grace and the work of God in his soulin making of him I
divine birth takes place in the heart of Chris-
has been conceived on the theme that it is (with regard to the very mysticism of St. John of the Cross) that this is so:
this
book
in point
know not what lame giant of the metaphysics of the future, still held by
'extrinsic' superstitions,
of fact
experience
is
christian,
is
but by a combination, a
synthesis
is
between
what
is
essentially mystical
and what
essentially christian.
The
soul
nevertheless
but living above

in
all
to procure for himself,

all
by a
a
process
of detachment
which the
spirit
of man does
the work,
without limits and God himself is boundless. But the naked soul, the mode, here combines for the soul touched by mystical grace, with the
Persons
God without God in three
more and more

tianity', 1
delicate intellectual
comprehension of God, and
suc-
ceeding so well in this that he leads us
'in some manner beyond Chrisyou have drawn an image of the saintwhich he himself would
de
la
of theological Christianity This synthesis is accomplished in him, more vmgly than perhaps in any other catholic mystic, because to an intense love of a God
o
êan Baruzi, Saint Jean

edition, p. 230.
Croix et
h probleme
IP-
ie Yexpirknce mystique, second

s
and Holy Spirit is joined the pure adhesion to the essential Divinity, Deity", and, although the term does not figure in his languageto the One* <574-j. The italics are mine). Cp. infra, chap, viii, pp. 464-9.
e
c is
is
Father,^ Son
a dangerous temptation for a philosopher, ry of another mind,
when
retracing
and rethinking the

the full truth
to believe that it is his office to lead that
mind to
INTRODUCTION
presence is recommended to the proud (its it no longer dreams of knowing. that well so knows it fallen) but renunciation of knowledge. highestknowledge presupposes the contemplate in order to know, but to love. a sign that pride has already
This

abide in themselves:
it is
13
to the
to
do the will of Another and contribute
love. It
loving but for die love of Him that they they love not for the sake of aspire to that they are in love with God that they
is
The
saints
do not
And
1 good ofGoodness. They do not seek for their soul. They lose it, they have entering into the mystery of divine sonship, in becomin If more. no it
ing somewhat of God himself they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in this world can touch, it is
because
by forgetting
all this
so that not they but their Beloved lives in them.
love desires, loving themselves only for his 1 Their aim is not to exult in their own intelligence or nature and so sake.
union with
God which
As for the antinomies which the new mystics'2 discover in traditional mysticismbecause they have made for themselves an artificial
idea
of it,
vitiated
by solemn modern
prejudices about the
life
supposedly unable to come. History reminds the than God, and that it is not in our power to philosopher than there is no other God an equal risk of imposing on the hero of also is There Ideas. creative re-engender the gods. In Baruzi's eyes the most authentic one's imagination obedience to one's own
of the
of its nature, to which in
itself it is
spiritI freely grant that indeed they characterise a great deal

sophical pseudo-mysticism.
of philo-
some
difficulty in escaping
(And the neo-mystics themselves will have from them!) Brought into contact with
is
infinitely surpassing, of St. John tends to a pure knowledge, which by mental condition and every perevery knowing, of by an indeed by entering into the depth ceptible datum, makes us transcend our nature not mode, but onlyliy of supernatural realities mystically attainable in their own proper non-knowledge a mode (without modes) of knowledge, into a realm of
spiritual flight
authentic mystical life they lose all their significance. This

tive will' in
no
'crea-
incessant auto-destruction
search of the direct exaltation of pure adventure and an
infinite surpassing,
no 'magic
it
will' seeking the exaltation
of
itself
in
entering into
mastery of the world and achieved possession. Here love (our philosophers always forget
higher than our

better the
(p.
manner of experience and comprehension, and where we can know

realities as are the objects
and yet
it is
key of it
all),
here charity makes use

Spirit
same
448), 'things' (p. 584), 'the universe'

p. 645
it is
of metaphysics and philosophy, 'Being' (On (pp. 585, 685), 'the divine One' (p. 675).
ecstasy'
of knowledge
which
it itself,
under the action of the
of God,
p. 630 and
a question
of 'cosmic
and 'cosmic
discovery'.) Baruzi
makes savourous and present
to adhere more utterly to the Beloved.

it
from 'dogmatic faith* (p. 448, cp. pp. 510-II, 600-1, 659), which thought and the experience ofJohn of the Cross; and if he does not ignore the part played by love in his mysticism, he singularly reduces its that role and does not show its bearing; his exposition invincibly gives the impression love in this form of mysticism, as in neo-Platonism, is a sort of metaphysical nisus destined to make us 'enter into a new world' (p. 61 1), simply the means of a transcendent
severs 'mystical faith*
is
Here the soul seeks neither self-exaltation nor abolition;

united with
reality,
seeks to be
directly contradictory to the
Him who
first
loved
it.
For here
God is not a word but a

exists
a Reality, rather a Super-reality,
which
from
the begin-
ning, before us,
without
us:
not humanly, not
angelically,
but only
divinely comprehensible,
Super-spirit
finite spirit,
and
who
makes us divine
for that end; a

illimitable the
'noetic';
whereby he
exhibits a
complete misunderstanding of the most central and

his sovereign
most personal stuff of St. John of the Cross, primacy of love.
and
vital
certitude of the
whose
seizure does not limit but
makes
Thou living God, our Creator. One question, John Brown,

discussion
Some lines ofJean Baruzi

give these precise
(Final
Note to the second edition, p. 727) obliged
me to
before
you begin any

is
of mysticism: your Mr. Peter Mordoes not proceed from the

spirit
him sharply it is because in my eyes the problems upon which he touches, and which for him also are of capital importance, do not
details. If I have criticised
hange,
he created?
saints
belong to the regions of pure erudition, but involve essential truths; and also the
es-
The contemplation of the

J
of
teem with which, despite all my charges, I regard Baruzi's great endeavour, makes me deplore that so much human labour makes him run the risk of concealing from himself the
1
message of the very saint he intended to honour.

rationem proprii boni does
St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. theol, ii-ii, 26, 3 ad. 3: 'Hoc quod aliquis velit frui Deo, pertinet ad amorem, quo Deus amatur amore concupiscentiae; magis autem amamus Deum amore amicitiae, quam amore concupiscentiae; quia majus est in, sc
Cp.
Thcn the love of self secundum

tlxoL,
ii-ii,
not disappear, but

fulfilling
its
act
bonum Dei, quam bonum, quod participare possumus fruendo

ter
ipso; et ideo simplici-
gives place to that
of the love of charity where a

19, 6; 19, 8 ad. 2; 19, 10),
man loves himselfpropter Deum

and which, in
to his
et in T
homo magis
.
diligit
Deum ex rharitate, quam seipsum.' Cp. also

et
Cajetan, In II-II,
Deo (Sum.
and raising it
7,5.
!
up, contains in itself the natural love

to his own being, to
which each bears

25, 4).
own being and, more than
Cp. Henri Lefebvre, 'Positions d'attaque
de defense du nouveau mystidsme*,
God
(i.
60, 5;
ii-ii,
Philosophies,
March 1925.
H
..hich
INTRODUCTION
(It is

knowledge,
all
15
,. but from infused grace. man
impossible to respond to the questions
images and
all ideas,
to the terms and notions of torment our epoch without recourse indeed our perfect fruition, say, I is, contemplation sacred science.) This Spirit. It is by its essence the and Water of born are but in so far as we from the core of our bo certainly emanates which work a
supernatural,
and everything that any creature is Deus absconditus, Deus Israel Sahator. It attains to
as
because infinitely transcending all ever capable of thinking. Vere tu
es
God as the hidden God

the richer the
God the
Saviour, this secret
wisdom which is
hidden, which
secretly purifies the soul in secret.
more it is While remaining
but in the degree to which our ing and our natural powers of activity, are passive in the hands themselves activities natural our and substance
wholly under the control of theology,1 totally depending on it for its conditions and its foundations on human soil, for the multitudinous
notions
intelligence;
of Almighty God and

ly inaccessible
are
by him and by the
gifts
which he
grafts into
them raised above themselves towards a divine object, as such absolute1 by the sole powers of nature. A supremely personal, a eternity, but which is free and active work, a life which springs up for
for us a non-action
and conceptual signs by which divine Truth is manifest to our without any abandonment of revealed dogmas (on the
contrary!)
aAt least
knowing
better than
by
concepts the very things which the

translates
in the
and a death, because, supernatural not only in its object, but by the very mode of its procedure, it emanates from our spirit as moved by God alone and belongs to that operating grace whose
initiative is
communicable enunciations by which human language
mystical
self,
experience i.e. in what is not, properly speaking, the mystical experience itbut rather the theology with which it is impregnated (see infra, chap, vii)
whole
with
God. And because faith is the root and foundalife,
is controllable by theology. The theologian thus judges the contemplative not as a contemplative, but in so far as the contemplative descends into the
mystical experience
tion of all supernatural

'outside
the latter
is
inconceivable apart
from
faith,
field of conceptual expression and rational communication. In the same way an astronomer judges a philosopher's utterances about astronomy.
which there is no immediate and proportionate means' of concontemplation of the saints exists not onlyfor divine
It
But in
spirit
templation. 2
Finally, the
love,
itself mystical wisdom is above theological wisdom, and it is the man of the who, not of course in the order of doctrine, but in that of experience and of life,
(I
judges the speculative theologian. Spiritualis judical omnia, et a nemine judicatur

ii,i5).
Cor.
but
also
by it.
presupposes not only the theological virtue of Faith, but
also theological Charity,
and the infused
gifts
of Intelligence and Wis-
dom, which do not

tained
lect there
exist in a soul
devoid of charity.
The same God atthe

intel-
As forjudging in fact the secret and incommunicable substance of the mystical exand the discernment of spirits, that is not the aflair of the speculative theologian, but of the men of the spirit themselves, and of the theologian in die degree to which he is himself a spiritual and possessed of the practical sciences (see chap, vii)
perience itself
by faith in concealment and

is
as if at a distance, since for

is
of the mystical
way /Such indeed',
writes John of St. Thomas,
'is
the apostolic law:
always distance where there

itself and in himself,
not
sight,
love attains im-
Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to
know
ifthey are
of God
(I John, iv). is
And again:
(I
mediately
that
is
by
uniting our hearts to the very thing

the divine things thus enracinated
charity, that mystical
in
Despise not prophesy ings, hut prove all things

.
.
and holdfast
that which
good,
Thes. v).
hidden from
charity,
it is
faith;
and
This examination should normally be made in

is
common with others.
it is
us
by
God become ours by
wisdom,
under the motion and the actual direction of the Holy Ghost, experiences
by and in love
virtue
1
as given to us within us, and affectively knows, 'in of an incomprehensible union,' 3 in a night above all distinct
of the Holy Ghost should be submitted to the virtue its determination from it, for those who judge of these revelations or these truths should not act according to the laws of human prudence, but according to the laws of faith to which the gifts of the Holy Ghost are
gift
it,
'This
not to say that the

is
01 prudence, or
inferior to
or receives
submissive, or according to the gifts themselves,

in
which may be found more excellently
some than in others.
If,
nevertheless,
human
or theological reasons are employed in
supernatural addition
Those philosophers who, apropos of the doctrine of 'obediential potency', speak of have either never read the thomist theologians or, if they have
ie
as
examination of these things, they are considered in a secondary degree and only they minister to the better explication of what concerns faith or the instinct of the
read them, have not understood them. Cp. John of St.

disp. 14, a. 2. (Vives, vol.
ii.)
Thomas,
Curs, theol,
i,
P. q- ">
Holy Spirit.
*Cp.
St. John
of the Cross. Ascent ofMount Carmel,

3.
M wnv in the examination of spiritual and mystical things it iry to have recourse to scholastic theologians, but also to spiritual
wysneal prudence,
(John of St.
is
not only necespossessed
men
of
*
ii,
8.
See infra, chap,
vii, p. 44-
who know
the spiritual ways and
know how
to discern
spirits.
*Pseudc-Dionysus, Divine Names, vii,
Thomas, The
Gifts ofthe Holy Ghost, French trans,
by R. Maritain, v, 22.)
l6
INTRODUCTION

synonyms, since they signify, in the
and shared
in a state
17
communicate to our human intellects, conceptual formulas of dogma sign which can be exsurpass all distinct notions, every
way in which
is
how can it not

the
is
among
they are divided up

pre-exist in
as
creatures, the perfections
which
pressed, to cling in the experience
we first object of faith? Here above the intelligible, of rising no question of an intellectual elevation regulations to the abolidialectic of ladder by metaphysics with its careful
tionwhich is
still
of love to that very reality which is are at the antipodes of Plotinus. Here
of sovereign
simplicity.
God
subsistent
Goodness
God He is
subsistent
ness,
Truth and subsistent Being
itself,
but the Idea of Good-
of Truth and of Being,
if it subsisted in a
pure
state,
would not be
God.
It
k
itself
telligibility ofangelic ecstasies.
naturalof natural intellection in a super-inThis is a question of a loving self-elevation
follows
from
this that
the
long to
God keep
all their intelligible

is
names and concepts which properly bevalue and significance in being

completely in
is
above the created, of self-renunciation and renunciation of all other the trans-luminous night things in order to be borne on by charity, in supernatural knowledge sovereign a to direction, divine under faith, of
applied to
him: what they signify
God, with
all
that
it
constitutes for
our intelligence ('formally'
the phrase of the philo-
sophers); in saying that

nature,
plies.
God is good we intrinsically qualify the divine

it
of the boundlessly supernatural, where love will transform us into 1 For, 'indeed, indeed we have only been created for this love.'
God.
and
we know
that
contains
all
that goodness necessarily

is
im-
But in
that perfection in pure
actwhich
God Himself
No, metaphysics is not the doorway into mystical contemplation. That door is the humanity of Christ, by which grace and truth have been
given unto
us.
'I
in a
am the door,' he has said himself,
'if any
man enters in
.
by me he shall be saved, and he shall go in and out and he shall find pasture.' Entering through him the soul mounts and penetrates into the
obscure and naked contemplation of the pure Godhead, and descends again in the contemplation of the divine Humanity. And here, as there,
the soul finds pasture,
is infinitely more than our concept or our name can conceive. It is mode which infinitely overflows our manner of conceiving that it exists in God ('eminently' is the philosophical phrase). In knowing that God is good we yet remain ignorant of the divine Goodness, for it is
there
good
as
nothing
else is
good, true
as
nothing
St.
else
is
true;
'the
he
is
like
nothing that
we
can know. 'Thus', says
Thomas,
word wise,
the
when it is
applied to a man, describes and encloses in
some manner
and feeds upon its God.
thing signified: but
not when
it is
applied to God; then the signifying

the
In every sign, concept or

object itself which
is
known. In
name, there are two things to consider: the made known and the manner in which it is made all the signs used by our intelligence in order to know God,
is
word remains uninclusive and uncircumscribing, and he exceeds

significance
of the name'. 1
ideas or concepts,
All
knowledge of God by
whether acquired,
as
in
the manner of significance
both deficient and unworthy of God,
be-
ing proportionate, not to God, but to
what is not God, in the degree to which the perfections which pre-exist in a pure state in God exist also in
same imperfect manner in which created things show forth God from whom they proceed, our ideas, which attain first of
things. In the
all
metaphysics and speculative theology, or infused, as in purely intellectual knowledge of God this side of the
prophecyall
beatific vision,
though
tute
it
may be
absolutely true, absolutely certain, and
may
consti-
an authentic and supremely desirable form of knowing, remains
irremediably deficient, disproportionate
by
its
very
mode of grasping
and
directly created things,

signify,
as in
make God known
to us.
The
perfection
and signifying the object signified and known.

It is
which they
as it exists
and which can
in' a
transcendental order
exist
in
clear that if it can't
be given
but at
to us to
know God, not yet sicuti est,
an uncreated
a created state, has essentially to be signified
by
them
santf
under limited, imperfect and created conditions. In the
way,
all
the names
by which we name God, while

Spiritual Canticle
all
signifying one
very transcendence of his making use of a manner of knowing appropriate to the object known, such knowledge cannot be obtained purely intellectually.
sight,
least in the
deity,
by
his essence
and in
and the same unutterably one and simple

a
not reality, are nevertheless

str.
To
transcend
all
ways of conceiving while remaining on

i-Sum. theol,
i,
the plane of
St. John
of the Cross,
(second redaction),
28.
B
13, 5.
M.D.K,
INTRODUCTION
the intelligence,

a contradiction in terms.
cathedrals.
19
and thus of the concept,

love.
is
Process beyond must be by

can effect
modes
in a
Love alone, I mean supernatural love, mind here on earth can only overleap all this transition. The Spirit of God, making renunciation-of-knowing, where the
of charity and the
effects
The phenomenological sciences have freed metaphysics from

of explaining the
stuff
the necessity
illusions
of sensible nature and from many
pursued by the optimism of the Greeks.
We can certainly con-
use of the connaturality
produced in the
affec-
dons by
to the soul the divine union, gives
by love
the experience of
deli-
either can or exacdy that which no notion
may
approach. 'Thus,
of metaphysics. There are less grounds for rejoicing in the observation of this fact that, in the practical order of the government of things, in the very degree to which
this purification
gratulate ourselves
on
world and the intellectual alike, the soul envered from the sensible of a holy ignorance and, renouncing all obscurity ters into the mysterious who can neither be seen nor seized; Him in itself the gifts of science, loses belonging neither to itself nor to object, sovereign wholly given to this most noble part of itself and by the by unknown the
others; united to
work is demanded of the intelligence, it has divided itwhich it has outside time. The earth has no longer need of an angelic mover, man drives it forward with the strength of his own arms. Spirit is gone up into heaven.
heavier material
self
from the
life
reason of
its
renouncement of
all
science; finally,
drawing from
this
Man, for all that, is flesh and spirit, not bound together, but unitedin one substance. If human things cease to be shaped in human fashion, either seeking their shape in the energies of matter or in the exigencies
of a disincarnate
spirituality, it implies for
absolute ignorance a comprehension

1 never have won.'
which the understanding

is
could
dismemberment.
We
may
man a terrifying metaphysical! \y

this
well believe that the shape of

this tension will
world \
1
'
It
seems that the whole of the
modern epoch
spirit,
set
under the
sign of
will pass
away on
it
the day
when
have reached such a
the disunity of the flesh
and the
a progressive dislocation of tie
point that
breaks our hearts in pieces.
human form.
ialisation
only too clear that the passage of humanity under the materdominion of Money and Technics" is marked by a progressive hand, other On the of the intellect and the general world alike.
It is
As
to the things
of the
spirit, their 'liberation'
runs the risk of being
an illusiona
plied
the spirit, with
which our
social
and discursive
activities dispense more
they
much worse state than servitude. The constraints imof men were good for them; though burdensome, endowed them with their natural weight. What is this supposed
by
the service
and more, can itself claim to be dispensed from at \ the organic functions of human life, and enjoy a sort of deliverance paintdelivered has 'Photography least, virtually. Jean Cocteau's phrase, the ing' can be applied all round. Printing has freed the plastic arts from
pedagogic functions which were incumbent on
Pseudo-Dionysus, Mystical
Tlieology, chap,
directing the fortunes of
'angel-transformation'
of art and knowledge?

will
Is it
not more than pos-
sible that all tliis 'purity'

It
end by losing
itself in frenetic brutality?

Spirit.
can only discover
itself,
is
only truly be, in the fold of the Holy
There where the
Body
the eagles will gather. If the Christianity
them in
the age of the
of yesterday
ing; litde
is
in defeat, the
is
by
litde she also
delivered, freed
Church of Christ continues advancfrom the care of the dries
i,
3.
which
*In themselves technical inventions
ought to open the
way to a life less preoccupied
reject her, from the temporal providence which she exercised according to her rights, for the healing of our wounds. Stripped, dis-
by the material, but by the fault of man they tend rather to the oppression of the spiriourtual. Does this mean that we ought to renounce technical discoveries or else give selves up to vain regrets? That has never been my opinion. But reason must assert
possessed,
when
she
flies
into the wilderness she will take along with
her
human
and
as
regulative power.
And
if it can,
such inhuman, solutions,

at least for
surmounted,
a time.
without having recourse to purely despotic, W that materialisation of which I have spoken may nee* of curve am in no way claiming to plot out the
world, not only of faith and charity, but of philosophy, poetry and virtue, which then will be fairer than ever
before.
all
that remains in this
sity for events,
but merely endeavouring to disengage, in regard to the actual pou"
is
in time where we are, the significant tendencies of the curve followed
up
to die presort
The powerful interest of the present crisis more universal than any other, and lays
of a decisive choice.
arises
from
the fact that
it
each one of us under the

to the parting
and pointing out the fact that human liberty can change it.
obligation
We have
come
of the
20
ways. The West by
its
INTRODUCTION
prevarications, because
it it
THE
has abused divine grace fruitful for God, having
it
its
GRANDEUR AND MISERY OF METAPHYSICS

the truly
glissade,
new is
and
let fall
the gifts
which
should have
made
already with us, that secret invincible
failed to
maintain the order of charity, finds that

is
has lost also that
of
reason, which
everywhere corrupted, and which no longer
suffices
of the divine sap in the veins of the Mystical Body, which endures and does not grow old, the blessed awakening of souls under the f Our Lady and the Holy Spirit. Wisdom
um P
sW
stretching
The malady of rationalism has brought about a discord between nature and the shape of reason. Nowadays it is becoming very difficult to remain human. We must take our stand either above reason and so for it, or below reason and against it. But the theological virfor anything.
tues
zon of the world to the other,

extremes !
and the supernatural
gifts are
the only things
which
are above
rea-
son.
On every sideamong the new humanists as from the partizans of

yesterday
Promise bringing beauty to these times of our misery who our hearts with joy! Unfaithful as they have been to their vocation turning from the Church of their baptism, everywhere blaspheming the name of Christ in giving the name of 'christian
fills
who bringest together in one
from one
hori
the farthest
dialectic materialism (as
from the followers of Barres)we

gendemen,
what
Spirit,
hear the cry: spiritual ideals, spiritual tilings! But,

spirit are
you invoking?
spirit
If it
is
not the Holy
you might just as

this
self-
loves the nations without need of them, who have such need of her. It is for their good that the Church making use of the only culture in which human reason has almost achieved success, has tried for so long to impose a divine
ly matter
which
is
only
civilisation* to that
its
corpse, the
Church
well invoke the
ofwood alcohol or the spirit of wine. All

end
to animalism.
styled spirituality, all these super-rational claims, if they are
not
rooted
of grace,
and to rouse and so maintain in perfection, in the gende order human life and that of the reason. If European
culture
is
form on earth
in charity, only lead in the
Hatred of reason
wil
danger, she will save the essentials

Christ
in
and
know well how
never be anything but the insurrection of the tribe against

differentiation.
to raise
specific
If
Dreaming
is
the exact opposite

life
of contemplation.
a brute beast
purity consists in a perfect
abandonment to
is
according to the
senses
and the mechanism of the senses, there

in a saint.
more of it in
than
an that can be saved of other cultures. She harkens stirring in the of history another world, which no doubt will persecute her as the old one has done (is it not her mission to suffer persecution?) but in which she will discover the possibilities ofnew
heart
up
to
action
The world,
its
that
world for which Christ would not pray, has made
choice in advance.
To deliver himself from the forma rationis,

from
is
Understood in the sense that Europe would be nothing without the Faith and that its raison d'itre has been and remains to give the Faith to
But in the absolute sense, no. Europe
is
to
flee
far
from God,
in an impossible metaphysical suicide
the cruel
and
not the
faith
saving order of the eternal Law, old man, as it was that of the
lightning
the
vow which twists
the flesh of the

fell like
eldest
son of the morning when he
from heaven. To express this absolutely, as fully as is posbeing who, for the greater part of his time, does not know what he is doing, needs a form of heroism. (The Devil also has his martyrs.) It is an honour without future, rendered to one more than dead. As for the mass of mankind, to judge by the ordinary conditions of human nature, one might well believe, that they were riding for the
sible for a
.
of the Latin world, but of the world. Urbs caput orbis. rSal beCaUSe She h bom " of God> ha all the c the t !? nations of world are at home: the arms of Her Master extended on CX Cd Ver ? f d *" raCCS and Nation*. She does not bLT'l *> the Blood of Christ and supermrllt A marveUous e of her catholicity seems capital
W-the
Europe; Europe isnotthe
and the faith is not
Church andthe Church is notEurope.
Rome
ll
^^
?
^^>
Preml
same
fall,
but with neither will nor courage, anaesthetised

terribly easy
That fall is so
by the
ideal.
But is
there,
it
always an error to judge only according to nature. Grace i

surprises in store for us.
and has
While the old world
continues
SKmary COuntties of a native priesthood and episcopate ^yprhapsberegardedasmeforerurmingsign. 9 n *** b rderS f histoi and now strkken our y folliel A^f** ow East is as sick as the West. But here as there, we shall see
aiav n
mllTT
k
C PrCSent
^P*W
in
ofwhick *
Progressive develop-
&
INTRODUCTION
faith strikes root an adherence to what is everywhere where a living the wisdom of the saints, the uncreated Truth and truly above reason, to effort) the restorawithout not certainly bringing in its train (though the very conditions of in implicit reason itself, tion of the order of mysticism and metaphilosophy, and Gospel Thus the
THE GRANDEUR
AND MISERY OF
METAPHYSICS
neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which the Lord hath prepared for them that love him."
supernatural life.
'Hearing these things Adrian leapt into the midst of them, crying"Count me also among those who confess the faith with these saints I 1 also am a christian.'"
iBoninus Mombritius, Sanctuanum seu vitae sanctorum,
of Soksmes, Paris, 1910.
physics, the divine
and human life are in concert.
It is
not to a European,
but to a Bengali that

continued
we owe
the great project
of Brahmanandav,
new
edition
by
the
monks
by his
disciple
contemplative congregation,
Animananda: the foundation in Bengal of a whose members, religious mendicants

all
resembling Hindu sannyasis, will carry

cation of catholic
sanctity
life
over India an Indian exemplifi-
base their intellectual

this
who, without ignoring the Vedantas, will 1 on the doctrines of St. Thomas. I delight in
of Thomism. Thomism, the gift to the entire continent nor to world of mediaeval Christianity, belongs neither to one truth. like and Church one century; it is universal like the
homage
to the virtue
for one can never despise the distress
and expectation of those who

real
feel that all is lost
and
who
wait for the things to come. But the
We
come.
question is: which do they in reality expectAntichrist or the Parousia? we look for the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to
We know what we await and that it surpasses all intelligence. There is a difference between not knowing what one expects and knowing that what one expects cannot be conceived.
'Adrian, yet a pagan, asked the martyrs,
"What reward do you hope
for?"
"Our lips", they replied, "cannot say it nor men's ears hear." "You know nothing of it then? Neither from the law nor from the prophets? Nor from any other scripture?" "The prophets themselves could not conceive it as it needs to be understood: for they were but men who worshipped God and what they
' '
'
had received from the Holy

of that glory
a
Spirit they uttered again in
words.
But
it is
written: eye hath not seen

L'Apostokt
and ear hath not
heard,
MicheI Ledrus,
S.J.
bengali,
Louvain, 1924. la China an entirely
Chinese
catholic congregation, the Little Brothers
of St. John Baptist, was founded by ft. Lebbe in 1928. Generally, those who know China best think that the best of its ancient 8 spiritual heritage in these days can find only in Catholicism any chance of escapi" from the elementary materialism which the young are imbibing from the "West.
PART ONE THE DEGREES OF RATIONAL
KNOWLEDGE
Chapter Chapter
I.
Philosophy and Experimental Science

Critical
II.
Realism
Chapter IE. Chapter IV.
Our Knowledge of the Sensible World

Metaphysical Knowledge
Chapters II to IV concern Speculative Philosophy, i.e. the philosophy of Nature and Metaphysics according to the
principles
of critical realism.
CHAPTER
PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE

I.
OBJECT OF THIS CHAPTES
In his important book,
De Vexplication dans Us sciences, Emile

only science that we
Meyerson
con-
declares that 'genuine science, the
may know,
forms in no
which the modern developments of science have revealed: such work would demand a whole treatise. I wish only to draw out in summary fashion from the philosophical point of view the rudiments of such a scheme, such at least as it appears to me to be in the light of the history ofscience.
I will
while preserving in philosophy itself and metaphysics their essential forms as sciences, corresponds much more exactly to that vast logical universe
none of its forms to the positivist scheme of things'.* i havc not undertake flere f s h owing system of critical intellectualism or critical realism,*
in
way and
^ ^^^
^^
not endeavour to conceal the lacunae in such a sketch:
it is
indeed
desinsufficiency, I trust that it will enable the reader to appreciate, taken in relation to his experience,
pite
its
subject to
many
revisions
and
additions.
Such
as it is
however and
the inertia
tific
own the value of a doctrine which of many of its parrizans and the negligence of modern scienis
criticism have caused to
This chapter
be misunderstood for too long. devoted to the relations between experimental science
and philosophy; in other words, to a consideration first of all of the experimental stage of knowledge (or that which is particularised
according to the various sciences and
Emile Meyerson.
CSC
.
phenomena of nature)
loar.
in relation
De I 'explication ions ks sciences, Piris,
,P
" ^ UatC ' ^cause it has for object a vantage point where empiricism and idealism v m, reahsm and nominalism are alike surpassed and reconciled. On the notion of eric-
label
"
$ccm
^ e bt description for a philosophy for which no simplifying
"""alwnieeiiifacbû.
27
28

where knowledge
is
PHILOSOPHY
unilatter, it is
to the higher stages,

fied. It is
at
once univcrsaliscd and
AND EXPERIMENTAL
by
of
SCIENCE
like an introduction to the three following chapters, where

is
the high position occupied
an
the experimental, the positive
attempt
made
to envisage the general conception
of
philosophical
at
knowledge
in critical realism, a standpoint
which will imply
once
deeper treatment of these problems and a wider synthesis. Reserving for the next chapter an examination of the bases of the thomist noetic, its principles and metaphysical substructure are here
taken as hypothetically admitted;
things apart
i.e.
from the mind and the
possibility
the assumption of the existence of of die mind's awareness
of things and of its power to construct, by its
own
rightful activity ris-
ing from the senses, a true knowledge, in conformity with reality. Those
readers for
whom these propositions remain in doubt can in any case acitself; it is realist
do so may lead to However, both for the ancients and the modernsin this they are in accordthe clearest, the most achieved type of science, the one most perfecdy adapted to our understanding
the worst misunderstandings.
*-
phenomena as people like to call notion of what science is; whereas for the ancients, it was the eminent dignity of metaphysics which, orientated this notion. It is therefore very necessary to guard against any tendency to apply the anstotelian-thomist conception of science as such and without precautions, to the whole vast mass of noetic material which our contemporaries habitually call by that name. To
them, which attracts to
itself the
the natural sciences, the sciences
is
furnished
I
cept them as provisionary postulates, and will recollect that they are not
in doubt for science
sciences
by
nature. If the experimental

at least,
in
by mathematics; and it is possible to hold that, on do not say of being corrected and adapted, but rather
critical intellectualist
condition
suffi-
of being
or
ciendy penetrated and clarified, the

realist
do not therefore constitute an ontology of nature, of so well-informed a philosopher

is
critical
theory of science,
the observation
as the
one
quoted
physicians
above, a background of ontological values

requisite to
in fact invincibly pre-
whose principles were laid down by the metaof antiquity and the middle ages, can alone enable us
to see
them.
our way clearly through those epistemological problems which in these days have become a veritable chaos.
How
OF SCIENCE IN GENERAL
type?
then can
we
We
define science in general according to

is
its
idc
can say that science

precisely, a
wc form of science in general, taken as of the foremost limit envisaged by the mind when it b aware of striving towards what men call knowledge? 1 The idea which Aristotle and die ancients
idea can
What
mode; more
evidence, the
form of knowledge perfect in form of knowledge where, constrained b>

a
mind
it
assigns to things their reasons
of being,
the
mind
being only satisfied
when it has
grounds
attained not only to a thing, to a given
had of it
is
very different from that of the moderns, because,
for the
datum, but
when
this
datum
Hz is clear that these personal limits can only be culled, by reflective abstraction, from the various sciences which have been already built up among men. Nevertheless
it is
Cognitio certaper camas, said the ancients,

(in
in being and intelligibility. knowledge by demonstration
other words, mediately evident) and explicative knowledge.
We see
not merely a question of a simple residuary mean
(a statistical 'totality') reached by
that spontaneous realism postulated in fact
by the sciences
I treat
ahtractio totalis or the abstraction
themselves,
it is
'formality') reached
of a logical generality, but of a pure type (an ideal by abstraaioformaUs or tie abstraction of the formal constituents.
presupposing that critical reflection (which

nisance
because I am
(See infra, p. 45-7). The various existing sciences such as they arc. from type is disengaged, are fir from presenting an adequate realisation of it.
which this pure

is
and less indeterminate

"-That
of the validity of knowledge in general and, in consequence, of the less general

validity
in the next chapter) can take cog-
of the various sciences.

itself the
succedaneum of this abstractio fcrmalis most modern philosophers) that E. Husscrl

It is
to a
mathematics constitutes in
intellect (it
it is
(a
conception which
lacking
to
Juman
|
type of science most perfectly adapted to

is
has recourse
when he
applies
himdf
has
its
infant prodigies),
exactly true in regard to classical
madiematics;
Mutations canisienns, pp. -lr t0 'lj vc ' by meclj ) at i ve ^tiGc effort wd *> 7 grasp the intention* of science, which fact is only possible by more or less implic
(cp.
reflection
on
the really existing sciences.
On
Zi. he l which
l derives his very idea
iUMerl bLgC '
k t0 Provisionally characterise as invalid the sciences from

of science. If on the contrary I hold to the perspective of
the other hand, the cartesian method
W-
not exact of a mathematics where the axiomatic has entirely exited intuition. It is as true that the axiomatic method, precious as it may be, 'cannot em "?* nor J^tify itself solely by its own existence. ... It is impossible, withT removing its profound significance and its inward life, to isolate an abstract science ucn as mathematics from its intuitive origins*. (F. Gonseth, Let Fondements des
,
tMWmatiftes, Paris,
1926.)
30
at
J

once that
it is

it
knowledge
so based that
it is
necessarily true, that
1 cannot not be true or in conformity with that which is. For it would not
wood of which
which does not
itself on
it is
made, or the laws of its manufacture) an object
be a knowledge perfect in
its
mode, an irrefragable knowledge
if it could
be found
false.
it
This
is
true for the pure type
of the
sciences,
the thing (unless for our minds) and which nevertheless is not confounded with it. 1 Science bears directrix
exist in separation
from
however
and in
hypothetical
and the very large meawith conjectural which they back their and the sure of the probable propound nevertheless with rigour. which they certitudes and
may
be for their developments
determinations,
But
if this
knowledge
is
necessarily true
must not the object which it

object
assumes also be necessary?
How
can a variable and contingent
there, they but not in the state of abstraction and universality which they hold in the mindon the contrary, under concrete and singular conditions. Human nature exists in each one of us. But it is only in
exist,
mind
seeks in
on ideal constancies and supra-momentary\ what can be called the intelligible objects which our \ f the real and to disengage from it. They are
'
the abstract, 2
give rise to a stable knowledge
which cannot be found
false? In the
its
that
is
it is
a universal nature,
common
to
all
same way
a thing could
not be explained, would not have given up
the mind I men. In each one of us it/
the nature
It
of Paul or the nature ofJohn,
etc
reasons to us, if the reasons posited for its being should prove to be otherwise. This
is
the problem
which from the very beginning
has faced
should be observed that scientific law always only expresses (more or less direcdy, more or less distorted) the properties or the exigencies
philosophical reflection, and
world of divine
reply
Ideas.
We
which led Plato to the construction of his must not try to escape by some half-hearted
of a certain ontological indivisible which in itself does not fall under the I ken of the senses (is not observable) and which remains for the
natural
sciences
which would obscure the primary exigencies of scientific knowledge. Let us agree from the start we shall sec in a moment how this
an
x (which
other than
J
what
assertion
must be understood and delimited
nevertheless indispensable) and which is none philosophy designates by the name of nature or essence. 3
is
that there
is
only a science
of
Itis I
distinguished
from it by a rational distinction.
of the
necessary, or that the contingent as such cannot
be the object
science. Science bears directly
and in itself on a necessary object.
nant to the
do not ignore the fact that the idea of abstraction and of abstract natures is repugavowed or unavowed nominalism of many of our
contemporaries. Are aware of the curious spectacle which they present when, denouncing and worn-out quality of such a notion, they themselves talk of
'science', 'the
The difficulty is at once apparent. The object of science is necessary. But the real, the concrete course of things, allows of contingence; this
table
this
they, for all that,
the vanity
need not be here to-day,
myself who write need not be here
at
moment. Does bear direcdy on the

difference
nund, method", 'mathematical reasoning*, all those objects of thought which it is oddly difficult not to recognise as abstract natures? They are in pursuit of a phantom,
for the critical intellectualism
science then not bear

real in the
on the
real?
No,
its
it
does not
of an Aristotle or a
fitting
St.
Thomas never,
as they imagine,
raw, on the real taken in
concrete and
made scientific abstraction consist in

hole or a hypostasied generalisation
reality
an individual object into a logical pigron-
singular existence. (In this sense,
M. Goblot
is
right in insisting
on
the
tonic
thing
and truth.) But no more docs it bear on a plaworld separated from things. It is indispensable to distinguish the with which science is occupied (this table for example) and die
reality
between
gibility
of its characteristics, but in disengaging from it the which can be thought and made consistent for the mind, the complex intelliof which it is the carrier. This latter is what the scholastics called abstmth forthis abstractio fonnalis
wafu(seein/rfl,p.46).
precise object (die 'formal object')
on which it is based and from which it

of
this table con-
derives
its stability
(e.g.
the geometrical principles
sidered in terms
of its form, or die psychico-chcmical properties of die
the scientific mind can in no way escape. Whatever be brellcctual ro durc, even if it only postulates the equation P of phenoA i mena and the fixing of their empirico-mathematical connections, and renounces any search for the essence, abstraction is always present, and it is it which allows the establishment of rules of measurement and the calculus by which phenomena are adapted to
a
From
systematic attachments being abstracted, the notion proposed by E. Husserl of scientific truth 'conceived as a body of predicated relations founded or to be founded in an absolute manner' (MUttatitm carltsicnnes, ijjji. p. 10) does seem to be very far removed from this conception.
itself, its
iTaken
in
mathemanc formulation, and it is by it that that empiric specification of phenomena lscn a e a, which is itself a substitute for the essence and presupposes its existence, B e
of ft"
mC <luotc rwo significant passages

.
used by E. Meyerson: 'Whatever can be said

is
meu a h ysical P argument,
SdciUiflC
ôok. where
there
above
all
a dread
of the appearance of
mitigated atomism, just as
much as pure atomism, implies the
32

virtue of the ontology (or spontaneous philosophy) immanent
in
PHILOSOPHY
or of
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
By
our reason,
relations
we know in
as
advance that the
complex of phenomena
chosen
tures or essences, not penetrate to these essences in their intelligible constitution, and even the question ofknowing whether the more or less provisional and unstable
an object of observation has its support on such nasuch an ontological x. The experimental sciences do
servation, which perhaps some day experience will oblige 1 more precise ) which necessarily and immutably causes it
me to mak
cording to certain specific co-efficients

stract
object
which
consider in this
expand acunder the action of heat (an a.C flame and which I can
define
realise these abstractions as
to
thanks to a difference in certain pointer readings).

It
goes without saying that I
need not
categories
which they construct and on which they work in the course of

them, remains often decidedly
their reasoning corresponds exactly to
doubtful. Nevertheless, the raison d'etre for the necessity

lations
of the
stable re-
among the elements chosen by the mind from phenomena formulated by the sciences and on which they construct their foundations
resides exactly in these
cessity
energy of a multiof molecules moving about in disorder, in such a way that on the corpuscular scale the law in question becomes a statistical one, only
tude
such, heat
could rather appear to
me
as the kinetic
enunciating the stability

nature with
its
of the
resultant average.
But
if the essence or
determinatio
ad unum so
it
presupposed
ontological non-cbservables.
The
recoils (and perhaps

all that,
ne-
ad infinitum)
from the gaze of the scientist,

field
does not, for

is
of these laws comes from the fact that they are concerned rightly and in the end with essences or natures, and that these essences or natures are the ground of intelligible necessities: for every nature or essence, by
its
of the
real.
Absolute hazard
disappear from the a contradiction in terms; an inter-
section
not predetermined
mination.
by predeterminations presupposes* predeterTo know at what age one dies according to such
an actuary only
relies
intrinsic constitution, necessarily possesses

is
such properties
(as the
percentage,
est
on
statistics
diagonal of the square

necessarily to
incommensurable with the

effect in
is
side) or tends
(as
and such a and the law of the greatthere is the nature
numbers. But behind this law and behind
statistics
produce a given determined

expansion of
'solids').
given conditions
of the human body,

social things, in
'heat' causes the
What
righdy meant by
the
law
of the expansions of solids
by heat? Does it mean that, in some concertain piece
and the nature of all manner of physical, moral and the midst of which that body is placed and to
it is subject.
the acci-
dents
of whose action
crete case, the expansion

tain flame
is
of a
of iron placed above
a cer-
Chance only gives rise to fixed num-
a necessary and inevitable thing?

lighted, that piece
No,
that particular flame

been
might not have been

placed there,
it
of iron might not have
might have been protected by some

etc.
insulator, cooled by
some
its
current
of water,
What
the law means
is
that a solid (an abin the secrets of

1
which are not can play. If the 'primary' laws or specific determinations are succcdanea of natures or essences not attained in themselves, statistical laws are succedanea at two removes and presupby chance,
bers because there
are originally predetermined elements,

it
among which
pose.
stract object
which I consider in this piece of iron) holds
Eke the others, that these natures are the final bases of the stability of
the question,
nature something
unknown
(at least in
the present sphere of my ob-
To
claim to penetrate in some manner to the essence of things and to their inward nature (Cournot, Trait/ ie l'cnehtitnemcnt, Paris, 1861). 'We seek for the essence or the necessity
science,
carta,
tt
of each thing and the two expressions are equivalent, for, when we know the (t essence, we see that the being to which it belongs cannot be . . . different from what
is'
why does the necessity of laws, the objects of not extend to every particular event which- happens here on therefore necessary to reply: because the world of
existence in
ândofconcretercahtyisnottheworldofpurcintelhgiblenecessities.\
ese essences
(Sophie Germain, Considerations glnhales sur Vitat its sciences tl Jes
lettres
aux
dij-
firentes ipoques ie
hur
culture,
'CEuvrcs philos.', Paris,
to 878). Bertrand Russell, for
*** they
P re
state.
or natures arc certainly contained in existing
reality,
.
part, says that 'logic
scholastic
and mathematics compel us to admit a form of realism in the sense of the word, that is, to admit that there b a world of: universal* and ot
(or their succedanea) are
drawn by our minds, but not in

its
Every existing thing has
nature or essence, but the/
truths
which do not bear direcdy on this or that particular existence. This world ot must exist, although it cannot exist in the same sense in which the given ptf" oculars exist' [V'importance ie la hgistifie, Rev. de Met. et de Mor., May 1911).
universal?
Action
* towlvfcfil?!. y before being attached

,
"^cntood in regard to every law established by AnTTT " "f?"7?y f C dJadofl of Jolidi
to a physical theory
h Y he " !> been of heat.
established purely in-
34

of things
is

events
these
fadstential position
not implied by their nature, and
occur
among them which
in themselves are not derived
from
and which no one nature essentially implies. Existent reality is thus composed of nature and the adventitious', that is why there is a meaning in time and its duration constitutes (irreversible) history or
natures
history implies these
two
elements; a world
of pure natures
does not
change with time, platonic archetypes have no history, and a world of pure chance would lack any orientation, a thermo-dynamk
equilibrium has no history.
because the engineer calculated the resistances badly, or the materials were bad because the contractor cheated the state: it is fated that h of the natures of iron and of stone, one day the bridge will collapse^Tut the miscalculations of the engineer or the lack of honesty in the coif tractor, or that a prudent inspector might not have given orders forTts" repair, or that such and such a pedestrian should be crossing at the moment of the accident, all these things are entirely independent
NECESSITY
AND CONTINGENCE
which we sought.
If we
and belong to the contingent. These contingencies of the singular escape the grasp of science. These necessities of the universal 1 are the proper object of its grasp.
natural necessity
of anv
Thus the
its
universality
of the object of knowledge
We see, therefore, that the true notion of abstraction and of the universal gives us the explanation for
is
the condition of.

science
necessity,
in itself the condition
of perfect knowledge or
do not
dis-
tinguish
between the individual thing and the universal essence we can

science
Exacdy as knowledge can only be ofwhat is by necessity, there can only J ** be knowledge of the universal. 2
the meaning in the teaching of Aristotle, following Plato can only be science, absolutely speaking, of incorruptible and sempiternal things, but he corrected Plato by adding that these
This
is
not comprehend
nised
by
is
how the event can be contingent while the law recognecessary, how things flow and change while the
is
that there
object of science
in itself
immutable and enduring.
It is
so because
visible
is
contingencc depends
on
the singular as such (and in fact, in the
corruptible
world, on matter, the principle of individualisation) while science

based, not
and sempiternal things (incorruptible and sempiternal in so
in-
on the
singular as such, but
realised in the singular
and which the
on universal natures which are mind draws from the singular by

as
*k can be predicted with certainty that half the children bom ttKfey will live beyond the age ofn yean; yet this does not tell you what age youne will reach. The cchpsc of is as certain as the life-scale of an ]999
insuran
abstraction.
Science deals with things, but with things, thanks to abstraction,

part
to*
eule
)
atom is going to
make is as uncertain as my life or yours '(A S

It
WorU.)
seems
as
thought
EAW n J^X^ô^Z
kt\
J Jmpaly; S^tatl
whether
this is clearly
perceived or blindly graspedof the
unito
odat mechanics, which will be in question later on, but simply of the mulrim
could be regarded as an illustration
ZZ
the
versal natures
which are
realised in things
and the
necessities proper
those natures.
1 its object.
is
And
this and not the flux of the singular

is
constitutes
it
of aristotelian ideas on the link between
Contingencc
rightly concerned with singular events and
only 'according to the reasons of universal natures' that the

recognised
necesthe
w X^
13
removes of '"**&* ncccssid versal which experimental science is not able to decipher.
at
eum
*****
w
is
sities
by
science apply to singular things. This
is
why
necessary laws of science do not essentially affect every singular event

in the course
*ES^ ^
*
aV 0i
t
tO
iu.
"* "fcafcnonJmg; * that there

*
no
of nature.
A workman has cut this stone into a cube, being
a cube
must necessarily have the geometric properties of a cube; but it might have been cut otherwise. This bridge has been faultily constructed
it
C r ^) f
&Mw'Z Jw
attain the
lijomas thee X , S tcceofarightfu]
the individual as such. I will even admit, with John of St!
vHlaproprie ad singulark pertinent quae

3
Z*t V
Can
l
J
h b '^P
.
,m
*
contingenter eveniunt; quae autem per seinsuntvti
repugnant, attribuuntur tingularibus secundum univenalium rattones.' (St. hermeneias, book i, chap, ix, lect. 1 , sect. 6.)
Thomas,
In Pen'
mcCof tf m F laments, etc., arc sciences of the
*>?ttlt Y.
^ W
(indirect)
concept of the singular.
t0 hlv e
** of the individual-hut not

itself).
incommunicability in
Character-reading,
addition
emnl pray an art or experience
to WOmd " widl a nc ork of sub-specific universal notions and in
individual, which,
where the ratio particulans plays an essentialpart.
36

they arc essences or negatively) arc those universal natures which
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
abstractly
far as
and perishable things, and that so only exist outside the nund in singular science of corruptible things: in so a accident' have 'by it is possible to
far as
law expresses nothing but the ordination of the cause, taken nature, to its effectand that this in its universal ordination
mains the same, even if the position
contingent, or
if,
always reis
we
apply the universal
trutlis
its
of science to
singulars and the
in-
in the flux
telligence, 'leaving so to speak
proper sphere, returns, by the
of the cause in actual existence of particular events, another cause

effects.
presents
minisfinds
try
of the
senses, to those corruptible things

1.
where the
St.
an obstacle to the realisation of its

If
universal
we
suppose that
no free
(intelligent)
agent
itself realised'
'Although sensible things', says

2
Thomas,
'are cora
exists in the universe

{e.g.
then obviously any, event

sguirrel
is
happening here on earth
ruptible, taken in their individual existences,
they have nevertheless
the fact that this
climbing on
this tree at this
moment
certain eternity when taken universally.'
or that the lightning
And so, since the demonstration and knowledge of sensible things can
only be under the aspect of their universal natures, not of their individuality, it follows that this knowledge and demonstration bear only indirectly
is
'sempiternal'.
and 'by accident* on the corruptible, and in themselves on what The condition of the immutability and necessity of the
its
from But there is otdy necessity defacto, not dejure. Not only could this concatenation of factors have been other in the beginning, but, still more, none of the innumerable encounters between
the beginning.
different
causal successions tion
any one moment on any one mountain) was infallibly predetermined by the concatenation of all the factors of the given universe
strikes at
which have been produced in the course of the

this
evolu-
object of knowledge is
universality.
is
of the world up to the production of
event had
The whole of this
doctrine
admirably condensed by
its full
and
St.
Thomas:
The intellect may know the universal and necessary reasons of contingent things. This is why, if wc consider the universal reasons of objects
of knowing,
all
science
is
of the
necessary',
even though,
talcing things
the
reason in the essential structure of the universe, nor in any particular essence; the secondary causes productive of this event in themselves might (even if they might not in relation to all the multitude of precedent and concomitant positions of fact,
sufficient
supposing that
in their material aspect,

science
is
and
'considering those things with which
these in
themselves
it,
occupied, certain sciences'
such
as
mathematics for example
producing
itself
'have necessities as their subject-matter,
and
others'
were not disturbed) have been prevented from without the violation of any rational necessity. It is in
consequence the supposition of a
it
physics,
for
a contingent event1 (and in
example'contingent things.' 3
free
agent intervening to
modify or prevent
implies not the least
impossibility).
A DIGRESSION ON 'NATURAL DETERMINISM'

Thus we
sec that the error
These remarks
determinism.
pre-
show
in
what
is
sense
it is
possible to speak
is
of natural meaning
This expression
is
of pseudo-scientific mechanism
legitimate if it
understood
as
that
every cause in nature
supposes and includes the error of nominalism. If the universal does not,
either direcdy or indirccdy, stand for
necessarily determined, or
by its
essence, to
an effect {which can in fact

causes intervene),
an essence or nature, but only fa
a collection of individual cases,
hend how
lar events
scientific
it is impossible any longer to comprelaw can be of necessity and the succession of singu-
die
be lacking if the cause is not posited or other and that such necessary determinations are the object * aences of nature-or, rather, their basic foundation (for the
more they free diemsclves
contingent .What the mechanists

book i, chap.
viii.
fail
to understand
is
that
the
êy
e
iCajetan, In Anal. Post.,
from ontology in their texture the more become remote from causality in die philosophical sense of word).* But it is erroneous and a pure fit of stupidity to say that
also
*'Etsi cnira ista sensibilia corruptibilia sint in particulari,
in univcrsalia tamen
quim-
CnCC
dam sempitemitatem habent.'

% Sum.
ilieol., i,
P resu PPoscs 'the universal determinism of nature', if what
(St.
Thomas,
In Anal. Post.,
book i, chap,
viii, lect. 16)
On this question sec my Philosophic Bergsonienne,

'See
infra,
second edition.
86, J.
chap,
iii,
pp.
82-6.
38
is

meant
is

elementary exposition, and most of all from a remarkable ignorance of
philosophical tradition.
1
that
all
events
which take place

the object
in nature are rendered

posited and
that
inevitable
and necessary the

is
moment nature herself is
such a universal necessity

fore deal with
all
of science, which should therethe
individual happenings in the world, whereas on

it is
contrary, taken as such,

its
exactly those things which by nature evade
has often been pointed out, by the very fact that it the plane of sensible and material existence to from us transfers the plane of the objects of thought, introduces us into the order of intelligible
Abstraction, as
grasp.
It is
being or of what things
are,
but
it
does not immediately attain to any-
curious to observe
how a man like Fichte,
for example,
-was
led
thing except the

e.g.
to construct his 'theory of science* and the immense and fragile fabric of his metaphysic of liberty, in no small degree by the desire for an escape from this 'universal determinism', when a more rigorous critique of it would have sufficed to show him that it was only a trouble-
the idea
aspect of intelligible being, of fire represents to us only something, some determined being,
effects,
most general and poorest
which produces certain sensible

examples. Abstraction
such
as
burning and shining for
shows us
intelligible aspects
which are
certainly
contained in things, but the discovery, even in the imperfect way which
is
some idea and only presented a pseudo-problem. One could make the same melancholy comment on the philosophy of Renouvier and, more generally, on the greater part of the modern systems which have sprung from Kantianism.
native to
man, and only by grace of the

e.g.
properties manifest to
it,
of
the very essence of things,

telligible
being and which
the signs which denote their rightful ingive the reason of their other properties, is
I
only arrived
atif it is
arrived at !by hard work;
would add
that in
The
aristoteHan-thomist conception,
on
the contrary,
is
by
showing
with
it
is
whole immense domain, that of the inductive

it
how
in the course
of
singular events contingence
reconciled
arrive at
and must
rest
not content with succedanea and working
sciences,
we do
the necessity of the laws recognised by science, enables us to see

possible to integrate into nature the liberty
how
equivalents. 2
1Tliosc
which
is
proper to
spirits,
philosophers
whom I have in mind, if they must talk about St Thomas withhim -with the scrupulous
which they might
accuracy and
also well ask
thirst for infor-
which
as
such do not
make
part of the sensible and corporeal
world,
out having read
him
(and read
mation which they ask of others and

only need, to disabuse themselves
study of the very clear pages
of themselves),
but which nevertheless have in that world their field of action.
by a quick which have been written on this subject by L. Noel (Notes
on this point,
to divert their haughtiness
i'epistimobgie thomiste, p. 142)
ANOTHER DIGRESSION.
Let
HOW DO WE ATTAIN TO ESSENCES?

I have
the
pp. 42, 138, also
and by J. deTonque"dec (La Critique de la connaissance, Immanence, Appendix i). See also A. Forrest, La Structure tnitaphysique
iii,
k concretselon saint Thomas d'Aquin, chap,

2
I
me
pp. 72-97; and
infra,
finish off
one digression in order to begin another.

essences.
chap, iv, pp. 248-255.
spoken of natures and
Does
this
imply that in
my
eyes
primary intellectual operation, abstraction, allows us to penetrate

first
at the
it
is
,
shot to the essence of things
by
its
intrinsic constitution? That
sufficient to
form
an idea of fire, or better, of ignition, to penetrate
at
\
once the ontological secret
of combustion? That would be
chemistry
by M. Gaston Rabeau (SJaliti et tektivitl, Paris, 1927, p. 203), apropos of M. Leon Brunschvieg's book, L'Expirience humaine et la causaliti physique. 'The analysis of causality, of facts and sequences which science is seeking, gives us an idea of the interpretation of the real which in no way coincides with that rarefied Kantianism which has no fixed categories and where the functions ofjudgment are indefinitely variable. At bottom, what M. Brunschvieg makes clear is that the essence (by which I mean laws, theories etc.,) is not attained in
one stroke, that experience suggests truths rather than imposes them, that the procedure of thought does
should like to quote here a remarkable passage
'without tears', with a vengeance!

j
A similar reproach forms the basis of the criticism directed by

contemporary philosophers against what one of the more
several v o
serious
time to time to return capable of use for

difficulty
;
not isolate the object of knowledge, and that it is necessary from by a reflective act to the procedure employed to render them more complex tasks. All this is incontestably true and presents no
them has
christened pre-cartesian thought'.
It is
humiliating enoug
the
fla
even to have need to reply. For the charge comes in part from
of a decadent scholasticism, in part from a
son1 superficial reading of
it is only opposed to the phantasmagoria of a world of ready-made essences eady existing in the mind, to the simple-mindedness of a philosopher who could imagine that he carries in his head the divine plan of the world. Elsewhere, in his
_
4o

in
'
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
Wc achieve the possession of an intimate knowledge of the real

philosophy, where things arc studied, not
from the
if it
is
particular point of
trans-
view of their
specific diversity,
but from the point of view of the
THE SCIENCES OP EXPLANATION (lN THE FULL SENSE OF THE WORD) AND THE SCIENCES OF AFFIRMATION
I
ccndcntal being which saturates them.
But
a question of particuit
have said that science as such, and therefore
all science, bears,
larising specific essences? In so far as physical realities arc concerned,

is
only with regard to ourselves and to
human things
intelligible
that
wc can arrive
for
all
movement, 1 on natures or universal natures. Here a distinction is necessary

direct
tainly exhaustively, for
by
its
essences seen as'such in these
at quidditativc definitions
and reach an
knowledge of nature
in a specific degree. For all the rest
of the corporeal world and
There are sciences which deal with these essences as known, not cerwc know nothing wholly,' but at least as
known
'things
below us wc cannot arrive at the perception of intelligible constituents in themselves and must have recourse to a knowledge inductively constructed
3 or manifest (externally ): these arc the deductive sciences, mathematics and philosophy; though they are deductive assuredly for very
different
from
sensible effects alone,
which docs not
give
us
reasons: for in
mathematical science the mind lays hold on the consti-
êssences,
but simply their exterior signs.

is
tuent elements
is
of entities and constructs and
reconstructs in
its
own
One
thing
too often forgotten. If there
a mctaphysic which
ap-
right
what it has drawn from
sensible data or built
upon them,
treating
pears to be Je jure {if not ie facto) incapable
of recognising
the proper
what in the real (when they are

tics
it
procedure of the inductive sciences and which manifests an unheard-of
dogmatism and intemperate ambition

the corporeal universe, to the point
tive
in the field
of the knowledge of
presumably so
entia realia) are the accidents or properof bodies as if they were subsistent beings and as the notions if which holds of them were free of any experimental origin; whereas, on the
of claiming possession of an exhausis

laid
other hand, in philosophical

stantial essences,
knowledge of the essence of matter which

it is
knowledge, the mind lays hold of subnot in themselves, but by their rightful accidentals, and
bare before our minds,
branche, that metaphysic
cxpcrimcntalism, the
rary thinkers
ancients.
is
the mctaphysic of Descartes and of Malefrom which, more or less camouflaged with inevitably mechanistic ideal of most contempoit is
only advances deductively

(the *analytico-synthetic
,
by
a constant revitalisation
by
experience
method).
derived:
not the
critical
realism elaborated by
the
propter quid est, in
These sciences arc rightly sciences of explication, Sio'ti eW, the terminology of the ancients; they reveal the in-
So, having
come
to the closure
it
of our second
I
parenthesis,
it is
telligible necessities immanent in the object; they make known effects by principles or reasons of being, by causes, taking the word in the full
possible to define, as
should be done, the position
have already taken
and general sense of the older world.

'In distinction to that rational
It is possible, it is true, that,
when
up.
L'Atmlytique trantcenAcnlde,
obstructs the deduction
movement by which it returns to the singular.

{adequate ut Stint in se) there
M.
Brunschvicg poind out.
as a
concrete clement whii
of the
categories, that irreversible continuance
which
is the
'ForThomisn, if wc could would be as many specifically

science itself,
know essences exhaustively
different sciences as there
were essences so known. Thus our
matter of real causality: he signalises the constants which arc susceptible of serving u points of reference in various systems; he speaks of that irreducible something which ii
the very ground
by the simple fact that it embraces a multitude of different natures under one light and in the same degree of abstraction, attests that the real remains un&thom-
nature which constitutes
short, he shows us the fact, with the intelligible and the mind, which, in seeking to assimilate the facts, strives to reconstruct in separated and maladjusted fragments, the presentation of essences. This history of the drama of thought at grips wiih nature in the effort to reveal her secrets is potendy attractive; and it only appears remote from our doctrines because
it,
of experience. In
Cun Phii H- ". P- q- 27. Reiser, book P8 19 and 5 824: V 'Ex hoc tonim ex co tandem provenit, quia nostrae scieutiae im"'
P j0l
"
fSt Thonuj
-
>
. I.
i,
PP-
Pf <xtac sunt ct
S
'.
non omnino adaequantur ipsis rebus nequc eas adaequatc comprehen\
<1U:,cIit,CC
am j^b- proprum 1
n P^frctc comprchcndcrcrur. quaehbet res fundaret scienti-
this analysis is
bound up with postulates which it does not in fact
require.'
ab alia, nequc scientia requireret coordinationem pcacrum, scd quaehbet res per suara speciem adaequatam perfecte rcpraesentata suas
'Sec info chap. i V|
et specie dutinctara
pp 24 g.j ,
.
^j isl , $
42

triangle
PHILOSOPHY
had ever existed of a euclidian
AND EXPERIMENTAL
it
SCIENCE
43
confronted with a realty of such a height that its essence can only be known by analogy (as is the case of metaphysics before God), they have
to confine themselves to a
would
is
still
remain true that the sum of the
angles
triangle
equal to
two
knowledge of the simple certainty of the fact
right-angles. In this sense
(supra-empiric1 ), but then they have, so to speak,

tber side
come out on the furin themselves they
said that these sciences proffer us eternal truths. it may be The other sciences, the sciences of affirmation, tend towards
truths,
such
of explanation, and the fact remains that seek to discover the essence of all tilings.
There arc
also the sciences
but do not achieve rising above existence in time, precisely because they do not attain to intelligible natures except in the signs and
substitutes
which bear on which

is
essences as concealed, which
can never in themselves reveal the intelligible necessities immanent in

their object, inductive sciences
(at least in
ner
which constitute their field of experience, and that in a manessentially dependent on existential conditions, in such a way that
the degree to which
the truths enunciated
by them not only

subject,
affirm the necessary link bealso presuppose the existence
they remain purely inductive, which

sics
not the case with
modem phythemselves
tween the predicate
and the
but
or 'experimental' science, as Mill and
Bacon deceived
line
greatly
by
believing) can only
be held to be sciences of empiric Ams-
of this subject: the necessity which they bring to light not being seen and thereby, if I may in itself, remains absorbed in existence in time
MATlON
quia
est)
(a particular case
of knowledge in the
this side
of
fact,
on
eon*,
say so, saturated with contingence.

Briefly,
and which remain on
of explication
in the rightful
we
can say that science in general deals with the
necessities
sense
of the word. They enable us to

them-
know 'causes* or reasons of being

metals, that ruminants
immanent in natures, with the universal essences

in the concrete
realised in individuals
by
their effects,
not in themselves, but by the signs which are our sub-
and
sensible world.
The
distinction has
been drawn
stitutes for
Wc know that heat expands

by
between the explicatory or deductive sciences, which

natures
attain to these
have cloven hoofs, and so blindly

reason
hold on some necessity whose

experimental constant being
the sign
is
by discovery
(constructively in mathematics,
and from without

and
we do
not sec
a well-founded
and in
includes,
to what is within in
tive sciences,
the case of philosophy), and the affirmative or inducattain these natures as signs
substitutes,
the sign
of some
necessity,
itself
connection.
An
inductively established law

it
of some essential thus much more than

essence;
it is
which only
blindly so to say.
These latter have assuredly a certain explicative value,
a simple general fact,
without revealing, the
without which they

cating the necessities
the practical equivalent of the essence or the cause
which
itself remains
would not be sciences, but which consists in indiof tilings by way of sensible experiments, not by
is
hidden.
assigning their intelligible reasons.

sciences, the sciences of explication, set
The former
them here on
before the mind

clothes
The
distinction
between these two categories of sciences
absolute:
intelligible objects
detached from the concrete existence which
they are mutually irreducible.

It is
earth, essences delivered
from
existence in time. If no
clear that the sciences
of the second category,
the affirmative, in-
^Thc stvt an sit or quia est (knowledge by die record or the perspective no way limited to knowledge of an inductive type, for (in opposition to the sort j"i
>J
of fact)
ij>
ductive sciences, being less perfectly sciences,

full
by
failing to achieve the
expression
of die type of a
perfect science, arc not in themselves self-
knowledge in the record of or the perspective of reason of being) this expression includes all knowledge which docs not arrive at grasping the essence itself in the totality of its intelligible constituents. For example it is in this way that in a discipline of a deductive type like metaphysics the tdrt quia eit plays a very important part, since all knowledge of God which we have here on earth comes from
est
or propter quid est, which
is
sufficient;
they reach out by nature towards the sciences of the first cate-
gory, the sciences
of explication in the full sense of the word,

by
the deduc-
tive sciences. Tliey are indeed
necessity subject to their attraction. In
virtue
of their very nature
as sciences they inevitably tend to rationalise
this
form of knowing.
to the nominally inductive sciences, they belong, in the degree to
stire
As
inductive, to the
quia
est,
and constitute die particular type of this
which they art form of kn w
themselves, to
become more
of
perfectly explanatory, in other words, to
'
approximate to a deductive type, and in that degree to become subject

to the regulation
ledge in the domain of natural knowledge.
a discipline properly belonging to such a type,
44

is

all the signs produced by matter, abstraction removal of all those contingent and strictly individual particulars which are ignored by science. The mind thus considers bodies in their mobile and sensitive reality, clothed
either philosophical or mathematical. It
an important
fact
which we
mains impregnated with

consisting only in the
must never allow ourselves to forget.

Let us
now endeavour to enter further into the domain of the sciences

and their hierarchy.
consider the various degrees
is
in order to discover their essential divisions
with
their
For
this it is necessary to
of intelligibility
of the objects of knowledge. If it

call
remembered
is
that
what philosophers
matter (die existent non-being of Plato)
in the last analysis nothunintelHgibility

(or, in
experimentally verifiable properties. Such an object cannot exist without matter and the qualities which are bound up with it, nor can it be conceived without it. This is the great dominion of what the
ancients
called Physical the
ing other than the ontological source
of relative
knowledge of sensory nature.
It is
the
first
degree of
modern terms,
things
irrationality),
which affects the very substance of natural
abstraction.
and
signifies so to
speak the distance which separates them from
But the mind can

matter in so far as
also consider objects abstracted
and purified from
the intelligibility in pure act proper to uncreated Being,
we
shall at
once understand the fundamental

St.
thesis
put forward so powerfully by

It is therefore
the general ground of the sensible properties, whether active or passive, of bodies. In this case it considers only one
it is
Thomas:
intelligibility
goes with non-materiality.

objects
by
property
sensible
is
which
it
detaches
from bodieswhat remains when
all the
the diverse
in things
modes or degrees in which the
of thought discovered
removedquantity, number and extension
taken as such: ar
by
the operations of the intellect are freed
from matter
of
science.
that
it
object of thought which
becomes possible to
only on these
establish the essential divisions
(It is
can be conceived without

enters into the definition
cannot exist without sensible matter, but whicl it, e.g. nothing sensible or experimenta.
essential divisions that I shall concentrate,
without con-
of an
ellipse
or a square-root. This
is
the great
sequendy making any claim to enter into the detail of their subdivision and classification; more, I shall only consider the speculative, leaving
'kingdom of Mathematica: the knowledge of quantity

l
as such, in its
object
more
detailed discussion
of the notion of quantity and the proper

page
(cp. chap,
iii,
of
on one side
cal order
mathematics follows
the moral sciences, which, being concerned with the practi-
on a
later
should be noted, however, at once, that in

the object in general
making
pp. 173-6 and chap, iv, p. 250). It quantity as such, or ideal quantity,
and proceeding, in a 'composite* manner, to the point of the
mathematics, I in no way intend the exclusion from the domain of
concrete determinations of an action, belong to an entirely different

division
mathematics of all qualitative determination;

qualities
of epistemology.)
n.
the contrary; if it is a question of the or formal determinations included in the notion of the entities under consider-
On
ation,
or of those 'irrationals'
THE THREE DEGREES OF ABSTRACTION

provided by the doctrine of
the three degrees of ab-
primary specifications
the last analysis spring
which are at the origin of their construction, e.g. those which serve to define the structure of a continuum or which in from a given fact (as is the case for the three-dimensional nature
it is
Here our clue

straction
is
of space in
classical
geometry),
situs,
obvious that no science of quantity
is
possible
or the three degrees in which things proffer to the mind the pos-
without qualities. Analysis
the theory
of abstract spaces,
those properties of order
which
sibility
of finding in them a more or

in regard to the
less
abstract
and immaterial ob-
ject,
i.e.
way in which that intelligibility is itself derived

by
the particular
from premises
to conclusions, or, in the last analysis,
bottom of topological notions, witness to the marked importance of essentially affecting the domain of mathematics. But this s a question of the qualities proper to quantity as such, not of the qualities which refer to the nature or radical principle of the activity of bodies, which are reducible
this qualitative
are at the
element as
mode of definition.1
The mind can
matter in so far
space, in as
to the sensible
order (physical qualities).
consider objects only abstracted and purified from
On the other hand it will be noted that for the scholastics the science of content and
science
straction,
as it is the
foundation for the diversity of individuals
in
of numbers, while both belonging, generically, to the second order of abboth present nevertheless in this very order a specificdifference or level of
much
x
as it
is
the principle of individualisation; in dus case
^materiality: the latter
is
of higher
abstraction
and immateriality than the former
the object, in the very degree to
which
it is
present to the mind, reii,
"[
Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs.
Phil.,
Log.
P. q. 27,
a. I
book ii, p. 16). Modern mathematics, while endeavouring to overcome this erence and accumulating thereby the most fruitful discoveries, can in the end only
s,
46

of order and measurement. This
is
PHILOSOPHY
are
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
rightful relations
the second degree
of abstraction.
/Finally, the
mind can consider abstract objects from wliich matter has
been entirely eliminated, where nothing remains of things but the being with which they arc saturated, being as such and its laws: objects of
two forms of abstraction: abstractio totalis, in other words, the abstraction or extraction of the universal whole, by which we derive 'man* from Peter and Paul, 'animal' from man, etc., so progressing by larger and larger universak This form of abstraction, whereby
the
mind by
rises
above
all
simply animal knowledge of the singular perceived
even
all,
thought which not only can be conceived without matter, but which can exist without it, which may never have existed in material form at
such as
the sense hie et nunc,
and which commences in

is
reality
with the most
general
and indeterminate notions,
at the
bottom of all human ways
God and pure spirits,

is
or which
may equally exist in material

and
potency,
the
and immaterial things, such

beauty, goodness, etc. This
as substance, quality, act
this
the great
kingdom of Metaphysical
of Being
it is common to all the sciences, all science advancing from order towards greater determination, seeking, so to say, to bind up its object in the notion proper to it, not as obscured by a more or
of knowing;
knowledge of what
tThis
It
is
is
beyond
sensible nature, or
as being.
less
common
or floating one. But there
is
a second form of abstraction,
the third degree of abstraction.
abstractio formalis,
St.
Thomas,
must here be pointed out, on the authority of Cajetan and John of that these three degrees of abstraction apply to the form of
by which
we
the abstraction or extraction of the intelligible type, separate the formal reasons and essence of an object of
It is
knowledge from contingent and material data.

abstractio formalis
by the degrees of this
abstraction called
by the
its
scholastics, abstractio formalis.
Actually
there
enhance and underline

co-extensive,
self presupposes the
significance.
we arc nevertheless justified in thinking

'the
For if geometry and arithmetic have become that the numeric content in itacquires 'the
reality
from one another, the objects of the higher science presenting the form or regulative type for the objects of the inferior. Doubtless the objects of metaphysics are
more universal than those of physics, but it is not in that form, as more general notions on the same plane, that the metaphysician considers them. It is as forms or intelligible types on a higher plane, asuT
object
that speculative sciences differ
primary and irreducible notion of extension, and that the irrational
number, thanks to which

an
the
arbitrarily
body of numbers'
line,
same plenitude or
to the
the
same continuity as the straight line* (Dedckind), is in

chosen point on a straight
it
an arithmetical symbol of
an
indivisible
cit.,
common
two
seg-
ments which continue through
(cp. F.
Gonscth, op.
p. 46) . That vicious circle in
of knowledge of a specifically superior nature and intelligibility,
o.
method ordinarily used for establishing the existence of irrational numbers, denounced by M. Weyl, only results from the endeavour to establish its existence solely by means of arithmetic, starring from rational and whole numbers. Either way one is obliged to fill back on the distinction between two 'schools' in mathematics and two only: 'the school of enumeration. Arithmetic, and the school of content, Geometry
(Gonscth, pp.
It is
cit.).
and of which he acquires a rightfully scientific knowledge
by means
'
which are absolutely transcendent to those of the physicist or the mathematician.

If it
is
permissible to
make
use of figurative language/^ne could say
that the
important to observe in general that the three fundamental degrees of abstraction, which begin ex parte termini a quo, as the mind abandons such and such material
magic:
compared to an immaterial, from the flux of singular and contingent things apprehended by \
intelligence could be
work of the
of speculative knowledge, may be found, which spring ex parte termini quern, in the degree to which the mind itself is the objeer of a determined degree of immateriality (John of St. Thomas, op. cit., log.). One specific form of knowledge.
conditions, only define the great primary determinations
the senses the first glance
of the
intelligence evokes the
world of cor-
within which other variations of level
poreal substances
and
their properties; a second glance evokes another

third, yet another
universe, the ideal

different
tal
world of extension and number: a

to both bodies
e.g. natural
of which remain on the same plane of intelligibility as long as the modus drfiniendi remains the same for all. But if it is a question of another method of establishing specific notions, another mode of definition, it i another specific type of speculative knowledge wliich is in question. J Cajetan, Comm. in ie Ente et Essentia, proccmium, q. 1 John of St. Thomas, Curs.
Thomas, Comm.
in
philosophy, can consider objects
very differing universality (cp.
St.
world, the world of being as being and of all the transcenden-
it Sensu el Sensato, lea. l),
perfections
common
and
spirits,
where,
as in a
mir-
ror,
all
we may attain
arc
to purely spiritual realities and the principle itself of

J
reality/^
How then
wc
to classify those sciences which
just
now
entided
P/i//.,log.ii,P.q.27,a.i.
Voices of affirmation, which do not achieve the discovery of the
48

,
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
by them? It is obvious that they belong to the lowest degree of abstraction. They form part of Physica. More, we can now distinguish in Physica two classes of sciences, which represent its extreme
natures seen
limits: these sciences
for itself a conceptual

sciences
vocabulary totally independent of that of those which, like natural philosophy and metaphysics,
determine
their definitions
with regard to
intelligible being.
of affirmation, primarily inductive
we can call the empiric sciences of sensible nature and a science of corporeal being
nature.
sciences, which
DIAGRAM OF THE SCIENCES
which
is
rightly explanatory, the philosophy
of sensible
To
assist
In further definition,
are resolved in being,
we may
is
abstract I
observe that though

first
all
our
in the consideration of a matter at once so complex and so have drawn out a diagram of the points dealt with hitherto.
concepts
which
those
the
object attained
(in confuso) by
The following points are particularly noticeable: I. The second degree of abstraction is not only
mediate to the
first
intellectual apprehension, the concepts
of metaphysics
in that
set at a
are resolved
point interit
in
and the third,
as
being
as such, ens ut sic,
of mathematics
is
form of being
was naturally to be expected,
also
(dein
tached from the real) which
ideal quantity,
and those of
Physica
mobile or sensitive being, ens sensibile; but for the philosophy of nature
it is
necessary, in the phrase ens sensibile, to put the accent

it
on
ens:
an
ex-
plicatory science,
'
discovers the nature
and the reasons of being of its

necessary to
object.
And ifit is true that the nature ofsubstances inferior to man is not
our discovery in
its
accessible to
specific diversity, it
is
say
that the proper object

specific diversity
ofthe philosophy of nature does not extend to this
of bodies nor to the multitude of their phenomena,

as it
is
and
is
only constituted by transcendental being in so far
deter-
mined and particularised by the corporeal world of the mobile and the sensitive. We see by this two things: first, that the philosophy of nature,
despite the essential difFerence
tain continuity
of order which divides them, has

is
a cer-
with metaphysics, and
by
this superior to matherise to a de-
matics: secondly, that
though philosophy certainly gives

it is
ductive science of corporeal being,

science
unable to produce a deductive
ofnatural phenomena.
phrase
For the empiric science of nature, on the other hand, in the

ens sensibile, sensible being, the accent
sensibile. It is
must be
put, not
on
ens,
but on
figures
Fig.
i.
the sensible in
itself,
in the visible as itself in observable

it
on a
vertical line to the right.
determinations in themselves, that

least in
tends to resolve
at all its concepts,
matical abstraction is a tiling all
the degree to which

all
it
tends to
make
itself
an autonomous
or a
jsica and Metaphysica have

real
The reason for this is that matheby itself. Although specifically different,
in
science ofphenomena; then
definitions, e.g. that
of a gcospclinal
verbal blindness, are taken in reference to variable sensible affirmations, describing something presented by such definitely determined and observable properties. In the same way, empiric science tends to build up
the
m'T f"?
D
Wl" Ch
01
0dy
aCtUal cxistence
this
common that
'*
they only deal with
hchl &>
h s0 far as thc word
Possible existence outside
notneT"3nly
T^^"
rcal>
with an object which is but wIl *h can just as well be {permissive is the phrase
deals
on thc con ^ry
50

ancients)
1
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
5r
things,
of the
fictive
or imaginary, a rational being
as a real being,
This capital difference means that the three degrees of abstraction do not form one sequence, and that the first and the third on the one hand
and
philosophy of nature of penetrating beyond capable in the science on the surface and by signs. empiric arrested in
We know
the inferior
ancients
that, in
pursuance of the great law of the attraction of
the second
on
the other determine their approach to things in opposite
by
the superior, the empiric sciences of nature

attraction
among
the
ways.
2.
were subject to the
of natural philosophy and

it
On
the other hand, empiric science, the philosophy of nature, and

specificpartici-
metaphysics.
far as
Only being
able to constitute themselves as sciences in so
metaphysics are found in the same hierarchical line. Although

ally different, the light
they were informed
by
a deductive science,
was from notions
of the
first
degree of abstraction
is
like a
elaborated
by natural philosophy and metaphysics
that they sought this
1 pation in that of the third
an inferior and divided

flieol,
i,
illumination,
yet
informing principle.
3.
*Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs,

s'mthona.
*It is
P. q. 6, disp. vi, a. 2, n. 20, Mathematica
inferior to
Every higher discipline forms a principle of regulation for those it. Metaphysics, since it deals with the supreme reasons of
being, should
be the regulative science par
excellence, scientia rectrix.
But
in the degree to
I
which
it
participates in the illumination

this
of the third degree of
mathematics
is
also a deductive science, a science
of the propter
quid. It
abstraction that
have placed, in
synoptic table, the philosophy of nature on a

first
higher level than mathematics. Yet the

fact originates,
illustrated in
is
degree of abstraction, from which it
therefore also tends to regulate the
lower ranges of knowledge,

itself.
if not
ia
inferior in immateriality to the
second degree, a point which is also
to usurp the position of metaphysics struggle for
This
is
the cause of that
my diagram.
how
the natural sciences presuppose mathematia
supremacy between these two
sciences
which
we
can so
This enables us to understand

('Scientia
sicut
often observe in the course

4.
of their history.
already prepared for
quae se habet ex addirione ad aliam, utitur principiis ejus in demonstrando, geometra utitur principUs arithmeticac; magnitudo enim addit posidonera supn
unitas posita. Similiter autem corpus
et idea
The grand discovery of modern times,
by the
numerum; unde punctus dicitur esse

ens
si
naturale addit
materiam sensibilem super magnitudinem mathematicam:

de
non
est inconveni-
naturalis in demonstrationibus utatur principiis mathematicis. St. Thomas,
lib. i
Coeb
et
Mundo,
lect. 3
'quaecumque impossibilia accidunt
may derive from natural philosophy, to such a degree indeed that, acThomas, the 'postulates' of mathematics could be proved by the philosophy of nature. 'Sunt enim quaedam propositiones, quae non possunt probari nisi per
and of numbers
cording to St.
principia alterius scientiae; et
circa mathenuti-
ideo oportet in ilia scientia supponantur, licet probenrur per

a puncto ad punctum rectam lineam ducerc, supponk
calia corpora, necesse est
hxc idea, quia mathematica dicuntur per abstractionem a naturalibus; naturalia autem se habeM pet appositionem ad mathematica: superaddunt enim mathematicis naturam sensibilem el
quod consequantur ad corpora
naturalis; et
principia alterius scientiae. Sicut
geometra et probat naturalis; ostendens

media.' (St.
tion
the
is
quod
inter quaelibet
Thomas, In Post. Analyt,, lib.

it is
i,
cap. 2, lect. 5, n. 7.) If this
duo puncta sit Iinea form of observareality (in other
motum,
a quibus mathematica abstrahunt: et sic patet quod ea quae sunt de raaonc madiematicaHum, salvantur in naturalibus, et non e converso' [ibid., Lb. iii, lect 3).
exact
the rational necessities perceived
by
the philosopher in his analysis of
continuum detached, by abstraction, from sensible and mobile
From this point of view the three-dimensional character of real space (on of 'real* space, see infra, chap, iii, pp. 201-12) is guaranteed by the necessities
discovered in the process of construction in mathematical intuition
this question
words, the axiomatic analysis

ative intuition),- which
of the continuum in so
basis
far as it can be built
up by imagin-
which
ate
ways remain
which will ala geometry. 'Naturalis praesuppowt mathematico ea quae circa dimensiones considerate Et ideo probare demonstrative, pa esse solum tres dimensiones, pertinet ad mathematicam, sicut Ptolemaeus probat
as the particular
claim for
classical
of the postulates ofeuclidian geometry, i.e. which discover' the euclidian axiomatic in the notion of a continuum intuitively representable (as, from the idealist point of view, O. Hamelin has tried to do in certain remarkable pages of his Essai), and which justify in the same stroke the non-eudidian geo-
form the
metries,
and give the mind a complete security
as to
the compatibility of their axioms,
hoc,
quod impossibilc est conjungi simul lineas perpcndiculares plures quam trts super idem punctum; omnes autem dimensio mensuratur secundum aliquant lineani
perpendicularem'
(ibid., lib. i, lect. 2).
If the idea
can say:
'If we take a free solid and fix it at three two, and every point distant from the rwo others may describe a circle; fix it by wjty one point, and each point at a finite distance from this can move in a sphere. (
j
of displacement is introduced, at points it is immovable; fix it
one
which continue that of Euclid and are contained in it, can always, by means of the addition of supplementary dimensions, be translated into euclidian terms and since the compatibility of the euclidian axioms, the absence of any contradiction latent in their origin, is certified by the constructability of the euclidian
continuum by intuition: ah acta ad posse valet
be built
ceals
since these geometries,
consecutio: if the euclidian

fact, it is
continuum can
its
up
in the intuitive
imagination and so given
because
notion con-
Poincare'.EKflijKr quelques caraclhes des notions d'espace etde
On the other hand we can also comprehend how
temps.Vmi, I93 1 -) continuum the philosophy of the
no latent incompatibility.
52

PHILOSOPHY
end in sensible nature.
of the fourteenth century and by da Vinci, realised!) Descartes and Galileo, is that of the possibility of a universal science of sensible nature informed, not by metaphysics, but by mathematics'
Parisian doctors
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
have
their
these sciences from nevertheless remaining physical, since they
physko-mathematical science. This prodigious what \vc might inpowerless to change the essential order obviously vention though
call
of
things of the
mind such as those we are endeavouring

of die world, and given
rise, as I
to consider here-
has changed the face
have
Emile Meyerson has forcibly pointed out in opposition to positivism (and also to Duhem) that the thirst for 'ontology', for an explanation by physical causes, can never remain alien to science. But the encounter of
mathematica procedar, magis sunt narurales
lect.3-)
tried to point
out elsewhere1 to that terrible misunderstanding which, for three hundred years, has created a quarrel between
sophia pcrennis.
quam
ii-ii,
mathematicae.'
{In Phys., Jib
j]
modern science and the philoIt has given rise to enormous metaphysical errors, in the
it
degree to which
has been believed that

itself,
it
supplied a veracious
9, 2, ad. 3 ) : 'Quilibet cognoscing quidem respiat medium per quod aliquid cognoscitur; materialiter autem id, quod permedium cognoscitur; et quid id quod est formale, potius
St.
Thomas
writes elsewhere {Sum. theci,
habitus formaliter
estideo illae
philo-
sophy of nature. In
from an epistemological point of view, it was
an admirable discovery to which, nevertheless,

place in the system
It is
we
can
easily assign
of sciences.
of which the typical examples to the
ancients
quae ex prindpiis mathematicis concludunt circa materiam naturalem, magis cum eis similiores, licet quantum ad materiam magis conveniant cum narurali; et propter hoc dicitur in ii Physic, quod sunt magis naturales.' On which Cajetan remarks in his commentary: 'Non dickurquod
scicntiae
mathematicis connumcrantur, utpote
sdenriae
mediae sunt magis mathematicae quam naturales

simpliciter sunt scientiae narurales,
cum falsum sit absolute loquendo
a sdentia media,
urpote
non abstrahentes
were geometrical
optics
and astronomy: an intermediary
science, halfthe
enim sdentia non abstrahens a materia

Sed dicitur
sensibili,
; quia a materia senribili. Ornnis est naturalis, ut patet vi Metaph.
way between mathematics and

which
it
empirical natural science, of which
quod connumerantur magis cum mathematicis, utpote eis similiores.'

is
Physico-mathematical srience
physically real forms the subject-matter in regard to the measurements
thus at once formally mathematk (by the principles

it uses)
and media of demonstration which

end or the matter by which
and more physical than mathematics by
the
allows us to
draw from
it,
but whose formal object and
concall
ceptual procedure remain mathematical: a science

materially physical
which we may
sciences the
and formally mathematical} In such

(as
ruling
two characters are in no way incompatible and are affirmed simultaneously of the scientiae mediae, by both St. Thomas and Cajetan. It is possible that the fuller explanations here given
propositions. These
will satisfy
it verifies its
principle
of explication
Duhem has
clearly seen) leaves
on one side
Hoenen, who ('Maritain's reden te Amsterdam', in Studien, May 1927) appears to confound my position with that ofDuhem, not observing
the scruples
of Rev.
Fr. Pierre
and physical causes in their proper value of intelligibility which does not prevent, as St. Thomas noted apropos of the Second
principles
that for
me mathematical-physics is certainly a sdence of the physically real, but which
Book of the
8
J
Physics (as Einstein
and Mcycrson have very well
seen),
by transposing it, not ofthe physically real as suck In any case I trust the appeasement in making his own Cajetan's condusion to the commentary which I have already dted {In II-II, 9, 1 and 2): 'Verum, quia medium utrumquc sapit extremum, et sdenriae istae ex parte formae ex mathedistinguished professor will find
only knows this
Cp. J. Maritain, Reflexions sur T intelligence, chap, vu

ihii.
matica veniunt et pendent,

St.
ex parte vero materiae physica

as if Fr.
sunt, sermones
doctorum
*Cp.
chap, vi and text
which
have there cited from
Thomas,
notably that
pie interpretandi sunt,

I
si
quando alterum extremum nimis declinant.*
from In
affincs
Boet. de Trinit., q. 5, a. 3, ad. 6:

rei narurales applicant, ut
mathematica ad
'Quaedam vero sunt media, quae prinapu musica et astrologia, quae tamen magis sunt
est quasi material.
must admit that

criticises.
it
seems
Hocncn had read

I
rather rapidly the quotations
which he
mathemarids, quia in earum considcratione id quod physiri,

quasi formale.' See also infra, pp.
nowhere said that mathematicalphysics was a logical monstrosity: what I did say was that afalse notion of this science,
which confused it with natural
philosophy, turned it into a logical monstrosity. la maintaining in his address to the Thomist Congress in (De valore dieoriar physicarum, Romae, 1925; cp. also the interesting articles published in the review
In Reflexions sur V intelligence
quod autem mathematici,

'He understands in
2, 194. i. 7,
76-8L
>i.
this way the expression, Ta ^vaix^repx rutv [i.<x8r)fid,TWV, $f-> by Aristode apropos of geometrical optics {perspective), harmony and astronomy, 'Hujusmodi autem scicntiae, licet sint mediael nter scicntiam naturalcm et mathematicam, tamen dicitur hie a philosopho esse magis narurales quam mathmaticae, quia unumquodque denominarur et speciem habct a terrruno: unde, qj harum sdentiarum considcratio terminatur ad materiam naturalem, licet per prinripu
Rome
used
^regonanum 1925, 1927 and 1928), that physical theories give us a knowledge by
khSLv-it seems to me, runs the risk of

elr,
physically Ka1, without defining to
what form of analogy he

all
referred,
either giving rise to serious misunderstand-
gs in regard to the
notion of analogy
(in fact
what is above
meant in philosophy
spiritual
of
whT u toch the
by
""ks/knowledge by the analogy of rightful proportionality,

things
metaphysidan makes use for the knowledge of
"
54
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
the law of causality immanent in our reason and the mathematical ccption of nature has resulted in the construction of a theoretical phw of the universe which is more and more withdrawn and
most often the old hypotheses of mechanistic metaphysics that physicomathematical science (while fundamentally transforming
introducing into
geometriciserl
fa*
them
them or
vast zones
of dislocation and
where
fictive causal entities

re),
founded on the
irrationality) has
all his
real (entia rationis cum
iamento in
whose whole
matical deduction, have
office is to serve as a support for matt*. risen up to obscure a highly

particularised
fact
it
is
been so led to rejuvenate: not as E. Meyerson, who, despite apparent rationalism, cannot conceive of the reasoning process
under Eleatic terms, supposes,
causal explanation,
causal
except
account of empirically determined real causes or conditions. In

instructs us in a veiled,
but not symbolic manner, in a reality not attained to in itself
by reason ofthe essential exigencies of but because the mechanistic theory is the only representation which can manage to survive, ill or well, a
general
but
remaining in
its
own entitative order, while physical theories instruct us directly, but

its
reduction
Pierre
ofphysics to geometry.
as
in a manner which becomes symbolic at a certain degree ofconceptualisation, in physical
Duhem himself,
Emile Picard
recalled in his lecture to the
transmuted into mathematical terms, transposed into an order which is not own) ; or ofsinking into the quest for vain theories ofconcordance.The perpetual renewreality
moment, the recent ideas on photons, and the new mechanics als of science ofLouis dc Broglic and Hciscnberg) show how wise it is not to ask a philosopher to adjudicate on the degrees of truth or falsehood in the physical theories of light or ofthe atom: all that he needs is to hold true the experimental facts on which these theories are based and to cull from these theories a provisionary image of things, destined to
(e.g. at this
Academic des Sciences, on 16th December, 1929,1 considers that 'a physical theory is not an explanation; it is a system of mathematical
positions
pro-
whose aim is to represent

laws',2
as
body of experimental
in fact the
simply, as completely as possible,

result
is
that physics in
buttress his thought, not to shape it.
some of its departments (that of energy, for example, as Duhem conceived it, or to-day of wave-mechanics according to Heisenberg's interpretation, to
One point remains true, and it is this that I would have liked to have seen maile dear by Fr. Hocncn: the fan that we can see a symmetrical correspondence on either hand of
that knowledge,
their essence
use
which Louis de Broglie has also given his support) makes ofpurely mathematical symbols, without attempting any causal ex~
which I
shall later call 'dia-noeric',
and which
attains to
its objects in
Sanation or the construction
on one hand, for things above, the knowledge by analogy of
rightfiJ pro-
portion,
the things below,
which metaphysics makes use of in its ascension to the First Causeand, for knowledge by signs, which the sciences of phenomena cull from
of those figurative hypotheses whereby the mind can in some fashion take to pieces the mechanism of phenomena.
this
But truly
nature, above all that symbolic
knowledge of the physically real in which physicomathematical theories result in their highest elaborations from experimental dan. I im well aware that this latter form of knowledge belongs, as is sufficiently pointed out by
make
a virtue
abstention is because it cannot do otherwise and must of necessity. Duhem's mistake was in seeking the typecases,
form of physical theory in these often exceptional

garded
as true
which he
re-
of analogy taken in the widest sense ofthe term: but a question of a metaphorical analogy which mathematics has the privilege of using for its knowledge of the physically real (cp. iii/k chap, iii, pp. 196-201). One can say with Fr. Hocncn: 'Secundam maxiniam Capthe logic
the
word 'symbolic', to
in that case, strictly speaking,
examples. In reality they are borderline instances, where the mathematical transformation of phenomena momentarily occupies
the
cal
it is
mind
in a state
of complete
little
isolation,
with no underlying physi-
image: and they so
represent the type-form of physical theory
tain
(De ncm. anal, cap.
4): quidquid assimilatur simili ut sic assimitatur etiam
illidjU
that at the first
tale est simile,
concludendum est: causa quam hypothesis verificata proponit assinulaw causae vcrae; quod nihil aliud est ac principium analogiae theoriae physieae quod
supra dclineavimus.' (Dc vahre.
is . .p. 69.) Dut the assimilalio then in question a univocal substitution, in so far as physical theories translate the facts and enable which attain to observable and measurable (co-determinations)
cease to
opportunity the mathematical symbols so employed belong to the domain of pure analytical forms and dissolve
eitkr
structures or causations have the valueofenf/a realia, ora symbobcor metaphorical constructs
its
one, in so far as physical
theory
ol 01
on its own rational beings
to assist
it
in the collection
and
interpretation
variety
is the case even with energy: 'almost all admit today that it is not only an abstract conception,' U. a pure mathematical symbol. An even more glaring case is that of atomic number, which, beginning as a simple ordinal number, has ended as
wto
explicative entities. (This
scientists
data
by explanatory
deduction. This combination, in an almost infinite
designating the charge
degrees,
that
of univocal description of experimental reality with symbolic torcrpretadonol same reality appears to me to be the particular characteristic of physico-nu^
of an atomic nucleus and the number of the Un coup d'atilsur I'histolre des sciences etdes tlttcries physiques, Paris,
1929.
*See in particular Duhem's
matic knowledge.
book on La
Tkiorie physique.
b
56

it.)
electrons gravitating about
On the other hand, the causal

the nature
"
entiti
structural systems constructed
to
by the physicist owe all their cons" the mathematical symbolism which is, so to speak, incarnate
the interpenetration
Thus
of mathematics and entitative representati^

'these
^
1
track
of This I have represented on the diagram bv the of an arrow pointing towards metaphysics. For the moderns, it is mathematics which acts in this
science.
appears to be essential to physico-mathematical knowledge., which it follows that, in the words of Emile Picard,
the schools
f^
sary therefore to
tion,
whose
qnantbrf
way It is neces in the exactly contrary direc" track represents a break, a sharp, irremediable
draw an arrow pointing
cut between
seem very
mingled in the work
points of view are strane of present-day scholars/ I would rather

say
far off and the
two
science
and philosophy.
The intersection of these two arrows is the symbol of the

gkal drama of our times.
epistemolo-
that
they had become one.
Duhem's too
rarefied conception moreover
annihilated the primary heuristic stimulants
The endeavour of the
without which physics
can-
not
exist.
These explanations appeared to be necessary to avoid
misunderstandings.
5.
B ut let us no w return to the main theme.

as
serious
phenomena of nature was concerned, in a resounding with regard to matter and movement. We may say
and were pulled up short by physics (in the
ancients resulted, so far as the science of the

failure at least
that they stumbled
With the physico-mathematical
scientia media, materially physical
and formally mathematical, a science of phenomena

sible.
No longer a science of sensible nature which sought to find willyphenomena those

intelligible
such becomes pos-
modern sense of the word) The endeavour of the moderns has brilliandy succeeded in physicsand to-day we are witness to a crisis of development there which is
prelude to achievements
still
the
nilly in
more
connections which are
the
stuff
of philosophy and which only explain phenomena when they have already transcended them; but a science of sensible nature which applies
to the detailed study of phenomena as such, as they are co-ordinated in space and time, the formal connections of mathematical relations, and
even while remaining entirely in
which so approximates, thanks to the science of ideal quantity, to that deductive character to which it aspires and without winch it would not be a veracious science. To be at once experimental (by its matter) and
deductive (by
its
those sciences whose object cannot be so easily reduced to mathematics which cannot be content with an algebraic symbolisation of nature, and where the real continues to be dominant in the mind as a function ofthe idea of being? It may well be that the modern conception of science wiU break against biology and experimental psychology (without speaking even of the moral sciences which are
mena-to
But what will happenthe domain of the science of phenobrilliant.
more
closely
aJon to philosophy) as that

6. I
form, but still
more in regard
is
of the ancients broke against physics.
to the laws of variation
of scale which
science.
it
brings into play)

as it
then the rightful ideal of modern
haye given here very summary recognition to those organic re-
lations
which
Producing
does both scientific knowledge and a marvel-
science.
power over nature, but from the point of view of quannot that of being; having abandoned the direct search for real causes in order to devote itself to the translation of the measurements of things into a coherent system of equations, we see that physicomathematical science must be placed in our diagram at an angle between purely empiric science and the that philosophy
tity,
lous technical
ranged in thenhierarcliical order.
the mutual relations of the principal categories of Li putting th ese categories in a single column, we see them
sustain
dmsion between the

pniiosophy.
Thus we recover again
the classic
sciences, in the strict sense
of the word, and
The word science, in

sons
continuity with
of nature, thus breaking which the optimism of die ancients was so pleased.
it
h
'
word
For the latter,

if
may
was die philosophy of nature and metaphysics which,
dplt ^P . Metaphy S i cs
!!
vf*knows
general, in effect embraces two great dominions, Whidl WS tHngs h Gxst causes md the H hcst rea" ? g 3nd d main of science in the narrower sense of the
^
is
thin
use die phrase, drained off the material
of empiric
it
science and
Ss b y secondary causes or approximate prinform of wisdom, it is the veracious wisdom of

rder
accessible h reason Y
infra-scientific experience
f
pliilosoh sopny f of
and
tried to
approximate
to the level and
nature
Which " ^ wisdom

is
dooc The
under a particular
aspect, because it
RATIONAL THE DEGREES OF

(I
KNOWLEDGE
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
59
causes in a given order, in the order of principles and prime deals with first would add, in parenthesis, that the study of the
corporeal nature.
ontological bases
Tâs
continuum, returns
of mathematics, the philosophy of number and philosophy of nature, to the sphere of the
not bearing in
order.)
itself
the for
or representable: for the imagination presents inatively figurable scale of major dimensions, as possible subthey appear in our
for a
mathematical abstraction,
on
^nters into
and when the scientist complete and continued observation; atomic, where even the possibility of a coma region, e.g. the
real being, does not
observation pete and continuous
of phenomena is out of the
question, 1
imply wisdom in its own rightful bracketed together these I have therefore
two forms of wisdom, pure
L so passes from a world of
imaginatively representable objects to a
a certain aspect, metaphysics and and simple wisdom and wisdom under of philosophy. name the under philosophy of nature,
the
imaginable features. world of things without fault or 'by privation). worldis indescribable by
We could say that such a

\
I
As to the other
sciences:
mathematicsthe physico-mathematical
(yet) received,
(paleontology, sciencesthe experimental sciences or those historical

linguistics, etc.) sciences
visible to the invisible, to what is in itThe other proceeds from the observation, for the principles sensory the bounds of all self outside pure objects of intellection, not are are the aim of the philosopher
which
which have not

light
and which will

their essen-
2 imaginative representation. This of sensible apprehension or
is
world/
probably never receive, the dry

tial
of mathematics into
naturally indescribable
or 'by negation.
^
constitution, I
have grouped them together under the
name
of
science in the narrow meaning of the word.
entirely different principle?. Having totally different formal objects, and in the subject himself reof explanation and conceptual technique, of dis-/ fundamentally different intellectual virtues or qualities
quiring
m. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
criminating illumination, the proper

are
not translatable.
An
domains of philosophy and science' explanation of a scientific order can never be

philosophic one or
vice versa. It requires
Though it is
true that the material object

e.g.
of philosophy and of science

the formal object, that
displaced or replaced
by a
an
/can be the same,

/
the
world of bodies
which
determines the specific nature

cases essentially different.
of intellectual
disciplines,
is
in the two
recognition of an imover-great dose of simplicity to imagine that the functions of theliver glycogenic the and the study of
material soul in
man
In the world of bodies the scientist studies the
laws of phenomena, linking one observed instance to another,

seeks for the structure
cules, ions,
I
and if be
of matter
it is
by representing
to
himselfmolethe
'
explanations between the idea and the image are two to the other. obstacle an canbe which pursue the same lines and that either do not they since science, explanations of
or the relations
What
is
true
is
that the
atoms, etc.in
what way and according to what laws
bring us into intimate contact
ultimate particles (or the mathematically

their place)
conceived entities which take
\
\
from which the
edifice
is
constructed, act within the frame-
work of time and space. The

is
philosopher,
is
\wM in fact that matter

telligible being,
is
on
the other hand, seeks for
which
so figured, what, as a function of init
the nature
of corporeal substance (whether

spatial
be
split
up and reconstructed into a

unassorted mto a
same).
exwith the being of things, and are only formal of kind that planatory of proximate causes or even simply of of phenocause which is represented by the mathematico-legal system of support in mena (and the entities more or less arbitrarily constructed always, and that system), cannot suffice for the mind, which by necessity, regions of intelasks questions of a higher order and seeks to enter into
ligibility.
or spacio-temporal construction of
molecules, ions, atoms, etc., or into protons

series
and electrons
associated or
From
this
of waves,
point of view
we
have a certain can say that the sciences
his
problem remains r
exactly the
dependence on philosophy.
for the raison Xetre
ob^Tr\
observable (,,. observable, at least indirectly-I
mAe îbletoAe ^ ib Hfromtheobservabletothe

do not say
it is
and
mind with philosophical

iSee
infra,
because they seek sciences themselves, imperfectly, uispire the can only proffer it very higher the support of a
The
desire,
and require
always
chap,
iii,
226-8. pp. 183-4 and
Jitf.
pp.
W**
PHILOSOPHY
60
AND EXPERIMENTAL
x
at the base
SCIENCE
61

is
form of knowledge. Nothing

with which,
exemplified in
all
more curious than to measure the force

of the nineteenth century,
this
after the positivism
need is
j
of phenomena: 1 not only these, nuclei, question of the possibility of the apprehension of things in but the very of knowledge a difficult thing no doubt and done in a faculties our
or of a
substantial
the domains of science
and that in the most disorderly
competence being inevitably lacking with the lack of philosophical technique even in scientists of genius like Henri
fashion, philosophical
more or less obscurely felt restrictions, way which demands all sorts of surrounded with a sense of incontestable certitudesin but which is also
other words, that
of the
intelligibility
of the world, which, though
Poincare.
doubtless in an undefined
nevertheless in the
way and with a sense of imperfect definition,

hesitates to posit in advance.
The sciences have, however, no dependence whatever on philosophy with regard to their own intrinsic development. They are only dependent
in principle (not in
meanwhile no one
Or
again the question

reason,
may be
that
of the values of the
principles
of the
the sense that they are dependent on philotheir use,
sophy for
their principles
and
but in the sense in which

belong to philosophy).
the
2 most of all, the principle of causality, in regard to the world ofl experience, i.e. in other terms, the insufficiency of changes to explain'
explication and
justification
of the
latter
Per-
themselves
by themselves
of calling a spade a spade keeps scientists from numerous vain causes of about words and the things they represent.
haps
it is
precisely because scientists
have no need of an immediate
^The
V
habit
is
recourse to philosophy for the exercise
of
their
own
rightful
activities
quarrel. It
fine to listen to their agreement
that they are so given to misunderstanding the nature
of this depend-
This remarkable accord creates
among
scientists
an atmosphere of confidence,
a uni-
ence of which
attentively
have spoken. But
if
they were to
reflect rather more
on the nature of the very activity which they exercise (which would indeed be already a form of philosophising) how could they
fail
to observe that it involves in itself a complete order of philosophical
activity,
wrapped up, so to speak,
in practical terms?
\.
employment of the methods of experimental criticism, like the determination of the degree of approximation of the acquired results,
All
which is none other than a robust faith. There is probably not a chemist who does not confound the reality of sulphate ofbaryta with the idea which he has of it. I had the curiosity to ask such a question ofseveral of them. To all it appeared exceedingly odd. I could see, by the dubious glances with which they looked happens at me, that they doubted whether I were not mad to ask such a thing. What in actual fact is that a chemist makes the absolute substratum of bodies from their properties, and knows no preoccupation with the highly hypothetical character of this conception.* (G. Urbain, 'Essai de discipline sdentifique,' La Grande Revue, March
son whence they draw a certitude
1920.)
Formulated as it is in language which suggests entirely different philosophic opi-
nions, this
form of applied or Hvingly formed logic {logica which only becomes pure logic and the object of a speculative
constitutes a
plicitly studied for its
utens),
{op. cit.ii, p.
comment by a scientist of unquestioned authority, as M. Meyerson observes question him235), is evidenceof all the more value since 'the scientist in
in theory, a sufficiently orthodox positivism
describes
art exI
self professes,
and evidently
finds the
own
sake {logica docens) under the reflective gaze

itself is
whole
way of thought, which he

claim
is
with so much accuracy,
definitely
blame-
worthy'.
of the
logician,
but which in
nothing other than that
logic, a
8
I
My
that the scientist affirms in acta exercito in the exercise
of
his
own
truly philosophical discipline, in practice.
scientific activity,
the value
of the principle of causality (without waiting for any philo-
On
the other hand, whatever
metaphysical opinions
from
the conscious or unconscious which he draws his conception of the
may be
sophical reflection
still less, its
1
world and which he follows out in
human being, every as a scientist in fact, in the operations of his own science, when thinking scientistwe owe a debt of gratitude to M. Meyerson for having so
his life as a
on its meaning, its bearing, the various methods ofits verification or If he were not practically persuaded that everything which happens has a cause, he would not give himself up to the work of research, he would not even begin it. In the course of its progress along the lines of what I shall
critical justification).
later call its
the concept
structs,
transpose empiriological autonomy, science itself may need to refound or of cause, and even perhaps admit, in the picture of the world which it con-
forcibly stressed this
pointpractically
is
affirms (in
and actu exercito)

to
with a dogmatism which

r
which
sitions,
it is
unconsidered, a
it
degree the more fearless in the very number of eminently metaphysical propoof
iii, the field of what for it is 'causality'. (Cp. chap, of between the scientific vision of the world and the springs mental work from which it emanates, there is an analogous disparity to that between universe the scientific universe perceived by the physicist as a physicist and the familiar
lacunas which
make holes in
pp.
82-6 and 23 i-j .) Here,
whether
be a question of the reality of the physical world,
which he knows
as
an ordinary man.
l
-,
the existence
of
things as apart
from the mind, of
stable ontologies
62
Finally,

PHILOSOPHY
every
scientist
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
has a certain idea, often only very
63
partial!
explicit or even highly confused,
but which is practically highly
effective
and active,
plays a
of the true nature of his science: an idea winch without doubt

intellectual orientation
it
each of them, for we have just seen how absurd and sphere of action of the scientific order as if it were one of philoproblem of a is to treat
sophy and
vice versa:
major part in the
of the great
but it implies that it is a higher science.
initiators
What, from this point of view, could be more noticeable than the aphorisms on the nature of physics which are so frequently on the lips of M
Einstein?
science
Superior, therefore independent, at least

tion:
It
by
its
own formal constitusciences.
philosophy is,
as such,
independent with regard to the

is
But
these considerations
in fact
of the true nature of such and such a

to a
do not
belong to any science, but to philosophy:

science without the first principles
gnoseology formed by living.
no formal dependence of philosophy with regard to the sciences. No scientific result, no scientific theory, in short, no science in the exercise of its own proper means, can ever
should be understood: there
adequately cut the knot of a philosophical problem, for those problems
In short, there
is
no
on which
the
in
whole
this
train
of our reasonings must be fixed, an

all
depend both in their origin and their solution on a light which

in the reach of science.
is
not
infinite regression
order evidently rendering
demonstration impossible: and
every
scientist,
by the very fact that he applies himself to no matter what form

his
There
is,
most
certainly, a strong material
dependence of philosophy
on
the sciences.
To begin with, philosophy is like the oilminating point

limits
as
of demonstration, has already given
adherence, very
positively
however undeclared, to an important number of

positions. It
live latently
of the hierarchy of knowledge, and as a result comes pedagogically

last;
philosophical pro-
and the philosopher, since he judges of the value, the
and
very evidently follows from
this that all these things which
subordinations
of the
sciences,
must evidently know them

more,
they are
and vitally in the mind of the
scientist
could advantageous-
and the stuff of their proper

tions
life;
scientific data are like illustra-
ly be brought to light and looked at face to face as objects of knowledge, in other words, be dealt
with by philosophy. Then
we
should
see ex-
which normally serve the philosopher in the exemplification and embodiment of his ideas; finally and above all, the progress of science,
at least
plicitly the objective links
between the
sciences
and philosophy.
Their
in regard to the facts discovered if not the theories, should nor-
axioms are determinations of the principles of metaphysics: for example,

the mathematical axiom," two masses equal to a third are themselves
equal,
is
mally,
above
all
in
what
is
concerned with natural philosophy, renew
and enrich the matter offered for philosophical explication. Thus, for
example,
cell,
a particularisation of the metaphysical axiom:
two
things
modern
discoveries concerning the organic structure of the
identical
justifies
with a third are themselves

their principles,
identical. It
is
philosophy which
the
first objects
in particular the
embryo and
the sexual elements,
artificial
par-
and defends
which determines
thenogenesis, etc., should give a

the
new precision and a greater quality to
towards which they work, and

limits as sciences. It
tells
is
as a result, their nature, their value, their
philosophy, for example, not mathematics, which
us whether irrational
numbers and indefinite numbers
are real beare
the problem of the eduction of the vegetative soul is The new developments in geometry begun by Lobatchevski and Bolyai equally oblige the philosopher to clear up and re-order his
posed.
way in which
ings or only rational beings,

rational constructions built
whether the non-euclidian geometries
notions concerning quantity.
on euchdian geometry and which leave the

or
if,
But such dependence remains material, and the changes which
it
in-
latter its privileged position,
on the contrary, they
constitute a
much greater system of which euclidian geometry is only one specimen; whether mathematics and logic are divided or not by immovably
drawn frontiers,
In
all this it
duces primarily affect the nature of that imagery whose importance is so great in his vocabulary, and the halo of associations which have
etc.
In a word,
it is
:
philosophy which assigns the order
gathered about the actual didactic terms: to imagine that philosophical doctrines need to be radically transformed to fit in with scientific revolutions is as
which reigns between the sciences
sapientis est ordinare.
absurd as to suggest that our souls are vitally affected and

elements of our dietary.
does not impinge in any
way on
the proper procedure
altered by a variation in the
64

SOME ELUCIDATIONS ON THE NOTION OF FACT

Their other error
intuition. It is
is
65
from
a rejection of the primordial values of sensible this intuition, in one way or another
question arises here
which must be
and even
part played
by experience and
briefly treated: that of the experimental fact with regard to
when
the fact in question transcends the
whole order of the empiric and

(it is
pbjlo.
the sensible that all existential
apprehension originates
the same
sophy.
The latter, according to St. Thomas, rests on facts; it must accept the facts, begin by an act of humility before the real already made known by the senses, attained by our physical contact with the universe. And the philosophy of nature, differing in this from metaphysics, has not only its origin but the end where it must verify its conclusions in the experience of the senses: although in a way other than that of the experimental
sciences.
for our experience of our own existence, which is spiritual and nonempiric, but which supposes reflection upon our acts, as for the know-
ledge
things). In the
of the existence of God, which is established apart from sensible physical order or in that of the knowledge of bodilyis
nature, it
by the
senses,
through a discriminating and

the facts are given.
critical judg-
ment of the
intellect, that
To
distinguish, in that
order and in the use

fact
made of them in the natural sciences, the category of
from
that
of theory,
we
should not say that the one belongs to the

senses,
What
and
then
is
a fact?
It is
a well-founded exis'tential truth: in

is
exis-
intellect
and the other to the
which would be far too summary a

intellect,
its
tence a certain group
of conceptual objects
existence
objects.
is
posited beside the
thing;
a
view; but that the intervention

ficial
of the
with
its
natural or arti-
this in itself implies that this
face to face with a mind,
resources,
we might even
say with
knowing
devices and most
spirit
which can lay hold on

is
its
A fact which interests human

it is
delicate
refinements of theory, remains in the former case ordinated to

is
observation
not created by the

is
human mind,
because
it is
given. But
is
it is
the
discernment and formulation of what
furnished to
it
by
the in-
given
to
someone; if it
given,
is
it is
received, a stone
is
not
tuition
of the
senses, 1
while in the
latter,
with the same
resources, to
given to a stone: a fact

discerns
given to a mind. That

to
to say, the mind
discovering essences
Into die
activity
and laws, and their underlying reasons.

intervenes, not in order to create, but to discern
and judges
it.
To wish
reality
make of
this
a sure and simple

is
complex of things attained by the perception of the senses the
transcription
of external
without any discrimination
a decepimagina-
of the
mind so
tive simplification
tion.
due to the unconscious materialism of the
what interests the observation.

is
And in so much as the moment a science

characterises it emerges at the
it is
bom, the
rightful point
as
of view which
Even in the order of the
external senses, there

is
iudgment by the senses; sensible perception
Thomas said, a itself induced by and preis,
as St.
same time
the
first facts
on which
based
whether before adnew

facts the
vancing into a scientific region and there unearthing
supposes the bringing into action, instinctively or otherwise, of

internal senses or ratio particularis.
the
mind has already begun to enter and acquired the habit of such
or whether before crossing the threshold
science,
The discernment of any

are
fact presup-
of some
particular scientific
poses a judgment either of the senses or of the intellect.

idealists are certainly right.
On that point the

the
region
it
has already
begun
to philosophise, already in
some measure
it is
But they
wrong
in thinking that
disengaged the notion of being as such from the principles to which

attached
activity ofthe
at
mind cannot ask or draw from things information whichis

to
it;
in that degree the discernment of which we are speaking will

of abstraction and
in the light of certain
once enunciated by and given
their error
is
to believe
take place at a certain level
gratuitous postulate and in fact quite absurd
that every interpretation, or
principles in regard to
winch the fact holds its value, a value, that is to say,
more
exactly every judgment,
a deformation or a creation,
assimilating
IS.
by our faculties for knowledge is either not a more or less pure and profound
conformation to what' it
rightly
of oneself
to the object, a
of physics, which will be in question at a later stage, of the 'registration of facts', is ordinated to raake clear an existential position which we conceive by analogy with that furnished by the intuition of the senses.
this
'In the orders superior to those
work of the
intellect, characteristic
66
THE DEGREES OF RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE of knowledge and trudi. We may conclude from this that all facts arc
PHILOSOPHY
Here
I
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
67
not of the same rank, that they do not constitute an indistinct crowd without hierarchical arrangement, piled pell-mell in the field of sensible
experience for each of the various sciences to
can only briefly indicate some of these, most of all in the endeavour to exhibit how rare an instrument of epistemological analysis
is
offered
come and
pick out
the
of the
by the principles of St. Thomas, and to draw attention to one characteristic features of his noetic: the order and organic dif-
particular
wares of their
desire. Facts in
facts
themselves belong to
hierarchies
(i.e. facts
ferentiations
it
which it establishes among
of knowledge: there are
of common
the sciences, and the care which

as all
sense, scientific facts
takes (unlike
many modern
systems which exhibit them
on
the
which occupy the natural

existence
sciences),
mathematical
facts 1 (e.g. the
(ideal)
facts,
same plane) to recognise and respect the structure and particular procedure of each.
'
of continuous functions without
derivatives), logical
1 is
philosophical facts.
Let
it
be remembered that every science

the question an
it.
a response to
two
ques-
/Materially speaking, one can say

/taental'
from
is
this that
philosophy is
'experi-
tions: first
est,
if a thing exists: second, the question
and founded on
as it
facts.
This
true in the sense that experience is
quid est,
ofwhat nature is
[not for philosophy,

/
is for mathematics, entirely pre-scientific, infra-
For mathematics, experience has only a pre-scientific function, in the

sense that if
scientific,
mathematical science being entirely deductive and axiom-
we had
never seen a
ball or a stick
we
could not have
and apart from imaginative intuition and those notions which experience alone allows abstraction to form and reconstructfThe method
atic
formed the notion of a circle or of a straight
line; if
counted on our fingers the parts of a concrete whole
we had never we should never
/of philosophy, dh the^cdhtrirfy,

A it
/]
is
analytico-synthetic; and, just because
have formed the idea of number. But once in possession of these notions,
thanks to the abstracting power ofthe intellect, they present in themselves
objects
deals with
real being, rightly capable
of existing outside
the mind,
obset-
experimental affirmations
vation as such.
form an
integral part
of philosophic
of thought independent of experience, so independent of experi-
ence, that
this
is
we can generalise
analogically
But
for philosophy, in contradiction to the natural sciences,

rises to
of that very intuitive scheme in
from them, de-ballasting them which they were first made manifest. If
only the material foundation from which it

essences
the consideration of
resolution
mathematical entities could only

outside the
ally:
when they are capable
of existing
and the
first
necessities
which they imply, by a formal
mind
so
exist in matter,
they could not exist mathematic-
into the
truths in themselves intelligibly
known:
it
only
returns
to
the straight line, the circle, the
whole number are realised in sensible
experience
in natural philosophy to verify deduced conclusions seek for ever fresh materialin metaphysics to take up new
departure,
and
things,
but lose thereby the conditions of ideal purity which are im-
points of
posed by the mathematical

In the mathematical
'Here
I
mode of existence.
new
is
analogical material, not
to verify conclusions which

speaking,
order the question an est bears on the ideal (possible
belong to an entirely immaterial order. For, formally
follow the ideas which St.
Thomas
develops in his commentary
on
the
no degree an experimental science, but knowledge far more purely rational than mathematics. S
metaphysics
in
a form
oi
(book ii) and on the De Trinitate of Boethius (q. 5 and 6). Let mc recall here the fundamental text from the latter: 'In qualibet cognitione duo est considerPosterior Analytics
ate, scilicet
THE STRUCTURES AND METHOD OP THE PRINCIPAL KINDS OF
principium, et finem sive terminum. Principium quidem ad apprehenaoncm pertinet, terminus autem ad judicium, ibi enim cognitio perficitur. Principium igitur cujuslibet nostrae cognitionis est in sensu. Sed terminus cognitionis non
.
semper
est
KNOWLEDGE The foregoing

epistemology.
*Cp. Pierre Boutroux,
uniformiter:
quandoque enim
.
.
est
in sensu, quandoque in imaginatione,
quandoque in solo intellectu.

in
conclusions imply several important consequences
Deduri autem ad aliquid est ad illud terminari: et ideo in divinis neque ad sensum, Deque ad imaginationem debemus deduci: in mathematicis autem ad imaginationem, et non ad sensum; in naturalibus autem etiam ad sensum. Et propter hoc peccant qui uniormitcr in tribus his speculativae partibus procedere nituntur.'
VHial scientifque
de$ mathimaticiens, chap. iv.
68

1
PHILOSOPHY
starting
AND EXPERIMENTAL
it
SCIENCE
69
or rational)
existence of the entity under consideration; and
to be directly verified elusions needs

they need to
to
by imaginative
intuition: but that

i.e.
from
the notion of this entity once so posited as capable of mathematical existence, the truths which concern it (quid est) are deductively
be verified by
for
either directly or analogically,
according
whether they are constructed
by intuition, or whether they belong to
by means of constructive operations which may apparently play the principal part, but which in fact remain only material: formally
established,
IfttellufbLe.
a system
of notions
(as
metrical entities), itself issuing
example non-euclidian or archimedian geofrom a system of constructable notions in

and which can
find in this
Plane,
the euclidian entities) the intuition (like
SCIENCE-.
AnEst.
/
QiodEst.
\
1 system an analogical interpretation.
Inttlliqi-bl-e
plane.
/ 9 LAW.
(substitute for
QuU.
Est.)
\ \
I
ana ^fcno-*LedLqe issuing

loflicilly
SCIENCE..
ia the* iCTisifaLe.'j
"Plane
ofienwble Existence
ScTis"LbLe Fact.
Plwie
oj_
* An
Est. (sensible fact.)
"# Knowledge rsulina
in.
Ex.
Sensible Existence.;.
trtriencc.
EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCES.
3.
nATHt-MATlCS.
Fig.
z.
Fig.
In the
it is
experimental sciences experience
is
in itself essential and entire-
by virtue of the intelligible connections which proceed from matheall
ly rules.
The question an est bears
directly
on
the facts experimentally
matical deduction, whether these connections are themselves guided
criticised.
,
Science does not arrive at seeing the essence in itself or dia-
by constructive operations, or are established and justified once for all by the rules of an architecture of signs where the art so determined has only need to be applied. The ancients
and determined
the time
noetically 2 as it lies
[
embedded
in facts,
it
only grasps
it
blindly: not in
its
constituting signs
tents itself widi
but in those of peri-noetic3

all
intellection
which
it
con-
in their place (above
the constancy of a well-verified
held that in mathematics the judgment achieved
by which knowledge
is
relation),
and that substitute which

is
is scientific
lawthe judgment, by
itself,
resulted not in the sensible,

as
but in the imaginable.
This
which knowledge
words, every
sible fact.
achieved, issuing in experience
or in other
should not be understood

1
meaning that each of the established
con-
newly acquired conclusion needing

a question
to be verified
by
sen-
The
sense
of the words 'ideal existence' is fixed according to the following division:

real
(
When
face
it is
of the physico-mathematical
sciences, the deit
aaaa[
ductive theory
J
and the system of notions elaborated by
come
face to
being]
(.possible
with experimental results to find there their verification, although

1
lidcal
rational
|
being.
Vide infra,
chap iii,
p.
201-2.
Vide infra, chap, iv, p. 248-9
betog
*&id. p. 251-2.
'
7o

them
in a
PHILOSOPHY
of an
existence
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
is
71
apt to translate
somewhat rigorous
fashion
by means
of an immaterial object to
which knowledge
able to rise
by
adopted vocabulary; and it is a mathematical quid est, not an inductively established law, but an algorithm of the physically real, which is then
substituted for the ontological quid est.
1 intellection). And from the recognition of such an analogy (ananoetic path of causality, eminence and negation, triple the reason, by
biect
observation,
In the philosophy of nature, sensible fact forms the material part of which thus essentially depends on experience, but it does
either from the sensible or the imaginable, since it without verification immaterial, establishes conclusions concerned with purely a case of the
is
nature (analogically
known) and the perfections of the Pure Act.
not constitute the formal

est bears
medium of demonstration. The
question an
Intelligible
on
the Teal existence
of a nature which abstraction has been able
pUne. SCIENCE.
An
Est
QwhL non t (sabttttutiruj Quid Est.)

(Knowledge, issuing In
If*.
supri-senuUc)
lntelliqlblt
PUnc
An Est
Quid Est
r A-nATwetfc Intellection.)
12T
PUne
of Sensible.
1 Sensible Fact
\ Fact PUne o; f Sensible V i SensiMtV

Existence
Existence
Knowledge, result
in experience.
NATURAL
TH&OLO^y.
Fig. 5.
PKllOSOphy
Of Nc\tUTt
Fig. 4.
THE CONDITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. ITS RELATIONS WITH FACTS
Moreover, whether it be a question of natural philosophy or of metato raise to a point

soul;
where
it
can be considered in
itself, e.g.
the vegetative
its
physics,
sensible
philosophy,
which emerges,
as
do
the positive sciences, from
and starting from
this
so posited nature, reason

alternation, all
establishes
pro-
experience and empirical knowledge, but which transcends
perties
by an inductive-deductive
the while
issuing in
them in a much more perfect and pure manner,
experience and verifying by sensible facts the conclusions so obtained.

Finally, in metaphysics sensible fact also
forms the material
part of
it
makes use of an experimental material which is proper to it, much more simple, universal, immediate and incontestable than that of the
1.
knowledge, because we only

does not formally constitute
fied by
it.
rise to the invisible

its
from
the
visible, but
experimental sciences.
are
The facts on which it is based are not facts which

to defineand which,
in the degree to
medium,
neither are
its
conclusions
veri-
more or
less difficult
which
The judgment, by which knowledge is achieved,

it is
issues in pure
it es-
science progresses,
intelHgibihty. For
sentially
not because, like the philosophy of nature,
between the real and the constructions (ever

rated)
become more and more only points of incidence more complex and elabo-J by
the
depends on sensible experience, but because of

(as
its transcen-
previously established
reasonbut
facts
which
are ab-
dence that metaphysics
mathematics does not do) descends

It also
to the
e
solutely general
and primary.
l V!iie infra,
world of sensible existence.

existence.
ascends to the world of supra-sensib
Thus
in natural theology the question
an est bears on
the rea
chap, iv, pp. 268-71.
72
2.
/

These
is

I,
facts are
not drawn from
that
in a sense
more
experience' (altho certain than scientific experience) 1 ; this

it
'common
73
coram
them to wring from them pretended avowals: us avoid torturing neither let us fawn on them! But let us continually ask them straightforward questions, which presuppose diat we already possess some information. It is necessary to compare them, and as many of them as
possible, to
experience only enters into philosophy in so far as

as
takes the place of a
yet undeveloped scientific experience and thus in the same (secondare manner as the latter. The rightful material of philosophy springs
from
philosophically elucidated, and is therefore much J superior to that of common experience, for philosophy judges
is
an experience which
and
enquire of the scientist for everything concerning dieir ordinary conditions, their experimental significance and the fashion in which they have been established. All should be treated with respect and
criticises diis
material in the light of its
own perception,
and
this
in such a
way as to
we should be on
it is
establish it
with complete certitude, since being able by right of wisdom

rightful principles,
it
to defend
I
its
also defends
itself.
(indirectly) justifies
new ones. But them to philosophical knowledge which has already been acquired by other means, with philosophical principles, that
only in relating
an intelligible content appropriate to philosophy can be
the look-out for the appearance of any
the value of sensible perception in
From
point of view one

multiplicity
exist, that
drawn from
Icould say that the fact that something

{exists, that cliange
exists,
the fact that
them, in order to discern and judge the ontological values implied by them, and use can be
and becoming
exist, that
knowledge and thought
made of them, either to confirm and establish facts

as a
desire exists, are all rightly
philosophical facts.
which are rightly philosophic or
point of departure for philosophic
With regard to
possible for
scientific experience, to scientific facts,
we see that it
is
demonstration.
them,
as I said just
now,
to bring
new material to philosoknows well how to make

as
whole nest of critical problems
is
revealed
I
by
this,
which
must
phy and to be annexed by it,

alien material
its
since philosophy
content myself with signalising in passing.
have just shown
how in a
own;
nevertheless they
do not
such
constitute
its
general way we can distinguish in the natural sciences the category offacts
proper material, and must in any case, like the

criticised in the light
latter,
be judged
they
and
are
from that of theory. But because in the concrete these two categories
constandy overlap one another, since science proceeds
encirclement of facts
of philosophical perception before
fitted for philosophic use.
by a continual by new theories which again serve for the creation

so discerned,
it
A scientific fact in itself belongs to the stufFof the natural sciences; and
if it is true that what characterises these sciences
is
of new theories
establish a
from the new facts
becomes necessary to
the resolution of their

itself can
is
hierarchy of scientific facts in themselves, from the point of

facts
instruments of knowledge in the sensory, a scientific fact in
view of their varying values as

tween
'facts'
and
also to
make
a division be-
only be interesting to that form of explication. In so far

illuminated in the degree to
die scientist,
it interests
as it
only
which rightly merit the name and those which in one way
it.
which it was
first
of all seen and utilised by

It is
or another
fic
have usurped
The
facts
immediately exposed by
scienti-
the latter, not the philosopher.

scientific facts
thus an
illu-
observation themselves presuppose a certain

(the.
number of theoretical
sion to believe that
any appeal to
with no higher
per-
and already established propositions
foremost of which originate
ception turned
upon them can ever

it
nullify a philosophical
assertion,
from
the
sensible perception)
concerning the objects to be measured and

it is
such
as,
for example,
hylomorphism. In diemselves of course they have
means of measuring, the apparatus which
necessary to construct
nothing to say about

l
one way or the other. For heaven's sake

scientific
then
let
to this end.
result either
As
to the other scientific facts mediately established, they

verifiable
'The layman believes that a
servation
by a
experiment is distinguished from common physical greater degree of certitude; he is mistaken, for any account of a
ob-
from the coincidence of a
datum and
for
a prelimi-
narily constructed
it
system of theory, or from

the only one possible.
the explication
itself
when
dis-
experiment lacks that immediate certitude and relatively easily controlled
witness
ot
asserts that it is
is
The need
numerous
common, non-scientific observation. It is less certain, but surpasses the latter by the number and precision of the details which it makes known to us: there lies its essential
and veritable
superiority.' (Pierre
criminations
therefore imposed
on
the philosopher.
When modem
when
Duhem, La Th forte physique.)
astronomy established that the earth turned round the sun, or
74

they arc,
PHILOSOPHY
fat
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
modem physics established the

as
75
of atoms, such 'facts', medi have nevertheless an incomparably greater value as

existence
first
case than in the second) than the hypothetical 'fact' ofLorentz's contraction or that of the curvature of space postulated
(higher also in the
done immense service to philosophy in delivering it from the essenburden which had oppressed it for so long, of the necessity tially alien phenomena; and, on the other, if the loss or weakness of for explaining
spirit the metaphysical
is
by Einstein's system. How then do we find the principles of discernment? Nowhere else than in the critical analysis of the reasoning process employed in each instance in particular. The more mathematics is reduced
in physics to allow
culus, in a physics
an incalculable misfortune for the general

it is
order of intelligence
and mortal things,
also true that the
predomin-
ance of the metaphysical spirit,
unaccompanied by critical
rectifications
of exceptional vigour, can nullify as though per aeddens the particular

interests
of our grasping, thanks
to
measurement and the cal-
of experimental research.
also a
And this
spirit
accident
is
a costly one, for
character as
not so transposed, those causes and conditions whose entia realia the philosopher has no reason to doubt, the more
experimental research and the smallest advance towards the minutest

truth
of fact are
work of the
and the
spirit
brooks no im-
the result merits the claim of being held as a fact.
The more
their
physics
is
pediment.
reduced to intervening simply as a discriminatory element in

constructions
theoretic
But on the
side
of the object there
is
no
necessary link between the
whose proper value belongs
to
mathematical
entities which
mechanics, physics
and astronomy of die
ancients
and the natural philoof the experimental
amplitude and coherence, or as a simple foundation for

the philosopher has reasons for holding rational, not
sophy of the scholastic tradition.

science
The whole
edifice
real, beings, the
of the ancients could
fall
in ruins, and this
immense wreck
all
has
more
facts,
the result should be considered as belonging to the order not of
seemed to hurried minds as if it were the ruin of

thought, in reality their
the ancients had
but of explanatory images.

is
metaphysk and
their philosophy
of nature,
in
If philosophy
in itself independent
of the
sciences, cannot the
latter
their essential principles, as
we
are able to disengage these in the thomist

spiritual soul
is
nevertheless indirectly exhibit the falsity

as a
of some philosophical doctrine

recog-
synthesis,
have been no more affected than the
altered
by
consequence deduced from a given principle which, being
the dissolution
If the
of the body.
evidently as necessary and de-
nised as false, exhibits the falsity of the former?
purity of philosophic and metaphysical knowledge has been so
That is true in so far as a philosophical doctrine impinges upon science

as
delivered
sirable,
from many, alien elements,

this purification
it is
such or holds as a necessary consequence a scientific conception or at

a general
once
has been performed, to recover, after the

its
least
framework for
science
whose
worthlessness
is
thus exhi-
interruption
of three centuries of bankruptcy and misunderstanding, with the grand totality, the
life,
bited.
organic relations
actuality
and
activity,
But whatever
may be
said
by
certain popular writers (such as those
of the sciences. For the position of a soul without a body here on earth is
exceedingly uncomfortable,
who
is
attribute to the ancients their
own casualness in
of Aristotle
is
distinguishing
inthis
its
telligibility
from topography,
either in metaphysics or astronomy)
good. (As for the
modern metaphysical
and the prison of the body is a definite systems, most often in reality
not the case
when
the philosophy
brought back
to
they only represent the oppression of metaphysics
by
the hypostatised
authentic principles.
On
the side of the
human
subject
we
must
needs
ambitions of the science of the sensory world.)
recognise that a too great confidence in the intelligibility of tilings and in

the procedure of the reason, in a region
which is not rightly that
of phil-
Under what conditions this work of integration, which has already been begun at several points, needs to be pursued to be brought to a
good end, the notions brought together in
tain indication. this essay
osophy, but of experience, and where essences are not discoverable, had
its
may serve as a certheir
part (and perhaps a preponderating one) in the errors of
antique
all
Those who take part in
this quest
must be on
facile
guard
science.
From
this
point of view, and here
am
prepared to go
against
both an indolent separatism and a too
concordance, in
lengths,
we
are persuaded that,
on
the one hand,
modern
science has
order to re-establish the vital connections without offending against the

76

and
liierarcliical
PHILOSOPHY
But it is
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
77
essential distinctions
order of the universe oft
entities and symbols of mathematical physics have a foundareal, that the
ledge.
For
this
end it seems to
me that it is essentially necessary to distine

cases: the case
it is
tion in reality.
'
in the measurable that it resolves
all its
concepts,
I
1
1 which alone has a meaning for it.
And once in possession of its measurea
clearly
between two different
science
sciences
and the
sciences
of which
of physico-mathemati a type-form, and the cas?
ments,
it
essentially lives
by weaving between them

which
constitute
web of matheformal object
matical relations deductive in form,
its
of the biological and psychological type.
and which doubdess need to be completed by a certain hypothetical reconstruction of the physically real, but from which it is only asked that
their
KNOWLEDGE OF THE PHYSICO-MATIIEMATICAL TYPE AND

In
ultimate numerical result should coincide with the measurements
PHILOSOPHY
of things effected by
This
is
our instruments.
my opinion it is necessary to abandon,

of the
real, I
as
contrary to the nature of
no manner of pragmatism. I do not in any sense suggest that in
diings, the
hope of finding any continuity or
close connection in regard to the^cft (b

so far
.
such a science utilitarian success substitutes the truth, in

ous conception. Like every other science
definition
it
my eyes a barbar-
to the explication
as
do not say in regard
only exists to be true and the
they can be isolated
from
theory), but the theories, the conceptual ela-
of truth
it as
conformity between our judgment and the thing

all
of mathematical physics, and the proper texture of philosophical and metaphysical knowledge. The discontinuity is very clear-cut
borations
endures for
for
the others, but in the following sense: a physicocalled 'true'
mathematical theory
fullest
is
when
the coherent system and the

entities
and is due to the very essence of these

not a formally physical science:
matter whereby
it
sciences.
Mathematical
physics
is
possible range
it is
of mathematical symbols and explicatory

all its
if it is
directly physical in regard to

is
the
which
able to organise coincides in
numerical conclusions
least
verifies its judgments, if it
orientated towards
is
an
with the real measurements effected

necessary that
the
by
us,
without it being in the
end in the physically
real
and physical
I
causes, it
not in order
to grasp
their intimate ontological nature.
shall return, in chapter iii, to a further

is
any physical reality, a certain nature or ontological law in world of bodies, should precisely correspond with each of the symand mathematical
. .
consideration of this conviction,

scientists
1
which
as frequently put forward by

it
is
bols
entities
which
2 are in question.
The need
. . .
for
as
by
philosophers, but
which
over-easy to misundera delicate matter
The whole of our

consists, so
physical
knowledge
is
based on measures.
The
physical
that
stand and of which the full epistemological

to fix. Such as
it is, it
meaning is
world
lies
to speak, of measure-groups resting
on a shadowy background
suffices for
out present object.

it is
outside the scope
of physics.* (A. E. Eddington, The Nature oftlte
Physical World,
Physics is based
it is
upon ontological reality,
1928, p. 152.)
preoccupied with causes,

it bestirs itself.
'The whole subject-matter of exact science consists of pointer readings and similar
indications.
because of a passion for the nature of things that

this
But
the
We cannot enter here into the definition of what are to be classed as simi-
it
only envisages
ontological reality, these physical causes, from
angle of mathematics; it only considers them in pursuit of certain analytic

translations, in divisions effected
real
by mathematical means. It retains of the only its measurable bearing, the measurements taken of it by our inis
The observation of approximate coincidence of the pointer with a can be generally extended to include the observation of any kind of coincidenceor, as it is usually expressed in the language of the general relativity theory, an intersection of world-lines. The essential point is that, although we seem to have
lar indications.
scale-division
very definite conceptions

enter into exact science
strumentsand it
dianks to these measurements, which are

(of physical
certainly
exhibit to
can begin to
results
^he object of mathematical theories

us die veritable nature
of objects in the external world, these conceptions do not and are not in any way confirmed by it. Before exact science handle the problems they must be replaced by quantities representing the
(Ibid.
phenomena)
is
not to
of physical measurement.'
is
pp. 251-3.)
of tilings:
of the
aim
is
the co-ordination
would be an unreasonable claim. Their unique physical laws discovered by experiment, but which
that
widiout the
The assistance of mathematics we should not even be able to enunciate. question whether ether in fact exists is a for matter for die metaphysicians; die essential us is that everything happens as if it did. .' I'hypothlse) . (H. Poincare", La Science el
.
of the method which the ancients described as sisting in 'saving sensible appearances', and they made clear and explicit first in regard to astronomical theories, Pierre Duhem has later in certain sections of physics. As
This
a generalised application
con-
pointed out in a remarkable passage, aristotclian astronomy with
its
homocentric
78
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
79
remains immanent in the reason causal physical explanations which of

the physicist issues, in the highest syntheses, in the construction of
certain
a
which seeks to grasp ontological principles in the and of philosophy their realityaffirm their apprehension of things. It is of stuff very in
I this sense, as
number of rational entities founded on the real and the producimage) of the world capable of tion of an image (or the shadow of an would therefore be a proof of a It deduction. sustaining mathematical
tribute
the
we must both pay a of admiration to the conceptions introduced by Einstein in degree to which they create a powerful physico-mathematic synhave
tried to
show
elsewhere, 1 that
very uncritical and truly naive optimism to hope to make any real continuity between the way in which the theories of mathematical physics
spheres,
thesis,
and reprove any pretensions which
may be made
to give
them
righdy philosophical significance.
however irreconcilable,
as
quickly appeared with the observed
Does
facts, is the
first
this
imply the breaking of any organic connections between

and Christians, on the significance of the results obtained as in our theme of 'the value of science'. St. Thomas has clearly indicated the
in question in the following passage:
application of this method, 'the

the construction
For the first time, in fact.in first ofall physical theories. of this theory, we see geometry starting from a certain number of simple principles which it has received from elsewhere and, conformably to these prinmathematics, retouching, complicating ciples, constructing a system of hypothetical this system to the point where it has saved with sufficient exactitude the appearances
mediaeval Arabs
own day on
citer
the
bearing of the
method
*Ad aliquam rem
dupli-
inducitur ratio.
Uno modo
modo inducitur ratio non
aliquam radicem. Alio quae sufficienter prober radicem, sed quae radiri jam positae
sufiicienter
ad probandum
by observers. "When observation had learned from phenomena that the whole system of homocentric spheres was forever impossible to save, geometric astronomers accepted other principles and, with their novel aid, combined them in new hypotheses; but the method which was followed in the construction of these new astronomical systems did not differ from that which had served for the building up of the system of homocentric
described
spheres.
ostendat congruere conscquentes effectus; sicut in astrologia ponitur ratio excentrico-
rum et epicyclorum, ex hoc quod, hac positione facta, possunt salvari apparenria sensibilia circa motus caelestis: non tamen ratio haec est sufficienter probans, quia etiam,
forte,
aHa positione facta salvari possent.' (Sum. theol,

all
i,
32, 1, ad. 2.)
would add, to avoid
implies that refusal
to. <f>au>6pvx in no sense of the search for causes and an explicatory hypothesis which Du-
misunderstanding, that crcoew
hem
attributes for his part to physical
theory (see supra,

entities
p. 55).
These are in them-
"There was no delay in extending this method from Astronomy to the other sections
selves causal explications
and figurable
of Physics; the author of the Mechanical Questions, which was attributed to Aristode, attempted its application to the equilibrium of solid weights, and Archimedes gave a
rational
sciences
and which are arranged to
which are elaborated by the physical save phenomena and which are true (not in the absois
lute sense in
which a metaphysical doctrine
called true), but true in the measure in

essential
form of rare perfection
tion he extended, following as
of equilibrium; this admirable formulaalways the same method, to the equilibrium of liquids
to the science
which they succeed, without assuming a penetration into the

It is
nature of things.
therefore a secondary question whether a scientist attributes to a theory the value of
and of floating bodies.
simple mathematical representation or that
showed how the single hypothesis of the equality between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction sufficed to save the phenomena presented
'Euclid
on
his side
oscillates
sics,
between the two
(as
of a causal explanation, or both at once, or Ptolemy did in astronomy; or as, in our own day, in phytrue reality. For others,
it is
'some ask if the electron has not only a purely analytic existence, is only a centre of
by concave and convex planes and mirrors. of Thus, two centuries before our era, Astronomy, the Science of the equilibrium theories, precise mathematically weights, and a part of Optics had taken on the form of parts ot in the desire of satisfying the demands of experimental control; though many but, in Physics have in their rum only taken on this form after long years of groping;
doing
already arrived at the conditional
vibration in a system
of waves which are the
these
waves
which have only an analytic existence: for a surrounding field of discontinuity a field of imaginary continuity has been mathematically substituted' (E. Picard, op. cit.)): for,
in reality, this 'causal' explication in itself remains 'empiriologicaT,
and has no
rightful
or direct 'ontological' significance. (Cp. chap,
iii.)
method by which the earlier sciences of rational theories. given 'The attribution of the title of "creator of the method of physical science" has others tor rise to many quarrels; some would claim it for Galileo, some for Descartes,
so,
they have only followed the
had
As M.Rene" Pokier has written, from a point ofview which otherwise is verydifferent from mine, 'There is no essential difference between the way in which a logical or
numerical allegory rationalises the real
hypothesis
general
and that of a
structural
The most
abstract
schemes of
statistical
scheme or figurative energy and of Relativity in
Francis Bacon, who died without having ever even understood this method. In fact,
tn
method of physical science has been defined by Plato and the Pythagoreans of his fars with a clearness, a precision which has never been surpassed; it was applied for the time by Eudoxus when he attempted, by combining die rotations of the homocentri mow-) spheres, to save the apparent movement of the stars.' (P. Duhem, Le Systhne du The same discussions, moreover, must have taken place among the Greeks an
rune
do not proceed of comprehension than

solar
system; the
from any other attitude of mind, correspond to no other form the that which produces the mechanical models of the atom or difference between abstract and intuitive theories is like that between
(Essai).
painting
and sculpture*
*Cp. Reflexions sur
I' intelligence,
chap.
vti.
go
PHILOSOPHY
AND EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE
g]
philosophy and mathematical physics? Certainly not. In die very nature
of the order of the explication of things there is a continuity between the philosophy of nature and mathematical physics, if not in the explicatory
theories elaborated
images and shadow-images in which it appears in the last analysis the explicatory effort of physical theories can only result, cannot be,
as
was
for so
by
the latter, at least in the degree to which,
as I said
long believed, the natural prolongation of the ontological explications supplied by philosophy. Nevertheless for the latter this is an
excellent purification.
with an immense supply of facts, fluctuations of theory. This is the case despite the endures which a gain nothing (which have in common with those atoms of existence with the
above, science furnishes philosophy
Philosophy must renounce a
state
of satisfaction
with imageswhether they be of science or the natural image,

planatory use, proffered
a later chapter
1
the explanatory but imaginary images
of Democritus), a probability which to-day has grown next door to certitude: I say the existence of atoms, not, be it noted, the nature and
structure attributed to
which is still more baseless for any exby common sense. I shall endeavour to show in
possible,
how
it is
but in another order than that of
them by
science, for these latter are subject
to
knowledge in
constant alteration and consist in large measure of scientific symbolisation.

is
of the term, for philosophy to re-connect with these scientific images and incorporate them in its own field.
this sense
But
if
nowadays, for example, the Rutherford-Bohr atom
eclipsed
by
that
of Schrodinger, and has become, of the molecule
in anticipation of
existence of
further avatars, 'a wave-centre

constituent elements
of probability', the
KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE

the
called 'atoms'
(and of
their
In the sphere
of life and organic wholes the
distinction
between the
constituent elements, 'protons', 'electrons', 'neutrons', or whatever
point of view of philosophy and that of the experimental sciences re-
other names science has
endowed them with) seems
in
no way overas though
mains exceedingly clear; the conceptual vocabulary, the procedure of

verification, the
thrown, although conceived of in such varying fashion,
laws of the resolution of concepts and the organisation
thought out solely in the form of mathematical symbols.
of knowledge being necessarily different one from the other. But in
On the other hand, in the epistemological order, in
that
of theories of
this
sphere a certain 'continuity' or solidarity
between the
specifically
knowledge, the organic link between physico-mathematics and metaphysics is closer than ever. In the determination of the nature and true
value of physico-mathematical science, the place, the part and
the bearin the
rational
and specifically experimental sections of knowledge can be
established
despite
an
essential epistemological diversity
in what
by
is
concerned with the explanatory theories

sciences
which
are furnished
the
ing of
its
explications, metaphysics
not only maintains order

against otherwise almost
and the
final
explanation given
by
the philosophy of nature.
system of our forms of knowledge, but renders to physico-mathematics

the essential service
For,
although resolving their concepts in sensible and observable being
of protecting
it
inevitit is
in the
very degree to which
it is
sensible
and observable, experimental

construction of a closed
it is
t/H
able deformations,
itself called
above
that all, against the pernicious illusion
biology and psychology

universe
i
do not undertake the
begin to
on to be a philosophy of nature and the belief that things only exist when submitted to the measurement of our instruments.
of mathematically inspired phenomena, and
natural that
the
form of deductive explication to which they are
attracted should be
\ Physico-mathematical explanations are free to

dislocations
make use and good use ot

right
to in
of a philosophical, and not mathematical, type.

It is not in the least that I wish to deny or lessen a priori the part played by physico-chemical explications (which are in themselves orientated
of time and non-euclidian space, for they have the progress along the lines of their own development: they do
doing their
well
own work:
the eyes of the spirit are set
on
their significance
towards the integral mathematisation

true that
of the
real) in biology. If it is
and know its limitations.
physico-chemical forces are the instruments of superior ontomatter,

it is
iii,
There
is
perhaps an element of melancholy in dus assertion
that
logical principles in living

1
possible to hold that the field of

pp. 222-4.
image of the universe, or more exactly the more or
less discoroan
St, e infra, chap,
82

which inevitably arise of themthings,

CONCLUSION
83
extended, although a halt has these explications can be unceasingly to be

'irrationals' called before certain specific
selves.
1
But
it is
also possible to
hold that in the measure
biologist keeps the sense
of reality proper to living
which the and demands,

not, in
to
We have the right to hold that thomist philosophy rather than any position to supply the sciences with the metaphysical other is in the
framework where they can follow out at ease the necessities of their own proper development and which will do them no violence: not only
because
it is
in the study
of phenomena, a type of explication which does

refers
the last analysis, resolve this reality into its constituent elements, in a
word, to the degree in which he
himself to the notion of living

ex-
essentially realist
and
critically justifies the extra-mental
discovered physico-chemical being, that he will subordinate the so

planations to an 'autonomous' conception
tion
of biology, or to
the penetra-
reality of things and the value of our faculties of knowledge, which all science implicidy presupposes, but because it guarantees the autonomy,
of phenomena and the grouping of them under more and more general experimental laws without the pretension thereby of resolving them in that universal mathematical explanatory deduction
of the
detail
the specific quality
of each, and its metaphysical
elucidations of the real

despotically
imply in consequence
no necessary systematic deformation
imposed upon experience.

In fact the
envisaged by physics (and moreover without quitting the ground of the observable and the measurable) and will remain based on that ontological structure which is understoodin the concepts furnished by philosophy.
reproach addressed by the misinformed to
scholastic
philosophy recoils
derive
on the modern systems. For it is these systems which from systematic prejudices like mechanism or monism, psychotheory of knowledge, universal evo-
On the other hand, if they do not put their intelligence in blinkers, the
biologist
physical parallelism, the cartesian
and the psychologist are inevitably led by
their
very
objective
lutionism, etc.,
which
necessarily
and
as
such impose on science such
to ask
meta-phenomenal questions;
to which they can
certainly en-
exasperating metaphysical fetters.

It is
deavour to reply with the aid of their
own conceptual equipment, their
not a question of finding between the aristotehan-thomist
own means of analysis, so winning, in the most favourable instances, inlimitadirect and circuitous solutions, surrounded with inconceivable
which rnimic those of philosophy and are at a tangent to them. that Thus Driesch2 has recognised, in the course of remarkable work, mainwhich E non-spatial/acfor on a embryonic development depends depend ona tains the specific type, or again that the actions of animals also
tions,
are indinon-spatial factor, thanks to which stimuli coming from without its is enriched by mechanism animal of the functioning vidualised, and the
philosophy and the sciences that concordance of detail

just rejected:
which
we have
but of afErrning rather a concord in general, a good un-
derstanding, a natural friendship,

the ease
of which the very

wings,
is
liberty
of science,
is
with which
it
spreads
its
the best indication. This
explicidy affirmed
by
several representatives
of the natural
sciences,
while elsewhere a remarkable renaissance
of themes proper to
the moral
philosophy of St.
sciences,
Thomas
is
visible
among
the juridical and moral
which I have not had the space

is
to speak
of in this essay.
own exercisea non-spatial factor which he prudently

But
it is
christens psychotl
in be-
If there
no
lack of labourers, if unreasonable prejudices
due most
only in making use of the apparatus of philosophy,

that they will
of all,
it
seems, to a
morbid fear of ontological research,

knowledge of things
be a philosophy of the
spirit)
and of all philophilosophy of
coming themselves philosophers,
be able
to give a ngm-
sophy directed towards the

being could not also
(as if a
wni ful and adequate solution to those supra-experimental problems or able, experience itself constrains diem to envisage; diat they will be
do not turn them

to confront the
back from the study

universality
to
of the sole philosophy which claims

reality
one example, to learn the veritable names of a

'See
infra,
.
psychoid andfactor E.
of extra-mental
absorb
all
without claiming in the same stroke knowledge into itself, we may hope to see the dawn of a
chap,
iii,
pp. 235-40.
*C P
my
preface to the French translation
of Hans Dricsch's
Philosophy of the
>
great
new
scientific period,
which
will put an end to the misunder-
standings
ganism (Pzrh, 1 921).
engendered in the field of experimental research by the quarrel
S4

especi-
between Aristotle and Descartes, and where the phenomenology sciences will at last achieve their normative organisation, some,
ally physics, subject to the attraction
85
of mathematics and
following
m
and
in the mirror of sensible thingsthere, where them, and as if they arc as the facts asserted by the world of immaterially, realised experience
on
diose lines the path
of
their splendid progress, others,
compel us to
infer.
The
supra-sensible cannot be, at least in the natural

science;
it is
especially
order, the object
of an experimental
biology and psychology, subject to the attraction of philosophy,

finding there that organic order
nevertheless the object!
of which they have such need, and the
of a science rightfully so called, the sciencejwr excellence; for if the universe!

of being as such, disengaged
by
the
mind when
it
delivers
its
conditions of a development which will be not only material, but rightly
objects]
worthy of the human mind. A general redistribution which comes from the natural growth of phenomenological science, but which also presupposes, diat is clear, the supreme regulative power of metaphysical
wisdom.
This would be the restitution to the
sing
from
all
materiality, does
not
fall
under the ken of the
senses,
on
the
other hand, intelligible necessities are there seen in such a degree

fection that the
telligibility is
of per-
knowledge ordinated
in regard to such a world of in-
in itself of the highest certainty,

it.
though
we
Indeed
may
have difficulty in acknowledging
For we are an ungrateful and medifail
human soul of that divine bles-
ocre species,
who
only ask the right to
to achieve the heights of
of intellectual unity, which for three centuries has been broken, Kant denied to metaphysics the character of a science, because for him
it
which
gifts
we
are capable,
and
who
in ourselves, even
when
the highest
have fortified our eyes, have always a preference for the dark.
experience was both the product and the end of science, which creates
by applying
to sensible data those necessities
which
are purely mental

science
forms; but St.
Thomas
recognised in metaphysics the supreme
of the natural order, because for him experience is the point of departure for the science, which, reading in sensible data those
necessities
f
intelligible
those
which
surpass them, can transcend
it
in following out
necessities
and so come to a
supra-experimental knowledge which is ab-
*y
1
\solutcly certain.
\
its
Being ism fact the proper object of the

concepts,
it is
intellect; it is enracinated in all
towards
it,
in so far as
it is
absorbed in what
is
given
through the senses, that it is
first
of all directed.
being,
perceives that
it is
When
itself,
it in the intellect disengages this conceptual object to consider
in the degree to
which
it is
it
not
it
ex-
hausted
by
the sensible realities in
which
it is
at first discovered;
upon a supra-experimental value and so also have the principles founded

it.
Thus die mind,

it
if I
may say so, 'loops
order to the loop', returning in

it
grasp
which metaphysically and transcendently to that same being
was given first of all in its primary intellection of the sensible.

'
And so, because it has in its metaphysical concepts the intellectual
per-
ception of objects, such as being and the transccndentals, which realised odierwise Uian in die matter where it perceived them,
also attain to these
can
it
objectswithout,
diis
time, dirccdy
perceiving

CRITICAL REALISM
effort
87
a bridge between thought and on the principle himself of causality; he was indeed the basing things, the effort since he had obliged himself so to do by placing first to make
the point
than Descartes did to
throw
stricdy accurate to say that
of departure of knowledge in intuitive thought: it is therefore every scholastic who thinks he is a realist be-
CHAPTER
II
cause
The
cartesian
he accepts this setting of the problem is in reality a Cartesian experiment was a wonderful metaphysical enterprise,
CRITICAL REALISM
I.
marked with the purest genius; we liant proof that every tentative of
failure;
owe much
this
to
it,
if
only for
its bril-
kind
is
doomed
it
in advance to
CRITICAL REALISM
but
it is
the height of simplicity to begin
again in the hope of
By the name
critical realism I
philosophical ideas
do not here mean those contemporary which, notably in America and in Germany, have
aristote-
obtaining contrary results

cause they are
will
from
.
.
those
which have always followed, bean

internal
of its
essence.
One may begin with Descartes, but one

is
1 adopted that title to characterise their position, but rather the
end along that road with Berkeley or Kant. There
Uan-thomist conception of knowledge.

title
It strikes
me as having a better
necessity in the
very essence of metaphysics, and the progress of philo-
to the appellation.
sophy precisely consists in an increasingly clear consciousness of its content.

.
.
M. Etienne Gilson has raised an interesting and useful controversy on 8 thomist realism constitutes a this theme, by mamtaining that though
nevertheless only 'methodic' realism rather than anything naive', it can moment when it very the at conceding, in realism 'critical' become a
No man will ever win from the cogito the justification of the
realism
of St. Thomas.'1 Aurea dicta! Let us give thanks to a philosopher
with such a rich historical background for this vigorous witness, in the
name of history
itself,
to the intelligible necessities which, despite
all
the
claims to strike
Gilson's
them down, to the pretensions of idealism. study is marked by many just and penetrating
accidents of material causality, rule the historical development of thought.
observations,
is
The criticism which he suggested from

tence
this
point of view of idealism
and it
excellently exhibits
how vain is the idea of asking from the carte-
exceedingly pertinent. 2 History attests at once the essential impo-
sian cogito,
elements however many amendments one proposes in it, any 'necessarily writes, of a realist noetic. 'He who begins as an idealist', he There is no need ends as one: it is impossible to be an idealist by halves.
of idealism
'to pass
on from criticism to positive construction' and
for the preservation

that
of the rightful content of philosophy as distinct from
of a chosen regulative science
and the necessity

it
in
which
it
finds
to doubt
sunt"
is
what
history teaches
is
by
so
many
examples. "Cogito, ago

is
res
itself
of substituting for the real (because
does not
start
from things,
false coin'.
3
Cartesianism, that
what to say, the exact antithesis of
con-
but from thought) rational not real beings 'which are only
It is
sidered scholastic realism and the cause

x
of its ruin. No one made a
greater
certainly true,
on
the other hand, that, though fundamentally

neither Aristode nor
as realists in the
St.
and consciously
of the exterior world opposed with so m not only by Kulpe but also by several neo-scholastics, and attau ^ is only sensation which, to according {Unsere Auswelt, reason byj. Grcdt 1921 );
Still less
'realists' in actu exercito,
Thomas
op-
swtuiK
in particular to that theory of the perception
ever felt the

pretation
need to qualify themselves
modem interit is
of the term; for the reason that the error to which
to an intere as a subjective end which is objectified in a secondary manner thanks Regens Geyer), (Melanges pereimis *'Le Rdalisme me'thodique,' in Philosophla i4 in found 1930, vol. ii. L. Noel's reply ('La Mdthode du rdalismc') will be
scolastique,
posed had not yet arisen in the West.

Thornists to-day
this
is
But
the realism professed by

explicit.
only a passage from the implicit to the
And
transition
is itself a
form of progress.
It is
even
possible to think that
Nov.
1931.
et
in this, idealism
E. Gilson, 'Rdalisme et me'thodc* {Revue des sciences philosophises

vol. xxi,i932).
$<Wf ?
has played a necessary historical part. Precisely because

*Ibil pp. 753-43
'
W. pp. 747-8, 751.
/W.p.754-
86
88

word
'critical'
to judge,
1
CRITICAL REALISM
abandoning into the hands
of the
the
g9
for knowledge lay hold on the aptitude with which our faculties the real and human thought, by the very reason of its native is a gift of nature,
vigour, deals the
of the
idealists the
whole use and
possession
and
all it signifies.
'To
criticise in the
exact sense of
more spontaneously with what

it
is
in the degree
to
word is
self
in conformity with the exigencies of the object un-
which
it is
healthy,
the cartesian cogito,
needed, so to speak, the padiogenic ferment of and the aberration of the way in which idealism
intelligence to
der examination.'
by the
posed the
critical
problem, to compel the philosophical
can judgment and the control of the self be held alien to the one philosophy in which the mind is characterised by its capacity for a complete return upon itself? Truly, as
2 have already claimed in an earlier book and as J. de Tonquedec has for3 pointed out, the primary reproach with which
And how
turn seriously to its consideration and to enter consciously into a phase of self-reflection, which in itself, whatever the cost needing to bepaidforit,
cibly
we
can face
criti-
must add to the fuller manifestation of the spirituality of the reason. If idealism is in itself a tragic experience for thoughtwhich, like
veritable tragedies, ends with the suicide of the protagonist
cal idealism is
all
that it is
and has been insufficiendy critical.
it
also opens
The critical problem is not: 'How is it possible to pass from percipi to esse} Thought being itself the sole object attained with indubitable certainty, is it
on condition
problematic,
that
it itself is
entirely turned
outtogether with a new

double-sided
possible to demonstrate that

It is this:
it attains also
to things, to a real
new
possibilities
It is
of depth and penetration which the mind
which is its measure?'

elaboration
"What value, in the various degrees of the
cannot renounce.
important therefore to avoid here a
of knowing, must
we
recognise in percipere and indicate?
danger: one, which consists in accepting, in whatever way and however problem; and here I am in the fullittle, the idealist setting of the critical other which consists in the reand the Gilson; with M. lest agreement
fusal
Thought giving
to things
is
itself at the first

its
shot and as if with complete assurance

esse
and being given
measure by an
independent of it,
conditions and
how
what
it
possible 'so to judge,

is it
how, under what
of any
possibility
whatsoever of posing
It is
as philosophically soluble
measure
really thus in the

It is
beginning and in the various degrees of
the
whole
I
critical
problem.
it is
here that
part
it is
company with M.
the particular
Gil-
human knowledge?'
that it
that
absurd to demand from philosophical thought
son.
believe that
possiblein fact that
office of
should begin, before rightly

able to
knowing
anything,
by giving proof
it is
wisdomto
idealism.
face this
problem
in a
wholly odier fashion than
that of
it is
know
(which
it
can only
know by knowing);
ab-
surd to suppose first

1 say that realism only exists by idealism
of all that what cannot be judged as
true by thought
To my mind it is inexact to
(on that ground
may, by the action of some malign genius, not be true, in order to de-
no
true thesis
which
it refutes, and a which it opposes), and that realism, in order to be critical, must 'borrow point from idealism 'the posing of the problem'. Nor is it sufficient to
would exist except by right dogmatic definition would depend on the error
of the error
mand
it is
as
a result that this
same thought should demonstrate
that in fact
not so; or to admit that thought can only attain to phenomenal-
objects
and then ask that

realities.
4
it
should prove that these objects are extraSt.
mental
Such
St.
things are those stultae questiones which
out that realism has succeeded at the point where idealism

2
fails,
or
to
Thomas, following
5 Paul, counsels us to shun.
demonstrate the insufficiency of the latter in constructing a

philosophical system.
viable
Without doubt
of is
that
is
an
indirect sign whose
value
the
self
J
is
far
from negligible. But the point which

such
it is
necessary to bring
it-
*R. Garrigou-Lagrange, 'Le Rialismc thomiste et le myst^re de la connaissance,' Revue de phibsophie,]an.-Fcb. aad Mar.-Apr., 193 1. (This article has been reprinted in Le rfalisme duprincipe Paris,
definaliti,
1932.)
i
mind
to take full cognisance
in the absolute impossibility

is
Cp. Reflexions sur V intelligence, chaps, de TonqueMec, La Critique de
and ii.
and as
of idealism. More, there
not
for the slightest reason

et
J.
k connaissance, pp. 21-2.

mani-
E. Gilson, 'Rialismc et mdthodc* {Revue des sciences philoscphiques
thiologi^,
s
Cp. Reflexions sur V intelligence, p. 41.
vol. xxi, 1932), p. 7ji.
*/W.p.7J3.
quando 'Stultae qucstiones de vita', Tit. iii, 9: St. Thomas, lessonii, '. . . . Item festum proponitur in srienna.' ut dubium, sc. quaecumque debet aliquis per se tenere
5>o

But when thought has begun to operate, to know and to philosophise
after
CRITICAL REALISM
which
it
is
91
possible to proceed to the detail of instances and
to acquire the certitudes
and the soul, and their
of science and of wisdom concerning things first cause, it has need to turn back upon itself
and on these acquisitions, and apply itself to the knowing of knowledge, to judge concerning it and to verify it (in order to advance again, and
again to circle back upon itself . . .).This is the task of metaphysical wisdom1 which, as the highest natural point of spirituality among the
sciences, has the
of gnoseological values and what in the act of on the real and what on the constructive activity depends knowing mind (thus the treatise on the Divine Names in the Summa
discrimination
of the
is
a critique
the true significance
of theological knowledge; and thus again all of physical theory is an attempt at a
search for
critique
of
power
to
go back over the principles of these latter and

(if not
physico-mathematical knowledge), like, for instance, the discovery of laws of that transcendental theme which is at various times under
the
over
its
own, in order to justify
by direct demonstrationfor it
which is
is
discussion in the present book.
an apaedeusia,
least
id est ineruditio* to
wish to demonstrate everythingat

fulfil that self-return
by a reductio ad absurdum) and so

spirit.
it is
pro-
The mind throughout has a veritable understanding of the object which it proposes to itself and judges of it in accord with the intrinsic
necessities
per to the
proper to knowledge; indeed, in the

a critique
strictest sense
of the
In a sense
ungrateful
is all
and dangerous work
(the danger
all
is suffici-
endy obvious),
as
rescension
and verification,
the registration of
is in-
reflex valuation, a
work which
goes against nature, but which

to
of knowledge which will have been inword, it is always and essentially remain a taking will work its But stituted. activity which is the knowledge another on return a of, cognisance
condition is fully of things, a purely reflective activity. When this critique of understood the principal danger drops away. Such a knowledge will have been subject to no idealist contagion. For it is in
effect essential
dispensable, for the intellect
even more than the hand needs

that instrument
know
It
how
to control its tools and makes a particular call on the sobriety and humility of veracious science and on that respect for the object, which is in this case the mystery prois
itself.
which
to all idealism to
mix
a constructive desire with

it
all
redis-
per to knowledge.
the fundamental truths
Thus humbly, by the impossibility of their contraries, and particularly the general validity of knowprinciples are confirmed: then follows the principal
flective activity
(however unacknowledged
may
be,
however
simulated under the aspect
ledge and
business,
consists
its first
where research can advance and exhaust itself endlessly: which

on the one
side in the analysis
of a pure methodical austerity)at least the this preparadesire to make the whole nature of philosophy depend on soon as one As it. of consist wholly tory self-reflection, if not to make it
reflex,
and description with full respect for its integrity of the objective content of knowledge in its diside, verse phases 3 and of the witness which it gives to itself; on the other
acknowledges that the work of a critique is purely and exclusively cannot secondary (not only in order of time, but of nature) and therefore without the knowledge of the real
separate itself for
an instant from
of the endeavour to penetrate metaphysically into its nature and itself: causes, and to make it in the rightful sense of the word, know
^Considerandum esc in scientiis philosophicis, quod inferiores scientiae non pro supeno negantem prinripia disputant, sed hoc relinquunt scientiae; suprema vcro inter eas, scilicet metaphysics, disputat contra negantem
sua principia, nee contra
principia,
si
its
innoculated having recourse to an illusory self-devouring, one is securely

against cartesian fever.
ban
SCIO ALIQUTD ESSE

'
adversarius aliquid concedit;

rationis ipsius.' (St.
tamen solvere
Lagrange,
*St.
8
si autem nihil potest cum Thomas, Sum. theol, i, I, 8.) Cp. R-
eo
disputare, pot
G^
If the
foregoing remarks are correct,
it
follows that a thomist
criti-
Il
art. cit.
of the cism of knowledge will differ from the beginning and by reason and idealism, of type very method of its procedure, from that of any
particularly
'
.
Thomas, lit Metaph., book iv, Iect. 6.
by these three points:

no
sense the pure cogito shut in
It is
by
dis here without doubt that something will remain, when it has been metflo time and reduced to more modest proportions, of the phcnomenological
i. It is
in
on
itself
which makes
its
92

c
t>
CRITICAL REALISM
93
conscious
point of departure. Criticism, as a work of philosophy, implies the a consciousness whereby the mind goes philosophically back over
its
of knowingI
am conscious
of knowing
at least one thing, that that
which
h
is, is.
liminary work of knowing; and this is not the act of consciousness

is
whi
The
If
cogito ergo
in point
of fact and chronologically
first (to
what point in that case
of
the point
infant experience
sciousness
cally first,
would
it
be necessary to return?) but
sum is ambiguous: it is proffered at the same time as of departure for the whole of philosophy and for the critique.
in search
that act of con-
we were
which is
when
the philosopher as being by right and logihe lays bare those most primary roots of knowledge
verified
by
these aims,
we could
ambiguous formula, to serve both say: 'scio aliquid esse (seu esse posse)', but it would
it
of an equally
be necessary at once to resolve
into the
two
significations
which constitute his point of departure.

In
How is this exactly determined?

others
which
it
is
embraces and which
would need
my opinion three
to be differentiated, for the one

first
primordial axioms, which each imply the
concerned with direct knowledge and the

the other
movement of the mind,
are included in this fundamental act
of consciousness and
impose
widi
reflex
knowledge and
the mind's secondary morion.

(or
themselves
on any philosophic
analysis: the incontrovertible evidence
When I say, 'I know that some thing is

tention
of the principle of identity, that primary fact to which we are led by the resolution of the knowledge which has already been acquired 1 and in
of affirming simply that some
thing
is
may be)', I can have the in(or may be), aliquid est, an
enunciation in this case concerned with the
which we find the very first

tion
(i.e.
in the order
of reason)
living connec-
first movement of the mind, and thereby related to the starting-point of all philosophy. The concrete
between the mind and things; the general

is
truthfulness of our
experience
which it
translates includes beside3 all the
complexity of my
powers of knowledge, which

witness
like the first if highly indeterminate
cognitive activities, for

being,
my
intelligence there lays hold of intelligible
which the
intellect gives to itself; the
notion of truth, whose

criticism
on which it bears direcdy, and which has been perceived by it in
elucidation presents the primary
problem which
must
solve.
exacdy so far as the surrounding possibility ofeternal exigencies forms the

objectofitswholefirstpurelyintellectualcertitude(principIeofidentity),
Thus
if
we wish to formulate
directly that experience
which forms
think,
the
point of departure for
all criticism, it
must run not, I
butI
am
but which
given to
it
it
grasps in fact in turning back

the senses
by
on some singular object and from which it has caused it to arise; and in
fact
Hujusmodi autem principia naturalirer cognoscuntur,

principia accideret, ex corruptione naturae provenirct.
et error qui circa hujusmodi
going back
also,
its
although entirely implicidy and by the single
of
Unde non posset homo mutari
de vera acceptione principiorum in falsam, vel e converso, nisi per mutationem naturae.' Sum. Contra Gent., iv, 95.
judgment, on
own
act
of knowledge and
its
relation to the thing;
on the
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
intellectual apprehension
op.
cit.
"This primordial evidence belongs to the first
self which knows and whose existence in act for most indubitable of all such existence is so made known
my me
to
the
mebut
of being or of the real and to the necessary and universal pigment which immediately follows it; these direct acts are necessarily anterior to any reflection
as
though in
I
time that
If
I
upon them. Then this primary and
its germ know. 1

'I
(in
actu primo)
and not yet
effectively
each
indestructible evidence
is
confirmed by the
intellect's reflection
it
on its own act, on the nature of that act and its own nature, ofwhich
of the eye or of the ear. And by this the impressed on it and subsequently expressed by it, is extra-mental being, whether actual or possible, wholly differ.'
. .
say after this:
know
that
some thing
is
(or
may
be)',
having
sees the essentialfinality, as it sees the finality intellect sees that the idea of being,
as essentially relative to
taken explicit cognisance only of what was included in direct knowledge
and meaning to say that I know that some thing is or may be, ego cognosco
aliquid esse,
ent from being only existing in die reason.
my statement is
up
then concerned with the second motion of
(Ibid.)
'It is untrue that we are first conscious of our certitudes as "purely subjective" states, from which we subsequently conclude (no one has ever explained by what right) the existence of reality distinct from our knowledge, in "objective" truth. No, immediate
the
mind,
refers to the
point of departure of a critique.

is this:
The
neidicr
position so taken
Since the intellect deals
first
of all
with
(I
evidence gives us the object; if it did not,
no reflection on it-it is only too evidentcould discover it among its acquisitions.' de Tonqucdcc, op. cit.) The real is given us straight away in the(J. activity of knowing.' (L. Noel, art. cit.)
evidence
nor with myself, but with being, the very first say first, not in the order of time, where what in itself is
itself
*Cp.
infra,
pp. 108 (note 1)
and 124 (note
1).
94
primary

is
CRITICAL REALISM
fi rst
95
only implicit, but in nature), the evidence which

is
in itself is
single
moment of real
universal doubt. 1 Such a
moment
for the intellect

intellectual
I
that
of the principle of identity,

real in question
it
in effect in-
'discovered' in die
cludes in actu exercito the negation
apprehension of being or of the real.

is
have said that the
'not necessarily in the actual

as incarnate in the example
(existential) order,
although
may be
of what it is assumed one as yet knows nothing of (I mean, the essential ordination of the intellect to 2 being), and creates a vicious circle. As I have indicated elsewhere, 3 the veritate de of which dubitatio St. Thomas, following Aristotle,* universalis
J'ln fact
of some
principle
sensible existence that the intellect first lays hold
on
die
of identity. In
itself this principle bears
on
the whole exten-
the evidence takes us
by
the throat and leaves us
no time
to defend our-
of being and primarily on the order of essences, on the possible 1 reality. But at the same time in the intelligible order itself a certain
sion
actual reality
is
selves; it leaps
to our eyes, not like a blind force, but like an
irresistible light.
moment the mind
decides to reflect,
it is
subject to this shock; not a
The moment is given it

it
for deliberation, its reflection instantly
comes across evidence which
cannot dispute,
given to the intellect in this
first act
of perception
i.e.
and
judgment,
this
time from the side of the subject,

itself,
2
the existence
which it has not to justify', but only to observe and record. There is not, nor can there be, at the beginning of the critique of knowledge, any instant's pause, a second of unor ignorance, of any real doubt.' ( J. de Tonquedec, op. cit.) what Descartes, the founder of modem idealism, did not see when he said that God, if he had so wished, could have created square circles or hills without valleys. Descartes did not comprehend that he was committing an unforgivable sin as grave as
certainty, abstention
of the thinking subject

sciously
for all that
it is
implicidy and pre-con-
"This is
and by an
initial act
and not yet
as
an express object of knowsphere at one and

. .
ledge.
Thus the
same time
intellect
here embraces in
real:
its
own
that
which is called in the

of liberation.
spiritual
order the sin against the Holy Ghost or against the
the
the possible
3
light
.')
the object
('all
being
set before die
mind and attained by it,

of identity
and signified in the enunciation of the

:
principle
From the dawn of our intellectual life we have an absolute certainty that neither God, if he exists, however powerful he may be, nor any malign genius, however perverse and deceiving, could make a square circle, for this is not only inby us, but really
in itself impossible.'
'It is
and
the actual real
the reality
of the thinking subject, not

and
the
self
conceivable
2
(R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
art. cit.)
yet attained in ultimate act

are given it at
(in acta secundo). Intelligible being
And this is not the only one.
impossible to deliberately put in doubt the value
once and together, but being is in the foreground and, as it
of all certitude without expressly referring to an absolute and incontestable ideal of

certitude, to a
were, on the centre of the stage, and the self in. the background or in the
wings.
act
it
principle
fic
notion already acquired and held as assured of certitude, to a rigorous which will dominate all further discussion: let it be quite clear, viable, scienti-
It is
only with the second
movement of the mind,
in that
reflex
certitude
which
carries as
its
correlative, objective truth

reflection, at least, is
carries such characteris-
which
serves as a starting-point for the critique
of knowledge, that
imply
a
tics,
implies such conditions.
Here for
something which is not in
the least
dubious ! There is a considered, even philosophic, certitude, moreover one that is
comes into the foreground.

2.
An authentic criticism of knowledge

infra,
does not in the
least
See
pp. 111-12 and 123-4.

(actus
On
which must be rescued from universal doubt! But it implies all the of truth, of reality, of objectivity, etc.; critica^philosophy has therefore been in action before the point assigned for it to come into action.' (Cp. Du Roussaux, 'Le Neo-dogmatisme,' Revue nio-scokstiqiie, Nov. 1911.) 'It is perfectly legitimate to make an inventory and a critical revision of human
easily recognisable,
elements of critical philosophy: the notions
the distinction between the initial act (actus primus) and the final act
knowledge.
secunclus sea
uhimus) in the order of knowledge see
infra, p.
141.
When the object 01

(i.e.
intellection is a thing other than
myself it
is
(directly)
known in initial act by the act

purely and
indeed what has been attempted in the present book. But in this enterno place for universal doubt. "The reduction of thought to a bare potentiality which knows nothing about nothing is an impossibility, even for the duration of
It is
prise there is
of the actuation of the

it is
intellect
by
the species impressa, and in final act
a flash
sence,
simply) by the act of intellection itself and in the species cxpressa or mental work.
the act of intelligence or the intelligence itself or die existence
When
of the self, it is known

direct act of know-
of lightning, . . . Every attempt at universal doubt is still-born, dead in its esvoid of reality or possibility. The interlocutory question is a vain interrogation; it is answered by the asking." (Du Roussaux, op. cit.).' de Tonque'dec, op. cit.)
(J.
(reflexivcly) in initial act
by the very fact
diat the intellect
is itself a
ledge of a thing, and

final act (effectively
by that very fact intelligible in act to itself, and it is known) by the act of reflex intellection and in a reflex
1)
known in
concept.
*&tfiexionssur I' intelligence, p. 42.

4
Aristotle,Mef(7p/t.,B.c. 1. (St.
the true
Cp.
'
infra, p.
108 (note
and
p.
145 (note 2).
Thomas, book iii, lect. 1.) J. de Tonque'dec has shown meaning of this expression at the concluding chapter of his book, op. cit., pp.
436-441.
'A11
being is what it is.'
96

which
is
CRITICAL REALISM
the d
'
speaks, that putting in question, or universal aporia
97
'
lege
of metaphysics, that videtur quod non

and which stops
at
which
is
is
the beginning of
supreme
11
wisdom of the
natural order.
And
although in the
interests
of
scientific research
nothing,
not in any
exterior order in a written treatise
(where one must behave,
alas, as if
slieht
degree a living or exercised doubtno

logical eVopj 1
thesis to
more than it is
it is not a living i-norf but one put forward as a hypobe examined, a conceived or represented doubt (and by this
the phenomen
knowledge were achieved and fulfilled), it is convenient to place the critique at the beginning of metaphysics, like a sort of introductory
apologeticin reality, criticism, ontology and natural theology all grow together, even more closely interconnected than the moral vir-
much
volves
more rigorous and much more sincere than the cartesian doubt, for it in. no ruse, no arbitrary forcing from the side of the will, no pseudodrama); and the end which the mind arrives at as a result of this univerproblematisation
is
sal
precisely the clear
and
deliberate consciousness
of both the absolute impossibility of realising a universal doubt (or a 'putting in parentheses' of all certitude concerning the being of things),
and of the knowledge which
cise
its
they are integrated into one and the same specific whole. of being a pre-condition of ontology, epistemology ought to grow in and with it, sustaining it amd being sustained by it, beino- at once explanatory and explained, mutually supporting elements of one
tues, since
'Instead
true philosophy.'
The
critique
existence as a discipline distinct existence

is
of knowledge or epistemology has no from metaphysics. To give it a separate
it
already possessed, rooted in the
exer-
to interpose a third
is
term between realism and
of its basic
activity,
although unformulated, from the very start, of
idealism, be-
tween yes and no, which

their
essential
ordering for the apprehension of things: for in every judg-
indeed the pretension of the modems, with unthinkable notion of a 'pure phenomenon', 2 which voids the
ment
the intellect tacitly
and virtually knows
itself, in cujus natura estut
very concept of being

It is
of any being,
that
most general of all our concepts.
rebus conformetur?
The intellect lives
realistically
before
it
recognises
the
in this
way by the very

of idealism. 3
setting-up of the problem, and from the

all
name of realism.
3. Finally,
is
outset, that a
thomist critique of knowledge is distinguished from
the
an authentic critique of knowledge, comprehending that it

its
pseudo-critiques
wishes
it so,
absurd to go back on
traces at the first step, does

all
not give itself out

at the end,
by way of reflection), but after natural philosophy and

of knowledge
it is
as the
preliminary condition of
philosophy. 3
after
The
conception of
psychology. For in order to criticise the value
necessary
first
to
'philosophical radicalism'*
appears
from
this
formed by Cartesians and neo-Cartesians point of view as an. almost perfect type of
know
psychologically
(being
what
it is,
to
know how to distinguish the formal object of the
intellect
(sensible
field of human knowledge. The critique of knowledge presupposes a long-continued effort to knowknowledge which is not only spontaneous, but also scientific not only scientific (in
presumption in the
phenomena).' R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
les sciences philosophiqties.
and the reasons of being of things) and the formal object of the senses art cit., cp. Revue thomiste, Jan. 1924:
d'episte'inologie thomiste)
Dans quel ordre proposer

L.
Noel (Notes
supports this
its
thesis,
while pointing out,
as is
very true, that the critique also serves in

sciences.
turn the progress of the philosophical
the
cal
J
modern sense of the word), but philosophic and psychological, logiand metaphysical. 5
It is itself a
Here, as in
cit.
all
organic growth, causae ai invkem sunt causae.
part
of metaphysical knowledge,
the
*E. Gilson, art,
There
On this i-noxr), see infra, pp. 123-4.

Thomas, De
Vtritatc,
i,
separated
is, of course, a perfectly legitimate notion of phenomena, but which from that of the 'thing in itself'. It is the sensible appearance of the
is
not
thing
*Sc.
9; cp. infra, p. 108 (note 1).
existing in itself.
the the obsession of
'What is necessary is
to free ourselves
idea that epistemology
is
the essential preliminary
from the beginning from of philosophy* (E.
'More, in order to rightly
call oneself a
Thomist,
it is
necessary to maintain that
Gilson,
art. cit.)-
what
is 'first
of all
known by
(cp.
the
human
intellect' is
is
the being of sensible things, the

intellectual apprehension
On this point I share the fullest agreement with M. Gilson.

'Cp. E. Husserl, Meditations carte"siennes,
''According to the thought of Aristotle and
the critique
proper object of our mind, and that there can be called a 'view'
primary
which
M. D. Roland-Gosselin, 'Peut-on parler d'intuition intellecJ.
Thomas, when rightly understood! of knowledge should not come at the beginning of metaphysics (or, if o ne
St.
tuelle dans la philosophic thomiste?' Phihsophia Perennis, vol. i, p. 730) or a 'perception', or an 'abstractive intuition'. (Cp. Maritain, Reflexions sur 1'inteUigence, Annexe ii, and
Philosophic Bergsoniemic, also L.
Noel, op.
cit.)
The
particular
word
is
unimportant, M.D.K.
9S Will

M.
th
CRITICAL REALISM
99
which
effect
it
Gilson grant after this explanation that his objections to possibility of a thomist critique of knowledge are not insuperable
that the idea
implies-the philosophy of nature and metaphysics-it
is
and
of
critical
realism
is
not self-contradictory
like that 'of
square circle? 1
In any case
it
must be obvious
(if
why I hold that
thomist realism
of all of noetics, and to establish a certain number ofpropositions concerned with the much more general problem of the relation between thought and reality. I shall
necessary to treat first
sketch
in
is
not
only not naive
by
that
is
meant the absence of scrupulous
of the solution winch,
believe, can
critical
scientific
accuracy and the thirst for verification; for the

naturalness
reflection),
problems
by
the principles
word can
and
of the
also
imply
the
of the procedure, a recognition of the primacy ofnature

but that
still
Thomas. This exposition will perchance

thomist thought
begin then with a be brought to bear on these realism of Aristode and St
make
it easier
over
it is
also 'conscious, considered

it is
deliberate' or
'methodical' 2 ;
more, that
truly
and righdy
critical,
indeed the
only gnoseological doctrine which rightly merits the name.
These comments on die notion of critical realism are only a perliminary. It is necessary
tral to
now to touch on some of the questions which are cen-
lative
anyjust idea of specuphilosophy and of the two typically distinct degrees of knowledge
the critique itself. In the endeavour to posit
what is essential is to recognise that the object is immediately attained [v. infra, p. 149), and that our mind does not only 'conceive* of being, as some neo-scholastics (Zamboni for example) have suggested, but also in conceiving it, 'perceives*. It is also necessary to maintain that the species intelligibilis is quo and not quod (cp. p. 144-6); and that
the
knower divines
is
the other as other as
impressa) as in the final
maintained, there
much in the 'first' or initial act (by the specks or 'second' (by the cognitive act itself). If these points are not a break between the critique of knowledge which has been set up
St.
and those diverse tendencies which have been grouped in England and America under the tide of Neo-realisni and which in Germany have been christened Phenomenological Philosophy TheV are tendencies which seem to me to possess great interest and which I hold possessed of a high degree of intellectual stimulation, but which seem perhaps a little too much under the compulsion of the need to re-act against dominant prejudices and are thus too much and too era tmtously a priori and thereby too indifferent to the real depths of meta Physics. I shall only offer on these themes indications and suggestions in passing, for my plan is not to propound a thorough examination of such tendencies, but rather to treat of the degrees of knowledge, the philosophy of nature and metaphysics, and so to fix first of all the gnoseological propositions which are requisite for that end.
to confront
and the principles of Aristode and
Thomas.
II.
.
which certain neo-scholastics have set up of realism which M. Gilson has had in his mind, but I should myself hold that if his
objections run directly counter to such positions as that ofjeannierc (whom he does not mention) or of S. Picard, or still more those of the phenomenologists, his discord
is less concerned with doctrine than method; and it is possible that Mgr. Noel would himself agree that the role assigned to the cogito in his Notes d'epistimolegie famine (particularly on p. 8 8) is in fact secondary in regard to what is essential to his mind. This latter must rather be sought in the forcible criticism which he directs against Picard and Zamboni. I rejoice to observe that fundamentally, e.g. in a point as important as that of the immediacy of intellectual perception and those put forward on
*E. Gilson, art, cit. Actually it is the conception
HEALISM
AND COMMONSENSE
suffers so
Nowadays,
when
the
world
much from
with L. Noel
an essential agreement between such writers as the lamented Fr. Gemy, R. Garngou-Lagrange, de Tonquddec, E. Peillaube, L. Noel, A. Masnovo, M. CorJ. dovani, R. Kremer, and E. Gilson; the differences which subsist between them being tnose divergences which circle a fundamental unity, and which attest the possibility of collective work really causing a positive advance in the treatment of philosophical
questions.
P- 97,ti. 3, there is
n0thin homogeneous and because a large part of scientific ? prcTreT ^gress, above h all in its modern expression, runs exacdy contrary to it.
j
mon
a realist philosophy usually begins by some attempt to rehabilitate commonsense in one fashion or another and to reopen connection with it a an excellent preoccupation, for it teaches philosophy a certain measure of humility, it brings it back into line with nature, and it tends -establish intellectual unity at the most fundamental and modesdy man point that point where the thought of the man in the street eS at of the philosopher. But it is also dangerous,
^nwhencommonsense has had to put up with so many insults,
the mind's self-
for
com-
*E. Gilson, ibid.
tl^V re
commons ense
y
that
in the purest sense of the word,
mean-
common
awareness of truths
known
as
such and the
ioo
principles

of reason
(habitus principiorum), that
CRITICAL REALISM
self-verification, is
1
IOI
artificiality
metaphysic which is u
to shut
it
up
in a state
of pure
which be-
formulated, but rich in the possession

certitudes for
human life,
of certain absolutely fundament which reason by the aid of experience

Thomists,
it
longs to that
worst form of simple-headcdness, that of the professor.
draw
is
from those
principles, then, for
must be
said there
in-
deed a solidarity between commonsense and philosophy, though at th same time a clearly drawn distinction; for philosophy is a form of knowledge where the fundamental certitudes of commonsense are redis,
We miht well ask of those philosophers who are at pains to 'put an end how they managed to get born: they will find it to all this simplicity'
equally
hard to get born into
wisdom
(and so into criticism). Let
it
be
added
that, in
any
case,
simple-headed simplicity is better than elabor-
by critical reasoning and in a scientific state, and which endlessly extends these certitudes by means of new ^discoveries and new demonstrations, and which is based not only on commonsense, but on the evident necessity of those principles which the intellect knows by intuition. 1 St. Thomas's position is thus, while
I
ated simplicity; it at least is in line

the course
reflecting
gress is
with nature and curable. In

it is
fact, in
covered, but as they are formulated
of the history of thought,
simple-mindedness which by
critical.
on itself little by little becomes

Augustine
And such critical proan Aristode
destined to endure forever.
A Socrates or a Plato,
or a St.
by no means ignored
the critical problem; the
Fourth
maintaining both forcibly and respectfully the coherence between commonsense and philosophy, very different from that of Reid and
without the
St.
Book [gamma) of die Metaphysics is pregnant with a critique name1 there is a deeper criticism in Albertus Magnus, in
;
much
more critical.
Simple-mindedness and the superstitious fear of being so are, we may observe in parenthesis, the two enemies of any sane critique.
Thomas or Cajetan, than in Kant. Nevertheless they never dreamed
of making a special
body of doctrine of the reflective and critical section

it
of metaphysics, so leaving vast regions of knowledge lying as

low; and one
were fal-
Philo-
sophy in so
far as it is
wisdom needs
it
must add
explicit
that in their time, as I pointed out above, there
to verify
its
organs and
its instru-
was a
much less
ments in the degree to which

either nature or culture
and defined separation of the

It
critical
problems
advances, and can take nothing from

to
and their corresponding technique.

day,
the
remains for the Thomists of to-
without examination and judgment. But
of this
pretend to justify oneself from the beginning' 2 and to take nothing from nature, to make the course of the world consist in .the fact of this
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, 'La Philosophic de letre Le Sens commun, Paris, third edition.
2
J
'reflective age', to
carry this technique to a point worthy of
thought of their masters.
The apparatus of observation which should

and
first
be applied to primary notions

perfecting:
principles will always require

'naivete'
we
cannot have done with pre-critical
once and
et Ies
formules dogmadques', "

*
E. Husserl, pp. at. There is a form of singularly naive credulity with regard to the of philosophy in thinking that the latter should constitute itself first of all by a radical* act of self-cognition and build itself up progressively on the 'fundamental
possibilities
Knowledge precedes reflection, as nature precedes knowledge. Critical reflection must increase with each increase of natural knowtor
all.
ledge.
I
it is
said that general
basis
and universal act of self-cognition'. The human mind will never achieve this act of self-cognition. And, moreover, consciousness of self presupposes a self and that in all the stages of knowledge: in the highest degree (metaphysics) as in the lower (the parriouar sciences), there is a and
full, entire
of a
commonsense was not at all homogeneous. In fact made up not only of those intellectual elements of which I spoke,
self-return, a critique (here partial
but also of a mass of imagery, according to which, for instance, the sun moves round the earth, height and depth are absolute determinations
or space, the antipodes live upside
to discruninate
and radical) which presupposes direct knowledge. If philosophy should effectively fill the human mind with a more and more profound self-cogmaon, it is first of all on condition of being itself constituted and progressively built up
limited there universal
down,
etc. It is
absolutely necessary
knowledge of being, thus permitting the better penetration of itself by thought (by a reflex process which, thanks to the deviation of idealism, has for two centuries resulted in a corrosive and destructive action with regard to that very knowledge of being on which it is a return).
exactly as
between commonsense and this imagery: and it is only on condition of dieir deliverance from the latter that science and philosophy can advance.
^
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
iiev de
-
' Le re*alisme thomiste Ph 'l; Jan.-Feb., Mar.-April, 193 1 ; and op. cit.
et le
mystere de la connaissance",
102
Finally,

it is
CRITICAL REALISM
apo-
103
necessary to keep in
St.
mind one of those fundamental
never tired of repeating, that the human mind belongs to the lowest stage of the scale of minds. By reason
is
thegms which
Thomas
we call
'man'?
How by universal ideas can we know what in its own exby theorems of the rectangle the geometric properties
of their vegetable existence?
istence is singular,
of
this,
the
word
natural has,
when
in relation to
man, two
of this table?
And how can we look at this bindweed or this apple with-
entirely oppo-
site
meanings. Commonscnse, in so far as
out ourselves participating in the sensations
it is 'natural', i.e.
in conform-
ity
with the
agile
and
spiritual
of the mind, is naturally in the right and goes from being towards God by a sort of phototropism: and it is in this sense that philosophy is its
essential inclinations
We are thus constrained to make a certain divorce between things and

thought, to recognise that the conditions
the other.
of the one cannot be those of
intuitive,
tinuation.
On
con-
the other hand,
when
The way in which things 'live in our thought in order tojbe, known is not the same as the way in which they live in themselves.
(The
there
to,
is
the
word
natural'
is
taken in the
second and wholly different sense, and means 'exposed to all the ordinary perils menacing our intelligence', commonsense has a certain natural propensity for stupidity, for materialism, for the incomprehension of
mind
thus, as
soon
as it
begins to reflect on
itself,
perceives that
an inwardness of thought, a universe apart from, however open
things. It is
above
all
necessary to be
on guard
it is
against the reduction
what
is
living
and
of mental things to spatial imagination, 1 but

.
vain to try to overleap

thought' and 'outside
spiritual;
and
in this sense philosophy
is
constantly
obliged to correct it.
the limits
of human language; the expressions
'in
Thus it is easy to
is
see
why the history of thought,
thought' have
at least in so far as
it
originally
light.
a progress, is made up of a series of scandals for commonsense, each of which is followed by a higher reintegration and reconquest, a victory for commonsense. Each of our paces on this earth is in itself the beginnings of a fall and its recovery.
word spirit, which meant breath, or the word God, which originally meant In the same way, when we speak of creatures which exist 'apart
spatial significance than the
is
no more
from God' the use of space

nifies
entirely metaphorical.
exists
Here it simply sigitself in
that
sometimes the thing
actually or possiblyfor
generally, in the order
the universe
which
we
see,
and,
more
of simple
nor in
position or existential effectuation,
and sometimes not for
itself,
THE TRUTH
this
universe,
One of these primary

the truth.
nihil,
nor in space, nor in the order of the simple positio extra but under quite other conditions which are those of thought,
beginning or end of the act of thought; in
this case
scandals for
commonsense
is
that concerned
with the relation between things and thought, and the very notion of
and
it
as a
we say:
exists
'What
in thought. 2
think
is
m the wrong), but at once this affirmation

facile representation,
what
To draw any argument from

evoked by
this 'in'
the metaphorically
is,'
thinks
commonsense (and
is
it is
not
material or spatial sense
and the
'outside'
which cor-
materialised, sinks into a

is
and we begin of copy or tracing of the thing,
to imagine that thought
some sort
L. Noel has rightly pointed out, apropos of this, that the idealist formula 'what is beyond thought is unthinkable' belongs in fact to exactly this spatial form of imagination, or simply signifies that
fact,
in all ways coincident with it, so that all the conditions of the one are also those of the other. Reflection is not slow in evoking certain bitter disillusionments. If
thought cannot achieve an end without its being, by that simple

truism*. (Op. dr.)
i-ii,
thought of,
St.
'a sufficiently useless
Cp.
sect. 3
If,
:
Thomas, Sum.
theol,
i,
And how, by means of a

intelligence',
thought or knowledge is a copy, a tracing of things, if all the conditions of the one are also those of the other, how is it possible to err? It would be absurd to imagine error as the tracing of something which is not.
multiple thought such as the idea of 'living being joined to the idea of 'capable of sensation' and that of 'capable of
59, 2:
86,
I,
ad, 2;
Sum. Contra Cast.,
iv, ir,
In
IV Sent.,
disc 49, q. 1,
a. 1, sol. 2.
on the other hand, we take the word
in in, I
do not say
a spatial sense, but
even
inherence in the subject, then St. Thomas warns us that knowledge considered not as accidental to the knower (conditioned by the entitative order implied by all created knowledge), but as a relation to the known and in the pure line of knowedge, is not in the soul as in a subject, in the entitative sense of the word 'in' (because
it is
only that ofentitative
can
we know a
outside
,
tiling
one and undivided
in itself as
is
what
notitia
any entitative order). 'Secundum quod comparatur ad cognoscentem, int cognoscenti sicut accidens in subjecto, et sic non excedit subjectum,
'
io 4

it is
CRITICAL REALISM
In one the
responds to
the banal sophism
of idealism. But
IOj
the pretext that the
mind
is
of such expressions
as 'in the consciousness'
neither a courtyard nor a cupboard the and 'outside consciousnes's'i
to interdict und "
Hon devours the

from the
is
antelope, in the other he achieves
by means
of the copula the predicate, carnivorous.

simply arises
And
the possibility of error
to take exception at the outset to that inwardness which is proper to the mind and condemn oneself to describing knowledge with the mind left out, in other words, the interdiction of any penetration into what is knowledge. This comment having been here made once and for all, we can pursue our proper object without tripping over words and without fear of using language which, like all metaphysical terms, only refers to space metaphorically).
would be
shows that thought

with
its
disparity between these two worlds. All of which not a copy of the thing corresponding materially model^there is an abyss between the conditions and mode of
thought and the condition and
mode of things.
is
**
But
it
also signifies that there

is
thought that
a
in act,
model and
I
its
between the thing and the thought, an incomparably deeper unity than that between copy. For if things were modified or in some way
their conditions, their
forms of esse, two differing planes of exis /tence: their rightful existence by which they act and hold themselves I apart from nothingness, and the existence which they take on in the / apprehension of the soul, so as to be known. In order to enter into the sense of sight the bindweed and the apple have to leave off that matter by which they subsist; in order to enter into the intelligence and the
different
t
/Things have two
changed,
do not say in
manner ofexistence, but in
their rightful constituents,
in what they are,
by sensation or intellection,
there could be neither truth nor knowledge, and the theoretician of knowledge could not even begin to lift a finger in explanation, for in that case he would have only two, equally impossible resources: either to say
knowledge implies a
relation
relation
with things but one which de-
reason, they lay
by
their individuality. In the
forms them and so they can never be

plies
known; or
it is
that
inward world of our
knowledge im-
intelligence there are a multitude
no
of
with
things,
and
that
\thmgs which in the world of nature exist in an undivided state, and which lead one world a life wholly different from that of the other.,
distinct aspects or concepts of
an expansion of absolute
thought which has only itself for object, a position incompatible with
the fact
,
m
*
of error and that of negative
pears self-refuting, 1 since

this
ideas, and which moreover apone can only affirm that knowledge itself is
ZS 2'
^r
Secundum quod comparator ad sit " "d aum quod ad n0t est ad fcH. ** sdum ex r Pttr C ^ n0dria SCnmdum c ^ratione m iam " es: in TmS ubjecto;et V* ancut secundum Wccompararionemexccditmentem in quantum "S11 ^cunduxn hoc eriam est quaedam ?"
. . . "
quknun^kveniturincsse.dicuinbimeati.
SS
"IT F ^T
hab
qU d bsit' SGd U0d 1 111 aCCidentis ex hoc uod <l
or that in holding
has been
it distinct from the act by which one thinks. It very well demonstrated in England and in America2 that the
principle according to
T^ ^
'
which every relation must modify or alter its term is a pure postulate, for which no proof has ever been forthcoming, and is incumbent only on idealism; and all efforts to demonstrate it only
lead to the declaration that a thing
soulLT l soulmthenotenatanvebutmtew/^/senscindicatedindietext
-
(Q ^"^' 6 VU
a-
)-^cIld not preventthingskôwn being

actuellcs de la philosophic
in the
pos of E. Husserl).
C
wXug/
SZ t T r^s "^ 4 rS T W f^Tf' So^S

Cr
T*mtt J^f'u"^ What m H
cannot be known without being known, a proposition of which the world was in no particular doubt. The relation of knowledge is precisely a relation which does not de-
usserl' S
observations
4"
alkmande, Paris, 1930 (aproexceedingly true is that the object

that
it
form,
which neither
one
alters
nor modifies
its
objective.
The
scholastics
But k " P rcdsel y Ai, reason
can
used to say that the relation

a real
(it
of the knowing mind to
the thing
known is
brings somediing
new into
the soul), but that
S;
'^ "
tCd
known
'to
-
to the
" COnsritutcd
-
knowing mind
is
a relation
the depth of the cgo\ that
of the thing of reason, which in no way

to transfer
it exists 'in
ratid
"C "c
bc -"*
Besid(;s '
/ *
'
aU
Ae rOOB
f our h
WO "e
--to
a
affects
T
" "fe** bc Ptotcd
out, if the
or modifies the tiling
known. The mind's power
4 ~t crying fault
say correspondingly
In English in the original. (Translator's Note.)
sance chez
Cp, Rend Kremer, Le NSo-r&alisme amtricain, Alcan, 1920; La Thlorie He Us nto-rtalistes anglais, Vrin, 1928.
la
connais-
io6

an immaterial and universal condition,
its
CRITICAL REALISM
visible
I0?
tilings into
division of them
or the tangible.
its
It is
into diverse aspects, the

uniting,
way it shifts and

it
manipulates them, separating

itself, all
gether unique in
clares itself
own
comparing them with what is outside
a question of a certain corespondcncc 1 altokind between the way hi which thought deposits
it
these operations
on a thing and
in existence in
its
and preparatory to knowledge; they do not constitute the act of knowing itself and leave intact what the /thing in itself is. In the working of this great logical factory there is one
are the conditions
secret,
of their existence in
own inward
act
('
ofjudgment, and die
way
in
which the thing
exists:
a correspondence
in die
which
thing
is
an identity, not with regard to the
mode of existence
mysterious and sacred substance which
the essence or nature, die oncological inwardness of the thing

sent to the
no treatment can alter made prething and the
mind by the idea.
and in the mind, but to that of the thing taken in its pure value as an intelligible object, and which is in one case brought about (or can be / brought about) outside the mind, in the other is lived in the mind by
the mind as brought about (or might be) outside the mind. For judgment is like an imitation of the creative act by one incapable of creating it brings the content of the mind into existence outside the mind, not
This distinction between the

thing in itself or
exigence,
mode of existence of the
its nature is capital in the theory of knowledge. And which is immanent in knowledge, to leave intact and unaltered the thing known, in so far as it is known, is so potent that it does
this
by creation ad extra, but by affirmation ad intra. 2

'Truth', says St.
Thomas, 3
'is
that conformity
is
not admit that in the act of knowing the thing and the thought should make two: for then there would be some difference between the thought
whereby
it calls
being that which

is
of the mind with being, and not being that which is not/
thing and
This conformity
affirmed
established
and the thing; the thing, by the

to
by the being imprisoned in the

the act of the mind,
fact that it
was thought, would not be
by
the mind.
it
When
purely what it is. In the act of knowledge the thing (in the exact measure
things outside
ner, accords
are referred to existence in a
which
it is
known) and
by reason of which certain determined man-
the thought are not only united, they are

is
with the
way in which
St.
stricdy one: in Aristotle's words, the intelligence in act
things present themselves in (actual
the intelligible
in act. This
tracing
is
is
why I just said that the notion of knowledge as a copy or

by
the disparity between the
^Secundum proportionalitatem', says

2
Thomas [IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 1, ad. 7).

117-20.
i,
altogether deficient, not only
On the nature of thejudgment, see infra, pp.
conditions of thought and those of things, but also because of die unity
*Contra
Cm.
i,
59; cp. In Met., iv, 1, 8, n. 651; In Perth.,
between the thing and the thought.
u notable
first
it
1, 3,
n. 7; 1, i 3( n. 12. It
that this notion
Thus we see in what sense it is necessary to comprehend die definition of truth which St. Thomas made classic: adaequatio ret et intellects, adequation or conformity between the intelligence and the tiling. 1 This conformity has nothing to do with any copy or material tracing. Our
instant
of critical
sees,
in fact
of what, from the and self-awareness, the mind intuitively perceives that imposes itself even on those who in theory reject it. Not only does idealthe explication
reflection
of the
truth,
which is only
knowledge comes originally from the senses, all our words, as we were reminded but a moment ago, are drawn from the sphere of the visible
and die
tangible: the
tion; but their significance here
of error, which is nothing but a scandal or an knowledge is thought of as self-engendered, selfposited and self-attained, but also those who, even while they claim to have surpassed ordinary idealism, continue to recoil from the 'thing' posited as such outside thought, in fact only make use of the idea of truth by reconstituting after the event and artificially some equivalent for the adaequatio rei et intelteetus, which in reality necessarily preimpossibility
ism break at the outset against the fact
from the moment
that
words adequation and conformity are no excepmust be taken with no trace of the
supposes that original notion. It

C
fi verified
J_takcs u
""
the
is thus that in the new 'transcendental idealism' of E/ Same f r wlloll y different idealism of L. Brunschvieg the place of the trite (what is true is that which is presented by a 'synthesis
the
>Cp. Inflexions sur

searches
ft verifying confirmations', op.

1'intelligence, p.
cit.
of P. Muckle,
24; J. de Tonque'dcc, op. tit. According to the rethis celebrated definition does not come from Isaac Israeli, the
something other than 'to recognise as

teristic
p. 51; cp. pp. 76, 88, 106, 109): as if 'to verify"

true', for to define the truth
were
is
by
verification
Jewish doctor and philosopher,
Egypt between 845 and 940, to whose Definitiomlus St. Thomas attributes it. Transmitted by some compiler or other, it must be regarded as being much older and was in any case prepared for by Aristotle.
lived in
who
non-sense. Similarly Husserl, at the instance

ot
of Descartes,
takes obviousness as a charac-
of the object of thought coming from the thing ofjudgment.
(cogitatum) taken as separated
from the
thing, instead
itself (ens intelligible) as it is objectified
in the
mind
as
the
object
]
I
io 8

more
exact terms,
CRITICAL REALISM
it
or possible) existenceor in
109
when
the identification
operated by the mind between die two terms of a proposition corresponds to an identity in the thing, then the mind is true. 1 And whethe
'It is a
be so or not,
we have no
other means in each case of knowing than
the resolution
experience
ledge,
false.
and the
of our thought into the immediate assertion of sensible first principles of the intelligence, where our know-
well-known thomist
false,
thesis that the intelligence is
only says true or
in the
judgment.
only possessed of troth
being intuitively and immediately ruled
by what
is,
cannot be
Thomas
actum
treats this question, in particular
on
the passages where St' the classic passage of the De Veritate i o_!
commentary on
Veritas est in intellect* et in sensu, licet

intellcctus et sicut cognita
non eoiem modo. In intellect enim est sicut consc'qm,
But what is important for the moment in these remarks is

of the fact that truth
is
per intelkctim; consequitur namque intellectus operatiLm secundum quodjudicium intellectus est de re secundum quod est: cognoscitur autem ah intellect secundum quod intellectus reficctitur supra actum suum, non solum secundum
to keep holct^ grasped in relation to the (actual or possible)/

reflection, as the nature
known in
the second act
by express
suum, sed secundum quod cognoscit proportionem ejus ad rem: quod quidem cognosci non potest ms, cognita natura ipsiusactus; quae cognosci non potest, nisi cognoscatur natura principiiactivi quod est ipse intellectus, in cujus natura est ut rebus conformetur; unde secundum hoc cognoscit vmtatm intellectus quod supra seipsum reficctitur'will be found in Noel (op cit chap v), andj. de Tonqucdec (op. cit. chap. vi). Cp. also M.-D. Roland-Gosselin 'Sur h theone thomiste de la vente\ tev. des sciences phil. et thiol, April
cognoscit actum
of the
(ibid.
from which the act proceeds, and the very existence of the soul
the habitus
habitus (ibid. 10, 9) 10, 8).
The two following points should be carefully observed. 1. If the nature of the act, of and the potency is so known, at the same time as their existence, by express reflection and immediate experience, it is precisely and uniquely in so far as the act is specified by the object and the degree to which the habitus and the potency (Slid, i, 9:
1921, and
Garngou-Lagrange,
art. cit.
Here
should like to recall and particularise certain points which seem to
me specitruth' it-
more or less proximate to the act and essentially ordinated to it. of an experience of my act, my habitus, my intellect, of my mind, in their concrete singularity.) Vide De Veritate, 10, 9.
10, 9) are principles
(This
is
a question
Conformity to the real ('logically true') is the Wological self for the senses and the intelligence in act. All true knowledge
is
alty important.
2.
My
soul,
on
the contrary
reflection,
is
not made
known
to
me by
this
concrete exits
knowing of the
perience
and express
it is
either
in regard to
its
existence
or
nature,
But truth is only possessed as such when it is itself known, and it is only known by the judgment where the mind, in giving its assent to the mental presentation which has been constructed for this end, pronounces on a thing and declares that it is so, ita est. 'Quando judical rem ita se habere, sicut est forma quam de re apprehendit, tunc primo cognoscit et dicit verum. Et hoc tacit componendo et dividendo. Nam in omni propositione aliquam formam signithis sense.
truth.
Simple apprehension is only true in
because
substantial
not a proximate and operating principle, but only the radical and one of these operations, and because its essence is not specified by them.
(Hid.)
One could add

before
cito
that this implicit
and
living,
not yet express,
reflection,
by which,
any
logical or critical reflection, the
mind in
the judgment
knows
in actu exer-
that it is true,
or in conformity with realitythat it is by it also (more than by the
iicatam per praedicarum, vel applicat alicui abea. (Sum.theol.i, 16,2. Cp.De
actu
rei significatae
per subjectum, vel removct
By the simple fact that the mind so pronounces
Veritate, 1,3.)
on what is, there is here a reflection in
hereto by the mind on itself and on its proper conformity with the thing ('super ipsam sirmhtuduiem reflection-, cognoscendo et dijudicando ipsam', In Met., book iv. lect 4). This reflection is not yet a logical or critical reflection (cp. In Contra
Ferrariensis,
Lent.,
i,
i9 ) where the
and a
new
reflex) concept, it is
none other than the act
ment
concept by a new act only a 'taking in hand' of itself by the mind, which is ofjudging itself, in such a way that Cajetan can define the judg-
mind knows
in actu signato its act
and
its
of the objects of concepts, where nevertheless already it becomes it knows in embryo, pre-consciously, before all introspective reflection, the existence of the thinking self, which only becomes the object of effective knowledge (in a second act) with express reflection. Thus it is in judging of things that we have at once an implicit experience of the truth of the mind, and the still hidden or pre-conscious germ, the initium of the experience of ourselves. This is why in any reading of the passage (De Veritate, 10, 8) where St. Thomas explains how each
intelligible
simple apprehension
in act to itself) that
nas actual
tions, in particular
knowledge of the existence of the soul by (express) reflection on its operaon its acts of intellection, he implies, I am convinced, by the latter
Mia cogmtw quae sui ipsius conformitatem

St.
1
cum
dearly pointed out by

tary in lerxnerm.,
re cognoscit (In 1, 16,2).
This
is
very
Thomas himself in
lect. 3, n. 9:
book
(conforms suae ad rem)

est
the precious elucidations of the commen'Cognosces autem pracdictam habitudinem
nihil est aliud
componere
quam judicare ita esse in re vel non esse; quod

cognoscit veritatem,
nisi
not only simple apprehension, but also and most of all thejudgment, the act of intellection a. achievement. Here is this capital text: 'Quantum ad actualem cognitionem, qua acquis considcrat se in actu animam habere, sic dico, quod anima cognoscitur per actos suos. In hoc enim aliquis percipit vivere, et esse, quod percipit se habere,
se
animam
et
et
do
dmdere; et ideo intellectus non
vel dividendo per suum judicium.'
tniî
mttTr, of the
that
^f
K "y
C
potency or faculty from which
<?'
^
(*
componen-
entire et lntelligere, et alia

_
hujusmodi vitae opera exercere; unde

et inteltigimus
dicit
Philosophus in
intelligimus;
" c - ca (
P- 9):
Scntimus autem qttoniam sentimus;
quoniam
huma b Ae
confom
it
iCS
P^y W*. ^ with being of

a
(
CP-
P-
"7-
**
e quia hoc sentimus, intelligimus

3)
quoniam sumus. Nullus autem percipit
se intelligere nisi
of the act and emanates (De VeritateJ, 9), which are

the
things)
"!,.
C uc"^ aliquid intelligit: 1 quia prius est intelligere aliquid quam intelligere se ineuigere; et ideo pervenit anima ad actualiter percipiendum se esse per illud, quod invelsenrit.'
telligic,
no

by
the thing: verum sequitur esse
us.
CRITICAL REALISM
a
III
to
' existence contained
remm* And
problem at once confronts
this notion then is the value in
of a thing of which we have madcuse up

is all
now
in this analysis?
This question
the
more important in
that
it is
THING AND OBJECT

If the preceding analysis
is
there that die
most notable contemporary
attempts, in England and
correct,
we see
that the
same thing
one and the same time in the world of nature, where it exists and, when it is known, \x\ the world of the soul or of thought;
at
it is
found
can bc
Germany, to overcome the dangers of idealism have alike broken down. The moderns, generally speaking, take the object as pure object, detached in itself from
any
thing
where
it
could
exist,
i.e.,
from
existence
and
to
exist
necessary for us to distinguish the thing as thing, existing or able by itself, and the tiling as object, 2 set before the faculty
independent of my cogito, posited in itself before my act of thought and independent of

mental, without
it:
existence
which one may
call in this sense extra-
of knowarc
ledge and
abstracted
existence;
made
from
present to
it.
The
tliis
'externality'
having the least spatial implication, or
objects as
such of our intelligence

in themselves a
actual existence
and only hold
possible
existence in act
tion
on the contrary, the objects as such of our senses denote an and grasped ut exercita, held in the present if it is quesof the objects of external sense, without die determinations of
uncertain time) for those
which could also be called pre-mental, i.e. previous to the knowledge which we have of it, or again, metalogical, not in the sense that to know
it it is
necessary to repudiate logic or to
make
use of another logic than
logic,
but in the sense
by which
it
does not belong to the sphere of

life
tirne^ (or in
logic or
of the rightful constituents of the
of the reason, to
It is
the
of the imagination, belonging
to die past in the case

uoetics
began when the
Mowing
^St
ISoet.
of the objects of memory. The tragedy of modern scholastics of the decadence, and Descartes
object
sphere of the
known
as known, but
is
'beyond' that sphere.

I
essential to
add that in speaking of extra-mental existence

of actual existence but also and
intellect,
act,
am not only thinking

existence, for
first
them, separated the
of all of possible
abstracts
our
and die
thing; the thing thus be-
coming doubly problematic in" its concealment behind the

Thomas, De
Veritate,
i,
in the simple act

its
of apprehension,
from
existence in
also
object.
.
What
and in
judgments does not only judge of what exists, but

exist,
of
i, 3,
sed contra.
Cp. In I Sent.
i. 19,
de Thfi., q.
j, a. 1, also In
5, a. 3.
what might or might not
and of the
rightful necessities inherent

1 possibly real that
The word 'object' is taken here in the strictest scholastic sense (formal object). It is superfluous to add that in current modern language it has a very different meaning, tne opposition between objective and subjective having finally achieved the transference to the object of all the values proper to the 'thing' or 'the real'. To-day, English necreanst philosophy
in essences, so that it is first

it 'justifies itself',
of all with regard to the

itself
or better, confirms
.
or makes explicit to
itself
some of its authentic meaning. As to die word, thing, it is taken herein the widest possible sense. If first of all it is taken as meaning the sensible and visible thing' which is naturally found by our intelligence (for
and German phenomenology have given back to the word
object
'Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, art cit. ; Dieu, son existence et sa nature, 5 th edit. 'Esscntiac rerum antequam existant sunt entia realia, ut ens reale distinguitur contra jictitium, non tamen ut distinguitur contra non existens in actu, secundum distinctionem Cajetani in
I.
de Entia et Essentia,
I
c. iv, q. 6.'
Bannez, In Sum.
theol.,
i,
10, 3
m ideas
;
all
originate in the senses) as the simplest
paradigm of reality,
all actually
it
have already noted that die irrefragable certainty of the principle of identity (p. 93) which is the first law of metalogical being before that of logic, is included in the first
also applies to all reality,
of whatsoever kind,
spiritual
or corporeal, to
or
motion of the intellect's self-consciousness. In fact it is in an actual (and contingent) existence grasped
perceives,
possibly posited or able to be posited data existing in independence It is because the existence in act denoted
of the mind.
as to
by
it
thanks
to the senses (cp.
Cajetan, In II Anal.,
ii,
13) that the intellect
toe objects presented

tiiey
by them is not determined
time that
by the imagination
merely complete it and thus become one with the objecfperceived, or are entirely displaced by sensaaon and the flux of the present and relegated to the unreal. When tiu reduction does not take place, they may themselves be taken for real objects, or at least nungle an illusory interpretation (cp. P. Qcercy, Etudes sur V hallucination, Paris, SCnSe f ie rcsent 7* weakel*d as the result of a defect in P the synthetic activity of the consciousness, it is sensation which takes on an unreal aspect.
are either so integrated into sensation that
of its proper activity, this necessary law of all possible being. From this point of view, and granting that we sharply discriminate between the problem of the by
virtue
existence
of the external world, which belongs to the critique of sensation, and that of purely possible extra-mental being, which belongs to the critique of intellectual knowledge,
la
one can say with L. Noel (Rev. nio-scol, Nov. 193 1): 'La donnee re*elle e'est donnee sensible,* which is in fact and in the concrete at the same time intelligible.
Z5W
r^
In the concrete
together; our direct knowledge starts

intellection
complex of our cognitive operations, the senses and the intellect work from sensory perception interpenetrated with an not yet explicidy conscious of itself. But for critical reflection it is necessary
112

critique of because of their misunderfundamental point, because they confound the possibly
It is
CRITICAL REALISM
It
113
reflectively the value
of intellectual knowledge, whence the
must
be said that this
is
fundamentally erroneous: philosophical re-
knowledge must primarily proceed.

standing of this
real
flection
has neither to reconstitute the thing apart
from
the object as a
necessary hypothesis,
thesis,
nor to suppress the

itself,
thing as a superfluous
hypo-
with rational being and only recognise the actual
as real, that the
which
is
a contradiction in
but to affirm the
fact that the
noetics
of so many modern writers go astray from die

as
outset.
all that
is
thing
n given with and by the object, and indeed that it is absurd to wish
them.
is
Then, the object being taken

extra-mental or metalogical
the senses and of the intellect,
pure object separated from

if it
is
even
to separate
On
this
point a truly
critical critique
stuff"
of knowledge,
intui-
recognised that the objects of having as such their rightful and irredu-
one which
tion, is in
entirely faithful to the
immediate
its
of reflective
accord with commonsense in

is
apologia for the
thing. In
cible value, their constitution, consistency or intrinsic resistance, are not subjective modifications or products of thought, but typical
thomist language, the thing

intellect,
the 'material object' of the senses and the
struc-
while what
have here called the
tures given
by intuition,
the question presents itself of knowing
how to
colouring, sonority, cold, heat, etc.,

quid)
is its
explain the stable connections and internal regularities exhibited by these
'formal object':
object (i.e. on one hand, and on the other, the intelligible both the material and the formal object being
pure objects: and the idea that they are distributed in discontinuous groups because they are aspects (rightly it would be better to say 'inspects')
things,
attained at
If the
once and indivisibly by the same perception.

thing appears suspect as
word
belonging already to
common
or elements of cognisability of certain ontological nuclei called capable of extra-mental existence. The idea that the law of con-
nothing prevents our adoption of a vocabulary more in conformity with the habits of modern science, in odier words, more artificial
speech,
nection between the different images

at this table
thing
which our eyes perceive in looking from various points ofview is explained by the existence of a which is precisely this table, appears simply as one explanatory
and more didactic, but which also shows a greater desire to guard against
die uncritical
say,
preconceptions of
in
common
acceptance.
I shall
therefore
bowing down
my turn before the jargon of pedantry, that as the

knowing subject,
to an ontological 'for
itself' to
hypothesis
among
crowd of others, equally
possible.
Some,
indeed,
object is correlative to a
hold with Bertrand Russell and A. H. Whitehead that by the principle of economy (Occam's razor) it is better to pass by this hypothesis,
which
ceives
it
corresponds,
which by
reflection
on
its acts
its
of thought per-
immediately, not, as Descartes thought,
rightful essence, but
which
results,
righdy speaking, in a form of Leibnitzianism heroically
the fact
of its rightful existence, and which

not correlative
to,
we may call the cis-objective

it
pushed to the absolute, in the passing over of all subjective or material causality and the reduction of reality to a cloud of predicates without subjects flying about in unbounded air and which we endeavour to connect up widi each other
subject, it is also,
is itself)
but inseparable from (because

precisely takes
an ontological 'for
itself'
it is
which
on
the
name
of the object in so far as
present to thought, and which
we
by purely formal
laws. Others, like E. Husserl,
may
much
call
the objectiviable or transobjective subject, not certainly in as
endeavour to re-absorb die thing in

transcendental subjectivity, one
itself
and
its
existcntiality into
as it is
hidden behind the object, but, on the contrary, in the
of whose functions will be
to
set it
up
degree to
constitutes
which
within
itself:
which
sense
is
only another
way of suppressing
is
the diing in
it is itself grasped as object, and that it nevertheless an irreducible in which the possibility of new objects to be
any authentic
metalogical.
of the word, the thing which

datum
in itself (as
extramental and
grasped remains always
open (for it can give rise to an indefinite sequence of necessary and contingent truths). 1 The transobjective is not
ofJ. de Tonquddec on a frequent which Fonsegrive has expressed in a characteristic formula. Fonsegrive has "tten: The concept of an object which should be at the same time in itself and an jeet of knowledge is clcarly.contradictory. ... For to say object of knowledge is the
I
to consider the primary

lysis) apart
detached by psychological and logical ana-
from
intellectual perception at stick,
and
this is
R. Garngou-Lagrange, that the consciousness of the unbreakable certitude of the principle of identity as the law o( ^possible being makes a part of that first (philosophical) act of consciousness which is the point of departure for the critique.
why I said
{cp. p. 9S) with
should like to quote here the very just comments
sophism,

H4
CRITICAL REALISM
"5
unknown, which withdraws in the degree to which new objects are grasped, but that of known subjects indefinitely
an unfigurable field of the
core of that reflection in which it takes cognisance of its lect in the very its object. This apprehension of being is absolutely towards movement
primary and
is
knowablc
1
as
objects.
Cis-objective or transobjective, the subject

as such;
is
implied in
all
our other
intellectual apprehensions.
Hence
never attained purely

as object;
but
it is
precisely tins
consists in
which
is ic
attained
the process
of knowledge
making
into an
(a rational, not real being) can well be an object incapable of existing conceived, but on condition of its being referred to being, or to objects
object,
Tli at
it is
so,
every act of (intellectually conscious) knowing
tells us,
so that if we admit that the
mind
really attains
an
object valid in itself
of existing, i.e. transobjective (possible) subjects which the mind makes into objects, and at the instance of which this object is conceived, and without which it could not be built up by the intellect.
capable
If the
with which it can

it attains
deal,
we must also admit, and in die same degree, that

is
notion of being can be extended to
what neither exists nor can
a (possible or actual) thing, a transobjective subject which
one
is
exist except in the
mind
it is
by an
afterthought and
on
further con-
with
this object (or
which
is
the ground or occasion of it, if the
latter
sideration,
by
a secondary improper use of this primary notion,
which
that
a rational not real being). Being in effect (the being contained in sensible things) is the first object attained
makes
it
signify
conceived
it
as it is in the
way of being exacdy
by our intelligence.2 And what is

exists or can exist;
which is not.
meant by
first
this
name of being,
itself
if not
what
and what
is
Advancing further in
tent
this corrective analysis
of the immediate convery order of

is
and immediately presented by

or can exist in
this to
the intellect, except that
it
of knowledge
can be said
that, in the
sensitive
exists
or outside the mind?
It is sufficient for
knowledge, the content of a sensory perception

sible
not only some senfar as
each one of us to think for himself to experience for ourself the absolute
impossibility
quality or
some
stimulation, but rather
in so
what belongs
of the
intellect's
thinking of the principle of identity
to a non-intellectual
tual
,
plane of knowledge can be described in intellecas
without positing
first
(at least possible)
extramental being, of which
this
terms
some thing impinges on us
an extensive field of determined
of all axioms expresses the bearing.

the inescapable
A primary object which

is
is
ex3
sensory-affective awareness,
and so
excites
our motor-functions. The
tramental intelligible being without which nothing

there
is
intelligible,
behaviour of animals can only be explained if, even at the lowest stages,
the stimuli received are
datum of fact which imposes
itself
on
the intelas
it is
not only individualised in the subject in an
act
same
1
as to say
is
known.
. .
known,
86). J.
not in
itself in
the degree to
replies:
But it is entirely evident that the known, in as much which it is known.' (Essais sur la connaissance, p.
This
entirely formal
of sensation, 1 but are

in something at
still
more
individualised
on
the side of the object,
once sensory and stimulating perceived by the animal.
thing:
one
the
is
argument proves only one that the fact of being is itself different from that of being known. But that the not the other docs not result in the exclusion of the one by the other. The condc Tonquijdec rightly
is
Ascending the zoological scale,
we see this somethingwhich as known

solidified,
by sensation
itself is
something purely indeterminate underlying sen-
cepts are different, but it
not 'entirely evident' that they cannot be

pitting against
realised together in
sory perception
self more
become determined,
experience.
and distinguishing
it-
one another of abstractions one could quite as well prove that 'the concept' of a moon at once round and shining 'is clearly contradictory' because the moon is not round in so much as it is shining. de Tonquddcc, op. cit.) The known as known defines the sphere of logic; the (J. known, or rather the knowablc, as extramental being defines the sphere of the real.
same being.
this
By
same
senses
it
and more through the synergy of all the external and internal and by the effect, it may be of hereditary instinctive estimations,
may be of individual
A dog does not only know visual,
According
as it attains itself by reflection

all,
on its own acts as in the case of men, or on,

the case with angels, the cis-objective sub-
primarily and above
another object, as
is
way, he knows his master without the power of saying so to himself or of knowing why; he has on the sensitive plane, thanks to innumerable associations of similarity,
audible, etc., variables associated in a certain
ject is also the transobjective.
something analogous to the knowledge

lect
this
time given by the intel-
*Cp. Cajetan, In de ente et essentia, q.r.

3
which we have of this thing, that transobjective subject which we

J
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, art. cit.
Cp. Hans Driesch, Die 'Seek'
als elementarer Naturfactor, Leipzig, 1003.
n6
call his

master.1
CRITICAL REALISM
St.
117
type cor-
And
if the sheep flies
from
the wolf,
it is
not, as
consciousness ineluctably relies
when in search of the original

is
Thomas said,
tina,
that the coloured object thus perceived has
wounded its re-
but that it sees in it 'its natural enemy'.
responding to the notion of actual existence, which

apart
undiscoverable
is
the external senses have communicated to the animal not only their 'proper sensibility' and at
first
All of which presupposes that
from
the
the
from the prime origin and significance of this notion. It compulsion of the evidence of the intuitions of the senses
its
under
that the
mind is led to make

the thrill
primary judgments on
the
same time the 'general
sensibilities'
such as extension, but
wholly implicit and potential

selves
state
indiscernible by the
object
also, in a
mal, if it lacks this notion, the relaxation

sation,
senses themaspect.
of desire
a thing
of which the proper
of the
senses
is
an
existence. As to the aniof its motor-functions by senor of aversion which makes it run to or fly the
The
ancients, assigning a reasonfor this fact, explained that theperceptive act of
object so sensibly perceived, at least gives to it its practical equivalent,
and alike
such)
attests
the value
of the
existential certitude (not
the external senses issues in the thing itself or ends with the thingitself, ter-
known
as
with which the action of the senses is impregnated.
minate act rem, and that in the very degree to which"the thing existsoutside
the knower,
action
i.e.
If the existence in act
in the degree to
which it exercises hie et nunc an effective
sensation, the at least possible existence
thing so attained diat they spoke of a.judicium sensus,

at
on the sensory organs of the knower. And it is with regard to the by which the senses
of a thing actually acting is thus implied by sen-) of a possible thing, of a possible/

is
transobjective subject,
equally implied
by
intellectual
knowledge!
once adhere to the object perceived as an existing reality, 2 and which is
On the one hand, in effect, every predicate signifies not only such intelligible
capable of deceiving us, when affected by the thing otherwise than as it is. 3
Existence
is
determination, but that which had such, determination; the simplest
intellectual
not a sensible object per
se but,
though the
apprehension, in perceiving what I call 'triangular' or 'conic'
senses are in-
or 'musician* or 'philosopher', perceives
some
(possible) thing
capable of showing or 'discovering' existence as such,

discovers (thanks precisely to the perception
calls
what
which
is
the
intellect
given to
it
as
an
object
under the formal aspects
in question.
of the
senses)
and what it
On the other
to itself existence
existence
not only possible, but in actis

its
nevertheless attained
analysis
by it from
the fact, being rooted in
object.
The
knowledge is above all achieved in judgment, and what is a judgment if not the act by which the mind declares the identity
hand, intellectual
of consciousness
attests this irrefutably: it is
on what is given by
between a predicate and a subject in the thing or outside the mind which
differ in the notion,
or in their intramental existence? For
all
the external senses (long before the reflex data of any possible cogito) that
x
veritable
judgment
jecto,
On animal knowledge and on the difference between grasping a conceptual object in

(which
is
two terms notionally different, sunt idem re seu subdiverse rationed the notion of 'the whole' is formally other than the
identifies
itself
proper to the
intellect)
and that sensory complex in which
this object
is
realised, see the
important comments by Roland Dalbicz in the 4th

1930.
sol. r. 'Intellcctus
Caliicr dephiloso-
phie de
2 Cp.
la nature, Paris,
tur
III Sent, dist. 23, q. 2, a. 2, ad assenriendum ex praesentia intcUigibilis . . .

St.
.
.
Thomas, In
noster dctcrmina-
notion 'greater than die part', the notion 'Mr. Bernard Shaw' is formally other than that of 'dramatic author'; and nevertheless when I judge that 'Mr. Bernard Shaw is a dramatic author', or that 'the whole
is
ct
hoc quidem contingit in his quae

De
greater than die part', I posit in actual existence a diing or object
statim
intelligibilia fiunt, sicut
sunt prima principia; ct similiter determinaror
thought, 'Bernard
as identical,
of Shaw' and an object of thought 'dramatic author'
judicium sensitivae partis ex hoc quod sensible subjacet sensibus.' Sec also the text from
Potcntia,
8
quoted on p. 143 (note).
thought whole'
tical. I
and that the possible existence of a thing or object of and the object of thought 'greater than a part' are iden-
Thus the tongue of a fever patient, covered with a bitter coating, finds sweet drinks quod sensus ita nuntiant sicut afficiuntur, sequitur quod non decipiamur in judicio quo judkamus nos scntire aliquid. Sed ex eo quod sensus alitcr amcirur intersour. 'Per hoc
accomplish, in the depth of
operation
(at least
J l
<
my thought, with my noemata an which only makes sense because it relates to the way in which my thought.
theol,
i,
dum quam res sit, sequitur quod nuntiet nobis aliquando rem aliter quam sit. Et ex hoc
fallimur per sensum circa rem,
in possibility) they exist outside

Sent., dist. 4, q. 2, a. 1;
i,
The proper functfieol.iii, id,
non circa ipsum sentirc.' (Sum. theol., i, 17. 2. ^the very excellent commentary on this text by de Tonquc'dec, op. (it) J.
SeC
St.
Thomas, In I
1;
Sum.
13, 12.
Cp. Sum.
log.
ii,
ad.
Contra Gent.,
36:
John of
St.
Thomas,
Curs. Phil
P. q. j,
a. 2.
Ii8

is
CRITICAL REALISM
119
its
tion of the judgment
thus to
make
the
mind progress from the plane
of simple essence, or of die simple object significant for thought, to that of the thing or subject containing (actually or possibly) existence, and of which the thought-objects predicate and subject are the intelligible as1 pects. If we do not admit that the objects of thought are aspects ('inspects') of actual or possible things; that each of them contains, if I may
put
I
which the simple apprehension (as grasping in it subject the unity thought) disunited. This unity cannot begin of differing objects
the mind, since
in
on
the contrary the
mind
breaks
it
in order to
fulfil it
anew.
tence,
It
commences outside
far as it
is
the mind, in (actual or possible) exis-
which in so
held in
(exercita) is outside
the order of
1 Finally, in order that the judgsimple representation or apprehension.
it
so,
an ontological or metalogical charge, the rightful function of
the judgment becomes unintelligible.
The analysis ofintellectual knowthe
fore the
it is
ment should so take place it is necessary that every object posited bemind should be poshed as able to exist outside the mind (or, if
a question
ledge thus gives us the same fundamental evidence in favour of
of an ens ratwnis,
as if it
could exist outside the mind); in
K_thingsx transobjective subject as that of sensitive knowledge. In anodier sense than Lask's one can say with him diat every judgment
supposes an 'unbroken harmony' (on the side of the thing)
other words,
far
it is
necessary that our intuition or intellectual perception,
and
the
from confronting us with a multiplicity of unresolvable 'simple natures', should confront us with an object found everywhere and everywhere varying, which
is
worked by
the
judgment itself'a
reconciliation after conflict'. 2 The

it is
being itself, and in which all our notions are re-
'embrace' preceding that 'condition of tearing apart' which

function of the
solved without prejudice to the irreducibility

conditions judgment
is
of essences. Under
these
judgment
to 'conquer*,
is
in the thing, in the given
possible, that
is,
as a logical
movement which in
transobjective subject. 3
The judgment
restores to the transobjective

comes from simple apprehension
(itself in concrete, vitally
ordinated to the judgment);
1 Thcnotioaofthejudgmenthas beenin obscurity since
Descartes. The Cartesian theory
otherwise he does not sufficiently distinguish the simple apprehension or judicative ap-
definitely results in
making the judgment
quod immediately attained

(the real
quod so ideated).
consist in an act of the will consenting to a by the mind (in idea) as an object conforming to its double One would have to turn a Cartesian despite oneself to see in
prehension (which is resolved
it
may be in the experimental intuition of the senses, or
maybe the intellectual intuition of first principles).

'Existence
of certain contemporary scholastics seems to allow) a comparison between the mental word and the object of thought, and an affirmation of this conformity. On the contrary, what is declared to be is that object (predicate) attained in the mental word. The text already cited on p. 108 from the Commentary on the Metaphysics does not mean that in the judgment the mind only decides that the concept or is conformed to the thing; but rather that it knows in actu exercito that it itself is true conformed to the thing, i.e. possessed in itselfthe similitude of the thing known. ('Ex hoc
die judgment (as the tendency
degree to degree
not in that is attained and brought to the mind by simple apprehension which it is held or may be held (existentia ut exercita) by a subject, but in the to which it is itself conceivable per modum quidditatis, as constituting a certain a certain quiddity
(existentia ut signijicata). It is
i,
intelligible object, ut exercita, as held.
only in the second
(Cp. Cajetan, In Sum. theol,
2, r; 82, 3).
We should note that the
operation of the
judgment,
firms
it, it
mind (composition and division), and in the judgment that it is known not content with the representation or apprehension of existence; it afprojects into it as it is effected or able to be effected outside the mind the
is
quod cognoscens habet similitudinem rei cognitae, dicitur habere veram cognidonern.
2
conceptual objects apprehended

it
E. Lask, Die Lehre von Urtheil (cited
by Gurvitch, op. cit.).
judges, lives out intentionally itself,
mind does not approach from outside the 'distant and isolated' concepts deTonque'dec, op. cit.) which he would apply to the real. (J.
seen. In fact the
And it is there that it is
which the
in the
when in other words, the intelligence, by an a ct proper to it, that sa m^ act of existence mav kc said that even dibgexeitisisi^^T^^
by
the mind;
is
very act ofjudgment the transobjective subject
known as
subject, that
is,
in-
In throwing itself on the thing in the endeavour to penetrate

it
it, it
sees
and
grasps in
tentionally lived
It is
by the mind in its function of subject.)
both a diversity of conceptual objects into which
it
divides
it (this is
the preparation
of the judgment, as it issues from simple apprehension) and the unity of these objects (which it elucidates to itself in the construction of a statement to which it assents, which is the judgment). I would point out here what in my eyes is an error of perspective in the otherwise penetrating pages
concerns the esse rerum,
is introduced, which and by reason of which the judgment is called by St. Thomas, the achievement of knowledge ^judicium est compktivum cognitionis.' Sum. theol, ii-ii, where183, 2). And this the not expressed, but implicit reflection
here that a new, a capital element of the intellectual order
in itself presupposes
the judgment.
function'
reality
When
he
insists
on
the
to which J. de Tonqu<!dec has consecrated first analytical character of judgment, on its
by the mind,
thing.
when it judges, knows

I.)
in actu exercito its rightful
conformity with the
(Cp. supra, p. 108, note
which should be
is
'to
discompose' the 'simple thought'

itself,
(op.
cit.
p. 186J,
On
the very important distinction

J.
between existentia
ut signijicata
and
existentia ut
he
speaking not of the judgment
which but of the preparatory phase
exercita, see
Maritain, Songe de Descartes, pp. 193, etseq.
120
the order
gresses
tal

of
the purely rational (or, in
CRITICAL REALISM
make an abstraction of being, or substitute have no more power to hold us. Because the primary datum of thought
think
able
in
121
for
esse,
modern
terms, a priori) p ro_
objici
these illusions
from the one
to the other.
It is
not on
'the unity
of transcenden-
transcendental being
based. 1
apperception' but that (of a simple analogy or proportionality) of on which the possibility of the judgment is
is
being
it is
impossible to
Whether
it
bears
on
rational or factual truths,
on
the
'ideal'
or
of a pure object separated from ontological stuff holding or capof holding existence in itself, of a pure object separated from being
itself,
the (actual)
'real', it is
thus irresistibly realist.
andfor
of which the object of sensation or intellection

then
is
a deter-
And what is it then that thought wishes to observe if not the thing, the
transobjective subject in
objectifiable reserves?
all its
1 mination or an aspect. If this object is not an aspect of a thing known, of 2 a transobjective subject, it
ontological richness, in the infinity of its
must become an
aspect
of the
thing
at
A pure object (if such a notion were conceivable)
which knows: each
of the great systems of idealism have endeavoured
would bring with it no thing b ut itselfand having once served and no more
thought could but turn the leaves of the objective world like a book of
idle pictures.
any price to escape
from
this alternative,
and they have
failed.
Husser-
Han phenomenology likewise fails: it couldbe shown thatwhen, by means

of an ill-conducted abstraction which acts like a separation,
escape any (metalogical) extramental subject, what
it
If the Schelerian idea

it is
of a
in
'perspectivism'
of the world of
that
it
claims to
essences has a foundation,
in the degree to
which
world
rises
does shows up
from a world of things or of subjects,
which
so that they may

a
each
what
it
says,
and
it
only makes use of his
'I-pole'
and the various proin

th i nkin
be considered in their rightful essence, or in the relations which mutually support themnew objects of thought are inexhaustibly discoverable
as
gressively reconstituted stages

spite itself
as
of his 'objective world'
g de-
(while
all
the time rejecting any such thought), of the former
the directions of its attention succeed
one another in the human mind.

object
a transobjective subject
and the latter as a cis-objective subject existing

mind.
Indeed the phenomenalist notion of a pure
notion from
outside the apprehension of the
And when it claims to reconstitute
which neither the neo-realism of Russell and Whitehead nor German phenomenology has succeeded in breaking free appears as rightly in-
the one or the other in the
depth of the transcendental ego and the 'unionly persuaded of its success by recourse
versal self-consciousness' 3 it is
conceivable.
The unforgivable ambiguity from which

conceive
it, it is
it suffers arises
to a conjuring-trick,
ing taken in all its
which
consists in
making use of transcendental

it
be-
from the
fact that, in order to
necessary at one and the

instant that
native fullness to reduce

in other
to one of its modalites (to
same time
to and fro
to posit the idea
of being (from the
one
thinks of
being in thought)
words, by drawing out of extramental being,

all
an object) and to
reject it (the
moment one thinks of a pure object). The
which has been once and for

existence in
the
'put in parentheses', the reality
and
between the two terms of this contradiction deludes the mind with the sense of conceiving this entirely imaginary notion; a victim here of its natural propensity for being, that apprehension of being
which the
self and these others are
muffled up, to which at
same time
all 'real'
or 'existent' being
is
refused, if not in
and by
which
both
aids the deceiving idea
of its capacity to think

thought. More,
itself
that
which rejects of existence,
of the consciousness, yet in their dependence on the transcendental subjectivity4 and as inseparable from it.
the intentional life
this
apprehension and
all
by
a redoubled equivo-
Let
J
is
it
be stated here once and for
all:
there
is
no way of 'transcending'
cation, being, as
though
it
could
make an
abstraction
0r which serves as the basis or occasion for the object of intellection, when the latter
not real being.
Or, in the case of a rational not real being, a mental
comes to the point of giving its name to this pure object which makes an abstraction of it, and the philosopher at all cost directs his meditation
towards the mirage of an 'ontology' devoid of being. As soon as it is understood that this notion of the pure object demands that one should
a rational
B
work made by means of such
aspects
3
of tilings.
Cp. E. Husserl, Meditations cartisiennes, 4th and 5th meditations.
^Quot modis praedicatio

lect.o.
fit,
tot
modis ens
dicitur,' St.
Thomas,
In Metaph.,
book
v,
'Every imaginable meaning or being, whether called immanent or transcendent, makes part of the domain of transcendental subjectivity, in so far as it constitutes all meaning and being,' (E. Husserl, op. cit.).
122

no higher
position
CRmCAL
REALISM
123
realism and idealism;

ciles
which
surpassess
as
them: there
is
only a choice between them,
and reconbetween good and
This fundamental misunderstanding is bound up with the pheno1 menological eVoxv hi so far as it 'puts in parentheses' the whole
which makes accommodation with Descartes and Kant will one day find that it is false to its name.
evil.
Any
realism
a digression of phenomenology1 and the

It is
ofextramental existence andthus separates the object (the essencephenomenon) from the thing an irroxq of which it must be said that, would be legitimate ut signifcata, as envislike the cartesian doubt, it
register
Cartesian Meditations
curious to observe that the origin
of the phenomenological
by Bren-
movement lies in a form ofactivation ofpost-kantian philosophy by contact
aged eventualityrecognised as impossible but which implies a contradiction utexerdta, as really lived and experienced. In demanding from
the outset,
critically
by an imposed
is
postulate
whose
conditions have not been
with the
aristotelian
and
scholastic elements transmitted
examined, that one should livingly put extramental being 'out

practically
tano: the notions

this influence.
of the Wesenschau and intentionality clearly show But from the beginning there is a complete deviation in
taken
as a basis for
of bounds', the possibility
and by presupposition admitted
the fact that reflex activity (though clearly recognised as such) has been
utilised as if it
were primary:
though
of stopping thought short at a pure object-phenomenon, i.e. of thinking not seen that the cartesof being while refusing to think of it as being. It is
ian assertion,
it is
immediate
a priori
according to which, in order to build up a philosophy radi-
perception, as
tions
reflection could, in returning
on its
direct operaitself
2 cally free of 'preconceptions' not based
on reason,
the
mind must first
and on
their already
apprehended object, fashion for

it,
from
of all
tal
cast
out
is
in actu exercito
every certitude concerned with extramen-
the latter an object attained before
more immediately
'all
attained
being,
itself
a pre-judgment
born from a naively material con-
(and finally substitute

those evidences
itself for it),
and betake
itself to the discovery
of
which
as
'primary in themselves' surpass

reflex observation,
other conbusi-
ceivable evidences'; 2 as
ness
is
though
whose proper
of the mind: for to allow nothing to enter into a material recipient which has not previously been verified it is essential first of all to empty the receiver of all content; but, since the power of
ception of the life
auto-intellection
purely
critical,
could become constituting and constructive. 3
and
auto-criticism,
of a complete return upon
itself, is
There lies the irp&Tov fcvSos ofphenomenology.

The phenoGermany has been highly complex, and it would be a mistake to think of Husserl as its sole initiator. Without speaking of the divergent tendencies attached to the name of Max Scheler, and to-day to those of Nicolai Hartmann and Martin Heidegger, etc., there is the Munich school, which does not follow
*It is
the privilege
of the mind,
the latter has
phenomenology
as seen
by E. Husserl which
is
in question here.
menological movement in
of its
it is
certainties in
order to
no need to empty itself in reality critically verify them: exactly that of which
in actu exercito it
and remains really certain
can ideally represent to
itself in
sible,
doubting of it, in order to
realise
whether such a doubt is pos-
and of which it is difficult to appreciate the full importance as long as the teaching of Prof. Alexander Pfander has not been published in any complete
Husserl's nec-idealism,
that
it is
and it is only by such a suspension ofjudgment, signified, not lived, possible to make critical proof of the primary truths. It is
of the mind on
of an impossible
task
form
in
(cp.
sufficient
A. Pfander, Logik, Halle, 1929). The object of study being what it is, it is here to concentrate on that highly significant aspectwhich is the best known
my
Franceexhibited by E.
is
Husserl.
But
it
must be
clearly
remembered
that the con-
sideration here
2
thus limited.
cit.
itself, and the only 'novelty' is the of construction. The first period of phenomenology (the description of the cogitata as such) presents from this point of view much greater interest than the second (the wholly artificial reconstitution of 'aprioric struc-
other than the critical reflection

it
assigning to
E. Husserl, op.
tures'
of universal reality).
is
'This need to constitute and construct in the heart on nearly every page of the Meditations earthiennes.
of the reflective
process
is
marked
^Suspension ofjudgment'
in a
the phrase of Pyrrho and the ancient sceptics, used here
methodological sense.
in starting from this that
it
This
is
why phenomenology
regards itself as
all
philosophy, and as replacing the

as
lt is
veracity reflectively confirms (justifies') to itself the
'naive ontology'
of the older metaphysics.
On the other hand, in my opinion what can

ofphenomenology and 'the discoveries* The critical parts of philosophy.
is,
of the senses and its

is
own certitude of the existence of the sensible world. So that to pose,

being other than the
be retainedafter a process of careful straining

in
so often done, the
which
it
glories belongs
only to the reflective and
into question, as real
problem of the bearing of intellectual knowledge by bringing extramental being ego, not first of all possible
act)
'transcendental experience'
which
it
disengages
in
what
is
authentic in
it,
nothing
but only the existence or non-existence (in
of the
sensible world,
is
a non-sense.
124

mind
is
CRITICAL REALISM
can
in a being transparent
it is
125
because the
capable of a perfect return
upon
given direction, of seeing objects in its

its
own depth,
immaterial
itself that it
undertake a
critical (reflex) description
of its
cogitata as cogitata,
without
above
all
that property of thought, the privilege of
any need to practise the eiroxq of Husserl.

Still
more he has not seen

of the
that the
first,
absolutely unbreakable, apo-
concerned with, possible (metalogical) extramental being, ofwhich it knows in an entirely and eternally certain
dictic certainty
intellect is
itself and outside the mind, i.e. entirely indenature by which being in existent in it, posited and integrated by becomes action, its of pendent which henceforward both thought for thought's own action, and by
exist in it in
one and the same supra-subjective existence.

as far as this, if
and necessary way that in so far as it is it is not nothing. But his misunderstanding of the proper life of the intellect as such and confusion of it with
that
If
we do not go
is
we
refuse to the
mind
the power,
interioris-
which
only real
itself,
if being
itself is real,
of 'surmounting' and
is
of the
senses gives rise to the supposition that this first certitude

it
ing being in
the pure transparence of intentionality
inevitably
should bear on the actually given, in the search for
in the pure cogito. 1

all
turned material, being regarded as a 'constituent'

its
of the object through
And he sets ego cogito
cogitatum as the point
of departure for
philo-
1 'structural laws',
by
the asking of it to constitute the other and con'starting
sophy; keeping faith with the primary evidence of intuition,
it
should
fer
on
it its
own
proper meaning
from
my being
as myself' 2
rather be ego cogito ens, the starting-point, not for the whole ofphilosophy,
(whereas
otherness,
but of that reflective part of first philosophy which is the critique.
on die contrary it brings the and makes me be the other).
other to me 'starting' from its And even, as so often happens
The
those
effect
of
this
prime deviation
is
that the very notion of intenrealists

2
with Husserl, one seems so to speak to brush against the true nature of
tionality, in passing
from
the hands of the great scholastic
to
knowledge, always in the end he passes on one side of the great

It is left
secret.
of the contemporary 'Neo-Cartesians' (it is E. description of himself in his last book), has lost both its
value.
first
Husserl's
efficacy
own
its
dark that
thing
knowledge does not need

exists
it is
to
come out of itself to

It is
at-
and
tain the
which
or can exist outside itself the extramental

desired to exorcise.
in
How indeed could it be otherwise since its whole meaning comes

its
thing
which has caused the prejudice

itself that
of all from
opposition to the
is
esse
entitathum of the extramental
thought
real
the extramental
is
is
attained, in the concept that the

it is
thing? Intentionality
1
not only that property of my consciousness of
or metalogical
touched and handled, there that
grasped; for
My ego given to me in apodictic fashionthe sole being which I can posit as existing in an absolutely apodictic manner. (E. Husserl, op. My own existence (re.' . .
the very glory

exterior space
of thought's immaterial nature is that it is extended over another thing, but rather a
which, without quitting
itself,
not a thing in
life
superior
cit.)
flectively
to
grasped is certainly the most basic and irreducible of all existences in act given me. That is why it is practically more important to me than any other. But all actual
to all spatial order,
perfects itself
it
with
what
J
is
not itself the intelligible real whose fecund substance

cit.
draws
existence
which is not
that
of the Pure Act

existence or
is
contingent.
And
it is
an absolute
necessity
of essences) which should include the most basic and irreducible data ofapodictic knowledge or science. This is why the prime datum of speculative knowledge is the principle of identity, not that of the self. The ancients rightly held that the certitude of my own existence, absolute as it may be, is not for all
that a scientific certainty, because it bears
(but in the order
ofpossible
Cp. E. Husserl, op.

(in the usual sense
We know that Husserl, the declared enemy of
all
subjectiv-
the object,
it
lacks that'necessity
on a contingent object, and so, on the side of which is required to constitute a knowledge infrang-
of the word), opposes his doctrine of transcendental subjectivity to that, into which Kant fell by inconsequence, which shuts up the mind in a subjectivity which might be called cntitative, and according to which the activity of a subject considered secundum esse naturae produces or engenders the object of knowledge. For him (see Gurvitcli, op. cit., p. 22) the object is neither produced nor engendered, it is
ism
ible at all points.
Cuique suum. It is singular to see E. Husserl, and many of the critics who write of the phenomenological movement, paying honour to Brentano for his discovery of intentionality. This discovery
its
is
by an act of attention or fixation, not of formation, that the intentional synthesis is constituted. But in order that this constituting synthesis may take place in one way or
another the essential thing
is
that
it
(which
is
why Husserl admits in his own way the

is
should be constituting with regard to an object 'Copernican reversal' of Kant). To

to misunderstand precisely
at least seven centuries old (for neither
was
St.
Thomas
inventor). It
is
possible also to observe the
dependence of certain
characteristic as-
make this the proper function of intentionality most typical in it.

a
what
is
pects
ideas
of phenomenology with regard to Duns Scotus, and the esse objectwum.
of in particular to his theory
E. Husserl, op.
cit.
126

the senses,
CRITICAL REALISM
which the world (of objective
philosophy.'
1
127
all
from
gathered by them from
the (materially) existent in act.

is
realities)
has for
of us, anterior to
all
The way
'for
to evaporate the rightful mystery of knowledge
precisely to
Husserl, in order to free transcendental idealism
from
the
exorcise extramental being, to suppress these ontological (metalogical)

themselves', entirely independent
'absurd thing in itself', reconstitutes
by
more and more
artificial
pro-
of
my
thought, which
my
cedure the
whole universe of realism in the heart of the
transcendental
call this 'for-
thought makes its
own by making itself into them. 1

it
ego 'starting
from
all
its
rightful being'. 2
Though one may
Despite the important services which

rary thought (above
all,
has rendered to contempoits
midable' task the discovery

the real
of the apriori constitution of the world of
perhaps, like Bergsonism heretofore by
and of
possible being
it
by
the complete explication of the

like all
extra-philosophical influence, notably in the stimulation
which
vari-
transcendental ego,
reconstitutions,
remains in reality a reconstitution, and,
ous scientific disciplines
have received from it), despite its original realist
presupposes an original: the world of naive realism,
impulsion and its liberating virtue in regard to
monism and mechanism,

by
the
phenomenology runs the

is
risk
from the
it
outset of ambiguity. Nothing
from which phenomenological idealism is suspended like aparasite trying to suck into itself its subject: it is by it that it lives, not only with regard to
the various levels
more
instructive than the
way
in which, finally vanquished
or stages of objectivity which it reconstitutes
after first
false 'radicalism'
of Cartesianism,
has ended
up
to-day, proud of its
of all having put them in parentheses, but also in regard to its notional instruments, the Denkmitteln
recovered chains,
by indubitably returning
to the kantian tradition and
which it employs, and which are gathered by
by affirming a new transcendental idealism, which is certainly different from kantian idealism, but mainly in the fact that it refuses to 'leave
open the
possibility
way of analogy from the conceptual register of the knowledge of things.

Nevertheless an unexplained residuum remains outside this universal
science: the 'naive' belief in
illusory it
is
of a world of things
as such,
under no matter
extramental
reality.
Even
if this belief
is
what name of limited-concept.'2 "While

being'
is
'naive metaphysics' operates

'for
necessary
all
the same to assign the reason for such a uni-
with 'the absurd thing in itself' 3 on the other hand,

. . .
phenomenology
to an
versal
and irrepressible
illusion;
but in that case the method of pheno-
a practical idea
the idea of an infinite labour of theoretialso

5
'is
menology has been betrayed: and if this belief has no need ofexplication
because
it
cal determination', 4
and the world
an infinite idea, relating
finally finds itself reconstituted in the interior

it is
of the phenoitself is
infinity
of concordant experiences'.
menological eVopj, then

the difference of the
is
not illusory and the thing in
not
Despite the reserves necessitated
by
two
cases,
absurd, but it is phenomenology to

is
which an end has been put. The truth

not reconstituted, but replaced
it is
one could say that Husserl's position in regard to Kant

that
comparable
to
that the belief in extramental reality is

a substitute; a dispensation
of Berkeley to Descartes. Berkeley
also, in his battle against the
by
from
the need to explain
supposed to
'thing', believed that
he was avenging intuition; in suppressing

also, 'the
extra-
be supplied by the production of a counterfeit in the idealist style.
mental 'matter' he believed he had retrieved, he

1
meaning
Thus contradiction
nial
is
in the heart of the business. Extramental being

its
Thcse comments do not only apply to the idealism of Edouard Le Roy, of Leon Brunschvicg, and so many others, or to the phenomenology of E. Husserl, but also to
the solipsism
which one began by putting in parentheses in forbidding either

or
its
de-
affirmation finds itself (by the simple fact that in erecting a

in actti exerdto
of Schuppc and the general immanentism ofRickcrt (see on the work of the
Krzesinski,
cit.
philosophy one accepts

the thing) practically
the separation of the object and
two latter, A.
2
Une Nouvclk Philosophic de V immanence, Paris, 193 1).
denied and finally cast out (without ever having

this separation
E. Husserl, op.
I
been criticised and without even a question whether
was
of the kantian 'thing in itself, in itself unknowable and separated from the phenomenal (in place of manifesting itself through it). But it is of everything capable of an extramental or metalogical existence of which
E. Husserl
*iiid.
is
z lhid.
will willingly concede the absurdity
possiblea fundamental omission which should cause transcendental

neo-Cartesianism to be regarded as a system which
is
radically naive).
speaking here.
Much more
logical than Descartes, understandingbut
in order to
mid.
Hbil
aIbid.
128

materiality are
CRITICAL REALISM
introduced into the very world of
129
make himself more cartesian than Descartes and to sacrifice the notion of extramental beingthat the cartesian problem of passing from the
consciousness of
excluding the transobjective subject, the rightful effects spring up. In
of
intelligible essences
my
thought to certitudes concerning die being of

is
and the
cist
'a priori',
1
and
it is
vain to try not to treat
this
world
in empiri-
things (thanks to the divine veracity)
a 'contra-sense', 1 E. Husserlhas
fashion,
as those
who think with their eyes and dieir hands treat the
all its
is
undertaken to construct his entire philosophy without coming out of the phenomenological eVopJ. Nevertheless it comes about that he
leaves
it
concrete
world of the sensible; for if the intellect in its proper life is pure,
be-
despite
himself,
since
all
the interior of the iiroxj

parentheses, that in the
itself transferred to
he reconstitutes so admirably that he had left outside and put
in
in
of those experimental deposits from which it draws I do not say substance, but from all material co-action and empiric servility, it
cause all the contingent, the potential and the material, all that inert
mass
end everything that was in parentheses
finds
the interior
of the transcendental ecology
everyIn
which can be defined by its resistance to intelligibility, makes part of the world which it is absorbed in and it knows, but is situated outside it as is
that
thing except extramental subsistence and existence,
which have been
world
itself.
On
the other hand,
by
the fact that the essences per-
turned out of the parentheses at the other end and cast out into nothingness.
But then
there can be
no more parentheses and no more eVo^.

last limit it
maintaining the eiroxq to the
has been suppressed
an ad-
ceived by the mind are no longer seized in transobjective subjects existing outside the mind and themselves included in the flux of time, the
extra-temporal objects of the intellect find themselves, in an unexpected

re-appearance of Platonism, separated
mirable achievement certainly in transcendental sleight-of-hand, but

equally undeniably a glaring contradiction in fact.
from real and temporal existence;

nothing to be done but to invert
like
and in order to reunite them there

the intellect, giving
is
The ambiguity of this last stage of phenomenology is such that it only needs a momentary misunderstanding, a lapse of mind, to think out in
realist
time dominance over being, whether
M. Berg-
son one seeks to substitute time for being, or

ger to establish being over time. This
is
whether with M. Heideg-
terms
this
renovated transcendental idealism. "What in
effect has
to assure the existence of realism
been reconstituted in the heart of the 'intentional consciousness', before

the cogito,
is
by knocking away its foundation.
the
whole universe of Nature and Culture, and

it is
it is
cer-
tainly true that in so far as
known
this is in
is
the mind.
When
one
It
involuntarily thinks that this

possibly
same universe
also (and first)
CONCERNING IDEALISM
must be obvious from these considerations that the problem of the thing and the object2 is the central-knot of the problem of realism.
J As phenomenology essentially declares that it is an 'eidetic' description or analysis, it would be well, it seems, to remedy this inconvenient point. But the remedy r emains
at least
in existence outside the mind, one has passed

I
surreptitiously
into the world of realism.
am indeed not at all sure diat it is not thanks to
such unobserved slips of mind
the revenge ofnature that idealist philo-
sophers are able to believe that they have thought out their systems.
Finally, it
insufficient.
In
making the
object of the various intentional functions freely variable, by
seems that from the beginning phenomenology has ad-
vanced by
form of unnatural hybridisation between ontology and

not to be able to distinguish berisk, despite all his
imagination, in order to retain only their eidos, a rightful necessity grasped in an essence is not set before the mind, but only the statement of a factual necessity of the intentional life, a
logic. It is a grave thing for a philosopher
comment
that
succedaneum of the veritable intelligible necessity. Victor Delbos s phenomenology runs the risk of subjecting thought to the indeter-
tween the
ens reale
and ens
rationis,
and he runs the
mination of the sub-logical, finds in this point in particular another verification.

'Various useful
protestations against casde-building,
of setting
to
work on
the 'eluci-
comments on
cited,
dation'
of a universe of fictions, and of leaving on one side the proper duty of an honest philosophy, which is to assign the reasons for the given
data and to
which
have already
book this problem will be found in J. de Tonquedec's and in that of L. Noel. Cp. Rend Kremer, 'Sur la notion
i,
de re"alisme epistemologique,' in Philosephia Perennis, vol.

In those passages
p. 739.
win knowledge of them. Other inconveniences

'E. Husscrl, op.
cit.
will also
o Reflexions sur I'intelligence to which
L.
Noel is certainly referring
(op. cit.
pp. 153-4),
it
my discussion did not exclude reflective descriptions and affirma-
tions,
I
rather
not simple pre-supposed them. Affirmations which moreover are M.D.K.
i 3o

call all authentic realism 'naive'.
CRITICAL REALISM
philosophy either the
I3r
(^Philosophers imbued with Cartesianism
However much one demonstrates

,
j
j;
.,
that to apply such
an appellation
to
of nature or metaphysicsfTor what is the proper philosophy if not the world of thingssubject to time and natural of object
movement, which is also that of the experimental sciences at work on it to what is metaphysics directed except tcv from another angle? And above time which are realised in temporal existruths of wards a world
tence,
all
aristotelico-thomist realism
to
is
puerile, they will
not be undeceived,
for
in beginning with an act of knowledge of of knowledge. Let it be so ! The mind must knowledge of not and ^'^tnings in fact choose its own way from the beginning, must make a primary deI
them
this naivete* consists
which will command all its destiny. But the first act of reflecshows that diose who have chosen according to nature and without rejecting the first ray of light which shines across our hearts, the first objective evidence, have chosen wisely: and those who choose against
cision,
and towards a supreme super-temporal reality pre-eminent above thingsr/While an exclusively reflective philosophy does not judge_
of the idea of what
has not stained
its
tion
what is, but the idea of what

the idea
is,
cause
.
it
and the idea of the idea, and the idea of all this with a tone of superiority behands with the real or run the risk of its
is,
and
nature,
who demand
another light without pursuing the
first,
have
scraping the skin off them, the

to
courage proper to natural philosophy

its
"
as
chosen foolishly;
wishing to commence with what comes second.
metaphysics
is
to face these extramental realities, to turn

is.
hand
to
One
does not think of thought until after having thought of the
things
and judge of what
And their rightful humility is to take their

is
thinkable 'good
by
existing' (the real
or at
least possible); the first act
measure from things

It is
which
what idealism will not do at any price.
of thought
cogito is
is
being independent of thought.
The
cogitatum
of the
first
not cogitatum, but ens.
One does not eat the eaten, one eats bread.

thing, the objective logos
~To
separate the object

is
from the
from
the
by the idea that an intelligence may be measured by a thing, by an ontological 'for itself' which exists apart from it in an existence less noble than that which knows it, and to which the intellect
scandalised
metalogical being,
to violate the nature
of the
intellect, at
once
needs to unite itself
by an
effort
of submission, which
it
has
no power
rejecting the primary evidence
of
direct intuition
and mutilating
ever to exhaust. This scandal arises
from
the fact that intelligence exists
reflective intuition {that same reflective intuition
on which everything is
Idealism
5
not only in the created, but at a very an angelic intellect

is
made
sets
to depend) in the first
of its immediate presentations.
not intelligence per se:
an original sin against the light in the very heart of its whole philo-
man
intellect!
sophical construction.
ment by
directed to
obstacle
this, for, far
But indeed the from opposing
low point on the ladder of spirits; how much less then the huprivileges of intelligence suffer no detrito the intellect I
know not what

its
Since Leibnitz the
whole endeavour of idealism has been
of matter absolutely without any connection with
nature,
the suppression of all material or subjective causality in order to leave
the being
of things has a secret and
as it
its
were sleeping aptitude for the

intel-
only formal
causalities
and at the same time to annihilate the
'thing
embrace of the mind, and in taking

lect in reality
act,
measure from them our
every cis-objective or transobjective subject, in order to leave only pure

objects. Unless its full value
is
takes
its
measure from the intelligence,
intelligence in pure
their be-
fully restored to the thing
it is
a vain en-
by which things are measured and from which they draw

intelligence
deavour to
call
oneself a
realist.
Philosophy has become more and

it
ing and their intelligibility (and
on the other hand, it is again intelligence

intelligible in act
more purely
reflective, it is
only equivocally that
can
now
call itself
the
which
illumines, the created participation in the in-
empiric registrations, but rather analyses of a special type, capable of discerning the intelligible constituents and even the nature, as St. Thomas says, of the intellectual act and
obit is proper to distinguish what is the object as from what is the object as thing, I do not hold that that is the place to pause between the first and second considerations to solve certain epistemological questions (cp. op. tit., p. 228); as if the notion ofipure object which should not be either a thing or the intelligence. If on the other hand
that a thing could not
tellectual light
of God
which renders things
andl
which by means of the senses and of things determines the intellect which knows;1 and finally it is it which, under the same illumination
l 'Quae a nobis materialibus condirionibus sunt abstracta, unt intelligibilia actu per lumen nostri intellectus agentis.' (St. Thomas, Comtn. in de Sensu tt Sensata, lee, 1.) See
ject
be based upon, was, even by abstraction, thinkable.
'"fii, p.
152, note 1.
i32

its
CRITICAL REALISM
it-
133
derived from the Primal Truth, achieves actualising

self,
object within
and makes
its letters
it
so
much its ownthis is
of spirituality and it only sees here belowwhat it it1 self expresses, transparent with its own transparence. ) The mystery of and
creation alone can allay the scruples
the office of the mental word
jects
Surrounding it there is who are described by the second person, the one
an immense multitude of transobjective sub'to
whom one
speaks*
tain
and
who
speaks to us, each a mysterious core, rich also in a cer-
of idealism; and
it is this ascesis
pro-
per to a created intelligence that idealism expressly
rejects.
But an obscure and powerful teleological motivisation also intervenes, which idealism unconsciously obeys, so playing false at its own game. The point for it is precisely not to be led to a certain end, to avoid
a certain final conclusion. If from the very beginning there
is
and ontological depth, and whom in this relation of to be treated with respect, and with love. Thou wish me and thee swallow: it is charity which comes to superthou fish, thou spring, aperception of the relations naturally perfect our feeble philosophical
metalogical
between beings, and

brothers, the birds
St.
Francis will speak of Sister
and and
the fishes.
it is
is
No
attitude has a
is
Water and his more profound

Evidendy
with a
so careful
'
metaphysical truth,
for
one which
essentially realist.
all
an avoidance of things and their extramental consistency regnant over our thought, it is in the need above all, by a secret instinct all the more
imperious that it remains unavowed, not to
a supreme and transcendent reality,
all
M. Brunschvieg there
these things to
no
sense at
in a conversation
bird.
come finally face to face with

to
And all
say?
which
T speak familiarly, what

whom
And
one
speaks.'
I
is it
is
that they
all dieir
an abyss of personality
which
'The third person

all
is
he of
He
in
open and before which all our thoughts must needs adoringly bow. The bastions and fortifications of idealism thus show themselves like huge works of defence against that Personality who is divine.
hearts are
mouths,
things speak of him.
while
know him not
myself I
only hear the voices of all creatures speaking to one another of him: but
Nothing
is
more
significant than these colossal works. It suffices for

a point
things to exist for
God to become inevitable. Accord to

of their ontological
of moss,
do know him myselfwith no other intermediaries than the then oh then, it is Thou, yet more light and the enunciations of faith hidden and more mysterious and more free than all created things or when
I
to the smallest ant, the value
reality,
and
we cannot
than
all
escape any longer from the terrifying hands which made us all. Under these circumstances the humblest definitions of grammar take on a singular and powerful significance. 'The first person is he who
speaks.' This describes
Things are opaque to us and

see
men that might be created, it is thou that I hear! we are opaque to ourselves.
all
Pure
spirits
is
themselves and see
things transparendy. For
them
the object
the subject grasped in its entirety

in aspects as it
is
and
its
inwardness, not parcelled out
what
have
called the cis-objective subject.

I',
He
says
T not certainly in
for us. Butfor them, as for us, the distinction between the
persists, their
the sense of Husserl's 'pure
stripped of all
entitative subjectivity
object
ential
and the subject
glance does not exhaust the obedi-
but because a mysterious ontological and meta-
logical depth, a universe

this I.
unto
itself and
core of liberty, knows
itself in
*Cp.
terior
infra, p.
153. It goes without saying that I
am
speaking here of an entirely in-
and
spiritual expression.
is
and intimate
exhaustible
it
this spiritual
The deeper is the intellectual intuition, the more vital inexpression by which it is accomplished, and the more
sum of all the predicates which of time. Subject and object are absolutely identical for God alone, like existence and intellection. He knows himself completely and all things in himself, for Ms act of knowpotency which
is
in them, nor the
will
come
to things in the progress
Y
>
ledge
is
itself his infinite essence.

is
to appears in relation to oral and material expression. Cp. the preface
my
Thus then the world of authentic realism

in themselves,
a world of things existing
Philosophic Bergsomenne,
2nd
edit. It is
the phrase:
ligible, for
'it
only
sees, etc.,'
for
on the other hand, that I have used when the intelligence knows without seeing an intel-
by
design,
example, divines or obscurely experiences, or plays with
a beautiful thing,
for form it knows, I do not say without concepts, but by making use means of something other than concepts, e.g. affective connaturality or, as in aestnen perception, of the intuition of the senses themselves.
the fact
is
that
a world, an immense and personalities in interaction, as the thing which knows is itself either an individual or a person, and this thing which knows is there in the midst of the others in order to
family, a symposium of individuals
draw them in a certain way into
the heart
f itself and to feed itself on exactly that which they righdy are.
134

merit the peculiar
frankly
noetics,
CRITICAL REALISM
135
'There are two ways', says St. Thomas, 'in which a thing can be found perfect. In the first, according to the perfection of its own being
of St. Thomas and his great commentators to have formulated this problem, which is the most important one of all
and which cannot be treated
as it
in
what is proper to it according to its own rightful species. But because the specific being of one thing is distinct from the specific being of another
thing, the result
is
should be without the bring-
ing into play
of the most
sensitised metaphysical
equipment; and not
that in every created thing the perfection which
it
possesses lacks absolute perfection in the
fections arc possessed
by all other species,

itself
degree to which equal perin such a way that the perfecis
formulated it, but to have provided the most proonly indeed to have attacking it, they remind us of the need to raise Before found solution.
tion
of any thing considered in
alone
imperfect, as being only
we then enter into another order of our minds to a higher level, for aliumque return ordinem tngredi: the errors ingenium, elevare disces et things,
which are so frequent in this region proceeding from the fact that we too often confound a spiritual happening like knowledge with the
material happenings
I
part of the total perfection
of the
universe,
which
a
is
born from
the
union of all these particular perfections gathered together in it.
'And
therefore, in order that there
may be
remedy
for this imperthings, accord-
which feed our common experience.
fection, another
mode of perfection
is
is
found in created
shall take
the liberty, brevitatis studio, of proposing here a very
ing as the perfection which
the property
of a thing
is itself it is
found
in
succinct
resume in seven points of the thomist doctrine of the nature
another thing. Such is the perfection of knowing in so far as

in the degree to
it,
.
such, for
of knowledge.
which
it
knows
this
And
according to
the known in a certain way exists in mode of perfection it is possible that the
they constrain the
The advantage of these forms of condensation is that mind to the production of a synthesis occupied solely
with
1.
essentials.
perfection
thing.' 1
of the
entire universe
may
exist in a single
and
particular
There is a rigorous correspondence between knowledge and imma-
teriality.
A being
is
is
knowledgeable in the measure of its immaterialism.
2.
Why
this
so? Because to
know is, by an apparent scandal for the
HI.
OF KNOWLEDGE ITSELF
us into the very mystery of
this
principle
of identity, to be in a certain way another thing than what one
This passage from St
Thomas introduces
of what
gen Theorien, die
am
meisten von Erkenntnis sprechen, die eigentliche Erkenntnis-
knowledge
sists,
itself. It is
time to ask ourselves in what
mystery conIt is, it
problem gar nicht kennen.*
what is
the intimate nature
we call knowing.
must
to
be admitted, a question which modern philosophers have not begun

treat,
because they have never
made up
their minds to ask
it.
Neither
Descartes,
(except,
felt
it
nor Kant, nor the

seems,
nco-realists,
not even the phenomenalists
which was shown by many at the meeting of die a most striking fact. Unfortunately a misunderstanding of the rightful nature and proper value of the object of the intelligence as such, as on the other hand of the bearing of the intuition of the senses, has resulted for N. Hartmann, in forgetfulness of the fact that the transobjective intelligible must be
The return
to a realist attitude
Kant-Gescllschaft in
May
193 1
is
sought for in the possibly real, and, again, that the senses attain to the extramental real as
such, as existing
M.
Nicholai Hartmann,
who
2
,
has at least profoundly

It is
and acting
hit et hunc, in
(i.e.
demand
for the data of reality
from emo-
the antinomies with

Veritate, 2, 2.
which it is pregnant)
have righdy faced it.
De
*Cp. N. Hartmann, Metaphysik

dress to the Kant-Gescllschaft
tier
**" Erltctmtnh, 2 Aufl., Berlin, 1925- In a rcccm ,d-
(Zum Problem
dcr RealiiStsgegehenheit, 1931, Heft
32).
Nicolai
Hartmann has
stressed in the
standpoint of ordinary phenomenology, and die fact that

tion with a being independent
most remarkable way the insufficiency of the knowledge implies a rela-
of the mind, a 'transobjective' reality. With the current conceptions of phenomenology 'man vcrgtsst die Hauptsache, die Dczichung auf das Seiende, dem die Erkcnntnis gilt; ja man hat schon in der Problemstcllung das Erkenntnisphaenomen
verfchlt.
where emotion implies and declares the extramental reality of what affects us). His book contains a brilliant analysis of such facts; and it is obvious that in the concrete our life of knowledge and of emotion are mutually inclusive. But it is also clear that the facts in question, and the sense of the 'toughin ness of the real', imply the primary value of certain facts of knowledge included of them; by refusing to consider, thanks to philosophic abstraction, the proper order knowledge apart from anything else, and the treatment in this order of the problem of of die thing and the object, the realism of N. Hartmann limits itself to the classification the evidence of the general consciousness, and remains powerless to base it on reason,
tionally-transcendent' facts
facts
to
defend and confirm

is
it
by
a truly critical analysis
of the value of knowledge in
its
So ergibt
sich die
paradoxc Schlage, dass gerade
diejeru-
various degrees, as
required of metaphysical wisdom.
136
is; it is to

become another thing than oneself,
it is
CRITICAL REALISM
b ut as taken directed towards another. which is primarily
1
137
'fieri
aliud a
sc', to he or beco
first
of all in what
characterises
human knowledge,
another in so far as
another, 'esse scu fieri aliud in
quantum
aliud' 1
An angel knows itself beis is
Which
one hand, the emergence of the subject capable of knowledge from matter (which restrains or imprisons things
presupposes,
the
in the exclusiveness
on
fore
it
knows
things;
God knows himself,

and
he
it
himself the sole specific

in his essence that he
object
worthy of
all
his intelligence,
of their
own
being); and
union between the knower and the

one; for
known
the other, a form of transcending any material
on
knows
things, things possible
and things
created. In order to give a
definition
cal
when matter receives a form it is in order to constitute widi it a

which
is
span, it
of knowledge capable of including the whole of this analogiwould be necessary to say that to know is to be or become a
third term, a tcrtium quid,
informed
jnatter.
Thus
a material
jjjjjjg
oneself or another
1
otherwise than by the
existence actuating a
being can become
other,
i.e.
can change or modify
itself, it
cannot be-
come
the other.
nature intact,
While the knower, while all die time keeping its own becomes the known itself and is identified with it the
thus incomparably
things otherwise than by subject. An angel in knowing is itself and other God his wisdom is himself and subject; by limited as a its own existence which actuates a subject. existence the than by otherwise things
4.
knower being
more one with

intellect,
the
known
such
than the
The
act
of knowledge
about
us, it
is
not any of the actions which
we
cus-j
matter widi the form. 8

*.
tomarily observe
does not come under either the heading of
To know is
a
to the senses
and die
taken
as
as cognos-
'action'nor that
self it
of 'passion'
in Aristode's table; taken purely in
it-*
cirive functions, as to exist is to die essence, to the quidditative function.

It is
does not consist in the production
of anything not even
in thel
form of existence which
defines
knowledge.
To know
does not
depth of the
knowing
subject.
To know is
to advance oneself to an act
consist in
doing something, nor in receiving something, but in a de-
of existence of super-eminent perfection, which, in itself, does not imply/-/

production.
In fact there
is
gree of existence greater than that of being

fit is
an
active,
immaterial super-existence,
llonger only in an existence limited to

certain kind, as a subject existing in
removed from nothingness: by which a subject exists no what it is as a thing included in a

but widi an unlimited
exis-
the production of an image in sensitive knowledge,?

intellectual
of a mental
ior
word or concept in
knowledge; but
this interj
itself,
production is not formally the act of knowledge
itself, it is
at
once
tence in
others.
which it is or becomes so by its
own rightful activity and that of

knowledge
esse divinum
condition
and a means, and an expression of that act.3
This
is
is
why
die ancients called the act of knowledge an action provital,
This
why
in
God, because he
divinum there
is
is
infinite, existence* and
perly
immanent, and perfecdy
which belongs
to the heading
are purely and absolutely
one and the same; between the

is
'quality'.
J.
is
and the
intelligcre
not the slightest, even
virtual, distinc-
Wherever it
is
a question of a knowing being other than God,

all things,
tion; 3 his existence
very act of intellection. Having come to this point we can comprehend that die formula 'to become the other in as much as odier' most certainly defines knowhis
in
himself super-eminent over
we
are constrained, if
who we
les
wish to conceive of
"'Esse
knowledge without
absurdity, to introduce the

thesis, L'lttie
non per modum subjecti,' writes M. Pierre Garin, in his
d'aprh
principaux thomistes, Paris, 1932.
*Cp. PJJlcxionssur T intelligence, p. j3.John of St. Thomas, faithfully reproducing the
thought of Aristotle,
St.
Thomas and
article,
Cajctan, docs not say, as H. D. Simonin does

this
in
Not in the external senses, but in
ternal sense
ad. 2.)
s
_
an otherwise perspicacious
but not on
point (Re v. des

tlie
sciences phil. et
tliiol.
the internal (imagination,

(St.
format
sibi
formam scnsibilcm.' aliquam 4
memory, etc.). The exThomas, Quodlib., v, 9.

act
May
193 1): become the similitude of die object, but become

tlie
other, become (immaterially
and intentionally)
object itself.
Cp. Reflexions stir I' intelligence.
intellection,
immanent
*Averroes, In HI,
8
De Anima, coram, v, digression;* parte ultima, g. 2.

nature, 5th edit., p. 399-
2 7.
1; 34. r,
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, son existence et sa
c.tfoo/.,i,p.q.
On the production of the mental word by the In Sum. theol, 1, such and virtually productive, see Cajetan, a. 1 ad. 2; 79, 2: John of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil, Phil Nat., iii, P. q. It,
as
of
27i di S p. I2ia . s .

138

existence
CRITICAL REALISM
into
it.
139
notion of a kind of
entirely particular, which th ancients called esse intentionale, intentional being, and which is
is
which
Scrutinise everything entitative in the transmitting
medium of
wave
opposed
the sensitive qualities,
you
will only find the properties and the
to the esse naturae, to the

its
being which a thing possesses
when it exists in
and other
the soul
movements
that the physician recognises,
you
will not bring
own nature. For indeed the scandals suffered by the principle of idencan only be apparent, and
to
it is
under the
scalpel: its quality has nevertheless entered in, secun-
tity
certain that if the characteristic of the

it is,
dum
esse intentionale, since
the senses will perceive

is
it
when
the
waves of
knower is
be another thing than what
we must needs,
as
to avoid
the vibrations reach the organ. It

tion to think, like
is
dream of the
materialist imagina-
absurdity, distinguish
two ways of having

is
existence, conceive
of an esse
Democritus, that it enters in
entitatively, or because it
which is not the rightful existence of a subject
such or of its
accidents
to
not so to deny, like
modern
'scientists', that it
can enter in
at
all.
The
/How is it that the knower

/its
I
the
known?
is
It
cannot be according
esse intentionale,
even
when not
concerned with the world of know-
natural being that it can be what it
not.
its
ledge,
is
already for forms a means of escape from the slavery of matter;
How is the known in the knower? It cannot be according to

ral
natu-
the scholastics firequendy call esse spirituale this existence

this
not for
itself,
being that a tree or a stone is in the mind.
tendenz-existence by which forms which are not their own supervene
'to
therefore necessary to admit another form of existence, according which the known will be in the knower, and the knower will be the known: an entirely tendential and immaterial existences whose office
'It is
in things. I
hold that a great field of interests
lies
open for philosophers

is
in the study
of the part
it
plays even in the world of physics, which
not to posit a thing apart from nothingness in itself and as subject, but on the contrary, for another thing and in relation; which \ioes not seal up a thing in its natural limits but disengages it from them; bV which the
is
form of universal animation by which movement brings to bodies more than they are in themselves, and colours all nature with a semblance of life and feeling. 1 However this may be, our concern here is with the part it plays in knowledge and the
doubdess the cause of that
immaterial operations of the
in the soul
latter,
thing exists in the soul by another existence than
its
own, and rhe soul is

in-
the intentional presence of the object
or becomes the thing according to another existence than itsôwn:

tentional being,
which
is,
according to Cajetan, there to remedy
that
the
and the intentional transformation of the soul into the object, one and the other functions of the immateriality (imperfect for the
absolute for the intelligence) of the cognitive faculties.
is
imperfection essential to every created

sion of a limited nature and the lack
knowing
subject
of the
posses-
senses,
6.
by being itself of all the rest.
In another order than that of knowledge, in that of efficient activity

is it
not equally necessary to admit an intentional manner of existing
means of union of the knower and the known? The which the known is intentionally in the knower, and by which the knower becomes intentionally the known? It is the whole
the
What
medium thanks
to
the way, for example, in
which
artistic talent passes into

is
the hand and
world of intra-psychic immaterial forms which in the soul are

deputies
species.
like the
the brush of a painter? For the entire picture

there
its
is
the
work
of the brush,
nothing in the picture not caused by the brush, and nevertheless beauty and intelligible radiance, the spiritual values with which the
is
of the object and which the ancients called similitudes or This word, species, has no equivalent in modern language, and I
projectiles,
picture
charged, surpass
all
the capabilities, in
its
connection with the

itself:
material universe, of the causality proper to the brush
a causality
higher than
passed into
its
it.
own, and superimposed upon its own, must then have If you scrutinise everything 'entitative', or existing secun-
which caused so much difficulty for the ancients, by the fact that at the first instant of movement and because of it, the qualitative state which exists in the agent and is the immediate cause of the movement (speaking in ontological terms, it is by design that I do not use the terms
could be perhaps explained
1-
rhe movement of
dum
art,
esse naturae in die brush, you will find no element of the painter's only the substance and the qualities of the brush and the movement
it is
which belong to die vocabulary of mechanics) passes secundum esse intentionale into the mobile object. From this standpoint it would be possible to hold the Galilean principle of inertia viable not only from the point of view of physico-mathematical science (at least, according to the mechanics of Einstein, for a space ideally supposed which would
be totally devoid of curvature) but also from that of the philosophy of nature.
,
to
which
directed
by
the hand; neverdieless the art has passed
HO
CRITICAL REALISM
has entered into
sible in
its
141
the sen-
have decided that die aptest rendering of it is the expression, presentative

or objectifyingform. 1
depths; and having so
become intentionally
No more than that of the esse intentionale, the notion

others.
the initial or 'prime* act (the sense and the sensible then
make
of species
already
is
not for the philosopher an element of explication which is
known and fully elucidated by
They are rather supports

the
operation), in the terminal or 'second' act it beonly one principle of comes it, in its own immanent action, and then makes only one act
which result from the analysis of the data and of which it constrains
mind
to recognise the reality
with certainty
if the analysis has itself

intelligible
with the feltnot without producing at the same time an image of die the sensible order in the imagination and the latter, a species expressa of
progressed correcdy and under the constant pressure of

necessities. It is absolutely
memory.
some determination should supervene in die knower, thanks to which what is not its should he in it
necessary that
esse intentionale
The
intelligence
conceives in the
knows things in forming them in the fruit which it bosom of its own immateriality. The Thomists, folit
secundum
and not
like
an accident in a substance, and

as that
lowing Aristode, recognise in

intellect)
an active light (the agens or activating
which
will be able to exist
with the same active super-existence

species
is
which, making use of sensible representations and disengaging
of the knower become the known. The

this internal determination. 2
nothing other than
In the case of sensitive knowledge, the external sense, itself in a

vital tension,
state
of
and which has only to 'open itself' to

this it is
know
(all is
ready in
which diey contain in potentia* (which is not possible on one side the individualising notes enclosing the sensible as such), specifies the intelligence by means of a species impressa, of a 'presentative form' abstracted from the sensible and
the intelligibility
without leaving
advance for it, and in
comparable to an already acquired intel-
'received'
tellect; it
by means of it. This

species is
is
then the prime or
initial act
of die in-
lectual habitude), 3 receives the thing
by its
qualities acting
on the organ,
a 'received
has become, as indeed a principle of action, intentionally the
which
so offers itself to be felt
impressa, a presentative
(we call it 'the form imprinted on it

it is
sensible in act'), a species

let
presentative form'
thanks to which
(it is
object,
which in its
of its
hidden in its depths

as
like a fecundating seed,
us call
it
a co-principle
of knowledge (according
the intellect, the sufficing
specified as
by
germ which
principle
own proper action, is already itself).2 And it is thus, acand producing thus in
it,
^he expression, 'presentative form' would be preferable if 'presentative' evoked the

idea
tuated
fruit,
by
this species impressa,
like a living
of making present rather than that o( presenting, which

the concept
is
sufficiently inapplicable
a mental
word or concept, a species expressa of an intelligible order,

it
to the intelligible species impressa
which presents the object to the mind). The expression 'objectifying form' is better, on condition that it is understood that it is the thing itself which, by this form, is become object (only in a radical manner in the intelligible species impressa, in express fashion is the concept); but it is
to be feared that the habits
an 'elaborated presentative form', in which
brings the object to the
sovereign degree of actuality and intelligible formation, that it becomes

itself in
ultimate act this object. If the distinction between the prime and
of modem language may here induce
a misunderstanding.
the second act re-appears again thus in the act

this last, as I
"Cp.
St.
Thomas, Sum. Contra Gent., ii, 98.

ij
have
already said, constitutes in itself alone a
of knowing, it is because whole meta-
tov yew&VTOs orav Be yewrjdfj, e^ rj?>Tj <Lcnrep eV<.cmjjUijv kccI to alo6dve<r8xi. kxI to koct ivepyeiav hk ofiotws; Ae/troti t<3 6eo}petv.' (Aristotle, De Anima, B. 5, 417. > i6->-) Cp. St. Thomas's commentary, lect. 12: 'Quod nondum habet sensum et natum
jav Trpa>rr) fierapoXr/ ytvertxi vtto
est
rov 8 cwidrjTtKov
physical order,
where are re-united, transposed into the same line which

act,
Material things are sensible in

process
but only potentially
intelligible,
and the whole
of human knowledge
consists in bringing
them
progressively, first to intelli-
habere in potentia ad sensum. Et quod
potentia sentiens, sicut circa scientiam

anirnali:
jam habet sensum et nondum sentit est dicebatur Sensum autem naturaliter inest
gibility in act (in the species inteiiigibilis impressa),

(in the
then to the state of intellection in act
mental word and the intellective operations).

. .
unde sicut per generationem acquirit propriam naturam et speciem, ita acquirit sensum. Secus autem de scientia, quae non inest homini per naturam, sed acquiritur per intentionem et discipunam hoc Cum autem animal jam generatum est,'
''Intellectum est intelhgens

Veritate, 8, 6, ad. 3.)
ambo
se
habent ut
i,
unum
agens.' (St.
Thomas, De
Cp. Cajetan, in Sum.
theol,
14,
%'
Cum cognosces debeat
WW
esse sufficiensprincipium
ntodo habet sensum, sicut aliquis habet scientiam
quandojam
Mat.
Sed quando jam
senrit
bus perfectis naturis
commune estoportet quod
omnisuae propriae operationis, quae est cognoscerequia hoc illius, sit specificativum principium
secundum actum, tunc
se
habet sicut ille qui jam actu considcrat.'
quod est esse cognitum'
142
is

of knowledge,
at
CRITICAL REALISM
mental
143
it-
form and the existence in the line of being and that of the operative form and the operation in the line of action. Is not knowledge at once existence and (immanent) action? The soul, by its faculties of knowledge,
becomes
it as
that
once the distinction of the
essential
word or
concept, a presentative
form proffered from within

becomes
its intelligible
self by the intellect,
and by which
it
intentionally
in the final
act the thing
taken as such or according to
determinations.
first (intentionally)
die object in the
prime
act, in
order to become
explain thanks to the universal
motion of God working in all things,

all
motion which is
a result in the second, as nature exists

7.
before it acts.
species
In
what
is
concerned widi the
or preventative forms,
it is
but also in particular for the objective influence of bodies on our senses, see the remarkable writing of R. Garrigou-Lagrange in Le RJalisme du principe definable", 1932: cp. Yves Simon, Introthings,
duction a
not only generally prerequisite for
the actions
of created
necessary to distinguish carefully

functions.
tions
between two very
different parts or
Vontohgie du connaitre, 193 3 .)
would only here draw attention to

attained, as
I
the fact that
On
the side of immaterial forms, these species are modifica-
while the object

the concept
of intellectual knowledge is
have
said
on pp. 139^41, in
of the soul, and by this right they determine the faculty in the same
as
and in the mind, the object of the externa]
senses
on the contrary is attained
not in the word or image, but such as it is outside the mind, in the very action, extramentally,
way
any other form determines any odier
subject, but these modifi-
of the thing on the

(St.
senses: sensus secundum actum sunt singularium quae sunt extra
cations
of the proper nature of our
soul, these entitative modifications,
arc not prc-rcquisite to
knowledge; they make no part of knowledge.
Thomas, In De Anima, book ii, Iect. T2), sensatio termmatur ad resprout extra stmt (John of St. Thomas, Phil. Nat., iii, P. q. 6, a. 1 and 4); that is to sayfor sensation
is
atmam
On the other hand prescntative forms are, in so far as they are means
to knowledge, purely
similitudes,
i.c.
not a transitive act, but an
the
end of the sensation
(like the
immanent art which is accomplished in the sensesthat end of every immanent operation, an end contem-
and formally deputies of the
object, simply
its
in the soul they arc die object itself detached
from
its
plated or loved, .not produced) is in the subject itself, in ipso operante, but on the other hand the sensible reality is in the sensesby its transitive action, actio in passio such as
own existence and made present in an intentional and immaterial state; in this way they do not determine the faculty as a form determines matter
outside the soul; sensation, while all the while terminating in the senses, thus terminates in the sensible externally, prout est extra, in the action of the thing on die
is
senses;
and
the existence in act, outside the

is
knowing subject, of the
thing present in it by its action,
or a subject, but in relation to the entirely immaterial and supra-
subjective union
first act,
itself.
by which
the one becomes,
first
intentionally in the
one of the constituent factors of the object as such of the senses; the wholly immanent of sensation, whose beginning is the species impressa, has an end, an object which in its very objectivity implies the existence in act of the thing: to such a point that in the
act
then in the second act and

diis entirely
by
its
vital operation, the other in
absence
of a thing actually given by

us, it
(I
its
is
action (even if a star
had ceased
to exist at the
And
immaterial information, in which the soul only

its
moment when its light reached

ful
yet present by
its
action), sensation in the right-
receives or experiences in order to exercise
own
vital activity, to
bring
tutes
itself in act
into an existence not limited to
itself, is
what
consti-
knowledge.
In thus
making
a resume" of knowledge,
it
shows itself to us
as
an im-
'manent and vital operation, which essentially consists not in making, but
in being: in being
or becoming a thing itself or others odierwise than by the existence actuating a subject; which implies a much higher union than that of die form and matter composing a conjunction or
do not mean an imaginative perception or a hallucination) non movcatur a rebus extra, sed ex imaginationc vcl aliis supcrioribus viribus, non est vere sentire* (St. Thomas, In IV /> "** 44, <J. 2, a. r, sol. 3). 'Cum sensum non sentiat nisi per hoc quod a sensibili pantur . . sequitur quod homo non sentiat calorem ignis si per ignem agentem non sit simihtudo caloris ignis in organo sentiendi. Si enim ilia species caloris in organo ab alio agente ficret, tactus etsi sentirct calorem, non tamen sentiret calorem ignis nee senis
meaning of the word
absolutely impossible. 'Si organura sentiendi
nret
sibili
ignem esse calidum, aim tamen hoc judicct sensus, cujus judicium in proprio sennon errat' (De Pot., 3,7). Cp. Sum. tlieol, iii, 76", 8, and the very just remarks of
J.
cit. It is
de Tonquddcc, op.
self
this resolution
of the knowledge of the senses in the thing it-
tertium quid,
and wliich
also presupposes diat die object
known is intento a
tionally
made
and in actual existence which finally the primary foundation for the veracity of is our knowledge. (C . John of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil Nat., iii, P. q. 6, a. I.)
P
In thus particularising the scholastic theory of sensation, i.e. in admitting that the inof the senses bears on the externally real in itself, not as taken from the standpoint of nature or of essence (which is the proper object of the intellect), but as it
tuition
present in die faculty thanks to a species, a prescntative
form;
'It
finally, that intellectual
knowledge
is
accomplished thanks
has not been
my intention here to treat specially of sensitive knowledge.

this
(For the
actually acts
on
is
the senses
by its qualities, or as
it is
exterior in its action
on the senses
(an
mystery proper to
mode of knowledge, which implies immateriality while all the

last analysis
acton which
to
while being the act of an organ and which the philosopher can only in the
something real but which is accomplished in the organ), it is possible reply without difficulty to the principal objections drawn from the 'errors of the
144

portrait painted
CRITICAL REALISM
on canvas which we
rests for a
H5
on
to
passes
see in a gallery, are objects
THE CONCEPT1
Thomists distinguish between two forms of sign which are
different,
essentially
which our knowledge

other objects
moment and
on from them
which
are
known thanks
to them, to the fire of which the
what
is
called the instrumental sign
and the format
sign.
An in-
strumental sign
is
something which once
known
in itself makes anrising to the sky, a

effect, etc.).
other thing consecutively

senses' (the
known: a
trail
of smoke
smoke is the effect and the sign, to the sitter of whom the portrait is the image and the sign. A formal sign is one whose whole essence is to signify. It is not an object
which, having at
first its full
value as an object, nevertheless primar-
apparent curvature of a stick under water, the Dopplcr

is
The
sensible quality
perceived in effect such as
it is
in
tlte
action
which a body
exercises
(in-
upon
it,
and
in the instant that it attains the sense after transmission
through the
medium. The fundamental realistic value of sensible perception and at the same time the measure of re htivity which it implies, on account of the materiality with which it is bound up, are thus at once safeguarded. If it were desired to draw out a sketch-plan of the diverse moments of sensible knowledge and intellectual knowledge, one could do so like this:
ternal or external)
some other object; it is something which makes itself known before being itself known as an object, or more precisely, something which before being itself known as an object by an act of reflection, is only known by the knowledge which is conveyed by its means to the mind of the object, in other words, which is known not in 'appearing'
ily signifies
as
an object, but
the
by
'disappearing* as object, because

itself.
its
essence
is
to re-
late
mind
to
something other than

till
Everything which has
OUTSIDE THE. fliND.
been established up
impressa,
now enables
us to comprehend that the species
or enlarged presentative forms which intervene in knowledge,
are
formal not instrumental signs.
Remembrance or
the presentative
memory and which the memory uses hie et nunc is not what is known when we remember, it is the means by which we know; and what we know by this means is the past itself, the thing or event
form held in the
The concept or mental word is not known when our intellect is at work; it is the means by which intellection takes place; and what we know by this means is the nature or
held in the substance of our past.
what is
intelligible
determination in
itself
of some
actual or possibly existing'
thing.
k3 thing-1
s
These (elaborated) presentative forms3 are the sole realities which]

pp. 147-50.
(species impressae) are
See
infra,
Receivcd presentative forms
not
called formal signs
by
the
scholastics,
because they are at the beginning, not the end, of the act of knowledge,
and thus are not themselves

the object.
known
(in actti exercito)
in the
same knowledge
as attains
IN
THQMIfO.
They form part of the pre-conscious equipment of knowledge; ifconsriousncss can attain to them (cp. Sum. theol, 1, 85, 2: Contra Gent., ii, 7s; CompenL TheoL, cap. 8j), it is by the mind's reflection on its acts ('secundum eamdem reflexionem intelligit et suum intelligere et speciem qua incelligit,' Sum. tfteol, ibid.), and only in so far
as it is
Fig. 6.
l
conscious
For a more detailed exposition,
would
refer the reader to the chapters which
treat
intelligibilem
non per
the
same theme in RJJiexions sur
I'lntelligcnce,
chaps,
and
ii
(cp.
La Philosophic
Bergso-
objectum cujus
is
of the object of which it is the species ('intellcctus cognoscit speciem esscntiam suam, neque per aliquam speciem, sed cognoscendo ad. 3). The est species, per quamdam reflexionem,* De Veritate, 10, 9,
second edition, Part ii, chap. 2), which the following paragraphs, like the preceding ones, presuppose and complete.
nienne, preface to the
intelligence actualized
by intellection of the
so actualiscd
and
it
object has become (but only in so far as nothing perceives the object) intelligible in act to itself (for
it is
M.D.K.
'
146
CRITICAL REALISM
rightful
correspond to the notion of formal signs, a notion 'cut to their measur according to the exigencies of an analysis which respects the
H7
nature of knowledge, and belong only to it. All the other signs of which we have experience are instrumental ones. This is why, the
in a synoptic table, we should obtain the following tellectual knowledge scheme, whose scholarly aspect needs excuse, but which is of assistance in
clarifying certain
important distinctions which in my opinion are capital.

In theMind
Outside the
moment
one neglects or forgets the irreducible originality of the things of knowledge, presentative forms are so easily confounded with instrumental
ones, just as the
Mind
immanent
activity
of
St.
Thomas
Concept (Quo)
as modification
as species
Thing (Quod)
object
as
sensation
and
intellection
at
is
confused with the transitive activity proper to bodies, and
thing
once
of the subject
(formal sign)
(formal object) (material object)
knowledge
St.
perishes.
idealist positions,
having
Thomas, refuting beforehand certain
took
great
intentional existence
existence in nature
care to point out that the species or presentative forms are not the objects
jects
of our knowledge, but pure means thereto. They only, become the obof knowledge reflectively, and thanks to the production of a new
If,
Idea (Quod)
Descartes
fdeat
(Quod)
'formal' reality
'objective*
reality
thing
concept.
if it
is
he explains, our knowledge stops
at
them, in other words,
of the idea
which resembles
the idea
own representations that we know, then, on the one hand, all would be absorbed by one unique one, psychology; on the other hand, contradictions would be true, since a true judgment would be a judgment in conformity with our representations: he who decided
our
sciences
(of the idea)
[The Intentional has disappeared]
Berkeley
idea-thing
nothings
2 plus 2 equal 4 and he who decided that 2 plus 2 do not equal 4 would be equally right in each declaring according to their respective
that
representations.
Kant
phenomenal thing-in-itself unknowably built up.
Thus
presentative forms, concepts in particular, are

call
pure means of knowing; the scholastics

objects by which
diem
objectum quo, mental

Hegel
[In
Absolute Thought]
knowledge
takes place.
What is known thanks

is
No thing-in-itself
(productive
spontaneity)
auto-objectification
if not thought
itself
to these
immaterial
species,
they called objectum quod, the object which
known.
of the mind
If we should
intclligiblc
group the various elements which coalesce in an act of in[In Intentional Consciousness]
is
and it is by the same reflection on its intelligere extending itself by degrees, by the same and only act of consciousness of its knowledge of the object, that it takes consciousness, in the degree of their existence and nature (in
in act);
otherwise than it
Phenomenologists
Nothingin-itself
and
Critical Realists*
(The intentional object-essence thing has re-appeared)
so far as
it
knows them
est
of the specks
itself
impressa, habitus
(which non
of that act, which they arc by their very essence) and potency and, only as to its existence, of the soul principium actuum per suam essentiam, sed per vires suas,' De
as origins
[In Consciousness]
American
Neo-realists
Veritate, 10, 9.
Cp.
supra, p. 108,
note
1). An act of consciousness which is singular and

also
concrete and an entirely different thing than the abstract and universal (and
reflective) scientific
The immanental thingthought in so much as

it is
thing
knowledge of the nature of species, of habitus, of potency and of the

I
souL
It
was by an inadvertency, which
Reflexions sur
V intelligence
the species impressa

its
hasten to correct here, that in certain passages of was called 'formal sign'. This should be
place.
have distinguished two elements in the concept: an entitadve
function,
by which it is
a modification or accident
it is
of the soul, and an in-
corrected and 'pure means, quo' read in
tentional function,
by which
the formal sign of a thing, in which
148

is
CRITICAL RE ALrSM
th
the object
grasped
by the mind. This

is
object
which
is
grasped by
mind in and by
the concept
the doing in
itself,
taken according
concept to be abstract
thing to be singular
in the thing exists
and
universal. 1
It is essential
to the extramental
to one
or other of its determinations, and which,

abstraction has been brought
first
though stripped of
first
by sensation and dien b

its
and concrete. The
object,
is
with natural existence,
within the mind. For the three

diought;
it is
terms of this
proper existence diagram are all inside

attained, 1 in the
on the other hand, which singular and concrete, as is

concept with intentional
indifferendy one or the
universality
it is
proper to the thing, and

existence,
which
and
exists in the
in die depth
of thought that the object is

it is
which
is
abstract
universal,
is
heart of die intelligence that

ten called
it
objectivus conceptus), it
known (which is why the ancients ofis only the thing in its own proper
is
2 other. It is posited in the
mind in a state of abstraction and

existence in the concept,
is
which comes to
it
from its
where
attained
existence (possible or actual)
which
extramental and metalogical.
by the mind, but
this state
not
essential to
it,
since in the judgment, in

I
But what is
ables
the declaration 'Peter is a
capital
is
that while existing
under two
man', for example,
different conditions
identify Peter and the
in the concept in a state

it
to be manipulated, divided,
of universality and of abstraction which encompared by the mind and also of discourse
object of thought,
man.
I
As to the concept or mental word which I have in mind when

'man',
it is
think
enter into the connections

dividuality
and in the thing in one of

object
in-
and concretion, nevertheless the

terms,
and the
thing are not

quod,
held to be the sign of the thing, the similitude or deputy of the object, an inward end in which the object is intellectually perceived (terminus in quo).
materialisation
two known which exists

object.
two
quods,
but one:
it is
is
one and the same

attained
for itself in the thing,
and which
by
the
mind as
or
But let us be on our guard against that or spatialisation which language always brings in its
ut sic (this existence, otherwise,
is is
as signified reduplicative
only of interest to the
Let the thing, for example, be Peter.

certain conditions:
He exists outside the mind under

etc.,
mind's logical reflection
the cognitum,
he
is
not only man, but animal, substance,

ill
on itself, which cp. John of St. Thomas,
why it
has not been dealt with here.

i,
On
Curs, theol,
P. q. 12, disp. ij,
a. 3
R. Dald'hist. de
biez, 'Les
laphil.,
Sources scolastiques de
la theorie cart&ieruie
de 1'etre objecrif ', Rev.
philosopher or musician,
as the object
or well. Let the
object,
for example, be Peter
Oct.-Dec. 1929.)
of thought 'man', which has and

in the concept
in Peter
and outside
the mind
a natural existence,
êxistence (and
and
in the
it is
mind an
intentional
The two other forms of existence, on the other hand, are of a real or 'physical* (in the scholastic sense of the word) order: the first positing the thing in nature as divided
from nothingness; the second positing
the
its presentative form in thought and directing mind on the thingand being also the form of existence whereby the mind is the thing. Immaterial existence is immaterial and non-entitative, not for itself, yet real; it has this formal effect not by what the thing is (if not in the mind, by its presentative form), but by what the mind which is the thing knows; it really, physically, affects the species which makes known and the mind which knows. It brings a tension, a stimulation to the mind, a plenitude; it makes it fecund (in the species impressa) or proceeds from it as it perfects itself (in the species expressa).
which
in the degree to
which
known
or posited be-
fore the
l
mind
has only an ideal or rational existence). 2

intelligitur
It is essential to
'Objectum quod
trahendo res ad
debet esse intra intellectum ct intra ipsum

i,
attingi.'
(John of St. Thomas, Curs,

nisi
sc, et
tlieol,
P. q. 27, disp. 12,
a. 7, n. 4.) 'Intellectus
non intelligit
intra se considerando,
docet
rem
intellectum
non
posse esse
non extra se inspiciendo. Et D. Thomas rem ut ad extra, sed ut intra, et ut est unum cum
intellectu, ut q.
9 de Pot.
a. 5, et q. 8, a. 1, ct locis infra citandis.' {Ibid. a. 5, n. 5.)
CP- Df
the
Veritate, 4, 2, ad.
7
esse naturae,
which
*Which does not, I would remark en passant, prevent there being a refex concept, is righdy and distincdy so, of the singular. Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs.
So considered secundum se, seu In statu solitudmis, nature is neither singular nor uniConsidered secundum esse quod habet in rebus (esse naturae), it is, in fact, singular.
in
'Three forms of esse must therefore be distinguished: the

thing exists outside thought,
thing.
is,
by which
rai7.War.,iii,P.q.io,a.4.
is,
in
itself,
The esse
intentionalc,
by which
as singular and concrete: entitative existence or the thing exists in thought in order to be known,
versal.
in
itself,
abstract
and
universal: representative existence or as sign. Equally abstract
Considered secundum esse quod habet

esse
abstraction intellectus (esse intentionale
and
and universal, the
esse
cognitum scu objectivum,
by which
the thing exists in and
for
thought, in the degree to winch it is
known, is purely ideal, and implies no
real determin-
ation neither in the thing nor in the mind (unless presumptively in the degree to which the being thought of die object presupposes the thinking of the mind): ideal existence
The whole of this doctrine supposes the real distinction (in everything which is not God) between nature and esse. Cp. St. Thomas, De Ente et Essentia, chap. 4; John of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil, log. ii.,P.
it is,
cognitum seu objectivutn)
in fact, universal.
q-3-a.
1.
5o

not careful.
CRITICAL REALISM
and conpenetrated by intellection in act,
concept in
its
train if we are
material content in a
in another;
it is
by no means in the concept as a material container, it is no material thing enclosed
The
151
object
is
and known, it is not as signified end that it is intelkctum in actu, it is thought

grasped
it is as
an immaterial 'word', omitted by the mind in explaincontain, for it, is simply and purely to know. The obto object; the ing attained in the concept in the sense that ject exists in the concept and is
the fulfilment of this intellectual producin proffering the concept, in attains by this and immediately tion, the immanent act of intellection
die object,
signifying end. 1
of and the concept in its intentional function and as formal sign are not two distinct things (just as intentionality is not precisely a thingthe subject
in-itself,
Finally, the
entitative function
and
as modification
but rather a mode). These are two formal aspects of two for-
and
attains it clad in the conditions
of the concept; and this is
only possible because the concept is only a sign, a deputy or similitude of the object by right of the formal sign, as was pointed out above.
if not that the notions of deputy or similitude here of all those features which would purified be must or image the eyes of the mind, like a porbefore coming things to belong
mally distinct values of the same thing, the intentional function only applying to knowledge, the entitative function to the being of nature
(on this occasion, the soul itself).
As
the divine essence has
itself,
in bespecies
ing intellection in pure act, the value

expressa for the intelligence
is is
of both
species impressa
and
What does this mean,
of the
its
blessed, as the substance
of an angel
itself
the species impressa for
intelligence, the entity
of the concept
in itself for us the

is
before our bodily eyes? But then, if the concept is not a thing resembling the object, what remains of it? It remains beingas existrait
formal sign of the object. As thing or entity the

;
concept
arising
an accident, a quality of modification of the soul2 but as in the soul as a fruit and expression of the intelligence already
species impressa, already 'perfect', 8
tent intentionally in the soul,
and so carrying the object
to the
ulti-
formed by the
1
and under the action
by
mate degree of spirituality, as making known what the thing or object is make two from right of the term known. The concept and the thing
of entity;
but
as
Verbum
est
'quiddam mente conceptum quo

i-ii,
homo exprimit mentalicer ea de qui-
bus cogitat'. (Sum. cheoL,

-
93, i, ad. 2.)
the point of view
formal sign and in the line no longer
On the nature of the concept and its identity, "with regard to intelligible constitution,
the object of being, but of knowledge, it must be" said that it and its content, is the intelact, in intellection fruit of The two. do not make
ligible object itself,
with the object, see the long discussion in Appendix i, apropos of the criticism offered by M. D. Roland-Gosselin. It gives me pleasure to mark the agreement which J. dc Tonque"dec has exhibited towards my position on this important question (cp. op.
tit.
but
this intelligible content,

is
which
as object
is set
pp. 145-6).
scholastics class it
it
before the mind, as concept
vitally proffered
by the mind, and has for
"The
because
among the qualities of the first kind
(dispositions
and habits),
itself; as to its intelligible constitution its existence the act of intellection identical with the objectindeed I do not say in
therefore the concept is

as
much
as it will
be what
is
known, but exactly
in as
much
as it
is
the
act,
knowing (cp. John of St. Thomas, log. ii, P. q. 18, a. 2). But with this difference from habitude in the ordinary sense of the word, which belongs to the subject and its dynamism, the concept comes from the side of the object, which it presents to the mind.
Actuated
ciple
in actu primo by the species impressa, the intelligence is the sufficing prinof its own operation. This is why Aristotle and St. Thomas call intellective action
suitably disposes nature in regard to
ultimate sign and inward end by which the intellect becomes, in
is not what it knows. It has just been pointed out that the formal sign knowledge the to leads consequendy which first at known something in the very of another. Now it is understood that it is something known
actus perfect!,
the act
of that which
is
already in
act.
'Hujusmodi autem
(lect. 12).'
actio est actus

i,
perfecti, id est existentis

3>
in actu, ut dicitur in 3
De Anxma
(Sum. theol,
18,
ad. 1 .)
The apocryphal opuscule De Natura verbi has a precious passage on this theme
quo formato
quia
intelligit,
makes known and by the act of making known. intelThe immanent reason of the presentation of the object to the
degree to which
it
but which needs to be carefully understood: 'Prima actio ejus per speciem est formatio
sin objecti,
lect in act, the
concept or mental
act,
word
it
is
steeped in intellectuality
act, is
its
in act; to
intrinsic
be thought in
to terminate intellection in in
simul tamen tempore ipse format, et formatum est, non sunt motus de potentia ad actum, quia jam factus est intellectus in actu per speciem, sed processus perfectus de actu in actum, ubi non requiritur ahqua species motus.' John of St. Thomas for his part writes: 'Ex quibus patet pertinere
et
simul
intelligit,
ista
denomination, since
it is
that the object like the
intellect
ad ipsum intellectum,
achieves the ultimate act of
intellectuality.
But
it is
not
as object that
suo actu qui est intelligere, formare sibi objectum in aliqua simitudine repraesentante et intra se ponere, ibique unire per modum termini seu objecti
quod
intelligere terminatur, sicut per
speciem impressa
unitur ut principium
'
152

created participation in the intellectual
CRITICAL REALISM
concept has
(like all
153
of this
power of God, of that

intellect
die objectifying forms) the privilege of transcendentitativc information exercised

It is
it
centre of immateriality perpetually in act, the highest point of 'spiritual tension naturally present in us, what should be called the active
(intellectus agens) .whence
ing the function
of
by
it,
and of beitself,
the intellect which
knows
derives
all its foris
mative energy,1
like a spirit. ing present in die faculty from the intelligence in living act, that
from
the intelligence
holds
this privilege, as
though
diis quality, this
modification of the soul which

Ille
the
the intelligence gathered all its

there to bring it to a
own spirituality into this one active point,

the concept
is
detenninans intellectual ad pariendam notitiam.
autem
actus
quo formatur
5).
obiec-
maximum. Thus
in the intelligence
turn est <x>gaitio:cognoscendoenimformatobjectum,etfor>nandoMtelligit, quia simulformat et formatum est, etintelligit. . . .' {Curs, thcol, i, P. q. 27, disp. 12, a. 5, u. It
less
not only entitatively or as a formative form, but also as a spiritual
form
neverthe-
remains that ia
is
as
much as
the object
is
not formed in the word, the actuation of

end, and this
is
the intelligence
imperfect with regard to
its
why this processus
<fe
actu
not absorbed in the actuation of a subject in order to constitute with it a tertium quid, but on the contrary as actuating or rather terminating the
intellect
regard to the principle of intellection and as tie species impressa has formed and actuated the intelligence, at the same time in itself constitutes ifieri, where in the very instant that it is made, it perfects the actuation of the intelligence with t<> gard to its end in producing the word and in forming by it the object. Moreover the
in actum, 'perfect' in
per modo intentionale and in the line of knowledge, in the very
degree to which it expresses and volatilises the object.
On the other hand, this form which the intelligence, primarily put in
act
word itself is not perfect with

lessly retaken
us at the
first
stroke; rather
on the
contrary,
it is cease-
by the species impressa, engenders in

of the
itself through
the discontinuous
up, progressively elaborated and ripened in the process of discourse. (Cp. St. Thomas, Injoann. i, I.) 'Verbum debet exprimere rem ut vitaliter attactam ab ipsa
light of the active intellect, is truly, as I

spiritual ignition
have
but
said, the
pure
sirnilitude
or
cognitione, ergo
non solum
1 object, or rather the object itself made mind,
ut intelligibilem in actu primo, sed ut intellectam in actu

necessitate in indigentia, quia objectum
ita
secundo
ipsura
Aliquando procedit verbum ex

sufficienter explicatum, et
fit
and
intentionally present,
not
as object,
as sign:
because
its
entire
non
evolutum, et
proceditur ab imperfecto ad
sic praecedit
fieri; et
specification
comes from the
object, the intelligence

it
which
illumines
perfectum, sicut in nobis
per discursum et cogitationem, et
verbum
and that which knows being for

concept (in
its
equally ^determinate.
Thus the
intelligere perfectum, sed procedit
ab intelligere imperfecto et in
generahrer
quandoeumque formatur verbum, ipsum fieri verbi etiam est intelligere in fieri. Aliquando vero procedit verbum ex abundantia inteUigendi. . .' (John of St. Thomas,
.
intentional function)
and the object are
indiscernible,
Curs. Phil.,
De Anima, q.
11, a. 1.)
in time
in diverso genere. Without there being the least priority on one side or the other, the concept is at once produced by intellection in act and a condition of it (on the side of the object). It is the intelligence itself which acra-
Causae ad invieem sunt causae
erit anima a corpore separata, per intellectum possibilem recipiet a substantiis superioribus, etper intellectum agentem habebit virtutem ad intelligendum.' (Ibid.) And in the Contra Gent., iii, 1 j: 'Cum anima a corpore tali fuerit
And
again:
'cum
species effluentes
separata, intellectus possibilis intelligere

scilicet
substantias separatas, per lumen intellectus agentis,
potent ea quae sunt secundum se intelligibilia, quod est similitude in anima
alises itself in actu ultimo x It
in forming
it.
intellectualis
luminis
quod
est in substantiis separaris.'
The
conclusion can be
drawn
would be in effect erroneous to think that the role of the intellectus agens stops at the formation of the species impressa. St. Thomas had a much higher idea of it, whose
metaphysical importance
us of the divine light.
are identically one
is
from
this that,
in the state
of union with the body,
it is
under the actuation of the in-
tellectus
agens that the intelligence, already made fruitful by it by means
of phantasmata,
ex-
often misunderstood.
The active intellect is the signature in
and formed in the first instance by the species impressa, produces in

pressa
x
itself the species
gence, which
ledge,
it is
is at
While the force or intellectual light of an angel and its vitality and the same, with us there is a double action. The knowing intellifirst void of forms, has in itself the vitality characteristic of knowitself of vitally
and actuates itself in
actu ultimo.
If it is better to
know than to love inferior things
(Sunt, theol,
i,
82, 3), it is because
capable in
is
becoming the object. Nevertheless

effect
the virtue which
thus possesses
only actualiscd by the
of an
intellectuality ceaselessly in act
mind in a higher mode than their own. This is why 'in a general way, material realities are more efficaciously known per similitudinem than they would be per essentiam' (M. Roland-Gosselin, art. fit.) Cp. De Veritate, 3, r, ad. 1, 2; De Pot, 7, 7.
they exist in the
ad. 2.
which can alone account for the process of immateriahsation or imellcctualisation of which we are the authors, and which is already in itself at the supreme degree of actuation, but
These passages (which refer to God's knowledge of things in
his essence)
must
without an object, and in order to illuminate, not to become. The intellectus agens is thus the activator of the intelligence, 'principium its light, the core of all its force:
activum proprium, per quod efficiamur intelligentcs in actu. . . . Pliilosophus dick, ut quod intellectus agens est ut habitus quidam et lumen . . . et in Psalmis dicitur: signaturn est super nos lumen vultus tui.' (St. Thomas, q. disp. De Anima; cp. De Veritate)
be understood in a very formal sense. It is from the standpoint of the immateriality of the esse that material things are better known per speciem than they would be by their essence, supposing that the latter could be, despite its materiality, a medium of knowledge. It is clear that from other standpoints we know much less of things in
nevertheless
knowing them per speciem than if we were able to know them essence of God is itself 'supereminens similitudo rerum*.
in their essence.
The
154

known and
the other
is
CRITICAL REALISM
155
save as the one makes
known,
and the other the
the one
signified, and that die one exists only Y theotherinthemindandinthething.
m the min^ *"*
^
is
the intuition proper to the intelligence the lowest stage) in abstract perception working by me the concept,* and that for the things which fall in the first place with! the grasp of our intelligence this perception maybe absolutely infallible giving us those first principles, known by themselves, which direa
By this we comprehend that

(at
hves
l%
Thus we see certain concepts, made use of by science and which are certainly not absurd, vanish for enough, long for truly ever, leaving no trace: the ancient concepts of chemistry with its phlog1 for example; we can find in the sociology which stems from istic,
if not illusory.
Comte and in modern psychology concepts equally perishable.
CERTAIN IDEALIST POSITIONS

If
AND ATTEMPTED REACTIONS

easy to pick out the classically
the
whole development of apprehension. And yet-because our intelH

degree to
now we return to our diagram, it is

moments
itself,
gencemustsoformitsobjectsforandbyitself,andin the
draw from the same received prethose varied concepts which disconnect the aspects of one intelligible nucleus according to the
sentative
advances in knowledge, actively
wHch
significant
truly
for
modern
idealism.
The
latter
is
characterised,
we
must admit,
by a
radical misunderstanding
of the very nature
form
(species impressa)
of the idea
and of the intentional function of knowledge, which is
henceforth conceived in the terms of an event in the material order. Descartes clearly perceived that the
his capital error
directions
of attention prevailing
diverse
in the
mind
brought in the
(for things are not only
known object is known within thought;
species impressa to intelligibility in act,
they are
the heart of the intelligence, inventoried ways in order to be brought in the

tion in
also in
and debited
in multifarious
indeterminate and generic to the determined, admits a large measure of artificial construction causing us often to take wholly indirect views of things or 'contused, partial, derived or negative'* ones, and in short, runs the risk of error in the degree to which it advances, and that not only in facts of judgment or reasoning, but also in the very facts of abstract perception.
i-or
concept to the final degree ofintellecact)-lt is equally comprehensible that the work of concepts may be complicated and tortuous, progressing from the
was the separation of the object and the thing, in the belief that the object is inside thought not as an intelligible made present in the mind by an immaterial form, with which the mind identifies itself
tional function disappears, the
intentionally,
but like an imprint stamped on wax. Thereby the intenknown object becomes something beis
longing to thought, an imprint or portrait which

tellection stops at the idea
trait-idea, idea-thing,
innate,
and in-
(regarded as an instrumental sign). This porit
has for double a thing which
resembles, but
which is not itself attained to by

are
the act of intellection. Here, therefore,

is
two
separated quods, and there
when our intelligence

it
is
already occupied
concepts which
engenders, and
pend on the thing, but also on the already possessed winch the new object is set before
the mind,
doubtless,
a
by these forms, the new whose formation does not only deobjects
sure us that
behind the quod
'idea' to
need of the divine veracity to aswhich we attain there righdy is

it:
a quod 'thing'
itself.
which corresponds
to
thought cannot achieve
it
by
by means of
1
may well be formed awry.

number or
See,
on
this point, certain interesting

ii.
comments
in E. Meyerson,
De
I'explication
when
these are
complex of contradictory elements the most perfect world), they

the real-or some rational
not pseudo-concepts presenting to the mind

[e.g.
dans ks sciences, vol.
the greatest whole
be so arbitrarily reconstructed n U worrit J ?( word

!
always present to the mind some aspect of being founded on the real-but one which can
"Certain flaws in scholasticism (e.g. the Vasquezian notion of the conceptus objectives, the Scotist pointed out in P. Geny's Critica and in Reflexions sur I'intelligence, and notion of the esse objectivum, pointed out by R. Dalbiez, art. tit. supra) prepared the
my
way for this

tit.).
great cartesian error.
The
latter is
vigorously denounced
by L, Noel
{op.
and cut about that the product is meagre,

thar
totle
A P ktS 0ut S Vf Hc(d.4),cp ^v*w M,.M,c. .DeAnima

e
"'
"
4& connection used the
M. D. RoLmd-Gossclin, Bulletin
,iii,c.4.
thcmiste.Jm.
i9
a.
'Few scholastics, if any,* R. Kremer has written, on his side ,'would maintain that what we know directly is only a copy, a subjective print of the object. In any case, for the ancients and St. Thomas, it is indubitable that we know, not the representations of things, but things themselves (vide e.g. Sum. theol, i, q. 85, a. 2); and to know is to have intermediary which this object for the normal end of intentional activity. The subjective
156

the idea becomes, as
CRITICAL REALISM
same way
grows.
as
157
Thus
thought.
Locke
said,
the immediate object rf J. t ot
an animal or a plant, a lichen or a polypus, vegetates and
Berkeley perceived, not without reason, that under these conditions there is no legitimate reason for preserving this thing which is
As to the present-day reactions against idealism, reactions which

tainly in
cer-
of the idea, and he believed he was returning to the evidence of com monsense when he affirmed that we have an immediate
objects,
the double
my
eyes appear seriously incomplete, they are seen under
two
principal aspects.
On
the one
hand the
neo-realist school (Perry,
but that these objects are our ideas.
perception of
Spaulding, Marvin, Montague,

the thing in
Finally Kant, admitting

sick)
anew,
like Descartes, a thing {das Ding-an-
tween thing
thought,
on the immanence of knowledge seem to misconceive the whole distinction beand object, and to enclose the extra-mental thing itself in
etc.)
by
insisting
hidden behind the
object,
but regarding
of the mind according to its ledge at that of soônstructed phenomena, the thing in itself remaining B unknowable.
tivity
constructed by the aca priori laws, arrested our know-
it as
which has all the air of a contradiction.

once thinkers
like Russell
On the other hand, a more important group to which it is possible

despite their differences, to attach at
and
Whitehead, and those
who
have chosen the name of
'critical realists'
AH
ledge.
these philosophers equally neglect the rightful nature
of know-
(Strong, Sellars, Santayana, etc.) as well as the

gists
They envisage the work of knowledge on the plan

holding that an activity
tivities,
immanent. For cartesian innateness, thought is essentially passive; it is matter which has received an imprint: it is equally so for the empiricists,
is
M extra which
of material ac-
stop knowledge at an
it is
object
which
is
German phenomenolono longer a product of the

it
essentially
mind, as
for the idealists, but rather an essence, an irreducible datum,
an intelligible independent of the

intuition.
mind or
from
at least proffered to
by an
who
regard
But
this object-essence
remains for them, as for Kant and the

the transobjective subject or
this
imprint
as
stamped on thought not by God, but by
things.
Kant
whole modern
tradition, separated
wished to restore the activity of thought, but always in accord with the same type of a transitive or productive activity imposing a form on
matter: in this case the
extramental thing.
indeed,
The
latter
is
only hypothetical and enigmatic, and

razor,
it
by
die principle
of economy and Occam's
would be
form belongs to the side of the mind: concepts are
better to pass it by.
Or indeed it is held
'absurd'; and, remaining with-
empty forms, and it is sensible matter which will be subsumed and organised by these forms. The inexhaustibility of the thing as subject
having been thus transferred, by virtue of the 'Copernican principle', from thought as generative to the subject, the former appears as an indefinite process for the
out observing
it
in a certain dependence
on Hegel,
against that pan-
logism against which at bottom they are reacting, but from which they
have learnt to confound logic and ontology, they endeavour like Hegel
to re-absorb the thing into the idea,
and
characteristics are attributed to
manufacture of objects.
the object, taken in entire separation
from any
transobjective subject,
that reality in itself
Indeed, the intentional function having disappeared, knowledge be-
which only in
reality
come from
of essence.
thence:
no longer
comes perfectly
as
unintelligible.
For in the entitative order
it is
clear that
it
which Hegel accorded to the Idea, but unproducibility by the mind, and
irreducible consistency
a thing cannot be another than
what it is. Our
idealists
think
absurd,
they say, to look for something

it,,
outside thought.
Everything is absorbed
This process makes of the object, which is neither an aspect of a thing
into
serves to
and henceforward knowledge is its self-development in the make things known is not known by us in the first instance; its existence
primary direct knowledge, of immediate" or "direct realism".' {Art.
that
nor a modification of the mind, something entirely
irrational,
and
knowledge
manifestly depending
essential diesis
on
Tins
tit.,
is,
in
my opinion, the
rSk de
la
itself an manent nor productive; which, moreover,
entirely unintelligible process, neither vitally

if it
is
im-
neither productive nor
Philosophla Perennis, vol.

stir
transformative as
Kant wished
it
to be, thereby remains rightly with-
rMMvale dans
MiTT,
scholasticism, see also E. Gilson, Etudes
pauie
e de
la formation
da system
cartfsien, Paris,
Descartes, Pans, 1932.
Maricain, 1930, and J J. "
U SonS
out an end: not in the very true sense that knowledge continues to penetrate endlessly into
things in adding truth to truth, but in die sense that,
158

rules, it
CRITICAL REALISM
real.
1
only laying hold on a thing by

constructions reared
I$9
can only, despite the ephemeral
(The one, the sensibly existent, mentally existent,
is
by the theoreticians of this idealism redivivus, end over-reach itself by substituting one truth for another, without ever being possessed of any one.
less
the origin of all our knowledge:
the other, the
the mind knows itself by its when it knows God and the
existence,
may be reflectively experienced when or may be attained to by reasoning spiritual worldby analogy with sensible
acts,
still
with which our mind must
be in
relation in
some degree
not
even in the knowledge of the supra-sensible.)
THE UNIVERSE OF EXISTENCE AND THAT OF INTELLIGIBILITY

Everything which has been said of the concept implies the Jian theory of abstraction, according to which the
/ draws from sensible
/
aristote-
It
must not be forgotten that
if,
in effect, the singular as such

seizable
is
the object gence,

it (as its
of science, and
is
not direcdy
by
the
human
intelliit is
intelligence actively
it is
nevertheless indirecdy seizable, in reflex concepts; and
in
data,
from
the senses, a content in
which
things as they are first of all attained by intelligibility is potentially found-an

individualising
transobjective subject) that science ends, completing the circle
of
operation which
J
is
only possible by leaving out all those

are
characteristics
which
J
/
!
lity that the intellect
found in the thing as such. It is this intelligibiactualises, and proffers in the concept, and is the
If
motion. This is why we have need of the senses, not only draw from thence our ideas of things, but for the resolution of the judgment, which in one way or another (and even when the judgintelligible
to
ment
is
not verified by the
object
known by
it.
one thus
distinguishes, as Aristotle and
senses, sicut
St.
sensible) must needs take place in the extremo et ultimo, ad quod resolutio fat, 3 because judgment is
Thomas
did, the thing
and the
object,
but without separating them,
and,
while maintaining their unity, what comes from the thing and what comes from the mind arc considered apart in knowledge, then it is comprehensible how, from the things which exist
outside the mind,
concerned with (actual or possible) existence, and 'sensible and visible things' are for us the paradigm of the existent.
For
St.
Thomas a science of nature which did not return to the singuscience,
lar real
cally,
would be not
but a dream.
And it is
the same, analogi-
which make up what we may call the universe of existence, the mind draws a world of abstract conceptual objects and universals, which may
be called the universe of intelligibility or of human knowledge, which, on the one side, in order that it may be known is detached from the universe of existence, and, on the other hand, is identified with it for its
for metaphysics,
which also returns to the singular, and for mathecomes back to an

entities
matics, in so far at least as it

singular,
intuitively constructible
existence. 4
is
where
its
fundamental
have an imaginable
is
In effect, 'the
end in which the knowledge of nature

makes an
abstraction
i.e.
achieved
the
Even in mathematics, -which
of the order of existence, there
Thus it is most certainly die tilings of the world or existence which we attain to in attaining to the world of intelligibility, but
subsistence.
J
must be a return to the imaginably existent,

tuition, at least indirectly
the constructibility of imaginative in-
neither in their singularity y nor in the contingence of the flux of their singular eventualities. Our senses so attain to them: science only attains to them directly in die natures and universal determinations which give V the grounds for their intelligible necessities. And it is in returning, as Cajetan says in a passage quoted above, 1 by the ministration of the
senses, to singular
or by analogy and in relation to directly constructible entities. Thus non-euclidian geometries, for example, definitely keep their full
logical security
from the
of our ability to construct euclidian models of them, the intrinsic coherence {i.e. exemption from internal contradiction) of euclidian entities being itself assured by their existence for the imagination.
possibility
a
See supra, chap,

St.
i,
pp. 67-71.
in the reintegration
and contingent things diat the universal is realised; of die intelligible in die existent, whether in the
it
Thomas, De Veritate, 12, 3, ad. 3. It is notable that the judgment, the intuition of the senses, and also the appetite are all three of them related, though in very differing
fashions, to the esse rerum: the
judgment
as declaring
how
the thing attained in our

so attaining
notions compares
with
this (actual
or possible)
esse: sensible intuition as
sensibly existent, or in die spiritually so, that

'Cajetan, In Anal. Post.,
i,
achieves
i,
its
grasp of the
e sens ibly existent in act; the appetite as bringing the subject to bear 'exists in act.
on the thing as it
i,
8.
Vide supra, chap,
p. 35.
'See note i, supra.
160

by
the senses, above
all
CRITICAL REALISM
the cutler
'nothingness'
is
161
thing attained
by
that
of
sight.
is
As
does not seek for further knowledge of the knife than
made up of 'being' to which is joined the notion ofnega-
required by the
work he
has in hand, that
is,
to
make
this particular knife, in the same
tion. In
themselves these are only non-essences (negations ox privations)
way the wise man only seeks to know the nature of a stone or of a hone
in order to find the reason
of the things which the

artisan
senses arc aware
non-being conceived in the likeness of an animal or relaa chimera is a although they indubitably cannot exist outside the mind, tions, which
have nevertheless the same intelligible content and definition
as real relations.
(irpos
1-1)
of:
and
as
the judgment of the
of the knife would be

senses.
deficient if he
Such objects are not
ignored the work in hand, the judgment of the scholar would be equally
so if he ignored the evidence
is
things, nevertheless they are not
of the
On
the other hand,
pure objects separated
from any
transobjective subject like the pheno-
all that
known by our intelligence

in
(even mathematical beings and metaphy-
1 mena' of the moderns, for they are conceived

jects (a
b the image of such sub-
preliminary knowledge of which they presuppose) and they are
sical realities), in
the present state
of the
soul's
union with the body,
is
known
some
relation to the sensible things
of nature. Thus
constructed
it is
imor
rated
possible that the judgment
of our intellect should not be deficient when

only one world of intelligiThere
from elements drawn from the real: far from being sepafrom these they are thus doubly bound up with them. The (actual possible) real remains their foundation and their occasion; from draw
all
the exterior senses arc

It is
dosed up by sleep.*1
is
thence they
their objective consistency. If we can
make judgthings:
indeed not true to say that there
ments about them,

'ratio
it is
because
we
treat
them
as if they
were
bility
drawn by
abstraction
by us from the world of existence.
de
eis
(non entibus) negotiatur quasi de quibusdem entibus,
dum
arc as
many universes of intelligibility as
there are degrees of materialide

eis
2 affirmat vel negat aliquid.'

it is
And if the mind can be
true or false
sation or otherwise in the object.
with regard to them,
by an
indirect connection with the reality
RATIONAL BEING
which makes their foundation and occasion. If you suppress the nature
of a
circle
or that of a square,
you cannot
say that a square circle

in
is its
from the sensible those intelligible world of existence: it does not only set natures which arc realised in the which arc born from such, in the notions natures or before itself those consideration of the world of existence, all of which arc able to exist: in
The mind docs not only
abstract
unthinkable; if
*Let
it
you
suppress the
whole of apprehensible nature

it
be added that they arc made
by the mind before being knonm by

signify that a
as rational
beings. I
his sight
employ the
or ceased to
ideas
live,
of blindness or of death to
man
has lost
brief, it
docs not only conceive of real beings, Le. beings capable of

it
perceiving that I
this
am
long before knowing these rational beings as such, or thinking of death or blindness as if they were things. From
seu
intelligi' is
existence,
entis,
can also construct in the image of such natures, ad
instar
angle
'esse est percipi
not even true of a rational being

that
is
it
exists
objects
of thought
incapable of existing outside the
mind
(e.g.
gen-
in the
mind before being known: and without doubt (and

is
how
is
the idealist
itself
der and species, the subject, the predicate, etc.) which the
called rational beings, entia rationis.
ancients
formula
applicable to rational being) this existence in the

eognitum, but
mind
of the
only
an
esse ebjectivtim seu
which
refers to the cognosci
real elements
These objects of thought, which do not merit the name of essences, the for essence is the capacity to exist (esse)* arc not wholly created by
mind. They arc made up of elements which arc essences or
aspects
*Sum.
first
with which the rational being has been constructed and at the instance of which it is conceived, not to the cognosci of die rational being as such. It is only possible to say
purely and simply
'esse est intelligi
'Cognitio formans ens rationis
non
(ipsum intelligi intrinsccum)' of the mental concept. est reflexa respiciens ipsum tamquam rem cogreale, vel
intelligible
nitam ut quod, sed

relativum non est,
.
ilia
cognitio directa, quae ipsum non ens
quoJ
.
realiter
.
of all grasped
i,
in dungs.
1 2,
For example, the object of diought

ad. 2.
iheol.,
84, 8.
Cp. De
Veritatt,
3,
^'Essentia diritur
el Essentia, c. 1).
tsecundum quod cam ct in ea res habct esse' (St. Thomas, ue 'Non habct (ens rationis) essenriam iliquam.' (Cajctan, Commenlnq,
Non denominat eognitum ad instar ends vel relationis realis. . cognitio reflexa quae practise ens rationis denominatur eognitum ut quod, sed cognitio directa qua denominatur eognitum ad instar ends id quod non est, formaliter per se primo format ens rationis.' (Jhn of St. Thomas, log. ii, P. q. 2, a. 4, <&*
. .
ultimo.)
'St.
c.i.q.i.)
Thomas, In Mctaph., book
iv, lect. 1 , n. 540.
162

of determination, you cannot say
of
Aristotle
first
CRITICAL REALISM
is
163
various degrees
that the species
apprehendere
quod non
est, et
ideo fingit
illud,
ac
si
ens
esset.'1
Let
it
portion of a genus.
If,
as the critical realism
and
St.
Thomas
teaches, extra-
mental
intelligible
is first
being
is
the
object of the intellect, and if the

senses,
be noted here that if there are rational beings (like the square circle, the greatest possible whole number, the chimera, the best of all possible
existing real
that
ings.
of all given us through the
we can be certain
is
our
first intellectual
actti
apprehensions do not bear upon rational bepos-
which cannot exist because they are intrinsically contradictory they are the thieves and forgers among rational beingsthere are, on
worlds)
the other
exist,
hand, numerous others, honest rational beings, which cannot

characteristics, but incompatible with one of their objecis
Ab sible. And
ad posse
valet consecutio: since there are ants the ant
not because they are composed of impossible

is
as to the possibility
of being in general,
it is
certified for us,
because their place in existence

tive features.
independendy even (by right) of all actual perception of existence,1 by the very first intuitive judgment of our minds, which precisely affirms
that being
starts
is 2 not not-being. But
The notion of the

certain function
predicate
not absurd, but
it
would be
which
it is
absurd to attribute an existence outside the

is
mind
to a predicate,
how
to
can a philosophy which only

attains at
first
defined
by a
which a thing
as
possesses in so far as
from thought, and according

itself,
which the mind
known.
Implicit in the notion
attained
only to
be sure that
is
all
the objects
of our thought are not
rational
of them
some
relation to something real
beings? This
where the malign Genius
plants his barb: the problem
by the mind
is,
we say that these rational beings are founded on

which cannot exist
i.e.
which was
crucial for Descartes (and for Leibnitz).
By that violent reof idealism, how

itself,
reality. It
thus happens that a rational being,

as it is itself
outside
torsion, that living contradiction

is it
which is
in the heart
the
mind
presented to the mind,
as a being,
real,
can very
out-
possible finally to avoid the question rational being

is
whether being
in the
clearly
show, by reason of its foundation on the
what
exists
image of which
first
made by
thought, and which in the

a (possible) realitywhe-
side the
mind, and it is indeed only constructed for that end.

is
To
say that
instance
is
conceived by the intellect
as
Neptune
observed by an astronomer
it is
is
is
to posit a rational relation in
ther being itself is not a rational being?
Neptune, but
it is
certainly real to say that the astronomer observes
God
form
does not
make
rational beings;
our abstract intelligence that in so

itself to reality
many
cases
mark of the weakness of it has no power to con-
Neptune. Evil
a rational being in the sense that to rhfnk
ruptcy of good which there
of the bankmust be in a subject I am forced to conceive

the
can only grasp the
image of being.8
'Cp. supra, p.
a
except by constructing these rational beings. We wounds of being in conceiving of them in the 'Tunc efficitur ens rationis, quando intellectus nititur
of it
as if it
were
a thing.
But evil exists most really and positively in

is
sense that the subject in question
thereby mutilated or deprived of
something which should be vitally in him.

deafness in the ear
The physician does not find

it
m, note i.
once that
principle
it is
and he does not look for
in order to destroy
it as
Thus 'we
see at
not only inconceivable, but
really impossible for a
he would a colony of bacteria, nevertheless

subject.
it is
a very real thing to be
thing at once to be and not be.

logical value
And we thus affirm already
the objective and onco-
of contradiction before making any judgment on existence, bethat fore reflecting that this primary affirmation presupposes ideas, and before verifying our these ideas come to us, by abstraction, from the sensible things laid hold of by of the
senses.'
'Quia ex proprio conceptu est ad aliud,' John, of St.
Thomas profoundly says,

id est ut sit
requirit
fundamentum, non solum ut existat, sed etiam ut sit capax existendi,

(Log.
ii,
entitas reatis.'
P. q. 17,
a. 2.)
Abstractive understanding can thus conceive of
(R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
art. cit.)
can only perceive relations in forming a separate concept of diem, abitstracted from the subject where they have or have not their foundation. Being in
3
And we
this object of thought as well where it has a real foundation in the subject connected with one term (the relation is then real, thus the ship really draws away from the shore) as where it has no real foundation in the subject (if there is then for all that a real foun-
self only one
of a
pair, one, if I
may put it so, among tilings, not implying in its notion
dation, or a rational relation
founded on the
real, as
when it is said that the shore draws
of existing in itself or of existing in something else, but a pure connection between this and that, relation is an intelligible object which does not necesits sarily in itself imply oncological grounds, and is only real by reason of its basis m
either the exigence
back from the ship).

St.
On the conditions necessary for a relation to be real, see John of

c. 3.
Thomas,
art. cit.
Oposc. (apocr.),
De nattira generis,
!6 4
the degrees of rational knowledge

is
deprived of the sense of hearing: the rational being 'deafness'
founded
on a very real derangement in the internal organism of the ear. Moreover it is in very differing degrees that such and such an object the note of unreality characteristic of of thought can be affected by
rational being. Evil
and
deafness, while all the while referring to the
CHAPTER
III
very
a real fact that a subject lacks
set in so far as they are objects
good which should be there, are, before the mind like a substance or a
is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
I.
SENSIBLE
NATURE
quality, not-beings.
geometric surface
a possible being
(if it
is
a
it
THE MAJOR TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
euclidian surface) affected

existing in nature
by
a rational .condition which prevents
with that absolute absence of density which its definiexcellence the reality of sensible nature, tion implies: movement is par retaining in the memory that part of of it by but we can only conceive
it
have said
that science
knowledge in a perfect
gible universes
siders apart, in
and
in the precise though very general sense of to those irrefragable mode

attains
intelli-
immanent
in the universe
of existence; but
these
it
con-
which has already
lapsed, so that 'if the soul did

be',
1
i.e.
not
exist'
time and
(rational
order to impress them in some
way on
the universe of
movement 'would not

condition) with
portant, as
in our
with that unreal consistency

It is
existence.
2 which our apprehension endows them.
very im-
natures
These universes of understanding are made up of abstract (grasped in themselves or their substitutes), of laws and neceswhile the universe of existence is a universe of individuals is contingence and hazard, an irreverinteraction,
we shall see in
dvai ypovov
die next chapter, to consider the part played

in re.
sary relations,
knowledge by these rational beings founded
and events. In this universe there

sible flux
of singular formations in
none of which ever

is
re-
l"AMvwm>
Sec J.
*In the
î}? pj
ovotjs
'
(Aristotle, Phys., iv, 14, 223-6.)
appear again in exactly that form; there is liberty. This
the universe in
Miriam, Philosophic
Bergsonienne,
and Theonas.
1
which
some 'unrealisable eleIt is
we live,
in the midst of particular

it
and contingent circumstances.
two
Utter cases the
mind has 'completed
the real with
ment, and
rationis.
it is
Cp. Cajetan, In 1, 28,
by it is an em only for this reason (completive) that the object conceived Thomas, InlSent., dist. 19, 1, Aiprimum vera iubium; St.
absurd to imagine that
can ever be wholly under the dominion of
science, for all these features
which
q.J,a.l.
objects for science, in the precise sense
have enumerated are not, as such, of the word. The knowledge

it is
of the world of existence, exacdy in the degree to which
concrete
and existing, belongs, from die point of view of speculation, to experience and to history, to die certitudes
constatation
and perceptions of memory, the
of facts, to conjecture and well-founded opinion, in short, to the work of the intelligence when occupied with the senses: from the practical point of view, it belongs to art, to prudence, to knowledge
by cdnnaturality. Science, apprehension in the
with
strict sense
of die word,
invests
only considers those intelligible necessities which

its
this
world
Each of our types of knowledge considers in the world its own universe of intelligible necessities and that alone. Nevertheless there is a supreme form of knowledge, a prime-knowledge, a knowledge
reality.
of first principles, which can consider all these differing universes together,
not in order to substitute a particular
J65
form of knowledge which
it
ap-
1 66

each in turn, but in order to comprehend its
its
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
167
plies to
own form of appr

to establish unity
hension, to defend and justify
principles,
and thus
What then,
verses
at least in their
most general
transobjective intelligibility, the universe of the trans-sensible third zone of __the universe of the metaphysician which opens out into the world
types, are these diverse uniit
of intelligibility which our

itself
of the
{to us) trans-intelligible,
which can only be known by analogy.
intellect sets before itself when
en-
These three general types of understanding belong to the order of

speculative
If it
is
deavours to disengage
from
the senses?
The aristotelian tradition

the
knowledge.
which
have already
recalled, 1 recognised three principal types, which

call the three
a question of the order of practical knowledge, then, from the
correspond to what Thomists

universe of the principles
degrees of abstraction:
and laws of mobile and
sensible nature, the
world of physica: the universe of quantity
as such, the
world of matherealisation, the
of metaphysical understanding, the mind returns towards the world of existence as such, and comes, by the stages of moral philosophy and the practical sciences which are its continuation, then of prudence,
heights
finally to the
matica; the universe of being as being, and of intelligible objects which

as such,
point of immediate contact with the singular action re-
do not require matter
as
a condition of their
quiring
regulation.
This practical order, however,
is
not in
this
world of METAPHYSICA.
Is it
present instant,
our theme.1
is
desired to give to these three degrees
of abstraction, names more

in chap,
In the speculative order, metaphysics
that
supreme and master-
in conformity
with the habits of the modern' didactic vocabulary?

i
We can say,
if the
making use of the terminology proposed
that
form of knowledge which was referred to above. It is possible to ask with Kant if metaphysics can be a science (to which I answer, Yes), or
with Maine de Biran and Bergson
(to
assemblage of what the
knowing
in order to
subject can attain to in
the
(i.e,
if it
is
in itself an experimental science
transobjective subjects submitted to the grasp
of
its
intelligence
which
proffer themselves to
it
be turned into
intelligible,
3
its objects),
constitutes in a general
way
the transobjective
is
the
first
zone
is
with which the
human
intellect
in relation in this vast
totality,
the
No). In any case, no other form of knowledge, in particular none of the experimental sciences share with metaphysics the universe of the trans-sensible, or the third degree of abstraction. Inversely, neidier philosophy or any ontological form of knowledge
which
my answer
is,
universe of those objects

piric existence,
is it
which can only be

call the
realised in sensible or emreal.
shares
widi madiematics the universe of the
preter-real, or the
second
what we may
universe of the sensibly
How
"
degree of abstraction.
possible to surpass this universe? Either in rightly escaping from
On the contrary, in the first degree of abstraction we find two differing forms
of nature,
the real and the renunciation of the endeavour to co-ordinate know-
of understanding, one of an ontological
order, the philosophy
ledge with that supreme value

i.e.
which
is
existence apart
from
the mind,
one of an empiriological order, the experimental sciences
by
application to objects
which
(if
they are realisable) can only be

rela-
('Science' kolt iia%rjy in

selves the sensible
modern terms), which

form
share out
among them-
realised in sensible existence,
but which are conceived of without

transobjective
and mobile universe. Thus

significant
it is
in this degree that
we
tion to existence, as
bility,
of of the preter-real, the universe of die mathematician: or by rising beyond the sensible, in application to objects which are conit is
in the second zone
intelligi-
encounter in
its
most
the problem, or perhaps
is it
the universe
necessary to say, the conflict,
ceived in relation to that supreme value
of extra-mental
existence, but
is
which
1
are realised in a non-sensory, non-empiric existence: this

i,
the
of science and philosophy. We have already taken cognisance of diis problem, as it first of all presents itself to reflection, i.e. from the primarily methodological standpoint of the theoretician of die sciences. Now we shall endeavour to penetrate it from
of view of critical philosophy. For this it is necessary to return to die consideration of physico-mathematical science, in order to
the point
Cp. chap,
pp. 44-7.
intellect are cor-
*Thesc subjects which are proportionate (connatural) to the human

poreal and sensible things,
'In the didactic terminology proposed here the sense of intelligible to us.
examine afresh diis queen and goddess of the experimental sciences.

word
'intelligible'
is
taken in the
^This
is
considered in chapter
vii.
68

MODERN PHYSICS CONSIDERED IN ITS GENERAL EPISTEMOLOGICA1 FORM
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
into enter obliquely
as
it.
SENSIBLE
NATURE
169
Without constituting
a science of physical being
such,
it
obliquely
admits ontological values.
Such a
tion
data,
science,
we
have seen, 1 appears
first
of all
as a mathematisa-
of
the sensible; claiming from induction well-founded empiric but in order to subject these to a form of deduction and a rule of
The system of mathematical relations which it seeks to establish between sensible phenomena, and which constitutes its highest formal obsufficiendy satisfy or stimulate the mind of the ject, does not in itself
scientist.
His interest
is
directed towards the physically real.

his science
is
By
reason
it
explication
of a mathematical order, it belongs to that epistemological type which the ancients called 'intermediary sciences'
are
(scientiae mediae), sciences
which
of the reality on
leads,
which
founded and towards which
which overlap the borders of
physics and
of the invincibly ontological tendency of the human mind, and the pressure exercised on all sides, despite himself, on him by the principle
mathematics, which are materially physical and formally mathematical so that they have at once more affinity with mathematics than physics in
their laws
deductions in the very domain of his own scienceinto
of causality, he
is
necessarily led to integrate in his mathematical

his
formally
of explications, and are in the end by which they verify their

point must here again be
mathematical explanation of observed appearances, a system of principles
judgments, more physical than mathematical. 2
and causes of an (ontologically) physical order which he has
built
One primary
ence:
it is
made
clear,
which
has
al-
ready furnished a theme in the chapter consecrated to
scientific experiitself
up anew for that end. (In the same way we often find, in the initial principle of a new theory, the intuition of some explanatory entity which is
physically conceivable.)
1
not the nature of physical causes considered in
which
And
thus such a science admits of a relation

as
forms the object of physico-mathematical research. Physico-mathema-
with real
tainable
tions
being, not only considered
the inexhaustible source of ob-
works in the terms of the physical real, but in order to envisage them from the formal standpoint of mathematics, and of mathematical
tics
measurements, but also
as the
foundation for those reconstruc-
of which I have just spoken.
laws which connect together the measurements collected by our

cal instruments
able.
techni-
from nature. All its concepts

of its numeric
results
arc resolved in the measur-
And what verifies

it
the deductive synthesis
which it erects
is
simply
the coincidence
with the measurements given by

in-
experiment;
does not follow that the mathematical beings which
One thing must be particularly observed: the so constructed entities may be real or rational beings to him the point is entirely indifferent. It is for the philosopher, if he can, to draw any such distinction between the diverse entities set in action by the physicist. The physicist himself is not troubled by any such question, for all that is important to him is the
tervene in this synthesis represent determinatively real causes and entities
which
nature.
lr
are like the ontological articulations

3
of the world of
sensible
Physical theory
which
is
verified en bloc,
by means of the
corresponthe
These mathematical manipulations bring certain consequences in their train, to M. Emile Picard has rightly drawn attention. 'If it is asked to what the wave-
theories
dence established between the system of signs which it employs and measurable data which have been recognised by experiment.
which
these,
of Fresnel are attached, it is necessary to reply, and we here touch on a point Now capital for scientific philosophyto a system of differential equations. as is too often forgotten, have only been formed, starting from the molecular
is
But a second point needs also to be signalised, which relates

servation
to the ob-
lations
I have just recalled, the point that physico-mathematical knowledge, while all the time taking its formal texture from the mathe-
by the making of numberless hypotheses on the reof this ether with ponderable matter, and in passing from discontinuity to continuity so as to obtain these differential equations, which have moreover been reduced, in order to escape inextricable analytic difficulties, to linear form, as in so many of the
conception of die ether-medium,
questions in mathematical physics.
matical order, nevertheless remains, in the
end
to
which
it is directed,
More or less analogous conditions present themselves

it is
more
physical than madiematical:

1
and ontological prc-occupations

^Cp.
ibid.
elsewhere and, under these conditions,

finitely
I'histoire
comprehensible
how
difficult it is to
de-
condemn
Cp. supra, chap, i, pp. 52-tf. Cp. supra, cliap. i, pp. 76-7.
coup d'ceil sur conditions of a theory.' (E. Picard, Un des des sciences et des tMories physiques, a lecture, delivered to the Acaddmie
the
initial
Sciences,
Dec. t6th, 1929.)
i 7o

of these
entities as functions
OUR KNOWLEDGE
ber transfinite
OF SENSIBLE NATURE
And
it is
17 r
explicative value
of the system of eouati

as well, if not
number,
outline-spaces, etc. x
obvious that a
of physical theory. So that his ontological appetite is

ter, satisfied
It is
by rational as by teal beings.

from
and
to
physically real which does not scrutinise in form of knowledge of the physical or ontological reality, its causes and own their themselves, in
essences,
moreover possible that he will be shocked to hear the philosoph

rises
but which reconstructs
this reality
purely from the point of
speaking in such a way: for a vast misunderstanding

that the
the fact
philological
two
attach a different
meaning to the word

it is
'real'.
The
view of the relations of measurement which it contains and according to deduction in the most generalised form the exigencies of mathematical
possible, will necessarily
as its
icist
sopher opposes real being and rational being in the

sense
critical
make
use of a great
number of rational
beings
which
have here explained, and
very important
him
to
is
indispensable auxiliaries.
to think
Among the entities which enable the physfrom

the
discover to
which of these two
categories the entities with which he
out his numerical records in use under the present condi-
dealing belong. This opposition

esting to the physicist as such;
and this investigation are alike uninter-
tions of physical observation, they will be of every kind,
mul-
more, he ignores them.
And he assumes
use are
titude
of more or
less
elaborated entia rationis which only respond to
on condition that they are defined by measuring operations which are at

least theoretically realisable, that
real,
i.e.
experimental authentifications and

servable causations
the
which translate conceptually the obreal,

2
the entities
of which he makes
and
structures
of the
to those entities, such as

is
that they express in

'I
an authentically physical way the real bear-
atom or the
sit,
electron,
which appear,
(something
in
what
concerned with the

the
ing of nature.
entirely believe', replies the philosopher, 'that they have
question an
as realities
exists
which
is
words atom or
but
been made for

are entia
that,
but that is only more manifestly the proof that they

physicist
electron determinatively enclose), and, in
what
concerned with the

to,
rationis'.
The
it
immediately adds
at that, as though to
il-
question quid
sit,
as
images which are not only approximations
contradict his colleague, that these real entities are only 'shadows' or
lusions,
symbolical of primordial parts of the spatio-temporal organisation of

matter (we
ings); 3
and
that
would be
ridiculous to ask
of them anything
con-
may
say that they are symbolic reconstruction of real beentities,
cerning the essential nature of matter
up to those
of which Einsteinian
'time' offers to-day the
most famous example, which are in the
full sense rational beings,
sub-
REAL BEING AND RATIONAL BEING IN PHYSICO-MATIIEMATICAL
stitutes
for realities
I
whose ontological value has no interest for science.

(of absolute potency) with regard to the inrationis with regard to
KNOWLEDGE
This is a typical instance of the important part, indicated at the end of the preceding chapter, played by rational beings in human knowledge. Because rational being the order which is maintained by our
Naturally
l l
am speaking of rational beings founded on the real, for they

real entity
hold 'transfinite number* a
finite transcendental multitude
implied by the notion, but an ens
is
conceptual objects taken exactly as
known,
i.e.
according to the
life
which fulfils its notion (which is only a unity of apprehension), and which so to speak, allows for the return to and the analogical re-imposition of a mathematical order, and mathematical considerations of equality, integrity, etc., in that
theêfieraJ unity
which they lead

specific object
in our
mind
(that
because rational being
constitutes the
purely metaphysical order to
which the whole transcendental multitude taken simply as

all
of logic
the privilege of that science),
we
are
such belongs.
'God', said Kronecker,
'made whole numbers;
the rest is the work of men.'
tempted to believe that these

are
entia rationis
only play a part in
logic: a
2 S
See
infra, p.
195, note 2.
grave error indeed. Already, in general comprehension, rational beings
made use of at every instant:

for evil
it is
so, for
example, every time we say
'Evil has
rises',
triumphed in his soul', or 'he is a victim of'deafness, or 'the sun and deafness are privations, not essences capable of sub-
M. Wolfers rightly complains that 'many students have taken to the habit of reasoning about electrons, protons, photons and atoms, as if they were pawns in a game of chess, forgetting that these terms still contain a crowd of hypotheses, obscurities and
subjective ideas.' (Transmutations des ilimmts, Paris, Soc. d'^dit. scientif., 1920.)
-
On
the physical significance
of wave mechanics,
nor does the sun mount in the sky. Mathematics is constandy creating rational beings, such as an irrational number, imaginary numsistence,
Broglie et la physique d'aujourd'lmi (193 1).
Andre George, L'CEuure de Louis de more 'The attempts at physical presentation by

cp.
or
less
traditional
means have all come
to a non-plus.'
172
are

real
OUR KNOWLEDGE
nace
1 real
OF SENSIBLE NATURE
173
behaviour of nature, on measurements and facts for example on Michelson's results; there really found in nature
founded on the
time,
and
it is
under the conditions and modalities of this
re-
main also other rational beings,
entities incapable
which have no more
intrinsic
and
existing as such and direct ontological value than the
of
real quantity,
quantitatively measured and regulated, that the interacting
causes in nature
develop their qualitative
activities. In mensura, pondere
material models constructed in space by Lord Kelvin.
How are we
which
all
to
comprehend
present in the
this formation of explanatory entities most diverse degrees the aspect of entia rationis
all
Physical reality breeds a rich harvest of entitative riches iret numero. terms of quantity; but by reason of its materiality, and beto reducible
cause
this
it
and which nevertheless remain
the time founded on reality?
world of qualities
is
emanates from the substance of bodies mediatized by quantity, is intrinsically subject to quantitative determina-
It is
by
applying ourselves to an exact doctrine of quantity that

this question.
we can answer
tions (that
why it is accessible by our extrinsic and artificial
measure-
Considering things from the standpoint, not of the
as the first accident of ments). Quantity thus ontologically considered, activities, is the object cosmic matrix of the as and substances corporeal
physicist, but of
the philosopher, and to express ourselves in his language, quantity,

i.e.
of consideration for the philosopher of nature,

pable
who
is
otherwise inca-
of passing on from
this to
the consideration of those quantitative
the extension of substance and the metaphysical unity of

are diverse with regard to position,
are, in nature,
is
its
parts
determinations to
ing for
which the physical world is subject and of rediscover-
which
There
*Cp.
a real property of bodies.

real
human use the heights and depths of nature.

subject
dimension, numbers, real measurements,1
But quantity can be considered in another way: when disengaged
Dalbicz, 'Dimensions absolucs ct mesures absolues,' Revue thomiste, Mar.-
from
its
by
abstractio formalis, set
before the
mind
in
itself, as
Ap., 1925. To make more exact what I have said in Theonas, when basing oneself on the
constituting in itself a separate universe

the preter-real),
of knowledge {the universe of
lesson 17: cp. John
of the three kinds of predicative relations {Met., v, 1.5: St. Thomas, of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil, log. ii, P. q. 17), it is requisite to distinguish the measurement of specification, which is the basis for relations of die third kind and which rules measurement secundum commensurationem esse et veritatis (this measure is of another order than what is measured), from the measurement of comparison, which is the basis for relations of the first kind, and which in particular is the comparison of number and unity, standards of scale (mathematical measurement).
aristotelian doctrine
point of
and from the it is then treated no longer ontologically view of being, but quantitatively or from the standpoint of those relations of order and measurement which sustain the objects of thought so discernible as the forms or essences which are proper to them.
Thus considered
it is
the object of the mathematician.
am well aware
Our physical measurements imply a

our
unities
transcendental relation (or secundum did) between
and instruments and the
reality
which is
to
be measured;
a real (predicative)
physinothing to do with the numbers found by the observer (the numeration of the fundamental form of cist). It is so, for example, that time is bound up with the most
secundum esse relation o( the first kind between our unities and the measured quantity
(the
movement (what
the ancients sought for in the
movement of the
stars,
and to-day
is
measure of comparison); and a secundum esse relation which
is
rational (not real) of

(in
the third kind which
makes the being of the measured depend on our measurements

)
the fashion in which we conceive of them
Outside these (ontologically)

cerned with quantity in
tr'mseca
real
(measurements of specification). measurements of specification which can be con-
or inter-atomic motion), the measure of conanother time than that of the material universe. (Thus St. Thomas says, for the measured by cept of measure can be applied analogically, that there is only one aevum,
rather sought for in the
movement of light
the duration
itself (for, in
my opinion, it is to this category that metisura inThomas,

In Sent.
II,
in reality this
'quae est in mensuratio sicut accidens in subjecto' (St.
dist. 2, q. 1, a. 2, ad. r;
must be
referred, as a
body
is
intrinsically 'measured'
real
by
its
own
dimensions, ontologically determined)

parison,
there are in nature
measurements of com-
But the measure or scale of nature escapes us, because but only scale which can be applied to a quantity, belong to the ontological basis for such an application. Those measuring instruments the Mind which created the measure and scale of the universe. numerating mind numeraSt. Thomas explains {In Arist. Phys., iv, 23) that without a
of the
is
first angel.)
not a question of a
which
are ontological
mensions in particular,
generis',
dimeasurements, according to which things, and their a are extrinsically determined and bound up with another in
tion is
impossible, but that there
non
is
existente, ita possunt esse
unity of co-ordination and subordination
funumquodquc mensuratur simplicissimo

and which the philosopher can
sw
Sum.
thcol., j, 10, 6:
call
cp. In Met., x, 2),
to say, that then this numnumber' unless offered to numeration. 'Numerus numeratus dicitur ... id quod
may be numbers: 'Sicuti possunt esse sensibilia numerante. That numerabilia et numerus non existente reckoned number is not numbered (in act). It cannot be called
{Ibid. lect. 17.)
sensu
numbers
(in the sense in
number
exists a parte ret
which, according to St. Thomas, as is pointed out below, has and as numberablc before being numbered) but which
erarur in actu, vel
quod numerabile.'
pp.
201-0".
JSee
infra,
2 See
J.
Maritain, Theonas.
'
174
that for

many modern
theorists
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
h 4
'
SENSIBLE
NATURE
175
of pure mathematics the

it
latter
object, but
only purely formal logical
relations, so that according to
depends on external perception presupposingly, as does and which only The part played by imagination is explained by the itself. imagination
as fact that quantity,
celebrated definition
of Bertrand Russell,
can be reduced to
'a
stud
the
first
accident of corporeal substance, precedes
which one ignores that ofwhich one is speaking, and does

one says is true',
content as survives
tendency, in
justified
is
notknowifwh a discipline without content, and in which such objective

furnished
(innatural priority) the whole qualitative (energetic and physical) order,
by
the physicists.
But
my opinion, only prevails in mathematics
this nominalist
order, and is so known by the senses by and thus the whole sensible not without, for all that, a whole synergic qualities, means of sensible education of perception
tion in the service
(it is,
because an unthe precious

axiomatic
as it
were, a 'commonsensible'). Imagina-
abandonment of intuition goes hand in hand with
of the
intellect
can therefore penetrate into the world
rational acquisitions represented
by the development of the

pure
This intuition
is
not
intelligible intuition (nor
intuition, in the
in the
of pure quantity, abstractively detached from sensible matter and that very measure in which imagination, although it presupposes the
external senses,
is
selves for object a
kantian sense), as the geometricians for long believed, giving themworld of platonic models cut out from the amorphous
(i.e.
free
of them
(I
mean that its
objects are not subject to
the relative conditions
which
affect hie et nunc those
of perception, and
background which these figures defined

intuition, springing
the eternal and conditionis it
which proceed for an actual dependence in regard to external physical

circumstances).
in
ing universe) and which was called 'space': neither
an experimental
The
intuitive
schemas of the imaginationwhich are
from
external perception, the observations and
no
sense the object itself,
but only the symbols or sensible illustrations
measurements which are affected thanks to the senses and our instruments. It is an imaginative intuition, an intuition of 'inward meaning',
*As M. Rene Poirier has rightly pointed out, 'the word, axiomatic, can be applied to a theory whose postulates and indefinablcs are made evident. Every stricdy formal
science
is
-
of the object of mathematics

independent of
properties
all
thus exhibit to us
sensibly,
but in a
way
experimental conditions, both the essences and the

in themselves precede the sensible order and are
which
independent of it.
smallest degree
And
this action
of the imagination, without in the

and rigorous
rationality implied
thus axiomatic.
But
this
term can
also designate, in opposition to another
where an endeavour is made to retain the accustomed meaning of the original notions, those theories where any such attribution is abandoned, where they are seen simply as terms whose significance consists in their use according to some formal contheory, vention. In this sense current intuitive
diminishing the
strict
by logical
verifications, as the intuitionists

is
seem too often

as
to believe,
is
indispensable, because the object

intelligible.
not here,
in metaphysics, purely
geometry is not axiomatic, but Hilbert's is, almost perfectly. This ambiguity is apparent in formulas like the following, which the whole world accepts, but interprets variously: every exact science must tend to an
axiomatic form. In the first sense this would imply that it must be set out in a rigorously hypothetico-deductive manner. In the second, we reach this much more seditious conclusion: every pure science consists in the invention of an alogarithm, in itself deprived
manifest adsensum the intrinsic possibility

the
The constructive power of imaginative intuition must make of the entities considered by
all
mind, above
of those
indefinables
which
are at the beginning
of the science, and so assure us that, far from' concealing some secret
impossibility, these are veritable essences (on
whose foundation more-
of all objective significance, and used in such a way that the results produced correspond to those of experience, in a purely symbolic and verbal manner. In other words, a
truly abstract theory of phenomena is made up of symbols emptied of sense.' In disagreement with M. Poirier, I do not hold that his first thesis implies the second. It is possible to ask, on the other hand, if on the side of this development of the
.
over rational beings capable

up.)
of ideal
existence can in their turn be built
Whatever be these entities constructed or reconstructed by die axiomatic
methodwhich, when
axiomatic, that of physico-mathematical science has not been in part the occasion of that epistcmological up-set by which the moderns, misunderstanding one of the pricategories of knowledge, tend to integrate, in order to give it a content, mathematics with physics. In return, a just critical appreciation of mathematico-physics as a scientia media, in the very degree to which it requires an exact notion of the pure epis-
at least
indirectly or analogically fall into the field
they are not direcdy figurable by intuition, of the imaginable,
mary
such as non-euclidian multiplicities, the legitimacy of

evident in relation to all
which became
temological types so encountered, should restore to mathematics both

its
its
content and
superior position.
geometry on the day when, following in the steps of Beltrami, a euclidian translation of them was seen as possiblethey exhibit, by this connection with the intuitive sources of
"
176

rightful
It is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
thus easy to
SENSIBLE
NATURE
77
mathematics, in themselves a content, a field of truth and

telligibilityentirely in itself
comprehend
how in making
a mathematic exegesis
independent
thidier)
(if
not in the
pre-scientif"
paths
which have led the mind
of physical formations and ex
realwhich is precisely possible because quantity, of the physically of bodies, is grasped by mathematical knowaccident first the is which
degree ledge at a higher
physics
1
the confusion of mathemati and logic comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the natur
perimental existences. In the same
way
the
of abstraction and immateriality than that of mathematical physicist can have a mathematician's inof
real
of logic.
its
A non-reflective science,
('in as
which does not
find, as logic does

dealt
difference to the character
or rational being in the

led, as
entities
of
object in the objects
of the other
sciences in so far as they are
which he makes
use,
and can even be
we can see among our own
with by the mind

its
much
as
they are known') has
necessarily
direct
contemporaries, to
employ
in the explication of extra-mental reality
own domain of knowable
natures, a
righdy objective and
mathematical terms essentially inapplicable to any existence outside the

mind. In that very degree the universe
content.
which he constructs will become

are
This objective content of mathematical observation,

ancients
is
then, as the
unfigurable
in the degree to which mathematical rational beings

as these are
etttia
saw (but a whole new
synthesis requires building upon the

as
employed in its construction, and

by imaginative intuition like the
the arithmetic
not direcdy representable
foundation of their principles), being under the terms of quantity

such,
ratioms
of euclidian geometry and
of quantity taken in
itself,
with
its
own
'qualities', 1
the
of whole numbers.
relational
and the properties of order and measure decipherable in limited and unlimited quantity; all the more so that the incessant constructures
The
fact
remains that mathematical rational beings are founded on
mathematical real beings, and that the latter are disengaged from the
experience of the real
quests
of modern mathematics oblige
us, as
by
a series of logical expreviously
world by mathematical
of that
real quantity
is
abstraction, as they are
haustions, to enlarge, revise
and
refine
many of the notions
grasped in the depths

considers ontologically.
that in the
which the philosopher

which
definitely,
held of these beings, and that,

sation
of all
by a form of effort after a total spiritualimathematical knowledge, number for three centuries has
field
Quantity
there, it
is it
and
most
radical fashion, bases
on
it
the real the entities built up
tended to reduce and absorb the irrevocably potential
of content,
itself and
by the physicist in order to refind, starting from the constellations of

mathematics, die natural earth;
and on the other to

spatiality in
escape, if it
its
were
possible,
from quantity
from
he draws
his
measurements
autem
se
order to extend
this
empire over the whole
transcendental
I
^'Mathematica dicuntur per abstractionem a naturalibus

per appositionem
naturalia
habent
multitude.
However
may
be, these mathematical beings, as
have
ad mathematical superaddunt enim mathemaricis naturam

mathematica abstrahunt:
et sic patet
sensibi-
already pointed out, turn abstract not only existence, but the very order
lem
et
motum,
a quibus
quod
ea quae sunt de
rarione
of existence, so that they can be

legitimate objects
indifferently,
and while remaining

2
the
mathematicalium salvantur in naturalibus, et noa e converso.' (St. Thomas, De Caeh et Mundo, iii, 3 .) This is why the student of nature can use mathematical principles
dicitur esse unitas posita. Similiter
of science,
real (in the pliilosopher's sense)
or
rational.
in his
More,
it is
precisely in entering in the

rationis
most decided
fashion into the

has
super
region oientia
and pure
Magnitude addit positionem supra numerum; unde punctus autem corpus naturale addit materiam sensibilem magnitudinem mathematicam; et ideo non est inconveniens si naturalis in dedemonstrations:
'
ideality that
modern mathematics
monstrationibus utatur principiis mathematicis.' {Ibid,
i,
3.)
made so many admirable discoveries.

l
This use ofmathematical principles in the knowledge ofnature can either remain accidental
See supra, chap,
i,
p, 45,
note
1.
and represent a borrowing from mathematics by the
nahiralis,
or be an essential
*It
goes without saying that the
word
real
real is
not used here in the
* sense in which
mathematician distinguishes between
and imaginary numbers. Irrational numbers would arc real numbers in the mathematical sense of the word and the philosopher called call both rational, not real beings, like imaginary numbers. Imaginary number is
so because
it
under consideration, which is then properly a scientia media. It is clear that these various degrees of accidental 'mathematisation' must progressively change purely
to the science
does not truly correspond with the notion of number;
it is
an
analytic
physical science into a scientia media. Modern mathematical physics realises the typeform of scientia media perfectly. On the other hand, in my opinion the use of mathematics in biology or psychology will never achieve the typical subordination of these
disciplines to the rules
expression.
of mathematical explication.
m.d.k,
178

by means of his conventional
ruler,
'
effectuated
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
physics incessantly grows.

Finally,
and thence he sets ff climb the sky: an unceasing to and fro thanks to which mathema ^
although that science
its
is
79
of an ontological or apprehensible nucleus manifested by an assembly of qualities perceived hie et nunc. (For example, I find in the course of a
botanical excursion a plant
little
concerned with ontology
unknown
to
me.
It
belongs to some species
own growth physical facts which, howeve^ however difficult they may be to formulate apart from them, have nevertheless their own and independent valu and among the entities which it has constructed, those carry the
such,
it
accumulates in
and by smell and sight and touch I eagerly seek to discover its characteristic features. I
wrapped up
in theories,
can either ask myself concerning

I
it:
what
It
is
a living
plant?
a case cepts:
Or:
how do
classify this in
my herbarium?)
in
follows from
such as this that there are
two ways
which
to resolve
our con-
strong-
est indications
of reality and are least wrapped up in purely rational

directly related (U.
one which
rises
towards
intelligible being, in
which the sensory

and the obser-
con-
ditions
which are most
remains observed
ing:
by me, but
indirectly,
and
as
have the
serving intelligible besensible
least theoretic
interpositions) to experimental data.
Thus die progress of theoretic phy-
and another, which descends towards the
sics, that is to say, the more speculative part of mathematical physics, which is accomplished by making more and more use of mathematical
1 vable as such,
where doubdess there
is
no
absolute
abandonment of
to the
the idea
of being (without which, indeed, there would be no thought),

it is
ideality,
should not
make us forget the immense treasure ofpurely phyand observable configurations, in

brief,
but where
subservient to the sensible in
itself,
and before
all
measurable, and only remains in the

the constancy
mind
as
sical results,
of
an unknown assurance of
facts
of entk
realiafor
of certain
sensible determinations
and measures, and

object perceived
as
all
that they are
more
particularised
and
less interesting to that

is,
allowing for the drawing

the senses. This
is
of stable limits round the
the philosopheraccumulated by the physics of the laboratory, by the more experimental part of mathematical physics.
by
certainly the
I call
way
experimental sciences.
logical (in
these
in which concepts are resolved in two methods respectively the onto-
the widest use
of the word),2 and the empmological or spatio-
temporal.
ONTOLOGICAL AND EMPIRIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION (AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE NOTION OF CAUSALITY)
In submitting itself fully to the attractions
tions,
It
goes without saying that in 'ontological' explanation being con-
tinues to
be considered
(at least in
first
so far as
we remain,
as in this
chap-
of mathematical
explana-
'
ter,
within the limits of the
degree of abstraction) in the terms of

its
and in
translating itself into those terms, in the great revolution
observable data.
their
But the mind
in
consideration of these seeks for
accomplished by
its
Da
Vinci, Galileo
and Descartes, physics conquered
inward nature and
intelligible reasons,
which
is
why it comes
in
autonomy with regard to philosophy. More or less completely, more or less rapidly, the other sciences have followed its example. This
enfranchisement of the phenomenological sciences has been in progress
for diree centuries
following dus path to the statement of notions like those of corporeal

*Cp. supra, chap,
i,
p. 48.
and
is still
going on. If we wish to
characterise the
method by which this self-determination has been accomplished, it can be said that side by side with the conceptual dictionary of philosophy,
ontological, a totally different one, logical order, has been constituted.
is
^he use made here of the word 'ontological' is much wider than that of that part of philosophy known as ontology or general metaphysics. It is used to designate a characteristic common to the whole philosophic discipline. I would add, to avoid any
appearance of ambiguity, that ontology in this extended sense does not
which
winch
is
of an empirio-
monopolise
ly different
all
the claims
by any means and demands of the real. These, though manifest in an entire-
Our observation of some material
object
is
the meeting point of two
way, are certainly no less present in empiriological apprehension; and it would be wholly erroneous to make this a point of opposition between me and M.
Emile Meyerson. In
a better grasp
its
forms of knowledge, the sensible and the intellectual. We are in the presence of a kind of sensory flux stabilised by an idea; in odier words,
in accord with
construction of rational beings physics only endeavours to win explanation its own rightful method of conception and
of observed reality.
180

etc.
all
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
itself.
SENSIBLE
NATURE
181
substance, quality, operative potency, material or formal cause,
natures or essences of the corporeal world, but these It works in the
of which, though applying to the world of the observable, do not

scribe objects
de-
which are in themselves representable by the senses or expressible in an image or spatio-temporal scheme. They are not defined by observations or measurements which can be performed in a particular
are
But
types
not as such its object. in this very category of the empiriologicai two clearly different
of explanation can be distinguished, according as the empiric conreceives its form and its laws of explanation from tent (i.e. the measurable)
mathematics
determined way.
then there
is
is
the type of 'empirico-mathematical' expli-
In 'empiriologicai' explanation,
there, as I pointed tual
on the other hand, ontology

ago, since
it is
is still
cation characteristic
of mathematico-physical science
or
as the
empiric
rule
out a
moment
a question of intellectaking
content (in this case, the observable in general) implies a
form and
is
knowledge, and we do not cease to be reasoning animals by
of explanation which
purely experimental then there
the type of
to experimental science; in that sense, the scientist, like every other man,
1 'empirico-schematic' explication characteristic of the sciences of obser-
remains invincibly ontological, but in this case the ontology
is
oblique
for
it-
vation not subjected to, or at least not yet subject to, mathematical ter-
and
indirect.
The
ontological
is
never under these terms sought

empiric definitions and
minology.
to
I shall
return to this distinction later.
At this point I only wish
self, it is
only there
as a basis for
representation
as
point out that in the one case
as in the other, the empiriologicai dic-
or of physico-mathematical entities.
at the origin
The mind
considers the object

as a
tionary proper to the

a
of the registration of certain constants,

its
complex
in a
phenomenological sciences tends to set itself up in more and more perfect independence with regard to the ontological
2
describable
by
encounter with our senses and our instruments
terminology of philosophy.
This kind of purification
certain particular fashion; so that the essential conditions

lility
of the ohervascientific ex'to
is
particularly far advanced in physics.
But
of the object play a determining part in regard to
planation. All the derivative notions introduced

assist
by
science in order
maybe by the elaboration of new concepts or the re-phrasing of definitions, maybe by a new use, applied in toto to sensible verifications, of
general concepts (of philosophic or pre-philosophic origin), sciences
description, so that the trees should not conceal the
forest', reif
sult in its
condensation into the measurable and the observable. And

is
such as biology or experimental psychology,

will
the analysis
conducted in terms which are not in themselves

is
attained
for
al-
be seen in a
moment under what
conditions and with
which can be included it what reseralso, to create

self-
by
all
the senses (or, if it
a question of psychology, by introspection,

is
vationsin the empirico-schematic type, tend, yes, they

for
experimental psychology
not necessarily behaviourist),
these
themselves a notional vocabulary which
is
more and more
ways remain conceived in

and
relation to recordings
and imaginary
per-
determined. Since they abide in a

philosophy,
it is
much less precarious continuity with

them than
for physics to isolate this
ceptions (for example, factual impossibles, as in the case of the
ether),
more
difficult for
like hidden observables indirectly attained thanks to the patent obare
notional dictionary, to prevent the entry of philosophical concepts
servables
strictly
which require them: so that all the motions employed held within the order of what has been, could have been or is experienced by the senses. 1 In this sense, and by an abridgement of language, one can say that empiriologicai explanation has no ontological
{i.e.
which, in
this region,
they persevere in the endeavour,

for the
give space for pseudo-explanations. Nevertheless and we can observe even a preference
(like the
most rudimentary conceptual equipment
system of
directly
ontological) value;
it
only
attains the
being of
it
things ob-
liquely and as an indirect foundation,

*It is
without making
known
in
*I mean by this phrase that in this case experience is not thought out or rationalised according to the laws of mathematical conceptualisation, but in accord with the schetnas which have themselves been experimentally discovered by the reason in
phenomena.
Kan" here that the methods of the natural sciences give a foundation for the being notion of phenomena (the philosophical system on which this notion is involved
cutaway).
^This is what an eminent scientist has called 'an assertion of freedom for development*. (A. S. Eddington, The Nature ofthe Physical World, p. xvii.)
autonomous
82

by
the Freudian school) 1 on the on
it
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
183
psychological notions employed
condition that
will assure this independence.

all
Thus, in a general way, in

tion of concepts
is
empiriological recording, the

It is
is
resolu-
empirico-ontological notion (which is in truth intrinsically of a popular the 'cause' as a phenomenon producing anotherand of of ambiguous) (philosophical or mechanical) empirico-schematic one of the
a scientific
'cause' as a
made in an infra-philosophic direction.

which
is
not what
phenomenon
to
which another
is
connected by a universal
'law'
things are in themselves
die point of interest;
what
important
necessary concatenation
a purely
which expresses a world
and,
finally,
of
are the possibilities

present,
of empiric proof and of mensuration which they recertain stable laws
empiriological notion of the 'cause' (from which
all
philoso-
and also of connecting together, according to
phical content has
been withdrawn)
as the spatio-temporal condition
of
must be made no longer 'by the nearest gender and specific difFerence', but by observable and highly determined measurable properties, to each of which is assigned in each case the method of recording and of practical verification.
the data furnished
definition
by
these means.
Every
constellation of observable and measurable detera phenomenon or the a phenomenon is bound up, a notion which which with minations
the finds its perfect expression in
formulation of physical connections

such
as those
by means of mathematical
differential
relations,
which
furnish the
The
possibility
of observation and measurement
thus replaces for

in things
or tensorial calculus.
On this plane of conditionality the idea
such forms of knowledge the essence or quiddity sought for
by philosophy. The registration of conditionality (which keeps

the sensible and the imaginable ) tends in the same
of transitive action, in incessant transmutation among the various masks of causality of which here I have only given a brief abridgement, is
the
mind attached to
at once
completely shredded
away
into that of phenomenal co-determination.
way to substitute that
of causality, which, when it is pure, causes the mind to progress to reasons of being not representable by the senses.
Such, at
In fact
its
At the same time science has in this relation, as we see to-day, reached something of a critical point. In the course of its own line of progress it laws, which has seen some of its laws take on the form of statistical
thrust causal determinations into the
least, is
the ideal to
is
which empiriological knowledge

far
series
leads.
background, others transformed
noematic material
from being homogeneous, and if one

of conceptual
different
is
into
what
are called identical-laws or 'truisms',
which explain the beit
makes
a cross-section
of the procedure a whole
haviour of things
to
by
that behaviour
itself,
where
has become, thanks
strata are visible in the

intelligible density
course of one notional function, of very
and forms of refraction. Not only, for example,
the existence of natures or stable essences in the corporeal world a pos-
some mathematical transmogrifications, a property of the structure of a world built up for that end by the mind (which in particular is what has befallen in the geometrical reshaping of certain sections of physics,
such as gravitation).
in crossing the threshold of the atomic world, science has discovered that mechanics cannot account for the movements of a But, above
all,
of the pre-philosophy of the scientist, but, in the very operations of science, the natural notion supplied by commonsense of these ontotulate
logical nuclei continues to operate
on
certain planes, while
in others
it
has been replaced

possibilities
by
a scientific notion remodelled according to
the
particle in a
way which is on all occasions entirely defined.

is
of measurement.
We learn by wave-mechanics that it

use
at once, on
differing planes
trajectory to a particle associated in a
impossible to assign a fixed

this
In the same
way a scientist will make
group of waves,
only
al-
of conceptualisation, of an ontological notion, furnished

state
in a confused
by commonsense, and
of the
incarnated for
him
servable relation,
*It
'cause* as
an activity productive
in a measurable or obof beingand
lows the knowledge of the probability of the presence of that particle in a more or less extended area; and the particle can never have at once a
perfecdy defined position and perfecdy defined energy.
The quantum
should not be forgotten that apart
analytic investigation, the (empiriological)
psychofrom the value of the method of contaminpsychology of Freud is in itself
mechanics of Heisenberg and Born, which are in agreement with the exhibitwave-mechanics of Louis de Broglie and Schroedinger, but in
ing that
it is
ated
by a fundamentally erroneous general philosophy.
necessary to give to their principles a
statistical significance,
1 84

wave
a pure mathematical symbol, abandon
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
principle
SENSIBLE
NATURE
185
and seeing only in the
even the possibility of following die movement of each particle. Science has thus come to the 'principle of indetermination' or the 'relations of
incertitude'
particle
of causalityin the very form of that phenomenal coThe determination to which it has been reduced by scienceis seen as open riddled with lacunae, robbed of its universal value. A reto exceptions,
sult
of Heisenberg;
it is
only possible to determine the speed of a

de-
against
which certainly those
who
abandoned a
truly (philoso-
by
its
leaving at that
position
moment its position undetermined, or to

its
phically) ontological standpoint
have no right to
protest.
With
science
speed in indetermination. In order to precisely observe the position of an electron it is necessary to disturb its
termine
by leaving
devoted to pure empiriology

the spell
and empiriometrics, more and more under

this
of mathematical rational being (we

degree to which
has been
up widi a short-length wave, whose quantum is of high energy), and in order to measure its speed exacdy it is necessary (in only lighting it with a long-wave length of a low quantum) to
speed
(in lighting it
physics for the
owe thanks to the new made evident), it was obdo not seem pre-
vious there
could be
it
no other
end.
it
But
the scientists
pared to take
ciple
so lighdy; for
has been the general belief in the prin-
render
its
position uncertain. Finally
it is
necessary to sacrifice 'the
tra-
of causality which was the vital impulse behind research. Like
ditional idea
which
attributed to corpuscles a well-defined position,
Einstein they
hope
that 'strict causality' will
one day recover
its
sover-
speed and trajectory': more,
we can no longer
The
attribute 'a well-defined
1 eignty in physics. Einstein
gave voice to
this
hope in 1927. Since then
energy to the corpuscle, but only speak of the probability by which

it
micro-physics appears rather to

dency. 2
1 manifests itself with such energy'.
series
of waves
is
only, in
Whatever form
it
may
have accentuated its mdeterminist' tenassume in the future and even if a
Heisenberg's phrase, a 'bundle ofprobabilities'
So we see science so far obliged to renounce determinism,

the
trine
denies the possibility
precisely in
determinism
or free
form
in
which determinism is
'scientific'
and
as it
means, not that

that the laws
of free will To draw aa argument in favour of philosophical from this formula, and to conclude from it that there cannot be spiritual agents, whose behaviour, by the very definition of their freedom, is outside the
the course of events excludes
any contingence, but simply
domain of material science, and

of matter, prevents,
of nature can
in the given circumstances at a given momentstricdy

way
in
whose action, without causing any change in the laws by the introduction of a new (non-material) factor the initial state
is
determine the
which in the following moment such
material
2
of a system from exactly deterrnining its ulterior ones,

In the
a simple piece
of trickery.
phenomena
J
2
will offer themselves to observation

mkhaniaue
and measurement.
L. de Broglie, Introduction a I'itude de la

It is
ondulatoire, Paris, 1930.

is
way the formula of scientific determinism presupposes that all the conditions of the initial state (or at the moment of observation) are given, from which it follows that the ulterior state is determined. But it in no way says that certain of these
same
conditions cannot
important to point out here an ambiguity of which the public

scientists
be simple positions of fact (depending for example on the

or if it
as
is
intersec-
too often the

is
tion of causal lines,

cision).
victim (and sometimes

sophism.
a question of an absolutely initial

in chapter
i,
state,
of an arbitrary de-
themselves),
and which, tightly speaking,

natura, determinate ad
a gross
This
is
why,
was shown
scientific
determinism does not ex-
For the
initial state
scientist
i) is
the philosophical principle
unum
clude contingence in the philosophical sense

(see
It is
of the word.
supra, chap,
translated
on
the empiriological
plane into the formula: 'The
only with regard to the
quantum theory that the differential method of New-
of a
(material) system, separated

'If at
from
all exterior action, entirely deter-
ton becomes inadequate,
mines its ulterior states;' or again:
of a universe (hypothetically composed of purely material agents) is known, the state of this universe at any ulterior instant is entirely determined;' which is the very formula of scientific determinism.
a certain moment the state
effect strict causality has broken down. But the last word has not been said. It may be that the spirit ofNewton's method may give us the power to re-establish the accord between physical reality and the most characteristic
and in
and profound feature
of Newton's teaching,
strict causality.' (Nature,
26th Mar., 1927;
'A Message for the
Centenary of Newton.')
it is
But in the enunciation of this formula it is, implicitly or explicitly, presupposed that a case of purely material systems, of purely material agents and phenomena (in the
i.e. whose bearing depends entirely on the natures in inwhich the law of causality takes exactly this form. Scientific determinism
^
u
contradiction to Einstein, Dirac considers the possibility

definitely excluded. 'Since physics is
is
causality
of a return to 'strict only occupied with observable magni-
philosophic sense of the word,

teraction) for
is
, the classic determinist theory

ysical essence
indefensible. ... In the
quantum theory also, we
"art
thus a conditional determinism ('supposing that there are only purely material agents'), which is by no manner of means absolute determinism, which as a philosophical doc-
from certain numbers and deduce other numbers. Let us seek to penetrate to the P of these two series of numbers. The perturbations which an observer n lcts on a system in order to observe it are directly subject to his control and are the
1 86

what
is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
The
notional line
great field
SENSIBLE
NATURE
in
187
return should become possible to the
determination,
lights
this
methods or only die idea1 of stri important to the philosopher and sineukrl
heterogeneity, to return to our theme,
of the materials
one
brought into action by science

is
is
thus sharply apparent.
up the nature of empiriological apprehension (and what justifies digression) is the fact that science has one day come to know a state
causality as characteristic as the
of critical analysis
so opened
passing. to indicate in
error into
of mind with regard to

are actually observing.
acts
one which we
which
we
fall
The essential when we consider

is
up which I have only wished point is to comprehend the grave

science statically as
its
comob-
plete, as 'all
of a piece', not only with regard to

only too
internal noetic
extension and
its
of his free will.
It is
will
which can be taken

is
uniquely the numbers which are described by these acts of free as initial numbers for a calculus of the quantum theory. .
jects
of knowledge, where the error
clear,
but
also
from the
and
its
point
of view of
forms.
its
morphology,
it
its
intension
{Address to the Solvay Congress, 1927.) Thus,

that 'physics
by rigorous application of the
principle
typical
At
the very point
where
detaches itself from the pre-
recognise the inalienable part

his calculus
only occupied with observable magnitudes', the physicist is led to which he himself and the 'acts of his free will' take
in
it is
of phenomena;
so because he can only observe
by
material means
not purely mentally

1
(cp. infra,
pp. 233-4).
to build itself up more and growth is accompanied by a progressive internal formative movement, which brings it into connection
scientific basis
of commonsense in order
a science
its
more purely
as
extensive
We know that M. Paul Langevin has tried, by re-casting the terms of physical rehope and surmount the crisis of indeterminism.
Paris, 193 1.
with certain determined epistemological types

partially realised
realisation
presentation, to realise Einstein's
(Cp.
in very varying degrees.
which it has only as yet But if a total and homogeneous

as
A. George, L'CEmre de L. de Broglie et la physique d'aujourd'hui,
He refers to
an address delivered by Langevin at the College de France and to speeches at the Union Rarionaliste in 1930, which have not been published at the time of writing.) Langevin points out that the question: is it possible to follow the movement of a particle while determining at each instant its speed and its position? is only possible if the notion of
the individual existence
of these ideal types must be regarded

is that,
an asymptotic
limit,
what is very remarkable

lities
anticipating so to speak future possibi-
and before
all
subject to the exigencies

use,
of its
ideal form, science
only
for
makes a material
and
as if without recognising
or qualifying
dual particle, the question
not raised.
of all admitted. But if there is no indiviof the application of the law of causality to its behaviour is He thus proposes the sacrifice of corpuscular individuality for the saving of
particle
is first
of the
them, of notions
which belong
to the less developed strata of con-
ceptualisation.
The formulas of scientific intelMgibihty, above all, pass by
determinism.
the higher stages,

scientific preoccu-
This effort of Langevin seems to proceed not only from purely pations, but also from philosophical opinions,
forms of
the
e.g.u
is
which are, in opinion, not exact: according to him, by an anthropomorphic interpolation that the notion of inapplied to the atomic world, 'the portion of matter a projection from our individual consciousness,'
is
my
the notions which are most typically pure. Thus, in the knowledge with which we shall be occupied presently, in
is
phenomenological sciences, the formally activating value

elimination
attached
for the
dividuality
pursue
is
which we which results in the denial of

label and
to the
of the ontological and the philosophical
benefit
It is
any ontological value to the notion of individuality. Again, seeking to save scientific it is also, it seems, an effort to save the philosophical deterrninist conception of causality, no distinction having been made between these two. But nothing
determiiusm,
prevents the supposition that, on the empiriological plane, science will find it in its power to effectively rid itself of the notion of corpuscular individuality as it has rid itseU ot the notion of absolute time: physical magnitudes being represented in the new
(operative factors), it
is
of a wholly empiriometric or empirico-schematic explanation.
comprehensible that, for a
mind limited by its habitual preoccu-
pations to inteUigibihty at this degree, philosophic notions

significance.
may lose all
In a certain sense the experimental sciences have progressed
by fighting against the intelligence: for the

significances
dynamics by purely mathematical symbols that an as rattoms can be fashioned,

it
intellect has a natural tendency to introduce into the conceptual register proper to these sciences
quite conceivable
must be pointed out
from which individuality is excluded. Meanwhile

run against
serious
diffi-
culties:
Lorn de Broglie does not seem inclined to agree with it (cp. A. George, op. cit.) Oeorge remarks that the abandonment of corpuscular individuaHry is far from easily reconciled with the atomic conceptions which have become fundamental in modern pnyacs or with numerous experiments concerned with photons and electrons (C. T. R. Wilson s method, Crompton's effect, photoelectric effects,
etc.).
that Langcvin's solution appears to
consequence disturb
preventing
Finally
its
which belong to another, the philosophical, and which in and retard experimental knowledge as such, by
approximation to its pure type.
possible to say that the natural sciences are
it is
bound up with
ontology in a way which is implicit, obscure, thankless and unavowed, a this for two reasons: first of all in so far as these sciences necessarily
88

unformulated, or unconscious, but which
as
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
is
SENSIBLE
NATURE
189
presuppose a philosophy or pre-philosophy, a latent substructure which
knowledge ofnature from the dominion of a number of preconfree our

ceived
icist as
may be rudimentary,
the less real, and
non
them
mathematical ideas, and, to speak briefly, a reaction of the physsuch (the theoretical physicist) against the pre-arranged framerationalist mechanics, in itself held to
all that,
which assumes
things as distinct
from
indubitable postulates the existence of thought and the possibility of attaining
work imposed on physics by

come
be a
more or
less
completely by knowledge.
Then
in so far as science
itself
purely mathematical science. (Mechanics, for

a
might
itself be-
exists in oblique reference to things as
representations
all rests
which
it
elaborates,
the foundation of the explanatory and by the simple fact that for it
witness the scientific
on observation and then on die intuition of the senses (whose employment of measuring apparatus and denning of points of per-
department of physics, at which any Aristotelian would rejoice, peripatetic doctrine that motion is in itself a physical, not a good for mathematical, thing, and what the mathematician retains the variait is
tion
of the distances of a point from co-ordinated axes, which
is
evi-
instruments dissolves, so to speak, into a multiplicity

ception,
dendy, as Descartes said, 'reciprocal',

in the point
its
and which
posits
no more
reality
presupposed by these works), does

tuition
of graduated readings, but which remains nevertheless always it not impliddy declare, like the inof the senses themselves, the existence in the exterior world of
than in the axes, and vice versa

its
is
not movement itself, but

in itself
effect
or
translation into the register
of ideal quantity:
is
mathematics makes
mechanistic theory
salisation
movement
into an abstraction. This

as
why
the
hidden ontological structures, which, no

scrutinise in their
more than
at
the senses, can
it
which has been taken
the metaphysical univer-
own individual being?

which is
once implicit and ex-
of mechanics in the
classical sense,
while claiming to explain

is
But except
plicit,
for this double relation,
all
nature in terms
of extension and motion,
in reality a jettisoning
to the ontological, the natural sciences tend to separate, in dieir
of the reality of motion,
which has become wholly ideal.)

to
own particular structure,

ontological.
to die farthest degree the observable
from the
The new physics has renounced the attribution

in the scientific
any of the elements

i.e.
picture
of nature of an
absolute character,
the posses-
THE
I
NEW
PHYSICS
of certain unvarying quantitative determinations or properties, which appertain to elements of the same kind when they are considered
sion
in themselves
have spoken of physico-mathematical knowledge in general. A marvellous renaissance has to-day taken place in this form of knowledge
its
or their essences
by the mathematician,
physics because
as
in independence
of all physical
attributed to
means of observation and measurement (and which was

classical
it set up its picture of was normal, mathematical in type,
whose importance cannot be exaggerated. With extraordinary rapidityfundamental concepts have been revised and re-adjusted, the foundations of Newtonianism have been shaken, and the theoreticians of
science attribute,
it
them by
nature in a
framework, not only,
but
tion
seems with good reason, to the
work of Einstein and
which has been thought out and established in a mode of concepand determination proper to the mathematician as such, not the
has renounced the absolute dimensions of bodies, an abso-
Planck a magnitude equal to that of the great initiators of the classical age. Few spectacles could be more beautiful or more moving to the
physicist). It
lute setting
mind than
reflections
out in space as in time, the absolute character of mass, any
this
of physics advancing on the path of its destiny

sail.
like a
system of privileged axes,

of the Galilean
whether it is a question,
as in limited relativity
great galleon in full
Here, for a
moment or two,
the course of these
systems of reference, uniform in
movement with regard
future
of the
must pause, not to indulge in any rash forecastings of the dieories of the new physics, but to inquire whedier its
to others, or, as in generalised relativity,
of systems of reference having
no matter what movement

to regard the
with regard to others. Again, it is permissible
scientific
bearing confirms or invalidates the epistemological principles

to
which up
now I have been endeavouring to establish.

epistemological standpoint
it
quantic theories, and the growing importance given to the
From die
discontinuouj in these
effort to
exhibits first
of all an
scientific conceptions, as a revolt by physics against the privileged position accorded by mathematical analysis and
new
190

of the laws of
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
fact tivity proceeds in
SENSIBLE
NATURE
19l
the recourse to differential equations in the exposition
nature to conditions of continuity.
The reassertions of a form of realism in the physicist as such that is of the resolution of the primordial concepts of science in
elements exclusively determined
from an absolute need and an effort of the widest span to raise science to a high degree of independence with regard to the particular standpoints of the various observers. In this the very spirit and
of physical theory has evolved and progressed. In the new syn1 thesis the laws of nature are set out in the same fashion, and magnitude
ideal
'
complexes of
world which the classic age had drawn out in accord with the ideal supra-physical privileges of the mathematical universe. The physicist has recovered in the same stroke all the native force of the
sical
really or imaginably executable physical measurementshas thus risen up to break an image of the phy-
by
par excellence,
velocity
rial
which
is
like the sovereign
of the physical worldthe
of light (velocity for which length becomes zero and the matemass infinite)-is measured by the same number for the observers
which seek to disclose the secrets and ways of nature, the rightful mystery of the world of bodies (return cognosccre causas, things have not changed from this point of view since Lucretius and Virgil, and it is with good reason that the decisive progress which has renewed our science of matter is attributed
to
desire
immanent in
urge and
his habitual occupation,
what system of reference, whatever may be the motion of question in relation to one another; the image of things in themselves and the connections between happenings varying in consequence. I have already had occasion to mark the importance of the
of no matter
the systems in
necessary distinction
which should be drawn between the laws of nature
and the concrete course of events:

stamps with relativity the course
themselves
lations in
we
can say that if the
the intuitive faculty for the physically real bols of mathematics).^ What indeed
physicist,
rations,
new
physics
amid the most abstract sym-
of events
(not with regard to the events

their re-
would be thcprimum movens of any even if he be the most devoted adherent of positivistic macewithout such a.desire to penetrate to what
is?
produced
hie et nunc,
it
is
but in the setting out of
space
and time)
in order to assure at their expense
They
thus claim
universally absolute
form
for the laws.
to possess mathematics
without being possessed, to
treat it as a simple
language, a mere instrument wherewith to scrutinise nature and matter. But how do they set to work on this plan? And what are the results in fact? see the new physics expressly leading to a complete geometrisation. It is in taking the fullest cognisance of this demand, which is inherent in the very nature of modern physics, that it has built itself up and achieved all its victories. But it
its
We
may put it so, and in the formal texture ot deductive system, that physico-mathematical science attains to this most absolutely, to that expansion in the unconditioned
things tend:
But it is outside things, if I
spiritual
to which all not in the discovery of the absolute in things them-
can only advance along this road by an even more complete renunciation than that of classical physics of all
ontological claims,
selves, rather, on the contrary, by escaping from the ontological, by renouncing the integration in the scientific picture of nature of the absolute elements recognised in the real by both philosophy and commonsense,
and in the replacement of these elements
and by multiplying more than ever, and with all the

physico-mathematical rational beings.
by rational beings
elaborated
advantages of full advertence,

It
.
has been frequendy pointed passing the meaning of

this
out-and it is not out of order to fix in comment-diat Einstein's theory of rela-
and its prodepending on 'co-efficients of a quadratic form of the differentials of four coordinates corresponding to an event', the laws of nature are expressed 'by the
perties
ât
is
to say that the universe being a multiplicity of four dimensions,
relations
fw^Wi?^
worTd
I
ofZ T^f Sfa*

ti
thC Veil s y L [ hidcS
"^
Aesenever
disguise for
^^
mb
tion
eepuig with regard to this quadratic of the sum of the co-ordinates'
form an unvarying
cit.).
character in any transforma-
conceals the reality. There are

Einstein
many
'
8Pi&d:
moves
at his ease in a
him
the physical aspect
of things'
is
(P.
re anvity,
Oa this question of the unvarying form of the laws of nature in the new physics, as on the notion of geometrical explication, the dissymmetry introduced by generalised
from
the standpoint
'
(E. Picard, op.
reconcile
tLsT,,k
PacaHJte tm
<W. and
its
greatest success
to finally
M
larl
T if?7 I
maneti !m
;
see
of geometricisation itself, in the domain of gravitation numerous excellent passages in the work already cited by
is
C amination
Poirier (Essai sur quelques caracdres des notions d'espace et de temps, Paris, 1931).
of both the strength and the weakness of relativist theories,
particu-
192

before,
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
from
all
SENSIBLE
NATURE
193
of the deductive system under construction. The philosopher knows that bodies have absolute dimensions that there are in the world absolute motions, an absolute time,
in accord with the exigencies simultaneities
ontological notions, and every mode of ontological con

it is
ccptualisation
(whether
a question of the naive ontology of daily
which
are absolute for events divided as far as
observation or
of that ofphilosophy).
may be in space-
here entirely determined in itself, independendy of any observer: the knowledge of what these* are, the discernments of these
absolute signifies
the
The process to which the vocabulary of physics has been subjected by theory of relativity is very significant from this point of view. When
absolute dimensions,
by
the aid
movements, simultaneities (at a distance), time of our means of observation and measurement, the
it is
we listen to a discourse by M. Einstein on simultaneity it is striking to hear

him constandy returning to the question: what does the word 'simultaneous' signify for me as a physicist? And he always responds, in accord
with that methodological
stressed:
phuW
pher renounces, voluntarily conceding that

cient for
not possible. 1
It is suffi-
be discerned by pure minds, which know without observing from a given point of space and time. The physicist makes a like renunciation, and with good reason. But for him, he is not
a philosopher and
far as it
is only occupied with what he can measure and in so can be measured, the existence of these absolutes does not count,
him
that they can
Give
me
a definition
theme whose fundamental importance I have which will tell me by what collection of
I
concretely realisable
measures
can in each case verify what two events
do or do not deserve to be called simultaneous: then alone

definition
and in
their place
constituted
he knows only and manipulates relative entities reby means of measurable determinations: entia rationis cum
I shall have a of simultaneity usable by a physicist and valuable in his eyes. 1 There can, therefore, be no question here of the essence of simultane-
ity,
what
it is
in
itself.
fundamento
re-modelled and stripped

the physicist
in re.
Time, simultaneity, space, are concepts entirely of any philosophical colour; they take on for
Could the distinctive features of the 'realism' of the new physics have led in themselves to any other result? To make 'the whole object of
exact science' consist in pointer readings and similar indications' and to turn out of physics every notion which is not resolvable into physically
efFectable
a purely empiriometric significance to
imply a great deal

cal
which it would of simple-headedness to apply any direcdy ontologi-
value:
and physics has thus achieved the completest possible en-
franchisement
measurements,
is
to free physics
from
that ideal armature
which had descended into its stufffrom the heaven

but
it is
ofpure mathematics;
radically than ever
from philosophy. In the same stroke it tends to achieve from commonsense: not only from that common imagery which was in question at the beginning of the previous
an equal deliverance
chapter,
at the
same time to
free
it,
much more
but from the philosophy implicit in
common observation,
what
is
the
natural principles
and data of the
intelligence, except in
con-
of physics, see the article by R. Dalbiez, cit. supra. He words of Jules Tannery, 'The idea of determination is independent of the possibility of formulating in what this determination consists,' and writes very justly, quantity u not identical with relation, and quantitative being is provided by a quantity which is right before any comparison with a scale. ... We know that bodies have an absolute figure, but we do not know what this figure is. . Our physical knowledge only bears on relations. We are certain that objects have absolute dimensions,
recalk the
. .
Khi
the relational character
cerned
with the principles of mathematical interpretation, and the

as length,
The vocabulary of the physicist comprises a number of words such
'
butwedonotknowif these absolute dimensions
are retained.'
i he ancients were well aware of the distinction drawn by Tannery, and which is J. connected with the dutinction between the quid est and the quia est. If they did not make it with regard to the numbers of nature and the dimensions of bodies, they did apropos of the angels and their differentiations (at once specific and individual): 'Novintiam Se *' SCd qUae Sim E" K Ct
angle, velocity, force, potential, current, etc., which we call 'physical quantities'. It is now recognised as essential that these should be defined according to the way in which we actually recognise them when confronted with them, and not according to the metaphysical significance which we may have anticipated for them. In the old textbooks mass was defined as 'quantity of matter'; but when it came to an actual determination of mass, an experimental method was prescribed which had no bearing
on this definition. The belief that the quantity determined by the accepted method o measurement represented the quantity of matter in the object was merely a pious
opinion.
e
'*
tom^Te
"
"m
mae
'
latet
'
<
CaJ etan
'
In
At the present day there is no sense in which the quantity of matter in a pound can be said to be equal to the quantity in a pound of sugar. Einstein's theory * " ean sweep of these pious opinions, and insists that each physical quantity
of measurement and
calculation.'
'kfined as the result of certain operations I A c tj (A. S. Eddington, op. cit., . 255.)
194

by
its
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
195
ontological postulates implied deliverance
laws of observation: a ledri
from
the
moment
it is
accompanied by an equally wid

of discovering
physics, a schedule of pointer readings Scientific everything else in lead to knowledge of the intrinsic nature of investigation does not
renunciation of ontology.
It
^gs
th
The external world of physics has thus become a world of

1
follows
from
these considerations that the idea
shadows.'
Prof.
nature of matter and of corporeal things in itself must appear to the new physics, even more decidedly and to a higher degree than to all the physics of yesterday and before, a pure archaism. 'The scientist of
to-day
distin-
Eddington in
this
seems to forget that not only do the measureus something real
ments collected
(which
by our instruments from nature give
cannot indicate the essence of the

guishes his attitude
real. It is this that
primarily
may resemble a 'shadow' with regard to our familiar universe) nevertheless the philosopher knows that there are very many differing
forms in
us,
materialist predecessor and, even more, from that of the mediaeval physicist: he does not even claim to attain to the being of the real, winch, on the contrary, he
sees as enveltheories,
from
that
of his
which an aspect of things existing in themselves
may appear to
often very
but also that the first degree or stage
of conceptualisation,
elaborated,
.
when we disengage from

of
these measurements a description
oped in profound mystery.'

in the
It is
remarkable that the quantum
of the observable behaviour

realities
things, also sets us in the presence
very act of stressing the unfigurable character of the universe of science, render still more profound the rupture between that universe and knowledge of an ontological type. To-day the scientist
reflecting
of
observable and measurable and taken precisely in that sense,introduces us into a world of facts, of observable causations, 2 of
I say,
on his work is only aware of a world of symbols. 'We have suffered, and we still suffer, from expectations that electrons and quanta must be in some fundamental respects like materials or forces familiar
in the work-
*A. S. Eddington, op.

Let me also cite the
tit., pp. 249, 252, 257, 259, 303, and xvi, (The italics are his.) following highly characteristic passage: 'Something unknown is doing
we don't know whatthat is what our theory amounts

ncss as to the
nature of the activity
shopthat all we have
to
infinitely smaller scale. It
imagine the usual kind of thing on an must be our aim to avoid such prejudgments
is
do
to
promising a beginning
we
really
to. There is the same indefiniteand of what it is that is acting. And yet from so undo get somewhere. We bring into order a host of
apparendy unrelated
phenomena;
we make predictions and our predictions come

this
off.
which
The reason the sole reasonfor

to
progress
is
are surely illogical;
concepts, symbols have
we must cease to employ familiar become the only possible alternative. ... If, then,
and since
that our description
is
not limited
unknown
agents executing
the descriptions.
unknown activities, but numbers are scattered freely in To contemplate electrons circulating in the atom carries us no further,
scientific calculation,
only pointer readings or their equivalents are put into the machine of how can we grind out anything but pointer read.
but by contemplating eight circulating electrons in

electrons in
one atom and seven circulating another we begin to realise the difference between oxygen and nitrogen.
.Whenever we state the properties of a body in terms of physical quantities we are imparting knowledge as to the response of various metrical indicators to its presence and nothing more. After all, knowledge of this kind is fairly comprehensive. A knowledge of the response of all kinds of objects-weighing-machines and
ings.
.
science to disclose.
Out of the numbers proceeds the harmony of natural law which it is the aim of We can grasp the tune but not the player.' (Ibid. p. 291-2.)
not observable as such or even in the degree to which it relates to the nevertheless I have used the word here to designate causations which result from observation, most of all those resulting from graduated readings, if not immedi
" asatl0
i is
intelligible,
ately, at least
other indicators-would
neatly, if not
liquids
determine completely its relation

get-atable nature undetermined.
to
.
its
environment, leaving only its un-
proximately; thus the experience of the Puys dc Dome proves very immediately, that atmospheric pressure is the cause of the elevation of in barometric tubes. Thus, again, thehypotheticfact of the disassociarion of
knew just what he was

posed to
tell
talking
The Victorian physicist felt that he about when he used such terms as matter
.-.
molecules in ions being the cause

e
ot causations
1
of elcctrolic phenomena
results (in a
much less proxj-
and atoms. Atoms were tiny billiard balls, a crisp statement that was sup-
you
all
about their nature. ... But
way) from observation. This example can serve as a transition to that other kind which could be called theoretic, and which only distantly result from obseroy means of a whole physico-mathematical edifice which can only be verified
its
now we
I93 r j.
realise that
It
is,
Y experiment at
a
points
science has nothing to say as to the intrinsic nature ] E. Meyerson, 'Le \> Physirfen l
e t6e
of incidence with the real
It is
to these theoretic causations
of the atom.
like
{Le
Mohi June
e causal explications elaborated nceptualisation that is in
by physical theory in that second

e.g.
is
degree or stage
question here have reference,

the cause
the Einsteinian theory
gravuanon where the presence of matter
of an incurvation of space.
'
196

which the
theoretical physicist tends
observable structures
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
h
SENSIBLE
NATURE
197
matter offered to his constructive genius, but which the^h cist of the laboratory is not disposed to allow to be rmûnderstooiT' already making an authentic part of physical science itself. These fa can be established more or less certainly, more or
simply
as
instrument. This language supplies the laws language nor a simple and explication, which give his science conceptualisation analysis,
proper scientific form. I said that
things
that
of
its
he wished
I
to
know
that
the nature of
less
hypodieticaUv
and their physical causes: did
say that he wished to
know either
and the oband before theoretic effort, in the endeavour to penetrate their significance and discover, in a complete explication,
servable,
they can imply in one degree or another an ideal achievement of the real by the reason, 1 they none the less result from the order of real being Notions such as that of the constitution of gas by individual molecufe in endless agitation, or of the reticular structure of crystals, and a crowd of other similar ones, must be held for something other than symbols exacdy in so far as they are translations of the measurable
nature or these causes in themselves?

in themselves
Rather I said
he renounced
their physical
I
the
knowledge
of the nature of things and
causes
(reduced to their essential
meaning the formulas which

else):
have
I
quoted
that he
from Prof. Eddington can signify nothing
but did
say
renounced the knowledge of them absolutely and in every way?
The urge which drives

to the real in its
him towards
the physically real can only attain

its
measurable aspects, in
measurable structure as such
what they
tell us
by turning
it
into mathematical terms
and finally by constructing someconnected
gives us to understand that in the last analysis we can only know symbol/
thing else in its place.
The
physicist wishes to penetrate the secrets of

is
what they say. But it is precisely this second degree and second stage 2 of scientific conceptualisation that Prof. Eddington has in mindand there it would indeed be foolhardy to reject his evidence. The two characteristics which we have discovered in the new physics seem at the first glance contradictory: on the one hand a mental urge towards the physical in itself and the mysteries of its behaviour', a will to physical realism: on the other, the construction of a world of symbols and a more decided recourse than ever before to geometrical and mathecally
matter; but the

interdicts his
in
its
very type of the science with which he

itself;
attainment of the nature of matter in
he
attains to it
observable and measurable determinations,

fact,
very
scrutinises
which are real by that which are for him the succedanea of its essence; and he and penetrates it thereby in the very degree to which he
it
transmutes
into mathematical symbols.
Let us say that his

(the
given real)
by
the real (a
form of knowledge is not knowledge of the real more profound reality), but of the real
It is a
matical rational being. This contradiction
dox
is
explained
by what
is purely apparent. The parahas been said above concerning physico-
by the mathematical preter-real.

real
knowledge of the
as
its
physically
which becomes symbolic in
as
much
mathematical regula-
mathemaucal
the
science in general,
and gives us the best

its
possible
illustra-
tion obliges it to
attempt a complete explication, where will be for-
tion of the theory
of scientiae
mediae. In
new physics recalls to our minds

is
it
opposition to Newtonianism
mulated in wholly quantitative terms that of

the
which the forms and

rather, if it is permis-
the fact that physico-mathematical
formation
come from
world of qualities; or
word, which
it
is
knowledge
primarily physical; and, at the
same time,
the degree
strikingly
to
its
sible to
use here an old platonic
perhaps
more
expres-
which
reaches
beyond Newton manifests even more
sive
than the
modern 'symbol',1
isat least with regard to
that second
formally mathematical character. The physicist regards mathematics as simply supplying an instrument and a language: but neither a simple
By the scientists themselves the word, symbol, is reserved for a much more particular
they will say, for example, that 'the associated wave' of wave mechanics is a pure mathematical symbol, 'a simple symbolic representation ofprobability*since any imaginable spatio-temporal representation, any physical image, of this wave is in itself
impossible, in other
tain senes
useless
use:
See supra, p. 164.
Q U ti?f?
w mC *? b ** ^ ^ ^d k ^y"W [7fT
Ut
5aybg
SpMkin
8 of
PhaSeS:
arc c
or periods there is no the course of the
words, since it cannot be defined as the immediate object of a cerof physically measuring operations, at lease theoretically effectuable. It is
to observe that the philosopher (or the scientist
^guage) understands the word, symbol, in a sense that it must be taken here.
when he uses epistemological much wider sense. It is in this wider
198
stage

agoa
verified
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
kn
mathematical
science. which it is an exact Suppose that a scientist, shut
SENSIBLE
NATURE
199
of conceptualisation of which I spoke a moment ledge of the physically real by means of myths,* that is,
knowledge of natural phenomena
in the very degree to
U which accord with

them: a science
real.
at
rnydT and which 'sjj once experimental and mytho-poetic of the physical^
the measurable 'appearances'
'
up
in a ground-glass bell, in which he
This is what gives to theoretical physics in its most inspired discoveries such a striking resemblance to artistic creation. But
scientific information on which he worked, learnt received by radio the of a certain machine capable of projecting its existence the of one day three-hundred times greater than its own. He height a to weight own
and
tin's is
the
vel-this
mar
is
a question
of a speculative
art,
of an
knowledge,
constraints
where the imagination
art for the purpose of
ine,
would have difficulty in even approximating to the idea of this machunknown in itself, as a sort of catapult constructed in accord with
is only fruitful in submitting to the of a world of rigorous determinations, of laws established
given data;
whose image he would make more precise and correct in the

If he learnt that
degree to
this
which he was supplied with new information.
with the
strictest exactitude. I
have already pointed out, in
a previous
chapter," that Plato

cal
saw very clearly the rightful method of mathematithat the cre-
men call memory, i.e. modified in the degree to which it functioned its way of functioning and of
machine presented the features of what
responding to stimuli,
knowledge.
He also saw, and with an equal penetration,
which was not the
case with the instrument he

difficulty
myths-the noblest form of rational beings founded in reis a necessary consequence of that method. The myths of the Ttmaeus may have grown old, but it is in no avowal of impotence
any flight into poetry that Timaeus makes use of myths, it is by virtue of an admirable intuition of theproper conditions ofphysico-mathematical knowledge and of what we call the exact sciences, when, ceasing to be
purely mathematical, they seek to explain the world of experience Aristotle was occupied with something else, which Plato did not see: he was founding the philosophy of sensible nature, and for that he had to oppose platonic metaphysics and the theory of ideas. But though he certainly recognised the existence of scientiae
mediae,
or
ation of scientific
had himself reconstructed,
he would perhaps resolve the
by
endowing the space occupied

ing to
by
it
with some
new
dimension, accord-
which the past of this machine was conserved and modified in
some
invisible
way its
The
structure.
We others, who walk about in streets

that this
and lodge in inns, are able to

called
know
machine in question
is
flea.
scientist
could not
know
this,
but the construction

in the stress of
which he incessantly remodelled (from top to

hours of
'crisis')
bottom
would
present at each instant the

flea
sum of all
the
mea-
surable properties
is
enclosed in the
and
actually
known by it; and it

learn,
clear that in
creating such an imaginary yet real model, exact and
and though he himself

spheres, a physico-
rigorous in all its determinations,
constructed, in the theory
he could continually
but by
of the homo-centric
mathematical myth of the first magnitude, he accorded, it seems, a full ontological value to these spheres, a reality not only fundamental (with
means of myths and symbols,

ture
more and deeper
perceptions of the nathis
of the
nature.
regardto their foundation on the nature of things) butformal and entire

tin their formality, their
flea. It would be inexact to say that he did not know Only he does not know it ontologically or in itself.
Let the simplicity

terms
of this metaphor be excused.
It
only
translates into
prevalence
m him of the
W
S ay
-
thinkable construction
itself).
Because of
the
of the senses the
way
in
which symbolism and
realism are in-
not see
as clearly as Plato
standpoint of the natural philosopher he did did the necessary part played by ideality in the
|
Ari^T"?
t
oft,
.
dut
-
al
S T r^ it?T
,
7 ekbo
otmstarthestpenetranon into the secrets of matter. a Cp. chap, i, p 7 g (I10te j

#
e t he
d reconstruction of the
^ "^
'
skist s entides are
above aU
'**. I M* word to ** ofwhich he makes use at

real,
more highly conceptual part of theoretic phywould be erroneous to sever and oppose them. In this particular region they compose the warp and the woof of one stuff. It is by the
sics, It
dissolubly united in the
creation
of its most daring myths that physical theory most profoundly

its
exactly at the point
scrutinises in
reality. It is
own way, which is not that of philosophymaterial

connaturalising die intellect with material reality
it
by
not
Srasped
in itself that
constructs
on
the latter and in
its
place a
2 oo
our
universe of symbols or verified myths. The closer it presses to rcahty the more it constructs these rational beings
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
, ,
.
SENSIBLE
exist;
NATURE
2 oi
common experience; as in the finite

from
&Z
fy**
world of Einstein
J
,T
^
it-
believes that
tions that
'
atoms and molecules really
enable
him
they are not mere invento grasp certain laws of chemical combinais
ports us
self the nearer it
^ natoe of ^ atom J
comes
to this nature.
d^^^
considered a,
tion
In truth there
ism than that
of the
scientist
no mental attitude more contrary to idealwho, face to face with nature, at once
of penetrating
to
urgently seeks the inexhaustible ontological riches
as
Let me hasten to add that physical theory is not svmfW; I pointed out above,
charged and abandons the idea
JffLt in
measurable behaviour of things or of symbols founded on this same measurable behaviour: and, in fact to-day it is becoming
more symbolic
ceptualisation rises higher,
once more universal and more pure temolo^cal type). The

at
comes
epistemologic/com
JT^> r^ 7 ^ detl 2 Jthe ^ T Z1 ^ toT *

in the
its
Z 2^*%***
with which it is them by any other
means than those which he

'the sense
knows
are necessarily inadequate.
He
has
offinding himselfconfronted by an enigma at once wonderful
and perturbing.
is,
fe^
to
we
He contemplates it with an almost fearful respect, which

without a certain resemblance to the
feelings
perhaps, not
of a be-
liever
before the mysteries
ofhis faith.'2
(wiT
rt
A DIGRESSION ON THE QUESTION OF 'REAL SPACE'

There
which
tical
is.
is no clearer word than the word reality, which means that But its use implies the drawing of many distinctions, and a cri-
consideration
which
is
frequendy
difficult.
Let
me try, in order to
new physics, to when it is asked
apply in a particular instance these considerations of the examine the question of 'real space'. What is meant
whether real space

postulated
it is
is
euclidian or non-euclidian, or whether the space
said that,
knowledge of the tence of !orpo

elaborated
^ lb ^"Ma*
r,=,1
ds
J
^n* even there

as
teristics is
its
of gravitation is or is not real, or when thanks to the new physics, one of whose particular characto carry to a higher degree than any attained heretofore the of
by
Einstein's theory
value
as a
do
* PMosopher that the

the substitutes whicJl
exis-
ZTf
?V
"
^
1
lean towa7ds
-4ûT^ T Tfot r^ ^ * M
de for a pro
ss
th
onphysics
bolic,whichim D of a
icist,
P^ aphySiC hG rUt whX "f gPhySidSC " dly much more HashenotslLS.<;r^ l0nS " he tUnks * phyS " has a definite * beheffn bClief m a reaI world outside him. For instance, he
(^Z^^ hrr
f
,
Ed *ngton seems to P-e symbohsm in his reflections

^'
geometry and physics, that nevertheless 'we are approaching drawing the distinction between geometric and physical space'? 3 This distinction, I hold, is fundamental, but it is highly necessary to understand its veracious meaning.
identification
** * e
The word real has not the same meaning for the philosopher,
matician
question
the mathe-
and the
I
physicist. If
we do not keep
this diversity in
mind
the
ld sensor Pêption already itself symy
have asked turns up nothing but a tangle of ambiguities. For geometry a space is 'real' which is capable of mathematical
i.e.
exis-
tence,
J
1T
which does not imply
internal contradictions,
and which
A. S.Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation, 1920, p. 180.
'!.
^T^
Meyerson, art.
cit.,
Le Mois, June 193 1.

la
Vemadsky, 'L'Etude dc
wmces, Dec. 1930.
vie ec la nouvelle physique,' Revue * gherale les f
"
"
202
'

of space {, ytf
t
rightly corresponds to the mathematical ndtion
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
the interpreters
SENSIBLE
NATURE
203
geometries contain the euclidian as a particular instance, and nevc7 the ess can themselves be constructed by
nghtly constitutes a system of objects of thought verifying eeometrirS it is obvious that from this point of view, in virtue of wha might be called the circumincision of various geometrical systems these being mutually 'translatable' and inclusive, so that non-euclidk7
axioms; and
of physics:
in order to construct a satisfying

as
image of
observable
gested,
phenomena, they postulated,
common
observation sug-
euchdian geometric properties, and attributed to factors of an-
other (physical) order all properties
not so foreseen. To-day physics has

interpretations of a synthesis
abandoned
this division,
and for the

be
-aU these geometries, and all the still more 'general'

could be
means of euclidian material

geometries which
their spaces are therefc*
geometry and physics
may
as far as possible
where amalgamated in proit
portion to the degree to
which they
sever in nature,
has recourse to
in the sense
Rented
.
are equally true,
and
spherical or elliptic spaces. It is these that physics

I
holds
'real'
equally real
in
by guarantee for the notional herence (absence of internal contradiction) of both euchdian and noneucLdian geometric entities (since the
any way, except that the constructibility of euchdian imaginauve mtuition is the fundamental
Euchdian space holds no particularly privileged
have just explained,
position
and to-morrow there may well be others. But it is neither from the standpoint of the physicist nor of the matheproblem. For
space in the philosophical
entities
matician that I see the

real
in opposition to a 'rational'
latter
can always be f the

'
me the question is to kriow what is meaning of the word, i.e. as a 'real' entity one, and as designating an object of thought
'translated'
W rds " hi TJ and T^yl* both euchdian non-euchdian axioms.

0thet
2
npa% of
to
capable
thought, but rather as
of an extramental existence, not certainly in the way it exists in an assembly of features objective in themselves
For the physicist a space
is
'real'
when
the
geometry
which integrate its notion or definition. Taking into account the peculiar
which
it
conditions of mathematical beings

fication)
and the rational condition

very definition,
(ideal puri-
themselves 'explained'. An ôbvious ât&on.tHspointofviewnospaceofanylid holds any sort ofpnvileged position. Foralong period euchdian space sufficed for
enclosc
^^^^^^^y^bohsesphysicalphenomena, L7J H our ^d where all graduated readings find
which always
effects their
we
can say that a
mathematical entity is real (in the philosophical sense of the word)

it
when
can exist outside the
mind
not doubtless under the conditions proper

beings)but
its
to
mathematical abstraction (nature
or line
knows no point without extension without density, nor abstract number; the point, the line, the
are, for all that, real
an onûdidian m u]tipndryofdi
whole number
m enSionsinacuclidian
-
in so far as
its
defini-
S pac C
of^tl)
(li.
tion
makes
visible in a
pure
state
or in
ideal perfection
some charac-
be drawn
ZTZl 1 Z
""^ maaa TLe
condusio11 can
Ae"fore
(resulting from accidental quantity) which exists or can exist in world of bodies. In order to be thus an ens rede such an entity does not cease to be mathematical, although it can only enter into actual and
teristic
the
êtry: and now it seems to cover i P of validiL To t ? 6f eUcMm S6 could easily be comtn^ted oufof Imtcrlals tafce n from ^P^*"' that of Lobatchevsky, for instance. The P r> 3 rzjZ SP CCd y sy metrical: rwo of u ' geometries can each in tumapp^ t0
limited field
sensible existence in the thing it

is
by losing
its
mathematical purity. Taken

latter
as existing
no na d SCM ura,d e
^S^S^W r?f
^^.S3^^^
n,aticg
:l
rl^ f
J? M f T*
?
a feature
of the
which can only be

abstraction,
scientifically
known when detached by mathematical

one side
all
which
properties relevant to the activity of bodies, their
rfB ^V.HeBi (p.

ad must bc êrstood
madlCmaCidS
i
37) a euclidian
ment, qualitative diversity, sensible characteristics, to

subsists after
on movekeep only what

leaves
the
emptying out of the
physical.
'."
I,1
bemusdeduci/See^ cL
i1
the methodo011 ""'
be added that the various geometrical entities (Euchdian, Riemannian, etc.), although they may be mutually 'translatable', so that all
it
Let
these systems are equally true, nevertheless
cannot be
all
equally real in
204

of the word. The right hand of the and the figure which corresponds to it
elliptic ,1
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
'
SENSIBLE
NATURE
205
the philosophical sense
for instance,
Wentworlds^
affirm the reahty
of one thing (in the 0rder mathematical preter-reaT there is no other UiL* Aan thought itself constructed according to such d axioms), they are intrinsically i different
stance are not different expressions
in the
2Ta P
the part played by assigning circumstances. physical
by
accessory variations due to various
entities
helrW
S t^
T^" Z 1 ***t
f
can analyse Only two ways are open to this search for a criterion. in order to see if the entity in question, while notions, our of genesis the
in its concould not have mathematical existence) does not imply a condition incompatible with existence outside the mind (thus a logical entity, such as the Predicate or the Copula, is certainly not
not including
stituents (in
We
any internal contradiction or incompatibility

case
it
which
of one kind of space is thus
at the sa
not the reahty, but the unreality of all the ot others-of ^rs-of which wr,,^ no enuty canbethoughtofinthelatter.
me iTto
^
'
inttinsically
its
existence apart
a
How then are we to know if a mathematical

lar this
system of geometric
entities
being-and which iscalled
which
in particu
tities
it would be a contradiction to suppose from the mind). Or we can consider a condition philosopher knows applies to the reality of mathematical en-
contradictory, but
alrT T
CmgS
-
(he knows, in effect, that for these entities to exist outside the
mind
it-
implies sensible existence,

structed in
which
is
repugnant to the
state
of being con-
imaginative intuition freely and purely representing to

quantitative
:
Neither can the verifications of our senses or our
c,
self what is
without any a/orn'on'possibility of its positing
in
sensible existence)
the condition of direct intuitive constructibility.
phy^cd order, and they presuppose a mathematical model or armatur
Now, among
Euclidian,
the systems of geometric entities

etc., space,
which
are called
Riemannian,
the three-dimensional euclidian
S^r
which
to space
figures.
COnS
we correct and mterpret
bn f 0ur ^truments, and in connection with the sum of the measurements affect
space alone is directly constructible in intuition, the others
only
satisfy-
ing the posited condition

All the attempts
by
the intermediation of this space. 1
The
. way Thereisthusnotthele^tcoâiUn^l
IsU
rf^^t^t^fi^^^^^ P^
COnvenaonal
t
which have been made to win an intuitive representation of the non-euclidian geometries by Einstein, for instance, in his pamphlet on geometry and experiencego exactly to show that these geometries can only be rendered imaginable
by reduction to euclidian geometry. I only wish that, as Prof. Eddington suggests,
perceive non-euclidian space' I polished door-knob and
[Space,
Pr
of
'to
me.erroneousphiiosophy
(kSfft ^4 **
the
**
StandP oint of * t0
only had 'to look at the reflection of this room in a imagine myself one of the actors in what I see going on there'.
aons, appears as euclidian; in other Ae our semes, in
F-Gonh,c p.(ft. Without doubt

J
^cof
interpreted
on the
ta
ments can only have as mrh ny nonûclidian ryp
mMt^^ dkLm^^, V^^'^ drawn from
conclusions
1
IT thr^bnlhS
word!
sracew ""*' *?
P h y sicaJ
^""^ts made by
, WltH 0Uf Crude * erCe P" us, by tl cwlilf physical measure-
.,
Time and Gravitation, p. 14.) 'The image of my room in the door-knob is due euclidian model traced on a certain determined surface of euclidian space.'
Maritain, Rlflexions sur
inall
(J.
V intelligence,
p. 257.)
moment
that
it
impossible to prove exoerim cause in fact 'experimental srierT V lt connects together'

(ibid
)
ie CUclidian 'ne can a -^ its P arts as ne ^^ wish hrtle different as should be recS r "^ l " "d*"
Hyperbolic instance such that^ n,
'it is
'
chose those
P h ^ couM make f ofC^ * ? mbolic constructions as wished, from the J! ! ^

1
^^
^
is
exceptional intuitive value? Evidently not; this space-time
cs
as
of gravitation by the curvature of space-time has an is doubly unrepresentable. irst because of time, which is joined to space in a purely allegorical way; then beause the curvature of a multiplicity has only an intuitive sense if we immerse it in a
ec
we
say the explanation
it
W^
Ti
u *
'
n0t
.^ ^g of P
s
(#**
<>/>
<*)
It
follows that
euclidn', or non-euclidian, beacc' ocJ th e phenomena which y
If we wish to go farther, wc are obliged to have recourse to the image of metric established on a euclidian multiplicity, to return to a Caylian standpoint. This what M. Einstein does at the end of his little book where he tries to make his ideas ar to the ungeometrical reader. Practically, we shall imagine foreshortened measurements, clocks which run slow for no perceptible physical cause. The geometrically anonal will present itself as a physical irrationality.* (R- ?>. P- ')
^^ ^VJu c dian space.
0Rfer AU
-
that
w can do
is
to represent to ourselves a surface in
206

by
Poincare",
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
I
SENSIBLE
NATURE
207
plan of the thermic universe invented
and
in
wh"
which would endow
should have adopted from the beginning Lobatchevsky's geometry highly simplified successions of sensation imagined by Jean
a fictive subject
T
A
'
would be a contradiction in supposing their existence outside the mind, for their benefit, the existence of the foundaand thereby suppressing,
tion
Nk
with the idea of die most div
geometries, confirm by a kind of counter-proof this privilege of eudf dian space. In order to present as natural to a thinking subject another geometry than that of Euclid we have to imagine a universe which in itself is a rational being as chimerical as an animal rationale
if we are assured by intuition, as has been already pointed out, that the euclidian entities (and in consequence the others) are free of internal contradiction, it is because intuition began with the assurance that in ex eluding the others the former are well able to exist outside the mind ' in
on which the notion of them is based. Either way we are thus led to admit, despite the use which astronomy
makes of them, that these non-euclidian spaces are rational beings;

and that the geometric properties
of existing bodies, those properties

all
which the mind recognises in the elimination of

those
the physical, are

is
datum
Finally
which characterise euclidian space. For philosophy it
euclidian
space which appears as
an ens geometrkum reale. 1
But by the words, real space, a totally different thing can be understood, as describing
space in so far as
is
it is
occupied by existences and

the physical, not geo-
the nature of things.
physical actions,
and which
made up of
On
from
the other hand,
metrical, properties
it is
of bodies,
their activities
possible to
show
and
their causality, like

intensities.
that if it
is
the non-euclidian spaces to euclidian space,
possible to pass
network of tensions of heterogeneous qualitative
This
is
and
it is because in fact the non-euclidian geometries presuppose the notions of euclidian geometry, not certainly their proper structure and logical development, but as a foundation for the logical coherence of the entities which they construct and as the psychological basis of conceptualisation. The process of generalisation which finds its fulcrum in euclidian geometry results indeed, not in more extended generic concepts of which the euclidian, non-euclidian non-archimedian, etc., concepts would be the determinations, but in analog,cat concepts which include the one as the others, and
mathematical transformations,
inversely by
no longer considered mathematically or geometrically, but 'physically'; it is a qualified space, and the determinations which it admits
space
are
due to what there
is
in space, to
it is
what
fills it.
The
philosopher thus
distinguishes
and for him
a capital distinction
between physical
extended sense,
as
and geometrical space;

physical space, that real
and he can forecast

space
is
that, in this
not euclidian (neither homogeneous nor

by the
scholastics (as also,
'For the natural philosophy elaborated

different sense,
though in a very
effectively
is
for the
new
physics) this real geometrical space
is finite;
exkent space
rational
It is
is
co-cxtensive with the scale
of the world.
Infinite
geometric space
of which
this
the
euclidian concepts represent the analogised principle. of view we must needs
being ('imaginary space').
From
point
say with
apparently in this sense that Pierre Curie 'has at
geometry ,s not
median,
self-sufficient',*
Hamelin 'at bottom, non-euclidian and that the non-euclidian, non-archi-
a condition
of space,
i.e.
as the structure
have thefoundation of their logical existence in the euclidian. The non-euclidian spaces can then without the least intrinsic contradiction be the object of consideration by the mind, but there
etc. entities
one can also say with Vemadsky that and unique in nature'.
bottom envisaged symmetry as of physical space (W. Vemadsky, op. cit.), and 'vital space is a symmetry which is particular
far as
The metric properties of bodies, in so

from physically
metrical
temps et mature),
real space.
they are physically measurable, result
Thus
it is
perfecdy true that 'only the union of the geo-
tZ
^S^lT' 1 r' W^ZL? t^r ;LuSTT "J^

iosto
hS 'U
S princi
P aUX
ie '"
"?**>**. 2nd
edit.
Hamelin
nte
Whitehead. f" character arac of th.J ** C0ln ncal

*
JSSi W
1
m
g
0h S<y -quired for the comparison of * ûcibility of geometry to arith** -P-i bilir/of 4ararin7geo mCtry ij,*f J"." f e ** of s *? h m0
0lJy VkbIe
is susceptible of empiric verification' (H. Weyl, Espace, and without thereby abandoning the reality (which is not experimentally verifiable) of euclidian space, the philosopher can add, in another sense than
and the physical
*"
that
measurable,
sical reality,
'
of the physicist, that the metric structure, in the degree to which it is physically is not given a priori in a rigid way, but 'constitutes a condition f eld of phy-
Vstructure of our
fCnt st3nd
7? P.
seeks to maintain the euclidian
^^ ^
which
is
found in causal dependence on the condition of the matter.
universe.
DM<'tfonre!atwiste,p.
matter constructs and forms for itself this house which is its own'. (Ibid. Mathematische Analyse ie Raiimproblemes, Berlin, 1934; quoted from Meyerson. La 9i .)
tte the snail,
L
20$
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
,

is
SENSIBLE
NATURE
209
isotropic), since euclidian space
precisely that (purely
,,*.
ewhichthernmdconsidcnaftertJ^
It is most important to realise that in speaking so the phisopherlt the very fact that he opposes the physical and geometrical a! i
curvature for mechanical force. They forget substitution of geometrical entered on such a path from its birth: it is in avowphysics modern that
ing,
not certainly explicitly (for in the beginning
eduableorders-IooksonthingsbawaywhoUy^^^^ new phys.cs. Faithful to the essential spirit of modern sa latter

the
tends,
however
far
geometry. Thereby
it
end it remains, to abso b has abandoned the absolute

this
from
W
Wlf
Zo
a philosophy
considered in
tion
it
it believed itself to be impotence with regard to physical causes themselves or in their essence, that it began the composi-
of nature),
its
of a mathematical
myth of the physical world which liberated for
tweenthephyszcal and the geometrical equally with thesearch forplyT cal causes
in themselves or in their qualitative reality.
iS 5
'
The mark of
the secrets
of this world in the form of enigmas. The 'forces' of classical
physics appear
from this point ofview like a precarious compromise beand the purely empiriometric
it
tween the 'causes' of philosophy

of a science of evolved
physics has
entities
I" read, i needs geometry itself to the
mStdn
*" he
^nt,
phenomena, and
in order to
advle freeTyfe
must be
said that the
new
whose^ m
rays compasses, electroscopes, etc.); and the ment pro u Ced in following the natural tracks which are the geodlic
the thus extended univene so non-euchdian and four-dimensional, where time and space are no longer mdependently measured, but form an indissoluble cortex Th |--^P-pertiesof so conceived space-time are themselves moi fied by the matter which occupies it (i.e. by what is able to distune measuring instruments of our exploration' clocks, graded
gravieatxon.
^ The continuum of
of physics,* and conceived of a properties are able to account for all the phenomena
lZ
f
accomplished a step of major importance in the progress towards the scientific conception of the universe in exhibiting at once
radically
wf
and explicitly
this
renunciation
by physico-mathematical
its
knowledge of the search for physical causes taken in themselves, and profound tendency to emancipate itself completely from philosophy.
But
this
liberation
from philosophy must not

it is
itself
be taken for a
philosophy!
conceptions
There are two ways in which
possible to interpret the

to transport
mov
Si ^
"
of the
ZTliZ
new physics philosophically. The one is
them
the
they are, on to the philosophical plane, thus filling mind with metaphysical confusion; the other is, in order to underliterally, just as
stand their bearing, for the

the
mind
to detach the noetic value in them. In
one case
*S * a SO" f fuimel due t0 ** LcuâZof ! neighbourhood ofspace m the

incurvature
SidStS
tUminS
mate in the
nZrovl ^.
mêntolv of fmeaSUrem
wLet fj!^
should
"^ ^ ^^
**
<a
S
of the
saidnot only, which would be wholly legitivocabulary and from the point of view of the physicist as it
it
will be
sun.
esis rai
-d
-h
has been defined

tulated
culled
from nature, and confirmed by
above, but in a philosophical sense, that the space posby the new physics is geometrically real, and exhibits the geoproperties
vow^l
reyisIons '
of beins
n f thC
t
L
made"uP
^'-
SCafCh for
-
Phen mCna AS
ot
Ae PVâl forces which -^physicists saw an

in the
^^ **
we
metrically real
the
degree to
of the corporeal world, which would result (in which the new physics achieves or will achieve the expli-
cation
of the universe by the geometric properties of the space invented

end) in the justification in itself of a purely geometrical exegesis.
for that
ry movements, they in their turn see a similar avowal

Weyl,
4
To
t
distinguish physical
len be to distinguish
and geometric space from one another would one geometric from another geometric space, 1 to
of geometrically real space when occupied by much a distinction as a fusion which is in question. As E.
fi^TLFrttS^)
**
materiaI reaHties
which
^
(
the universe' (H.
stuiguish the properties

this
sense
it is
'Gravitation will appear geometry, mechanics and physTfo must keep before our eyes en bloc' (IbT)
not so
^ ^ " ^
f
'
metrk
fieIi '
Ib!l )
yerson has pointed out, 'the confusion

ost useless to
at
!t is
lssolubk theoretic unity which
dkt'
7 SCnSC
between physical and mathematical space endeavour to explain that the term confusion is used in no conconstitutes a marked peculiarity of recent conceptions and clearly
p. 93.)
Dgwshes them from their forerunners.' {La Deduction rehtiviste,
'
210
matter from the same geometrically real space mass or energy, quantity of motion, pressures. .
(>its
2

when void of
â-*.
\ji.
.
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
*. matter
SENSIBLE
NATURE
2II
.)
by something of the kind of that 'immaterial' ether beyond which we have not got. 3 At the same time, geometry itself, its
proper object
its
and only occupied
Under the pretext that space is a network of distances (but which geometry ideally and deductively 'measures') the assumption would be made of having given geometry an object (geometry as a 'natural
science') in this
ing misunderstood, like
1^
epistemological independence and rank of abstraction, would be regarded, in so far as it is not

pure" form, as an 'experimental science', 3
objective content
network of distances materially and empirically mearecognised that the space of the
is
higher
sured
by physical apparatus.
or encumbered with matter)
an empty
as
which would only hold

as 'real space',
In the other case it is

('void'
which makes which
an
it 'true',
suranons thanks to which the

various formal spaces
the physical entities and 'men
new physics a physico-mathematical rational
mind chooses
being expressly constructed to save

only be modified in the degree to
among
the
agrees best with the widest
it is pleased to imagine, the one which and most perfect geometrisation of physics.
known appearances, and which will which errors may be found as existing
by the reason and the new data
is
between the construction already built up

of experiment. 1 This rational being
metric
seen to be in the nature of a geo-
cumbrances) and the diverse spaces abstractly conceivable by pure geometry.

See
infra, p.
given to
symbol of physically real space (taking physical' space in the sense it by the philosopher spoken of above), the geometric or
meta-
224, note 2.
geometric
pp.
i 6l - 2 .
He Weyl
is
A . S. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, Wometne et exptrtence, Paris, 1921; and my
equally .Links that 'the
definitely
Cp.
A. Einstein,
U
M
activities
ter
symbol that best translates the reality of those physical interwhose ontological scrutiny has been abandoned for their bet-
compromised
V intelligence, p. 255 existence of geometry as distinct from physics'

Reflexions sur
mathematical analysis.
is
The double
which
(Espace, temps et matihe, p. 292).
sacred for the intelligence)
go beyond pure empiricism, mathematical propositions do not require, in order to be true, the existence of material objects, which does not for all that imply that the knowledge of them is acquirable independently
[art, at. pp. 152-3), 'The metaphysician can only see in this a sign of the old empiricist and nominalist mood which only recognises the truth of existential propositions That is the gist of the matter. Whether or no, in the hypothesis that no bodies existed, it would be still possible to speak of geometric truth? In all philosophies which
written
As Roland DalbL
irreducibihty (a form of value of the physical (considered onto-
has
logically in its essence) to

the
the mathematical and of the geometrical to
it is understood that the geoof physics can only be accomplished by introducing a mathematically transmuted physics into the heart of geometry itself,
mathematical
is
thus safeguarded, and
metrisation
which has a so
of sensible
.are of a purely essential order;
experience. Mathematical truths

'
when we
much richer crop of rational beings, departs so much more decidedly from teal geometric being, that it is asked in addition to
it in its symbols and to mathematicise physically real being. The same considerations, mutatis mutandis, apply to the mathematicisation of the physically real in the quantum theory, though worked in
must pass over from the existential to the essential order
formulate mathematically a physical law one
absorb
Isitnecessarytopomtoutthattheerymologyofwordsisamediocremcansforteaching
ITf. beCaUSe *** hdd 0f Ac chad ttluT' toeshold of geometry, order to him stage
"'
u concerning the things which they signify, and though geometry is etymologically a urveying measurement, geometry is only built up as a science when it is known as something essentially^different from any survey? The new scholastic methods of the teachui of geometry S have without doubt pedagogical advantages as mein
^
; ,
raise
by stage
&
whoc he is, not yet on the

to the science itself and
ffifT'^"^
SmWd
absttamon but
if they are taken as
methods of geometrical
ckXatT^r
m rhZTr " Whlv o aU S
It must be qUesd n aS to d* nature geometry does not seem very I 4etlleo reridans f <he new physics, who slip over it more rapidly 1
" r Ctr 8 ression t0 * Pre-pythagorean childhood. I
W%
is
.
its
X has so which
the th C017
'
than that of the theory of relativity; in particular, to the which the new physics attributes to the atom, or rather to the way in winch for several years it has changed the said structure from day ^ SCemS aS thou h science tended to endow this structure 7structure
"
another
way
1Sth0r
7-
expenmcntal scicn<*'> can nevertheless and with advantage 'have an unfettered development as a pure mathematical subject '(Eddington, op. dt., ? ifa).
^k
become unrepresentable and at the same time detached rom any ontological meaningwith a purely abstract mathematical
UeStion
f
'i
of tlle
'
Nation of light leaves
' yet elucidated how, if geometry
Rcon
will a KT
unfcS T
Can
Us
?
if* " ev
(
13 "
relativity); explanations
the way open for an evolution of of gravitation by non-Riemannian
phvsi ys cs
and gravitation.'
"PecJ. and it is possible that in consequence these new geometries ^kieve the synthesis of electro-magnetism, and in consequence, of
(P,
Langevin, L'CEuvre d'Einstein et Vastronomic, art. cit., p. 294.)
212

more and more fictive,
a
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
1
SENSIBLE
NATURE
213
equivalent, a
more and more perfect symb
the real nature, which is unknown in itself, of some existent thine which the determining name of atom corresponds, so that it may kn this nature more and more profoundly, but more and more
knowledge must evidently have another object and other characterisitself up on another noetic plan than what in our tics, build
modern
phraseology is called science;

of science
its office
should be neither the continuation
enigmati
cally,
or indeed meta-phorically, in the degree to which
it
the
myththe rational being founded in rewhich takes its place

H.
builds up
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE
(in that direction, as M. Bergson once said, only ignorance'), nor the decoration of the results of science with noble and vague meditations. Though its rules of explanation are not those of science in the modern sense of the
on the same plane

is
'Beyond science there
word
they should certainly
merit the
name of
science in the qualitatively
According to a phrase of Prof. Eddington's, the physicist of to-day,
deeper and
more authentic sense which was known

its
who knows
sists
solely
knowledge of the objects treated in physics conof readings of pointers and other indicators', and who
that 'our
also
which creates
the
possibility.
to the ancients, and For the natural sciences do not only lead
their witness that nature
is
mind
to desire
thisin themselves, in
knows
that 'this schedule
of pointer readings'
less
is
'attached to
known
some un'the Vic-
background',
is
much
is
tempted to believe than
knowable and that nevertheless they themselves can only know in an essentially unsatisfying way, they testify that a form of knowledge is
possible,
torian physicist' that nothing
true except
what can be
reconstructed
is
by an engineer1 or
where the intelligence, actualising the mysterious intelligibility
that physics
is all-sufficient.
Rather he
led to be-
of the physical world as it is understood a feeling of open-mindedness towards a wider significance transcending scientific measurement', 2 although he
to-day carried with
it
lieve 'that a just appreciation
of things at a deeper level, discovers in these sciences the being towards which they aspire as their natural object: always on condition that the mind can resign itself to the necessary curtailment and ascesis, and
underre-
feels all lead.
stand that in
order to grasp a
utilise this
little
of the being of things
it
too ill-equipped to discover for himself whither this feeling should This is true not only for physics but of emphiological
general. It
is
must
nounce the will to

titatively
more noble knowledge, which is yet quanpractical exploitation
knowledge in
poorer, for
any speculative or
of the
knowledge remains insufficiendy explanatory, and with it the mind cannot be content. The philosophical or pre-philosophical substrata which the scientist himself cannot transcend are a clear indication of this. Some knowledge of being
its
clear that in
essence such
riches
of phenomena.
is
This
in a
given order (in the order
fiuition',
'pass
It
form of knowledge which, even in one connection only, and of sensible nature) is a wisdom, a thing of not of 'usage'. And all wisdom must, in one way or another,
itself is
needed, of corporeal, sensible and mobile being, of the being

in these natural realities in
immanent
which the phenomenological

of aU
their con-
sciences find their
end and
their verification, the basis
ceptual constructions, over

*A.
S.
which they give us
practical power. Such

regards his
through the eye of a needle'. was in the quest for such philosophical comprehension that the knowledge of the natural world began. But it has taken long for it to learn the spirit of poverty. The misfortune of the philosophy of nature
Eddington, op.
at.,
pp. 258-9. 'The physicist
worid
now
own
among
external
the ancients
in a
way which I can only describe as more
mystical,
though not less exact and
Let us also call
practical,
nottamg
oouU be
whole combination of self and environment which makes up experience seemed likely to pass under the dominion of a physics much more iron-bound than it is now. That overweening phase, when it was almost necessary to ask the permission of physics to call one s sou] one's own, is past.' [Ibil p. 344.)
the
2
Zt</. p. xviii.
when
than that which prevailed some years ago, when it was taken for granted that true unless an engineer could make a model of it. There was a time
was that it believed it was a science of phenomena. by its proper name, the philosophy of nature, the form of
I
philosophical apprehension
stand that
its
1
am here seeking
to define: but let us under-
it
essence
must needs lay aside all pretensions to cross the frontiers of and conquer the world. It we are going to refer ourselves to
Philosophy of nature which in
my opinion is most securely based,
an
which has the privilege of being in continuity with the most pure apnysic, the philosophy of nature as conceived according to the prin-
"
214
ciples

of Aristotle and
St.
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
" '
SENSIBLE
NATURE
us be equally well aware that "* indispensable (and not half so difficult as is ordinarily imagined)
let
Thomas,
215
as
such
immersed in the
sensible, physics in Aristotle's
to s
rate those principles
from die applications and illustrations

this
Word
world
embraces the whole
domain of the
intelligible
meaning of the which is so im-
nected with the scientific conceptions of the ancient world; and

see that this
for lone oT"

cl
T
knowledge of wisdom,
is
philosophy of being
essentially
subject to change,
completely free in
itself from
any connection
an astronomy and a physics forever gone to ruins. But what concerns us here are the epistemological
conditions of the philosophy
with
the sciences of the material make part of this form of knowledge, a mark of a singular optimism and a most candid philosophic imperialism. With their minds first of all fixed on philosophy, they had a tendency to absorb all
all
mersed. In the
conception of the ancients
the
other natural sciences into
it.
characteristics and
itself
sciences
had already
come
of nature.
It is
in intelligible being
In certain spheres, nevertheless, these to the knowledge of their own
proper
however obfuscated it may be by sensible matter, that such a form of knowledge resolves its concepts; it results from a type of ontologkal explication open to the natural motions of the speculative intellect. It
not with empiric conditions, but with reasons of being and causes in the true sense of the word that it is connected; it is the essence of things
is
methods and autonomy, but they regarded these as a special case o'f sdentiae mediae, envisaged as the mathematical treatment of questions of natural philosophy. And in the degree to which otherwise the philosfilled the place of a scientific systematisation of the deof phenomena this too often gave rise to explications of an extreme analytical insufficiency, which was often only verbal.
tail
ophy of nature
that it seeks to discover. Proceeding, like all philosophy, according to an
As
depends on experience much more closely than does metaphysics and must be able to submit its judgments to
it
analytico-synthetic
method,
have had occasion to point out in a previous chapter,
it is
very
important not to forget that, as St.

sensible
Thomas
often says,* the essence of

us,
the verification
of the
things remains in general
senses;
but
hidden from
it is
a deductive apprehension,
by
reason of the
assign-
ing reasons and intelligible necessities in the degree to which it is assured of the intrinsic constituents or the 'quiddity* of
its
Kf. In Sent.
tia
objects. It
is
by
this,
it is able to instruct us concerning the nature of conand number, of quantity, space, motion and time, of corporeal substance, transitive action, vegetative and sensitive life, concerning the soul and its operative powers, etc., and also to consider
for example, that

tinuity
the ontologkal
disposition
its
of this universe,
i.e.
as Aristotle
does at the end of the Physics,
relation to the First Cause,
the contingent
If
and the adjustment between the necessary, and the fortuitous in the course ofits events.
we wish to define the philosophy of nature, we
must say
that
it is
as its object, in all the things of corporeal and the ontological principles which give the reason for its mutability. It was Aristotle who founded this science, Aristode who showed that an ontology of the sensible world is possible,
form of knowledge which has

nature, mobile being as such,
not so
far as
it
it is
sensible,
its
but in so far as
it is
the world of changing
being,
oursel
quaedam differenriarum essentialium nobis ignotarum.* See infra, p. 255 (note 1). Here on earth, ri tes R. Garrigou-Lagrange, 'man is die sole being whose specific jerence belongs to the purely intelligible and not the sensible world: which is what U 1" S difFerent properties. Lower beings only become truly intelliPiM " anscendcntal (r common to all beings) and generic features, 'WW, for ex:lm le that mercury is ' a corporeal substance, a liquid metal, but P ' , we A "^ Y "* Spe6c <fifiiMntJ ">>k>ve, when it becomes necesl 1 P re se t kC!e g ene c notions, an empiric, descriptive definition, which^ StteKh makinS iMelliS ihk ie properties of this body. content
'gna
5 i, 3: 'Rerum sensibilium plurimas earumque proprietarum, quas sensu apprehendimus, rationperfecte in pluribus invenire non possumus.* In Metaph., book vii. lect. 12: 'Quandoque aliquis divider* dividat per ea quae sunt secundum accidens, propter hoc quod non potest mvenire proprias et per se differentias. Aliquando enim necessity mpt w utamur kco per se differenriarum, differentiis per accidens, in quantum sunt
propnetaces ignoramus,
35 dicirur ita coam loco yen generis potest poni aliquid per quod genus magis innotescat.' De Verilaie, 4, and (quoted 8 infra, p.2 2,n.). Contra Gent., 1
II, disc. 35, q. r, a. 2, ad. 3 : 'Sicut aliquando loco verarum, propter earum occultarionem, ut in
utimur non
Post., text
veris differen-
em
T-
T" W
*"
We ^Y
and that
implies in
structure intelligible invariants dependent on
white
specifying forms.
rotenr
^Ym " 4 de rces S
M -T Myin8 that mercurv

>
We
is
a iiquid metal at an ordinary temperature,
silver
wbJch
toils at
While metaphysics embraces the whole domain of intelligibility
why
I
'
^^
"
acs ' but
not
a spe aes
16 ^ r C ant 0r e anJma' : h assign the specific differences of I*" so that one could deduce the properties? If it is a question of man on the
ô very toxic. We * ^ ^
360 degrees, very dense; its salts are very can state the facts but we cannot state their
w c^
216

it is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
1,
SENSIBLE
If it
is
NATURE
217
matter in which
included.
It is
we can consider a world of essences as discoverable, which

most
dictatorial
only in the madiematical orde

is
detail: it is
the essence that escapes
it.
a question of deciphering
why it
ph
and sumptuous form of human
h
i
the multiplicities
of becoming, the
interactions
which make up the
science. In die
order it is indeed possible to reach certain essential and

tions concerning
splendidly
multiform and close-knit play of nature, the philosophy of

doubdess have, indirecdy, a heuristic value, in the stimulaall
man and
specific deterrnh )'

etc
die things of
man
nature can
tions
(his
powers, habits
but below man, at most times, the element of resistance to intelligibilirv which belongs to matter, which renders corporeal natures opaque to uT and knowledgeable by signs rather than by properties
in the ontological
which it is able to exercise in the minds of scientists (above

of those sciences which
I
in
the case
have called empirico-schematic). But
in itself and in its
own proper field it makes no such claims. There is no
sense
specific nature. It
of the word, causes the essences to remain hidden from us in their follows from this that the philosophy of nature cannot
other science
that science is
It
of the phenomena of nature than the empiriological, and

not a philosophy.
of bodily nature. And this imgrave restriction of the philosophic optimism of the ancients. Wben it is a question of the distinction between certain very widely extended spberes-living and not living bodies, animals
plies a
react to the ultimate specific diversities
must here be stressed that apprehension is only perfect when we can

a
know things, not only in

generic determinations,
more or less indistinct fashion,

is
leaving off at
specific
but in descending to the most ultimate

a perfect apprehension
(I
determinations. If metaphysics
this
shall return to
men and
irrational
grasp the essential

the philosopher,
and vegetables animals-the philosophy of nature is well able to' differences. There we are in a region accessible
point later) ,
it is
because its specific object (being as such drawn from

is
things
by ahstractio formalis)
is is
not a genus but a transcendental, which
order of
there
is
truly philosophical certitudes, in the very typological discrimination. In other words, we
we achieve
by
taken as such,
at the ultimate degree
of logical determination.
Its
What
then
the case with the philosophy of nature?

ens,
object
is
not
know
that
an
the ens in
quantum
the object of the metaphysician.
essential difference
between vegetable
irritability
sensibility;
we know
and animal
the living
Neither are the specific natures of the world of bodies, as

seen, its object.
we have just
of the
it;
that the
immanent
activity
by which
organism builds
principles
These natures wovtli
he the specifying object
itself
which enable
up, sensation, intellection, reveal quidditative us to enter into the inward structure of the
natural sciences, if these sciences could, as they cannot, attain to

stop at
nature,
ric
they
beings under consideration.
by two complimentary
prune matter and the
We know that the body as such
is
built
up
ontological principles, the one purely potential
and determinable, the other specific
of no more than metaphysics, does not only bear on simple genedeterminations. In reality it considers corporeal and mobile things
For
all
an empiriological knowledge.
that the philosophy
and determining, which we
call the
from the standpoint of the transcendental being with which they are
saturated. In this
'substantial form'.
But the philosophy of nature must remain content with sucn a high degree of universality. It must leave all
versities
way
it
shares in
some degree
in the light
of meta-
certitudes of
physics, as
our souls
also share in
a way in the nature of pure spirits. The

is,
questions of the diall
and
specific object
as
specific particularities
of the philosophy of nature of being
in corporeal natures taken

formalities
of the world of bodies,
the detail
ot the workings of sensible nature, in the hands which Leibnitz called 'symbolic'
such, the ontological mutability
and the
of
that
knowledge
roind can discern a difference
(corporality, quantity,
by which the move-
* SB3 W
others the
All
gested calling empiriological.
*?
feaMres c
on to all meu-radonality, hberry, morality, etC -- ae rationality, appears like tie raison d'etre of all the
'
or 'blind', and which here I have sugThat knowledge can enter into die fullest
ment,
tion
life, animality, etc.): which is sufficient to assure to it its distincfrom and autonomy with regard to the experimental sciences.
But,
itself;
^rrnediariorottionZ ry
dogmatizes, 3rd edit.)
"* "'^ Tt < Sm
*? **"* P omtam, kphihsophie k i'itre et ksfirmuk

"
** b 7*
on the other hand, sensible or mobde being is not complete in only has the integrity of its determination in specific natures. The
experimental science of nature and the philosophy of nature are two distort forms of knowledge, but each incomplete, ruled by different laws
'
2i 8

rf
f,
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
disembodied condition of a
;
SENSIBLE
NATURE
219
of procedure, the one above all of die intelligible, the other above all the sensible, and which result, well or ill, in self-completion
this that
It j,
soul. It has so
undergone a purification from
may be essentially different from the natural sciences. 1
they both belong to the same degree of abstraction althourff from another point of view, as we have seen, the philosophy of natur
C
come once more in contact with experimental many defects to-day it has is both natural and necessary. contact This science.
If the
philosophical facts
on which
natural philosophy
is
based
(e.g.
I could gladly compare the relation of the philosophy of nature with the sciences of nature with that of the rational soul with its body. In itself the former is independent of the state of development of both the latter and their hypotheses. It rests
there
is
a real specific diversity in the
world of bodies;
there are sub-
stantial
mutations; living organisms are
endowed with an activity which
returns
as
upon itself, etc.), if these philosophical facts can be established starting from common observation (subject to a philosophical
nevertheless
it is
on
'philosophic
which are much more simple and fundamental

Nevertheless, to insist too exclusively
facts'
criticism),,
proper that in relation to the self-develop-
than
'scientific facts'
as the
on
this
independence
ment of the positive sciences they should be illuminated also from the standpoint of scientific facts, in so far as the latter can be disengaged from
theories.
philosopher
is
often inclined to do,
and
substantial
union which
to risk losing sight of the intimate should rule over these two sections
is
In themselves, scientific facts are incapable of producing any
knowledge of the
of the
philosophical decision,
but the rightful penetration of these objects and
sensible world.
For three centuries, during which
their philosophical principles, like the light
of the active intellect striking
supra, chap,
the natural sciences have been subject to the fascination of a mechanistic metaphysics, the authentic philosophy of nature has been in the 'Thidifferencemust be regarded as essential and specific, If it is true that it is the degree of immatenalmaon of the object constituting the terminus adquem of the abstractive operation and shown by the mode ofdefinition which brings in the specific differenuaaons among the sciences belonging to the same generic degree of abstraction (ep.
i,
them the philosophical content with which they are pregnant. 1 Permanent as are its essential determinations, natural philosophy must thus also bow to the law by which things grow old and are renewed, of fading and transformation, imposed on the
on phantasmata,
carj, release
in
fleshly
garment which
it
receives
from the experimental
sciences,
and
p. 45> n.). It
-
re S resolution in mtelhgible being.
ol^
CaS SU
t\
T^
a clear that empiriological definition, by its resolution in the

The
?*Tm
W
SiC ''
thanks to
which its material supply of facts accumulates so marvellously;

must
free itself from certain (not philosophical, but general
difference
*e phenomenological sciences, whether

much more marked
scholastic,
f the with its between the philosophy of nature and
**
""^S^ W,
'
'
while
it
also
or 'vulgar') representations,
interpretations,
which have been taken

by the
for pre-scientific
2
^ ^S^Hes m0Me ^ ^ R* TSifS^ ^f^^^^P^^ptilosophy onT T

fWl
I
two specifically distinct sciences.

"
empiriometric or empiricc^schemaric, is thus than that between arithmetic and geometry, which are, for the
:
implied by the familiar world of the

regretted P.
senses.
^p.
fisica
the views so wisely stressed
Geny
in bis article, 'Meta-
f St
Th
(qua hcet utraque abstrahat a materia
between natural philosophy and medicine. singulari, tamen magis concern* materiam corUt
"'
*>> 3 -
P q
C P-
lfe^ t* \
tTmar J aa0n
^
T
bTc
doWdTZ
pSlosophy
y'
'^ ^Tmmai ^ ^ ^
7
^
aS
diVCrSC
Maaca ^ concretion in the object only

Sciences >
and the sciences ofnature in
^
differ-
ed esperienza nella cosmologia,' Cregorianum, 1920, vol. L
60
to" ComJndeSensuetSensataicu l),itispre-
*"
of the ancients with regard of the microscope have needed and will still require to be submitted to a serious revision, where it is a question of bodies exhibiting only the appearance or the real character of substantial individuality. The question presents itself of knowing whether the substantial unity of the individual
the natural philosophy
to the
'Thus
many of the ideas held by
continuity of matter since the invention
.ôt yet conquered theirmethoS0R C nStrUCted ** de&Bi on ** m deI of *

n myand
*I* * certain fields already subject
body
P ri
of gas, or some living organism) necessarily reby extension in other words, whether the substantial form cannot inform a whole made up of discontinuous parts, which may be
[e.g.
such and such a molecule
quires, as the ancients believed,
continuity
th?~^^ SerwZT ^TtT

by
n
contiguous
f the PMos
P h y f
*" ^ the natural sciences
to
of the blood and the arterial surround) or may be, intra-atomic or intra-molecular interspaces (in cases where, in contradiction to Gredc's hypothesis, these interspaces are not in themselves informed by the substantial form of the individual whole). For part, I regard such
(like,
for example, plasms
m the atomic scale,
separated
by
my
a structural discontinuity as
compatible with the substantial unity of the individual

materia
whole, and
am
of opinion that the thomist theory of individualisation by the
220
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
Descartes (and
tal
SENSIBLE
NATURE
221
exemplifi substance; only the four elements the old world have been replaced by the ninety-two elements
tions
it
The doctrine of Iiylomorphism, for example, is as true to-dav was in the time of Aristotle; it is its vocabulary and its
which have worn
out, not
its
might add, doubtless much better than the experimenconceptions in favour with the alchemists of the Middle Ages).
I
deljeff's table,
which correspond
to
of very different scientific notions.
have a much closer knowledge of this tribe of elements than the chemists of a hundred years ago; and it seems more than possible
that they
all derive from the hydrogenic atom by a series of changes which a philosopher must needs regard as substantial mutations. Radio-active phenomena furnish us with proofs of such changes de natura in the world of bodies; not doubtless in itself a pure and simple scientific verification
(it is
We
But
SOME COMPLEMENTARY ELUCIDATIONS
how
is
this possible? Prof.
Eddington, with
'a
his vivid descriptive
imagery, declares that a

separated
is
body
is
world-tube of four dimensions,
from the
rest
of space-time by a more or less sharp limit'. This
far
enough away from the world of Aristode

:
for philosophy, not science, to establish a fact
whose formulation
From Aristode's scientific ideas, yes but what we are considering is his Whether an elephant be an isolated world-tube with four dimensions or a block of flesh and blood composed of four elements *nd
philosophy.
the four
implies the notions
of substance, nature,
species, etc., metaphysically
primary
qualities, in
one
is
case as in the other there
is
no resem-
understood), but an indication or 'sign' empiriologically remarkable which the philosopher acting with prudence can disengage as such.
existence
fact
blance
between the
idea,
which
expressible in an image or in a spatio-
The of the micro-structure of matter is a definitely established (which leaves open die righdy ontological question of the essence
temporal scheme, and at least reductively1 figurable, which science or
common
first
sense has
of
this
animal and the
essentially
unfigurable and
If science incessandy revises and renews its conceptions of spatio-temporal organisation and the properties of the atom, it is by affirming in so far the existence of the so-named primitive complex.
of
matter). 1
purely ontological conception
which belongs
which
to the philosopher in his
statement of the principles
constitute the substance
of the
same elephant.
And indeed this assembly of empiriological forms of knowledge agrees

rather with the ontology
Primary matter and substantial form belong to another noematic universe than this
block or
this tube; the
theory of hylomorphism
it is
is
of Aristode than with that of Democritus or of
favoured
by neither the one nor the 'other, for
based on another
signata quantitate is thus verified
tion
without any special difficulty: the transcendental relabetween matter and quantity needing to be understood, in this case, as a transcen-
foundation than these images.
Whether it be
street
a three-dimensional block
that
dental relation to a constellation of positions.
or a four-dimensional tube, the elephant

eration,
must needs perform

scientist call
op-
On the other hand, it is apparent that 'organisation' must not be regarded as the privilege
which the man in the

it
and the
by
is
the
same
as
of
living matter.
The atom
also
is
'organised'but without the
progressive
name though seeing

'eating':
under very diverse terms, which

that
known
equilibrium and self-perfecting activity
[actio
immanens) characteristic of life.
and
it
must needs end by

'a
of micro-physical theories and the epistemoof physico-mathematical knowledge are in high contradiction to any such hope, I do not imagine it is impossible that some day the configuration of matter the disposition and distribution of its parts in spacenot only the demicells,
logical structure
^though
indeed the present state
'dying'.
And
the philosopher,
phenomenon which both call who knows that the elephant in questhing in
it
tion
is
an individual 'substance',
itself', specifically different
from the vegetable substances which

1
assimilates
by
nutrition
and the
molecules, ions or atoms, into which the dimensions, but the constituting
a .knowledge from which all that such a knowledge of the

leave
mind discomposes a material mass of large para of the atom itself-may become the object of symbolism will have been eliminated. Even supposing
Such an idea can be (cp. chap,
i,
p. jo) unfigurable by default as a result

it
of the condi-
tions of the observability
of the object,
can
also, in
consequence of the mathematicisa-
configuration of matter were perfect, it would always open the question of its essence. The configuration of a body may be a compound of electrons and atoms, but the essence is a substantial compound of potency
tion of the physical, be only representable to the physical imagination metaphorically, or even be only representable (yet more indirectly and analogically) to the mathematical imagination, as is the case with the waves of wave-mechanics. It does not cease
thereby to belong to the order of the imaginable or the figurable, in the same way that the point is without extension while yet teductively belonging to the order of extension.
222
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
themselves. It
is
SENSIBLE
should
NATURE
use
223
in the
constrained to seek for the subject of these substantial mutations in a radical potentiality which, following Aristotle (he could look to a higher name) he will call prime matter, of which naturally, he will be incapable of
either
inorganic materials into which its body can be decomposed, is
in another
way that it
make
of them,
degree to which
each is an element of the image ofthe universe elaborated
philosophy of nature cannot dispense with scientific by science. For the image (can the word still be used when it has bethe needs imagery; it
1 come unimaginable?) or the symbol which the science of its day fashions natural philosophy is aware that certain of the Moreover world. the of
describing the features either in a space

(for
it
has
no
features),
of three dimensions or of four or of explaining how, at once unformed and
transcenden tally determined

it
by
the specifying 'form'
which joins with

itself with 'acci-
more serious entities

real
which
it itself
constructs are myths, masks of the
to
compose a
single substantial being, it
can clothe
which
it
proffers to the
all
mind.
And
it is its
duty to remember to
and become accessible to the calculations and observation of the ordinary man under the appearance of a compact mass, at once tandentals'
gible
and
visible,
or a prodigious
swarm
presentable!
of protons and
which
all
because of the mathematical rational beings which serve in their construction more and more unrepresentable by
make thesemost of
is,
for
all that,
unre-
the imagination.
By diis heroic remedy it will escape from
the tempta-
electrons,
i.e.
of 'undefined
only
particles'
and
waves in motion in a given space, which are
statistical
symbols.
a Descartes or a Democritus, the secret fibres of nature according to the gross plan of the models which our eyes and our
tion to represent, like
An insoluble hiatus perpetually attests

distinguishes philosophical
the difference of order which
hands can see

sensible
gress,
and grasp. Science, which is absorbed in the world of the
from
scientific explication;
both being
legi-
and the figurable
and which
is
nevertheless led
it
by its very prore-
timate and necessary.
might point out in parenthesis
that if they had
not to transcend, but rather to dissolve
in
what then only

this
been sufficiendy observant of this fact some eminent scientists would not have been led to confound 'substance' in the philosophical sense
hcthely belongs to the

for the
world of figurable,holds in
he not have recognised
a great lesson
philosopher. Should
for himself that the
of the word with 'substance' in the common interpretation, as it is imagined in terms of that first outline of scientific knowledge which is
primary spatio-temporal elements

fact that
of the world of bodies, by the very they make up the complexes which fall naturally within the
senses,
commonsense observation and dianks to which we know table is not penetrated by the sheet of paper that we lay on it.
suing, the Einsteinian universe
like the electron or
that the
sphere
of our
is
which
senses;
constituted
According to the principles of the argument which we have been pur-
to penetrate
cannot resemble these complexes? The world by them cannot resemble anything known by our into it is to pass a shadowy threshold disturbing to
of four dimensions and
its
curvature,
~ as
the
photon of to-day, must needs be regarded
pure
able
physico-mathematical rational beings founded on the real. The question then arises of what form of relation can be sustained by philosophy,
and in the lack of fuller knowledge, the unrepresentmyths of science have at least the merit of reminding us of this fact. What, nevertheless, can the philosopher make of a myth? Doubdess
imagination:
nothing but another
myth,
this
time a philosophical one. There
is
no longer with
reason, but
science.
the facts or entia realia
more or
less
completed by
the
with pure entia rationis and the well-founded myths of Here a point previously outlined must be completed.1 In my
which natural philosophy can assimilate the myths securely based on physico-mathematical apprehension into its own order than by itself turning to the making of myths. Do not we know
in
that in a
aliqualiter
no other
way
opinion natural philosophy must take over the entire deposit of the experimental sciences: but if it can be based on the facts established by
these sciences, as
use,
it is
way
the philosopher
is
a lover of myths'? Philosophicus
est
phihmythes'?*
p.
on a strange substance which

it
it
appropriates for its own
^k supra,
t.
obvious that
cannot look to ask from physico-mathematical

if
221, note
1.
rational beings a
means of elucidating the ontological nature of things in êe supra, chap, i, pp. 76-81.
Thomas, In Metapk, book i,
lect. 2. In fact Arisrotle

is
did not say that the philo-
phyT,"
o
m a wa y a mythophi],
faXovofas
but that the mythophil

tt<L S iartv.' (Met.,
in
some measure a
philoso-
tf.tXSfj.vBos
A.
2,
982, b. 18.)
224

field
is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
knowledge, and that
phical
it
SENSIBLE
NATURE
225
to the creative imagination of th philosopher, e.g. when he wishes to interpret in the light of an otherwis well-establishedphilosophical doctrine, such as that ofhylomorphism
th
An immense
thus
open
requires
by its own
essence a region of philoso-
myths destined to accord with the well-founded myths used in physico-mathematical theories, as the completion of its union with the
experimental body
It is
is
provisionary image which science fashions

the atom.
of the
micro-structure of
composed by the sciences.
Hardly will he have invented a
sufficiently likely hypothesis
assuming, for example, that substantial

nucleus, the intra-atomic ether
form informs,
like a central
the
very worthy of attention that the world of sensible nature only one in which we find our apprehension shared at once by a
a point
the theories
and the electrons which circle it,1 when of Rutherford and Bohr, on which this interpretation
is
philosophy and an experimental science, the

other's
bility.
one being the soul of the

it
body. Such a duality
is
found in no other universe of intelligihas only an abstract and

it
grounded, will begin to

or invent another.
fall
into dissolution.
He must needs re-adapt

on
it
Mathematics has no ontological soul;
The philosopher can

it still
exercise his wits
a four-
ideal
spirit.
body. Metaphysics has
no empiriological body,
has only a
dimensional universe, or the ether, of

'careful
which to-day
physicists are
not to speak', 2 although
seems diat they will find some

course of such work he
rightful
his
difficulty in getting
is
beyond
is
it.
But
if in the
convinced that he
occupied with philosophy in the
m. THE MECHANISTIC THEORY

If the
sense
of the word,
we
no
can only regretfully compliment him on

continuity
preceding analyses are correct,
we
can see that the central
fault
courage.
Although there
is
of rational explication and
the un-
derstanding of things between physico-mathematical theories and natural
of natural knowledge has been to give an ontologically explicative value to that form of mechanistic attraction immanent in physico-mathematical knowledge, and in taking
this
of modem philosophy in the sphere
philosophy,
we can so see that a secondary connection can be estabit is
for a
lished in regard to their imagery, in so far as
true that
it is
of the
analysis
philosophy of nature. This it is not; it is an empiriological of nature mathematical in form and direction (an 'empirio-
nature of natural philosophy to add to the field of direcdy philosophical

Gredt, die Lehre von Matcrie u. Form u. die Elektronentheorie, cp, M. de Munnynck's *J. communication to the Thomist Congress at Rome, 1925; articles in the Revue
ihomiste (1900)
metric' analysis). build
Though it is true that such an analysis must inevitably

world of explicative
it is
up for
itself a
entities destined to sustain

this
mathematical deduction,
he, as
clear that,
and
Dims
on the one hand,

abounding in
world will
Tltotnas (Fribourg, 1928); Leslie J.
Walker, S .].,
article in
Philosophia Perennis, vol.

Essai
2
'I
we have
ii,
pp. 831-42; and the highly contestable, in
my
seen, pseudo-ontological,
it
rational being,
opinion,
by
P. Descoqs.
a conversation I
physicist,
and,
its
on the other, that
will be orientated towards the mechanistic as

all
eminent Russian
had some twenty years ago with P. N. LebedefF, the me it was only possible to speak securely of die ether. That was the time when the notion of the electron was beginning to enter into physics. To-day physicists are careful not to speak of the ether and some of them doubt
remember
ideal limit
(although never wholly attaining thereto, since
the
who
told
irrationals
which science is bound to admit
are opposed to an effective
its
very existence.'
ether,
W. Vernadsky, VEtude de la uieet la nouvelk physique, art. cit., p. 700-)

is
The
Lord Kelvin declared,

to us as the air
it is
is
no imaginary creation of speculative

1
philosophy;
I'histoire Acs
mechanistic reduction). Mechanistic representations are in effect the sole residuum of ontological explication able to enter into the substance of mathematical physics itself; it is therefore with them that the physicist
it is as essential
we
breathe. (E. Picard,

is
Un Coup d'ceil sur
endeavours to construct the system

a
is
ofprinciples and reasons of being of

it
sciences)
'Nowadays
agreed that ether
mean
that the ether
abolished.
We
not a kind of matter. ... This does not need an ether. The physical world is not to be
.'
physical or geometrical
a question
order of which he has need. But in that case
Jf
notion of a
Elated P arri cles of matter or

cit.,
electricity
with
featureless interspace.
of provisional representations, whose whole value

itself,
exists,
(A. b. Eddington, op.
3 1.)
'Einstein likewise holds that
medium
we cannot eliminate the

deter-
lot in relation to the real envisaged in
but with regard to the
lacking
all
mines mechanic and
mechanic and cinematic properties, but which

."'
. .
mathematical relations
es, but
which they sustain; a question not ofphilosophiat
electro-magnetic phenomena.
(E. Picard, op. cit)
of a methodological mechanism,
once problematic and
22 6

would be possible for philosophy
image,
this
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
geometrisation of physics,
sions,
it
SENSIBLE
need to
NATURE
227
auxiliary. It
to retain this approxima-
finds the
mobilise
tive spatio-temporal
well-founded myth which has conit
measured dimen-
the pointer-readings
made by
that universe and its elements: tributed to build up the structure of explanatory value. ontologically an with it cannot endow In
the observers of various systems of
reference, to abandon the spatially unique and absolutely immobile frame
what degree then does the present

of all, the
is
'crisis'
of physics imply new

its
his
as
which the mechanistic philosopher took over from mathematics to hold cosmos, and within which he saw all the movements of the universe
variations
points of view?
First
of a pure ideal
spectacle, for, attaching
new physics seems

is
to have turned
an ontological value
back on mech-
anism. This
true in the degree to
which we may take the word 'mechis
anicism' in a strict sense, as it

cartes'
understood by classical geometry in Desonly geometry.' But

it is
aphorism: 'the whole of my physics

is
no means of philosophically considering movement as real. The new physics has no more thought for the philosophic reality of movement (that is not its affair), it is perforce that it finds a
to
geometricism, he has
the
place (with the assistance

its
ofnumerous rational beings)
deepest centre of mechanistic theory
not geometridsm,
itself,
for this reality in
mathe-
physico-mathematical synthesis; and
by
this
very
maticism: and on the other hand, geometry

it
in die degree to which
fact it attests that

slightest
the
ical
mathematicism towards which it tends has not the

claim.
become co-extensive with mathematics. We can say that the new scientific conceptions only make more daringly
becomes
abstract, tends to
ontolog-
On
parity
the other
hand,
it
manifest the scheme of transmuting physics into a umversalised mathematics.
has been compelled to recognise a certain dis-
That the geometrisation of physics
may reach this aim through

re-
a re-fashioning of geometry under the influence of physics (which
between the notions and principles applicable to phenomena in our large scale dimensions and those applicable to the atomic scale. This
is
so because, as
was
recalled above, in the atomic scale the individually
duces it all the more easily for the care that has been taken to penetrate it),
I
taken material particles
have already pointed out. But that in effect implies
cannot be subjected to both a continuous obser-
little.
Also
these
vation
and determination.
empiriological
And if it
is
true that the resolution
crises
its
and transformations of the mechanistic ideal must not be taken for
of con-
cepts in
knowledge
decease.
The
physicist will always
remain attracted by the
takes place exclusively in the sphere
ideal of a
in a
of the observable and the measurable,

a
'unification
of all knowledge concerned with the physical world
and that in consequence in such form of knowledge a concept only has meaning with regard to the and method which serve
to define
it,
single science
which will be expounded ... in geometric or
quasi-geogeo-
experimental circumstances
lows that, in the
ject
is
it
metric terms'.
And
fol-
as this
tendency is not towards a philosophical
atomic
scale,
the very notion of the empiriological ob-
metricism, he will accept without difficulty, in order to achieve more
modified.
nearly
this ideal, all
the reconstructions
which the apprehension
and
possibility
It designates something observable and measurable, a of observation and mensuration, but this very observability
symbolisation of the physically real impose on mechanics and geometry

in themselves.
It is
and measurabihty are fundamentally different.
Thus
is it
not astonishing that the entire organism of scientific expla-
here that the epistemological superiority of the
new
physics be-
comes patent in the eyes of the philosopher: it exhibits more clearly than
classical physics,
nation should differ in the here and there

causality.
toe
two cases, and that it should, for example, admit of exigencies mutually incompatible with the law
all
makes obvious to all, the purely methodological and supplementary character of the mechanicism or pythagorism of the scientist. On the one hand it rehabilitates the reality of motion which
strict
This capitally interesting result makes evident the fact that

statistical
mathematicism (above
and, in the case of micro-
pnysics,
indeterminist in form)
and the geometrisation of physics have
reality
mechanicism has destroyeda recognition of that irreducible which is, it seems (at least to the eyes of a philosopher), at the
ur
.
appliances
origin of the theory of relativity.
But then,
in order to safeguard
the
knowledge of the external world cannot be divorced from the nature of the with which we have obtained the knowledge.' (A. S. Eddington, op. at.,
.
P'iJ4-)
228
lost all

philosophical claim,
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
its
SENSIBLE
NATURE
229
any pretension of telling us die nature of
material things in themselves: unless physics should itself interdict
But the second law of thermo-dynamics offers other possibilities to nature, in particular with regard to the living die philosophy of organism.
that,
it Is it
two different scales, I do not say of two different images, that goes without saying, but of two conceptions of the same world which are rationally heterogeneous, whose sole continuity b
proposition to us under
1 supplied by mathematical formalism.
not one of the marks of the irreducible specificness of the

this principle, rather,
latter
without violating
its
on the
contrary, applyino-
to
own
use, it utilises the universal process

its
of the diminution of
raise
energy to variously recompose both

for a
order and organisation, to
time the degree of being

life
(I
do not say with regard

of
to the quality
of the energy, for

tES LIAISONS
does not belong to one special form of energy,

a higher, properly biological or
fire
DANGEREUSES
but with regard to the perfections

psychic order)? (Material) life
decay.
is
This
is
not the place in which to try to reckon up the opportunities

offers to philosophy, either in the order
it
a constructive
which
feeds
upon
which the new physics
of facts
I
or of the apologetic conveniences, so to speak, which
presents.
On
the other hand, certain conformities
seem to
create
between die
would only proffer certain brief suggestions. Is Carnot's principle, which Prof. Eddington writes of with such singular charm (and which is not an acquisition of the new physics, but
which inextricably
subsists in
it,
philosophy of nature and the image of the universe elaborated
new physics zones

verse physical
by the were of affinity. The hope of deducing the diconstituents of the world of experience starting from the
as it
at least in the
macroscopic
scale), able
minimum of primary notions

metaphysician), the idea
result
(selected
with a freedom possessed by no
to cast any light for us
deceptions which have resulted

diversity
on the problems of the origin of the world? The from some philosophical attempts, the
scientists as to the
call
of a
finite universe,
which
is
nevertheless, as a
of the opinions entertained by

careful reserve. 2
degree of
point
the
of the curvature of space, without limits, and which, according to most recent hypotheses, is expanding, still more that of the discon-
estimation in
for the
which the principle itself should be held,
on this
tinuity
of energy and the

particular
variability
of mass,
find, abstraction
being
most
made of their
like P.
and
scientific value,
I
an a
priori complicity, so
to speak, in natural
philosophy (and
Supposing the physics of the future renounces,
do not only speak of a necessarily

and if one is in accord with
Langevin, the notion of cor-
puscular individuality in order to save scientific determinism, these
two
pictures
of
dynamics
Prof.
is
applicable to the universe considered as a whole,

(op. cit.
which I spoke will remain none the less heterogeneous, witness, in this precise abandonment of the notion of the individual in the atomic scale.
2In
case, the
any
case the principle
is
unable to provide in itself a

if it
is
'scientific' elucidation
of the
problem of the creation, even

first
admitted that
it
obliges us to presuppose, at the
stage of the history of the cosmos, a maximum degree of organisation of energy an organisation which 'is, by hypothesis, the antithesis of the probable, something which
of entropy, it seems that such a supposition is possible, by reason of the very singularity of this notion. In this way, granted that the more time advances the more (of which the 'increase of entropy' is the empiriometric sign) a certain internal order immanent in the activity of the material world irreparably diminishes, natural philosophy could already, before giving
pp. 74-5) in
writes
place to metaphysics, rise to the consideration
Eddington
what he
of the
first cause,
from which
the
cannot happen fortuitously'.

at the origin
To draw from
aAAo yevos.
is
this the
conclusion of divine intervention
order in question proceeds.
of the world would be for science a coming out of the sphere of its own
Such a
way
to the first cause nevertheless remains less perfect than that
possibilities, jJATctfktlveiv eiy
To
establish such a philosophical conclu-
physics, because in
sion philosophical procedure

cally elucidated notions (of
causality, the
necessary,
which would bring into play
philosophi-
mencement in time
of metaany case it only shows the necessity of divine action at tlie comof the evolution of the cosmos (or in the evolutions, for we do
not precede that one).
Is it
which the
physicist
knows nothing) such
as ontological
not
know
if another state did
necessary to add that the

that the
analogy of being, potency and act, order, finality, etc., and would imply that the notion of entropy itself had taken on not only a physico-mathematical, but
a philosophical meaning.
philosopher, precisely because divine causality is in
he proceeds philosophically, and knows

could not think that 'some
left it
action
all the time,
billions
of years
cit.
ago
intelligibility
is
God wound up
Through
itself,
the material universe and has

the extension
to chance ever since' (op.
This elevation to a plane of superior

light
maybe,
it is
true, possible in the
P-
84)?
all
of philosophical
principles: if it
is
admitted that the second principle of thermo-
v "y chance
are subject
of time the course of the events of the universe, to the causality, the overarching government of God.
230

1
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
231
seems sometimes possible to disc in certain conceptions of the new physics, not certainly the smallest b stantial likeness, but a sort of stylistic kinship with the antique accessori
cartesian philosophy).
it
Indeed
where they have been neglected, world of the inorganic new ways of thinking of the physical. with supply science
How,
resist
will perhaps
finally,
of the
peripatetic
workshop, such
as
the natural
state,
condensation and
the fascination
can the imagination of the philosopher (or of the poet) of these light atoms which condense or transform
or the difference of nature between the matter of the heavenly bodies and that of corruptible bodies, of which the distinction, which is even more sharply drawn, between the 'matter' of the physicist and his non-material' ether (in so far as he admits its existence) seems like the modern reproduction.
rarefication,
It is
themselves into
this
heavy atoms in order to radiate

is
as light
or as heat, of
way
in
which mass
measured by
its
internal energy, these stars

is
which by ceaselessly reducing. their mass, which

enormous, and
of billions
to begin with so
which will completely exhaust themselves after billions of years, pour forth in the present energy into the universe;1
here great symbols of the mystery of the very life of the
forget
notable on another side, that one of the effects

its
of the present-day
how fail
spirit?
to find
revolution in physics has resulted in
enlargement, as
M.
Vernadsky
pointed out in a remarkable address to the Scientific Societies of Moscow and Leningrad, 2 with regard to the phenomena of life, to such a degree
that the planetary importance
easily recognised,
But
let
him not
how
erroneous
it
philosophy of nature,
clusions
and
afortiori a metaphysic,
would be to try to erect a on the theoretic conas if these
of these phenomena will thereby be more and the typical traits of their physico-chemical behavor again, dissymmetry) passing over into
the
of modern physics and its explanations of the world,
conclusions
and explications could be taken
as ontological foundations,
iour
1
{e.g. irreversibility
could be used as such
by
the philosopher without their previous sub-
The physicist, if he has any interest in metaphysical problems, will be even more aware than the philosopher of these accidental philosophical connections of the new
of relativity helps towards his comprehension of the relation between creaturely time and the eternity of God. (Cp. K. F. Merzfeld, "The Frontiers of Modern Physics and Philosophy,' Proc. of the Amer. Cath.
that the theory
Phil. Assoc.,
jection to a rigorous critique.

to the
That was the error of Spinoza with regard

seems to
I
physics
of
his time. It
me
that,
from very
different
physics.
He will find, for instance,
standpoints,
M.
Bergson, and, if
have righdy understood him, Prof.
Alexander, are neither
of them
safe
from
this
danger; the one seek-
Loyola Univ., Chicago, 29th Dec, 1930; 'Scientific Research and Religion, The Commonweal, 20th Mar., 1929; 'Einstein as a Physicist," ibid., Feb. 1931.) This is certainly legitimate as long as it is remembered that it is a case of comparisons and metaphors which may help the mind to grasp a truth (in this case a philosophical truth), but which are not therefore in themselves necessarily true (i.e. with regard to
the theory of relativity, ontologically or philosophically true).
in the world of the which the physicist would misunderstand; the other making of that world the matrix as it were from which the worlds of more and
physicist,
ing to free a so-called 'durie criatrice
immanent
more
qualified,
more and more
solid, realities
emerge. There
is
no
less
Revue ginhale des sciences, 31st Dec, 1930., The author, who stresses the importance of the present-day crisis of science, to which he gives the value of one of
tit.,
Mrf.
a star
It
.We are therefore obliged to admit that, in the course diminishes at least in a proportion of 1000 to r.
enormous
of its complete evolution,
the historic crises'

re-integration
of thought, points out

'the scientific
must be admitted that this diminution is bound up with radiation, since there is no
of life into
without doubt leading towards the picture of the universe', it will at the same time
that, as
tend to cause the disappearance of the striking contradiction, so continually accentuated in the course of the classic period, between the objective picture of the scientific universe (where mechanics and the physico-chemical had alone right of possession and which made everything human and living seem work of
sociologically.
and 'null') and the 'made up of living personof which more than nine-tenths study 'regions without any connection with the picture of the cosmos falsely considered as the result of the total labours of science The article contains comments of the greatest interest, on science considered
'fragile'
science
itself,
in so far as this
is
a 'social world-formation',
auties,
stars do not let loose the atoms which they contain. In admit that the loss of weight corresponds to a complete of matter, to a profound neutralisation of the electron by the proton, with, e a swan-song, a great production of light, two photons resulting from the reciprocal neutralisation of a photon and an electron. The complete destruction of matter in order to produce light probably requires, for its production in a potent degree, conditions of temperature and pressure in the depths "e stars which are profoundly different from any which we know how to realise. p ro Eddington calculated it at forty million degrees of central temperature in the
loss
01 matter; these
consequence
estrucnon
we
are led to
'
major part
lu
of the stars, and the pressure would be figured by the atmospheric mil^.,..'(P.Lan g evin,, .or.)
232

it is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
'
SENSIBLE
NATURE
233
self-deception in the assumption that
possible, misled
by
advantages of which
dicories a philosophy
the va
have spoken, to draw from the new
of nature;
in the indeterminist conceptions
physic") or, for instance, in the desire to find
over the minds of investigators, who held that they mirage in the skies, work without paying some tribute to it. could not even begin to set to
In
abandoning
classical
mechanics,
still
more, in enunciating the

scale,
of contemporary
ment
against philosophical determinism.
The
physics any ar"* refutation of the
principle
of indetermination for phenomena of the atomic

it is
and
must be philosophical. However important or significant the ideas of may be to the dieoretician of the sciences they have absolutely nothing to do with the problem of liberty. DoubtHeissenberg, for example,
less
latter
by affirming that
contradictory to suppose that science can follow
and determine at each instant the bearing of an individual corpuscle, in

other words, that it
is
not possible to know its complete past and thereby
they may
to foresee its future,
the
new physics has done away with the very reathis
assist
in destroying
a misappropriation to
free-will;
wish to
some scientific fictions, but it would be utilise them directly in an apology

for
sons for the existence
of all
a
pseudo-philosophy, which looked on
the
mind and
free will as
scientific scandal.
This
is
no
small achieve-
they have no
more value
Epicurus and Lucretius.

I
in that region than the dinamen of
ment from the standpoint of the sociology of the intelligence. 'Physics

no longer offers any moral objection to free
will.'
do not
But
this result in itit
fail
to appreciate the important bearing
of the
reversal of
self
has
to
no formal and
intrinsic philosophical value.

classical physics as
produced by the conceptions of die cerned not only with science itself and its
values
For
would be
possibility
human and intellectual aspects, in the social and economic From this standpoint, which I might call the
science
is
new physics, in what is conown interests; in its general

worlds
epistemo-sociological
false
hold that mechanics and
such implied die
negation of free will1
and the mechanistic postulate of the
of explaining everything
by
the laws of movement, in other words,
no longer considered in itself, as being true or false, in the dewhich follow in themselves from its exigencies in the knowledge of things, it interests us as a collective formation produced here and now in the minds of men and producing in the latter, like a ferment or a centre of organisation, varied
terminations
reactions, associative rather than
rational,
reducing everything to the displacement of corpuscles, any
by more than
any other metaphysical conception.
The
quarrel between 'determinist'
and 'indeterminist' mechanics

blems.
It is
is
outside the field of philosophical pro-
equally impossible to find in the indeterminism of the
which
puscular mechanics a philosophical significance otherwise than

it
new corby tying
are accidental
Thus
_
classical
with regard to the sciences themselves. physicsper widensgave force to the illusion of an
up with a metaphysical error; then it
is
imagined
as
mediating against
the axiomatic
stood).
I
integrally mechanistic explanation

tific
value of the principle of causality (philosophically under-
picture
of the universe; so-called scienof the cosmoswhere consciousness and life must needs be
have indicated above that the principle of indeterminism in-
subject to physico-chemical processes
troduces a lacuna into die field
of scientific
causality, 2 or
more exacdy,
and these again to mechanics, and where, thanks to that unique formula of which Laplace dreamed, die calculation of the movements of material points according to Newton s laws of attraction should have allowed the
in dieory, if not in
fact,
movements of the greatest bodies and the lightest atom; nothing would be uncertain; the past and the future would alike be before its eyes.' (Laplace, Essai philosophise sur
les probalilitds,
1 8 14).
Taine speaks in the same way of that 'supreme law' which moves
in the eternal
prediction of all events and of organic life and of
all
the history of the worlds of brute matter,
of events and the infinite sea of things'. These famous statements are doubly erroneous. They admit that the contingent unfree
torrent
events dependent
humanity, of the development of thought or the trembling of a reed even as of the motions of die stars^-set up, like a
seen with certitude,

finite intelligence is
on universal interaction can be both calculated in advance and forewhich is not exact: for to calculate such events in advance an innecessary {and such an intelligence does not foresee,
it sees).
And
JS^T?^
ticlZT
they
idl '
deny the
possibility
of contingent fiee
they are
events, dependent
on
the will of intelligent
" * given buaat
should knt>w
all
the forces
by which
it
na-
agents outside, in so far as

s "pn,
spiritual, the
domain of the
material sciences. (Cp.
die reSpecdve bein g s ofwl "<* , , ciently great to subject these data to analysis, could
made
up, if also
were
suffi-
p. 184,
note 2.)
*See supra, pp. 183-7.
embrace in <nc same formula
the
Seen/pra, p. 184, note 2.
234

those succedanea
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
SENSIBLE
NATURE
23
by physico-madieniati apprehension in its re-shaping of the concept of cause. But, if it is so it precisely in the degree to which science has left behind an ontological
causality reached
1
among
of
prestige of die inordinate

judice public
of the new, and which doubtless will only pre-
opinion in favour of contingence and liberty in stamping
the substantiality
of matter and the principle of causality with

I
discredit.
standpoint and abandoned thinking of
phenomena
sub ratione
entis
'We have abandoned

of the most
this
in the external world,' writes one distinguished theoreticians of the new physics. 1 In place
better to read 'empiriometric science', that appreresolves all concepts not in being but exclusively in
strict causality
of
know that physico-mathematical explication cannot philosophical. From this point of view we must albe in continuity widi low the reason of those who think that it would be prudent to interdict
As for myself,
the entry
'we'
it
would be
of philosophers into the workshop in which the

is
new quanis
hension which
the
tum theory
closed
built up. In fact this physico-mathematical universe
measurable, and which has
cannot be
has a
now perceived that the entire physical world exacdy measured. To endow this renunciation, which only
in the empiriological field,
It is
world, where geometricism (understanding this

in so far as
it
word in the widas
est sense,
conforms to the ideal of the new physics
to that
meaning
with philosophical
value
would be a strange misunderstanding.

sical
impossible for human science
where mathematicism produces a pseudo-ontology, substitute both natural philosophy and metaphysics. Tliis pseudo-ontology
of the old),
plays
which observes and measures things by material instruments and by phyexperiment, and which can only see an electron
light, to
only a methodological and subsidiary part, but

its
it is
there,
and
by
encircling
it
thanks to
total
rational beings
founded on the
real it builds
up
a system of
widi
know
determiningly the
way
in
which a
corpuscle will
behave
at
each instant. But suppose the existence of a pure mind which
would know without material means (and so also without empiriological concepts) the behaviour of this corpuscle2 at each instant such a mind would see die strictest application of the principle of causality, in die
full
which makes this intelligible universe a whole shut in The philosopher will explain how this universe of the physicist conies to be built up. He will borrow its materials. It is also, as I have
explication
on itself.
said,
from
it
that
he will ask for
his
image of the physical world,

this
in ac-
cord with
winch he will in
one.
his turn fashion his myths, in die platonic
ontological sense. This hypothesis has
no
significance for the phyit is
meaning of the word. But he will have superimposed on

a different
universe
sicist;
but
if it
has
no
significance for the metaphysician
because he
has not yet learnt metaphysics.
Neither
let us
indulge in the hope that the social bearing of scientific

itself as
and philosophic discovery will show

table,
.
any more
sensible in the
ONTOLOGY AND EMPIRIOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF THE LIVING ORGANISM

The
for
future than in the past to the distinctions,
which are neverdieless indubi-
case
is
odierwise for the other experimental sciences
above
all
which are here in question. The new physics will act on die general
in the
biology and experimental psychology
whose
essence does not
mind
same
irrational
way
as classical physics,
it
by
in
associative inits
consist in
a mathematicisation of the sensible, and where the
mode of
fluences or sub-intellectual induction;
will raise
up
turn, to
all
resolution
of concepts and of explanation primarily belongs to the
appearances, the larva of a philosophy, a new 'scientific picture of the cosmos', which will only save us from the errors of the first at the price
'A. S. Eddington, op.
2
I
cit.,
p. 309.
1
have christened 'empirico-schematic'. In I certainly do not mean to say that diese sciences reject any mathematical treatment of the observed subject: far from it! If such
epistemological type
which
saying this
have mentioned already (p. dons corpuscular individuality.

the philosopher,
86,
note
I)
P. Langevin's hypothesis,
scientific fate
Whatever may be the
where he abanof this hypothesis,
treatment finds its

logically
the
prime field in physics, since corporality as such is ontoit
though he may ignore what are the individual ultimates of the atomic concept of the individual is valid (i.e. in the ontological sense which the philosophy of nature recognises) in that world as in the world of large
world, knows
at least that the
soaked in the quantitative,
nevertheless penetrates wherever
shadow of quantity extends or finally that of matter; and this shadow
dimensions.
of the soul itself. But in the degree to which we rise above the particular world of physics, and the object gains in richness and
reaches to the things
236
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
means, everything
is
SENSIBLE
its
NATURE
237
ontological perfection, in proportion the quantitative aspect of die subject under consideration becomes, I do not say less real, but less
significant
also
done by the soul (and

in a substance
vegetative potencies)
and more subordinate, and the science in question

to a
It
the first principle.

activity,
Rooted
endowed with immanent
less easily reducible
physico-chemical energies there produce, in the degree to
form of interpretation which is
in principle purely mathematic
to diminish die part which physico-chemical analysis (and in consequence, the calculus) already plays
in
would be assuredly vain to pretend
and its vegetative faculties, and which they are instruments for the soul without violating the laws of inanimate matter, effects which surpass
what they could do
by themselves
alone, in the sense that they actuate
biology, a part which every day only increases. 1 In a region as irreducibly

biological, as
governed by concepts of form and of organic

is
totality as
and raise ontologically the subject itself. And without doubt it is posexperimental biology which, consenting so sible to conceive of a form of
to
experimental embryology, Brachet
able to write: 'The physicois
speak to a kind of amputation,
would turn
exclusively to the ener-
chemical epoch
is
only in
it.'
its
infancy, but there

that
it
no doubt
that the
future belongs to
The fact remains
getic
and physico-chemical analysis of living phenomena and thus be towards an entirely mathematic and mechanistic
ideal, leav-
represents the material-
conditions and
means of study.
And as all
orientated
the facts of the living organ-
ing
all
the rest to natural philosophy. "Whatever orientation
may in fact
ism are physico-chemically built up,

indefinitely.
this analysis
can and should advance
direct
modern biology (where to-day a sufEciendy sharp anti-mechanist

is
reaction
visible), I
hold
it
nevertheless for certain that in the experiis
Does
not.
this
imply that it can ever exhaust biological
reality? Assuredly
mental field an empiriological analysis
both possible and
requisite,
For if every thing in the living organism is done by physico-chemical

'. .
.
which
sets itself to
penetrate vital
phenomena as such, and which, while
H shall never subscribe to M. Bcrgson's judgment:

organic
tute
creation,
In the field of life the calculus

destruction.
remaining clearly distinct from natural philosophy, makes use of experi-
can be drawn, at most, of certain phenomena of organic
With
regard to
on
die contrary,
see
life, I
do not even
how
and the evolving phenomena which rightly constiit can be thought possible that these can be subject to
criatrice, p.
mathematical treatment' (L'Evohtion

claims of mechanicism. In
and irreducibly biological (like those prospektiv e Potenz1 of centres of orand the of the prospektive Bedeutung 8 ganisation, of the specificness of plasma, etc.), and subordinate to enermental concepts
which
are stricdy
2r). Neither
do
subscribe to the
getic,
my opinion the application of mathematical treatment to the
physical
and chemical concepts. While, for example, the philo-
phenomena of life is capable of almost infinite progress, but as it remains normally subordinate to another treatment, which is righdy biological, of these same phenomena, whereby (in Buytendijk's terminology) the scientist endeavours to truly 'comprehend',
not only mathematically explain.
in biology, cp.
sophy of nature makes a place
among
its
explanatory concepts for the
concept of finality, the facts of biological finality only present for physico-chemical analysis
possible;
(On
this
question of physico-mathcmatkal
to the Study
an
irrational requiring to
be reduced
I
as far as
analysis
W.
R. Thompson, 'A Contribution

iii.
of Morphogeny
in
while for the righdy biological analysis of which
have been
Muscoid Dec, 1929.)

the
Diptera', chap.
{Trans, of the Entomological Society of London, 31st
speaking, they result in
an empiriological concept which could be

by Hans Driesch
are to-day admitted into the current
A. Brachet, La Vie criatrice desformes, Paris, 1917.

example, the muscle
is
It is
the
same
in physiology.
If,
for
as a
this
'These notions introduced
motor
considered, according to the studies of Hill and Meyerhof, of an absolutely special (chemico-colloidal) kind unknown to mechanics,
language of science, under the somewhat less happily chosen names of 'real potentiality
and
2
'total potentiality*.
Brachet has pointed out their fruitfulness.

is
does not prevent 'the mechanism appearing, certain secondary lacunae being included, as a physico-chemical whole, producing no reaction, no force not recognised in inani-
'What
we
see
re-emerging
the highly biological notion
which Emil Rohde exas there are
mate matter, and rigorously subject to the law of the conservation of energy'
pressed in the striking formulas: there are as

plants
many
species
of plasma
his
of
(L.
Lapicque, in the collection, L' Orientation actuelle des sciences, 1930). This 'physicochemical whole' is the assembly of the energetic and material means of the phenomenon. Materially physico-chemical, the phenomenon itself is formally vital, it is an auto-actuation of the subject, and it implies that the physico-chemical energies brought into play
are precisely the means, the instruments
and animals; more, every living individual possesses
own
'specific'
plasma,
so that there are as

globe.'
many
(Remy
Collin, 'La Thcorie cellulaire et la vie',
specimens on the individual plasma as there are individual La Biologic midicak, IOJ9-)
Generally speaking the strictly biological experiment concepts which are referred to here relate to what Hans Andre" calls the 'typological laws' or 'laws of specification of
life.
of the radical
principle
of immanent
activity.
238

offinality, but winch would have
1
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
to b
SENSIBLE
NATURE
239
described by die same name

tirely recast,
remains that
does not
of saving
its
sensible appearances 1 ),
but which nevertheless
and emptied of all its philosophical significance,

side the
leaving
on one
whole use of
and which" finality as a causal explication
re-compose
it
object in the field of mathematical ideality
by
withdrawing
as far as possible
from its reality in
the
world and nature
would simply express

tures,
that general pre-explicatory condition* that the
functions of die living organism,
and the use which it makes of its strucsupply for the continuation of life. As to the concepts of
the soul
in natural
biological
continuity
of the sensible; and which as a result can enter into a certain theoretic with philosophical explanations. If these sciences may
all
happen to compose explicative rational beings, for

order to construct a universe
that
it is
not in
and the vegetative potencies, diey play an indispensable part philosophy, but they remain outside die field of properly
analysis
of deduction which
is
substituted for that
of real beings: they remain imperfectly deductive: instead of

a closed
making
super-
experimental analysis, as they are outside that of the physico-chemical
universe
on which
the universe of natural philosophy

natural philosophy
is
of living phenomena.
in
imposed, they rather

conditions
make up with
two
stages or
Thus it is obvious in what sense I meant that biology did not consist
a mathematicisation of the sensible.
has the right to,
of the same universe.

they approach nearer to the purity of their type, they tend
However largely biology may,

It
and
as
In so far as
make use in the material analysis of life of mathematical

knows no obligation whereby
means, these remain a simple instrument.

it
we have seen, to create for themselves an autonomous empiriological vocabularly. But in so far as this system of notions, without admitting
ontological or philosophic concepts into its formal texture, and still more without any 'subordination' to philosophy or borrowing of its
principles, asks
must needs
and
sible
substitute reconstructed quantitative entities for the senqualitatively determined objects furnished by observation; it
remains an autonomous science with regard to the laws of mathematical

explication:
theless
borrowing
at will
does not constitute a
from mathematical methods, it nevermadiematicisation of living phenomena.

whose ontological
existence,
of die latter to furnish it, as its climate and conditions of with those pre-conceptions of a general order and that sense
of its
own significance in the universe of thought of which every science

and also those stimulations of a heuristic order thanks of notions,
far
Sciences such as experimental biology'and psychology set out to attain a
has need,
it
to
which
knowledge ofaffective or cognitive or vegetative life,

indications are doubdess
progresses in via inventions, this system
from
raising a
very weak (since being is only considered as a simple basis of the observable and the typical law of apprehension
*Cp. Eugcnio Rignano, Quest-ce que
2
sort
of mechanistic pseudo-ontology,
is,
in a way, in
dynamic continuity
with the specifically different system

philosophy. Indeed
fic
of ontological notions of natural
la
vie? (Paris, 1926).
condition of simple authentication, pre-supposed by the explanation and which in itself plays no explanatory part. Such a 'pre-explicatory' condition
mean by
this a
it can only build up its autonomy in a truly scientiway, escape the disorder, the arbitrariness, the conceptual wastage
very different from the condition as a substitute for causality which was in question (pp. 182-3), which plays an essentially explanatory part. This latter is regulative and determining with regard to phenomena (it could be called the conditioning condition), die former is a simple state of acts recognised in the object as bound up with its existence, which could be called the conditioned condition. This notion joins up with that of Meyerson's 'irrational', with this difference, that the very word irrational evokes the idea of a resistance which the reason endeavours to reduce, while this is a simple case of a datum, which is not explanatory, but which is accepted once for all by
is
This
makes
it
clear
above
how much too narrow Duhem's theory is, which identifies the
with a pure translation of physical data into a system of mathehaving been made of all search for
'causal explication*.
ou&iv
to. <f>ociv6fifvoc
matical equations, abstraction the sciences under
discussion the mathematical translation
of phenomena, however
may be, plays a wholly instrumental, not formal, part, and the search for empinological 'causal' explications (taking the word 'causal' in the terms of that reimportant
it
casting
eIes
e e
empiriological analysis, leaving it to philosophy to establish its ontological value. the question of finality in biology, sec discussion with Elie Gagnehin, 'La > nnaiite en biologie (printed in Questions
of causality which was in question above, p. 182) is preponderant. Yet neverthey ak have their typical law in the atof eiv ra fauvopevx. This law rules over
Un
my
and animism are in preparation, in which philosophy of the living organism
disputes).
Simikr
studies
hope to be able to
on hylomorphism go more deeply into the
T V l? give (which rise
whole empiriological kingdom, whether it be empirio-metric or schematic; in ' 0rme r as we have seen, it is applied to a rational process which is at once a 1 "' ^ tnms acin f physical data and the search for 'causal explications'
1 '
to a prolific crop
of physico-mathematical
rational beings), ep. note,
'
240
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
in
it
SENSIBLE
NATURE
241
which dog the sciences of living nature, and experimental psychology particular, on the supposition in the minds of those at work
powerful philosophical
this
contact with certain ideas which rightly belong to natural philosophy,

for
of"
discipline, at
reason that biologists
once logical and critical. It i f to-day are beginning to realise that while
ceptions (to which
example the phenomenological intuition of 'the organic' and conClaudel on the one hand and Wasmann, Erick Becher
riv-
ing an ever larger space to the physico-chemical and energetic analyst of living phenomena, biology can only rightly progress by expressly breaking with the mechanistic theory.
and Vialleton
finality as
on the other have come independently) of

strictly useful dispositions in virtue
as it
biological
going beyond
of an
enti-
tative
superabundance and,
were, ostentation.
This reaction against the scientific conceptions admired

teenth century
is
by
the nine-
highly significant
It is
perhaps the beginning of a veri-
THE ANTI-MECHANISTIC REACTION IN BIOLOGY
table
renewal.
But it can only be
efficacious
and enduring if it maintains
have from this point of view considerable historical importance. 1 Following Driesch, under the influence it may be of Bergson, or of Scheler, or of the ph'enomenological school, or
Driesch's studies in Entwickhngsphysiologie
the essential distinction
fused
which cannot be conwithout injury to the mind, and if a sort of prolific irrationalism,
fields
between objective
which only wishes to escape and to reduce every intellectual discipline,

does not
of aristotelico-thomist philosophy,
one day make us regret the inhuman stoicism of a

lifeless
biologists famous
for their experimental researches have undertaken the enterprise of rehabilitating concepts such as those of 'the organic', 'life', 'immanent
chology and a
soulless psybiology, the 'purifications and macerations' in
lectual
which the science of last century and removing. They no longer fear philosophical conceptions, or August Krogh and Rimy Collin's insistence on the necessity of 'the work of the spirit' 2 in science, or to point
'the soul*, words,
felt
activity',
even
whose name such sciences demanded of their initiates 'half of their inteland moral goods.'1 The grand error of such science has been the
protect itself against the intelligence; in the endeavour to keep
a very virtue in avoiding
desire to
it
out
it
has risked dying

is
of asphyxia. But the re-entry of the

its
intelli-
gence into science

It is
an event which will not lack
dangers.
out the accord between their conceptions and the thought of some philosopher, or even that of a poet of genius like Claudel. 3 Claudel,
If
avert.
obvious that this is a danger which the intelligence alone can Only good philosophy can take the place of bad. (But good
all that, is
apro-
pos of the auto-determination of living forms, speaks of 'notes, which will play themselves in extending the ringers
philosophy, for
lacra.)
much more
difficult task
than
its
simu-
in all directions', Uexkfill writes similarly: 'every organism is a melody which sings to itself.' Buytendijk opposes erklaren and verstehen, the analytic and mechanistic reduction and the synthetic intellection of living things, material explanation and comprehension: and
At
gical
tion,
this
point
we
can observe the insufficiency of the phenomenoloirrationalism.
method,
as
of bergsonian
is
Phenomenological intuibut in basing

it-
unlike the bergsonian,
of an
intellectual order;
self
from the outset on a form of reflective thought which
rejects the
he vivifies
his
experimental researches by
in an essay published in
H have already pointed out the importance of these studies

isho, 'Nfovitalismcen
thing (die trans-objective subject),
and
as a result
applying
itself to the
its
pure description
nature)
noetic
tures
it
of the essence-phenomenon, which (contrary to
AUemagne
etlc Darwinisme '(Revue de phii, Oct. 1910), and
in the preface to the French translation
isolates
of Driesch's book
from extramental being, and so
shutting itself up in a
(Paris. 1921).
'August Krogh, 'The Progress of Physiology", an address delivered at the opening of

the ThirteenthÎnternational Physiological Congress, Boston, Amer. Journal of Physiology, Oct.
atomism comparable
to the cartesian pluralism
of 'simple na-
Aug. 1929 (*
Tlie
(fragments of evidence), and refusing to recognise the primary
1929)
value
of transcendental being in which
all
our notions are resolved and

sticks
i-lt^v^f.
1930
*" mdy
!
^ E J" J" Buytmdijk and Hans Andre", 'La valeur bioloPaUl ClaUde1 ^ tLe 4th C" hier de Phi,0S0P hie de h mm
''
'
rounded on truths
known
as such,
phenomenological intuition
la nature.
'Rdmy
-
Collin, Preface to the 4th Cahier de Philosophle de

.
M.D.K.
243

It is
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
natural that the initiators
SENSIBLE
have
NATURE
243
halfway, neither able to overcome an empiricism of the intelkV M which in being a priori remains none the less radical, nor to build u veritable metaphysical ontology, 1 or philosophy of nature. In such apprehension and a rational resolution in the principles of a sophical knowledge of being, this intuition can only find a
real in the
effect
ohil
who
won
back the value of its
objects for
biology, like Driesch or Buytendijk, should be preoccupied
the lackof
with natural philosophy as well as their
own science; we know that these

one thinking
'subject'
pre-occupations have finally led Driesch to devote himself to philosophy

alone.
use for th
But
this
union of two
'formalities' in
phenomenological sciences
practice
(it is
from the point of view
of its
that it interests us here); and ther while recovering, in fact, an interest in the extra-mental thing, a realistic value, an efficacy which this does not have for the philosopher as
such
on the
of the
scientist
should not cause us to forget their distinction; a distinction which is fundamentally important, as much in the interests of philosophy as of
those
theoretically requisite)
tinct
remains without any adequate control, and exposed to all the danof the arbitrary, as does the (metaphorical) analogical process which immediately rises from it and endlessly increases.
it
why I have insisted on the existence (at least as of an 'autonomous' experimental biology as disfrom the philosophy of the living organism; in other words, on
of science. This
is
gers
the existence
of an empiriological
analysis,
not only physico-chemical,
but also rightly and irreducibly biological,
Rich in invention, able to free and feed the intellect, a precious instrument of renewal and discovery, it is in viajudicii that this method
is
of the world of living bodies,
which should not be confounded with the ontological investigation

proper to natural philosophy: this double empiriological analysis, at
deficient.
And no
clear-cut distinction
between the ontological and
the
empiriological, natural philosophy

sible
and experimental
science, being pos-
once physico-chemical and strictly biological (the former being subordinate to the latter) constituting experimental biology' as opposed to
the
where there
is
a lack of an autonomous' ontology, of a natural

itself,
'philosophy of nature' (in this case, of living nature), with which
it
philosophy existing for
the phenomenological method, in the
act
remains in continuity.
tion into
of delivering biology from the mechanistic tyranny risks the introducit of concepts which are valid as such for natural philosophy
Finally, the
The work of scientists like Heidenhamn, Brachet,

Hans Andre1 and Emil Rohde,
alike attest that
Cuenot,
Remy Collin,
which
is
an analysis
logical has
at
once rigorously empiriological and stricdy bioanalysis, the ontological

it its
but valueless for science, and often also without value for the philosophy
not only a possible existence.
of nature.
risk
very deliverance of which

if,
have spoken
runs the
Specifically distinct
from such an
and philo-
of being
illusory,
all
empiriological knowledge having been

all
sophical
effect it
knowledge of living things gives
rational justification. In
given over into the hands of physico-chemical analysis,

logical perception
is
rightly bio-
found in fact turned over to natural philosophy in-
belongs to this latter to destroy the roots of the two illusions of mechanicism and vitalism, understanding this latter word in the abusive
sense
vading the field of science; while

risk
this philosophy in its turn runs the of giving place to an intemperate vitalism, the counterfeit of an authentic ontology of the living, and that irrational metaphysic which once gave Naturphilosophie a fallacious renown.
^Husserl's use of the word 'ontology' in his recent publications (notably in his Formate und Ttanscenientak Logik and in the Meditations cartisienms) is entirely equivocal. This a priori discovery' of the scientific universe starting from 'solipsist egology' is not a science of being which is able to take itself apart by empiriological analysis as another and deeper scrutiny of the same reality. Despite all his efforts, despite the realist
which the history of medical and biological

it.
science obliges us to
attach to
tion
In fact classical medical vitalism
of life, the
bound up with a concepcounterpart of mechanicism, which, on the one hand,

is
from the philosophic point of view, has all the defects of dualism (the organism is there taken to be an already constituted corporeal substance
existing as such,
I
which
is
in addition inhabited
by
a strange principle,
would
like to
sadie in dcr Biologie
mention here the important book by Hans Andre*, Urbild wid Ur(Munich and Berlin, 193 r). He treats in a most penetrating manner,
tendency which has given rise to phenomenology, furnishing anything but an illusory idealist
it
remains radically incapable of

real.
succedaneum of
pp. 120-22.)
chap, (Cp. r supra,

V
ii,
'
particularly in the second and third chapters (Der Kampfder Mathematisierenden und MrBiohg.Naturcmschauimgen; DerAusgatig dieses Kampfes in der Gegenwart),some of the problems touched on here. The fourth chapter draws from the present state of vegetable biology confirmations of the greatest interest.
244
TH DEGREES OF RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

or vital energy),
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
to th
SENSIBLE
NATURE
245
vital spirit
and which, on die other,

life
is
repugnant
rightful claims
of scientific
analysis, in the sense that it posits beside th
rterpreting
them
in
its
own
proper
light, in the results
of experimental
physico-chemical means of
other principles of a specifically
integrity. science in their

1
vit
order which contradict physico-chemical laws and quarrel with the for possession. In such a conception the vital has nothing in itself
In another
way I hold that a particularly important truth results from

of the empiriology and ontology of the
It is
that critical analysis
sensible to
clear
except
from the physico-chemical, and it will thus be more and more reduced in the degree to which the physico-chemical study of phenomena progresses.
is
what
abstracted
which
this
chapter has been devoted.
that the
more and more
differentiation
between knowledge of an ontological and of a physicois
mathematical type
torical
not simply a contingent fact, due to
particular his-
The authentic conception of the organism is no less opposed to

so understood than to
circumstances, but
one that corresponds
to a necessary
law of the
vitalism
mechanicismthe
of life
growth of speculative thought; and in

authentic
effect constitutes
one of the most
'arnmist' or 'hylomorphist'
is
marks of the progress, in the morphology of knowledge,
conception, for which the principle
the formal principle itself,
in the aristotelian sense of the word, the substantial 'act' or entelechy of the living body, so that the energetic and the psychic, matter and soul, make up one sole and same being, which exists, with all its constitut-
which thought has accomplished in the course of modern times, and one
of which both reflective and critical philosophy must take cognisance.
It
has been pointed out that the ancients, although they
were
clearly
sensitive or intellective,
ing determinations and structures, physico-chemical and vegetative, or only by the soul. Thus the vital is not juxta-
aware, in certain privileged fields,

nevertheless a
tendency in fact
of the methods oscientiae mediae, had to subject all knowledge of nature to the
posed,
but rather superimposed on the physico-chemical, and a rightly biological experimental analysis is by so much more requisitive in the
degree to which the physico-chemical analysis of the phenomena of life
laws of ontology
and philosophy.
it
A similar and inverse errorall the

only allowing
as legitimate
more grave in that

fact,
does not arise from a flaw in the apprehension of
but from conscious theory
consists in
advances.
apprehension, at least in the knowledge of nature, empiriological knowledge dressed

ists,
up
in
some other name. This was
the error of the positiv-
who gave over to it, if the phrase may be allowed, the whole extenof the universe of thought.
this
It has been committed again, though in time in the very name of metaphysics, by those
CONCERNING THE TRUE AND THE FALSE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PROGRESS OF THE SCIENCES IN MODERN TIMES
sion
new fashion, and
from these considerations that if natural philosophy receives the experimental sciences, as I pointed out above, like an empiriological body, it is in a different way in the case of sciences of the physical type and in that of sciences
It
follows
philosophers
who in the knowledge of nature keep only empiriometric

of life
as
explanations, and, holding the sciences

to find in
worth nothing, wish
mathematical and physico-mathematical knowledge the
where the resolution of concepts

to separate, in so far as
is
of a biological one. In the first case, of an empiriometric order, it needs
unique type of all rational activity (when not purely reflective) worthy
of the name.
It is
impossible to avoid applying the tide retrograde, and indeed pre-
is possible, in the results of such science, what is deductive explication from the mathematical forms by which these facts
copernican, to the attitude of these philosophers. The arbitrary command
are established: in the latter,

line
of a metaphysic which constitutes itselfby a 'sweet and total renunciation'

ofbeing and the object obliges
naive epistemological
that
it
can enter into continuity with the
direct
of apprehension; whereas widi the rational beings constructed by physico-mathematical theory it can only know a secondary continuity in the line of images or myths. In the second case, where the resolution of concepts is of an empirico-schematic order, it can find a basis, in-
them to return to the positions of the most

this
monism, proclaimed
is
time for the benefit of
at the farthest
remove from
the grasp
of the real in itself. This false philosophy of scientific progress thus interdirts itself from discerning the profound meaning of the copernican
246

it
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
which escape by
justice
SENSIBLE
NATURE
247
revolution;
misunderstands the admirable organic diversity in the play

manifested either in the heart of science
science
itself
of the
intellect
or in the
complete mathematicisation; and do to their methods of work, which, in the degree to which they
their substance a
distinction
scientific
drawn between
and philosophy by four
centuries of
further affirm their

field.
autonomy, cover a widening range of the
scientific
development.
In effect
it
would be completely
arbitrary to refuse the rank of
All that remains of the reason in such philosophy is reduced to the em-
authentic
'
forms of apprehension meriting the attention of the phil-
ployment of mathematics and what

1 metric use of the intelligence. This
is,
have called here the empirioif I may put it so, a rationalism
osopher to biology and the other sciences of the same epistemological

type,
which contribute more and more importantly, and perhaps one
which has
carry
retired
from
active business,
and which
is
endeavouring
to
day preponderantly, to the progress of speculative thought.
on life as a rentier, which can in fact only draw its subsistence from the reflective supplies of the works of the ancient reason But what
I
have wished to point out is that the principles of a realist noetic, as they
this
have been exhibited in
book, give space in their system of know-
ledge for the rightful methods and just appreciations of the 'reason' of
this
nominalist rationalism, and recognise their value within certain

as
defined limits, while at the same time marking their insufficiency
making up the being of all thought.

Perhaps there
is
an indication of the truth of a doctrine of integral
power in the
gress
positive elements
it
which
are
found in systems invoking
other principles. In any case
seems that a true philosophy of the pro-
of the physical and mathematical sciences during the

it
modem
period, precisely because
appertains to
it
to disengage
by
critical re-
flection the spiritual values
with which they are pregnant, must needs
recognise in this progress a sign not
of
its
reduction and diminution,

differ-
but of its completion and a growth in the organic structure and

entiation
of thought.
It
must
also
show on
the
one hand the incom-
patibility between this mathematic and empiriometric progress and knowledge of the oncological type which is proper to philosophy, and on the other, a respect for the nature of those experimental sciences
J
It would be possible to show that this must be the logical end for an intellectualist nominalism, which endeavours to mask with extreme idealism that residue of sensual-
ism which the
refusal to recognise
an original power in the intelligence of perceiving
intelligible essences
may
is
or natures, and even more generally, the objects whatever they be which correspond to its rightful conditions of spirituality, inevitably leaves at
the basis of thought. This residue of sensualism will be there,
whatever one does; which

title certainly,
why
they can only recognise apart from mathematical apprehension, that form of
I
knowledge which
have called empiriometrica
less
noble
but more
exact than one which produces a dissatisfaction with the name
of 'reason'.
METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE
conceptlet
us say
249
by way of definition, subjects which are in some in a 'in themselves' or by dianoetic intellection. 1 These are knowable degree corporeal things, which falling within the orbit of the senses can also
come under the light of the agent-intellect, and so allow
to
their essence
be grasped
by
abstraction, at least in so far as
some determination of
is
CHAPTER
IV
being is apparent in its inteUigibihty.
To an
intelligence that
makes use of the

its
senses it
appropriate that\
I.
there
should correspond as
naturally proportionate object essences
DIANOETIC AND PERINOETTC INTELLECTION
plunged in the sensible. This is why the scholastics say that the essences of
corporeal things are the connatural object
of our powers of intellection.
such length with the question of natural philosophy in relation to the sciences, because the restoration of the philosophy of
I
have dealt
at
Sunk in the ocean of the transobjective intelligible, our intelligence

illuminates material things in
order to disclose the hidden structure,

in
nature appears to
me
to answer a
profound intention
implicit in the
to
and actualise in so far as

potentia.
it
can the inteUigibihty which they hold
modern mind, and because
the critical realism
of St. Thomas seems
And by discourse it is
it
unceasingly carried on to new actuations
me
alone capable of fulfilli ng this intent without causing any injury
of inteUigibihty.
either to the experimental sciences

rather,
or their methods of procedure,
By
selves'
the very fact that
takes
its rise
from
is
sensory knowledge dia-
on the contrary,
to their benefit.
noetic inteUection
cannot in any way
know immediately and 'in themnot a vision of essences, a
The theory of intellectual knowledge sketched in chapter ii, allows us how, according to the principles of Thomas Aquinas, we can have two complementary forms of knowledge of one and the same
to understand
reality, that
is,
the essences
of corporeal
things. It
knowledge which at one stroke plunges to the heart, the core of being,
like the
non-discursive
knowledge of the Angels, or

and
distinct ideas
is
the perfect and
the world of motion
and sensible nature: the
sciences and
unclouded knowledge of God (or like the knowledge which Descartes

believed received clear
natural philosophy.
It also
from thought and underbut a

'radial'
allows us to understand
rise the
how, above natural philosophy,
can
standing).
We may say that
not a
'central'
knowledge,
and should
-
world of metaphysical knowledge.

to
According to the terminology which I have thought it convenient
which goes inward from without, only reaching the centre by starting fiom the circumference; it attains the essence, but by the signs, as St.
adopt, the cis-objective subject attains, in order to intentionally become them, things in themselves, or transobjective subjects posited in extra-
Thomas
said,
which manifest it, and which are its properties. 2 The hunt
j
for definitions
runs through the tangle of experience.
It is after
we have/
mental existence, in constituting them

'known',
spiritual
I
as objects,
or positing
themby
is
experienced in ourselves
a
I
what the reason is, and after we have recognised
means of the concept or proffered presentative

in esse objective seu cognito.
formin
existence as
at
This cis-objective subject
once
and corporeal, it has senses and an intellect, have called the transobjective intelligible that
infinite (transfinite)
assembly of subjects which are subject to its intelligible grasp or which can give themselves to it as objects: I mean subjects
by this (in opposition to 'ananoetic' knowledge or knowledge by one hand, and on the other to 'perinoetic' knowledge or by substitute-signs) that mode of intellection in which the intelligible constituent of a thing is objectivied in itself (or if not in itself at least by a sign which manifests it, by a property in the strict sense of the word). It is not at all in the desire to evoke the Stdvota (reasonunderstand
analogy
on
the
by that very precisely
ing faculty) that I

tellection
St.
whose
essence or primary intelligible constituent can in itself (though maybe only in its most universal characteristics) become an object for it
248
have chosen the term 'dianoetic', but in order to designate an which attains to the nature or essence itself through the sensible.
calls
in-
Thomas
>
the properties the signs of the essential form. Cp. In II Analyt.,
ok u cna
P- xii. lect. 13, n. 7,
and
Zigliara's
commentary.
250

of this faculty die principalissime property of
discern
However
full
251
in the possession
ing, that
its
human b
or
of mystery and surprise the mathematic world thereby

mind, nevertheless, thanks to those reserves which I have
conceived (constructively) by themselves
obvious from
this that to take
and can expound in a definition the nature of being; by no other means could we ever achieve discovering
we may
remains for the
there pointed out, entities are

or
separating the virtualities included in diis definition.

It is
by
their intelligible constituents. It is
moreover proper
to distinguish
two modes of dianoetic intellec-
the
mathematical intelligence as the intellectual type and rule leads inSpinozianism, notably to the spinozist conception of subis
tion, according as this bears
are the object logically
on substantial natures and the realities which of philosophy, or on mathematic entities (which, ontoconsidered, and in as much as they are entia realia, are
acciis,
evitably to
stance,
which
its
then regarded
as
known
or manifested
by
is
its
essence
(not by
accidents), or
'known by itself'.
essences, J.
dentals). In the first case, the essence

its
as I
have just recalled, known by
In this matter
the right
is
of substantial
de Tonquedec
certainly in
it
accidents; in the second,
it is
known,
so to speak,
on
the level, by
its
when he points
out, in opposition to Rousselot, that 'when
intelligible constitution itself, in so far at least as tins is manifested
by
a question
means of signs constructible in imaginative

ling
with
all its difficulties,
the
intuition. Here arises, bristproblem of mathematical intellection.
fashion,
dictory.
of thinking of the substance, even in the most rudimentary we never "clearly stop at the accidents": this would be contraWe always look towards something which is beyond them.
Mathematical essences are not grasped intuitively from within, which would be the case with an angelici not human, mathematics: no more
are they perceived
But,
the accidents behind, "passes

It is
on the other hand, there is never a moment when the mind, leaving over" and "discovers" the naked substance.
remaining attached to the accidental that
.
dents arising
from without, which would be the case with accifrom them, as operation emanates from the active potency
in
it
finds the
means
to see
and the substance; nor are they created by the human mind, in which case they would only be the translation of its nature and laws. We can
it were deciphered by way of a confrom elements which have been abstractively detached from experience: this construction of intelligible constituents, which requires or presupposes in itself some form of construction in imaginative
say that they are recognised and as

struction starting
The mind always transcends the accidents, but it is while basing itself upon them. 1 But it would be to fall into the contrary excess to conclude from this that we 'do not attain' substantial natures. On the contrary, and in virtue of this very doctrine, it is necessary to say that we attain by dianoetic
beyond.
.
.
'
intellection
where
it is
possible
sibleto substantial natures 'by
and in the degree to which it is posand through those very manifestations
intuition,
tities
being a
re-construction
with regard to those mathematical en-
of them which are their accidents'.

since
which are
essences properly so called (possibly real beings), and a
they are 'made manifest'?
How could they not be 'attained' How could they not be 'seen' since in
mind 'finds the means to see beforms
construction
with regard to those which are rational beings founded on
'remaining attached to the accident' the
these essences.
Thus the mind
finds itself faced
by an
objective world
yond'?
i.e.
By their properties
such
cases, also
is,
these natures are thus attained in themselves,
which has
its own proper consistency in independence of the mind, based ultimately on the divine intellection and essence themselves, and
in their formal, intelligible constitution itself; the accidental

their effects.
being, in
which nevertheless it deciphers deductively and as though a priori. Such a form of intellection is still 'dianoetic' (not comprehensive or exhaustive) in the sense that the essence
itself (i.e.
is
Toilsome
this
as it
this
known in themselves, by knowledge of things, not by but in their essence,

is
dianoetic intellection
not always accorded to us and normally

at those traits
not there grasped
intuitively
by
stops,
except in the
world of humanity,
which
are
more
have
not by means of a non-abstractive intuition which would com-
universal than specific. In the universe

seen,
of the
sensibly real, as
we
pletely penetrate in
one stroke), but rather
constructively (thanks to a
we must
l
construction of notions otherwise able to be manifest, at least indirecdy, to the imagination, which
is
nature,
with a knowledge by signsno

J.
content ourselves, below the range of the philosophy of longer signs which make manifest
de Tonqu&kc, La Critique fe
like an 'outside'
by which
it is
attained).
h connaissance, p.
355-
252
253
but signs which substitute themselves for th and are known in their place. 1 This knowledge doubtless bears on tli essence, and embraces it from without, but as though blindly, witho the power of discerning either the essence in itself or its properties
essential differences,
below (and every time when for conciseness the phrase be considered signs' is used) and which are known in place o/the natures by 'knowledge
themselves, in such a case inaccessible in their
noetic intellection).
1 it is
formal constituents
(peri-
in
word: a peripheral or 'circumferential' knowledge, which can be called perinoetk, of which what I have called the empiriometric and empirico-schematic analysis of
the ontological sense of the
observable
or
realities is
This
is
indeed an important problem, to which
much
to be de-
sired that
modern
students
would devote
said
their attention, gathering to-
gether
what the
ancients
have
of the hierarchy of accidental forms,

'accidents'
an example. Whether
it
be in the mineral, the vegetable

to
and metaphysically elucidating the distinction (which in that case should

not remain metaphorical)
less
animal worlds, the immense variety of corporeal natures inferior

refuse to surrender, to
tions.
man
between the
which
are
more or
our discovery their ultimate
specific determina-
'profound' or 'intimate' and 'exterior' or 'superficial'.

clear that in the
It is
one case
we should find ourselves in the presence

docibile, risibile, etc.,
A SCHOLASTIC DIGHESSION
Thus
a capital distinction
of characteristics rich in explication (from rationale,

are deductible); in
is
imposes
knowledge of
ties)
(substantial) essences
itself on the mind between the by 'signs' or the accidents (proper-
the other before sterile ones, void of import: but that
only a sign of the differentiation
which is
in question.
It is
is,
the theory
which manifest them,
at least in their
most universal
of the proper accident

core
strict
and the general accident which
for me, the
features
{ctia-
noetic intellection),
and the knowledge of them by the
of the
difficulty.
When
the rnind lays hold on a property in the

it attains
'signs'
which
will
and philosophical (ontological) sense of the word,
to a
a curious instance of such substitutes for essential differences, these purely descriptive signs of empiriological 'properties' in the following passage, which at a
is
'There
difference
and,
of being, an accidental form

essence (as
is
grasped in
its intelligibility,
first
reading can very easily be misunderstood: 'Secundum quod natura alicujus rei ex ejus proprietatibus et effectibus cognoscere possumus, sic earn nomine possumus sig-
by it, the
human nature by rationality, or animal nature

in dianoetic intellection.
by
.
sensitivity): this is
what happens
But on
in-
nificare.
Unde, quia substantiam lapidis ex ejus proprietate cognoscere possumus secundum seipsaro, sciendo quid est lapis, hoc nomen, lapis, ipsam lapidis naturam, secundum quod in se est, significat: significat enim dcfinitionem lapidis, per quam
scimus quid est lapidis.' (Sum. theol, i, 1 , 8, ad. 3 2.) St. Thomas does not here claim that we can be in possession of the quidditative definition of the stone; as is proved by the
fact that the 'property'
laedere
other occasions the properties in the strict sense

accessible; it is
are
of the word remain
sheaves of sensible accidents (general accidents), which
grasped exclusively in so far as they are observable or measur-
able,
which
take their place (such as the signalising 'properties', density,
of which he
is
speaking (cp. the
body of
the article)
is
of
atomic weight, temperature of fusion, of evaporation, spectrum of high

'The definition of
ungulate
(or as a
this etymology is valid, it is still only a case of a whole wholly empiric sign, which has only the worth of a nominal definition. Cp. De Veritate, 4, 1, ad. 8 'Quia differentiae essentiales sunt nobis ignotae, quandoque utimur accidentibus vel effectibus loco earum, ut VHlMetaph, (vii, lect. 12)
pedem. Supposing that
descriptive property, a
man
as
animal rationale and of a horse as animal hinnihile (or an
mammiferous
perissodactyl with undivided hoofs), or a

etc.,
dog
as
animal latrans
toothed carnivorous,
mammal), of a
critical
lion as animal habens abundaniiam
dicitur;
secundum hoc nominamus rem; et sic illud quod loco differentiae essenrialis
quo imponitur ab
effectu,
audaciae (or as a
carnivorous five-toed
mammal with curved claw, etc.) have the same

or noetic standpoint, an essential diverlatrans, etc., belong to
surnirur, est a
qui est laedere pedem; et hoc non oportet esse
logical structure.
sity,
They
reveal,
from a
pnncipaliter significatum per nomen, sed illud loco cujus hoc ponitur.' This passage of the Be Veritate very exactly defines what I have here called perinoetic knowledge. If
which is
far
from being elucidated by the fact that hinnibik,

and
the specific degree, rationale

ences: for 1. irrationale is
irrationale to the generic degree,
of the
scale
of differ-
moreover, even after scientific investigation, the quod quid est of the stone is not discovered by us, it is not because it transcends our powers of knowledge, rather because it does not reach to their level; we can then circumscribe it thanks to signs of the same kind as the 'property' here in question, only better chosen. The name, stone, indeed,
signifies the
indeed a generic difference, but rationale is a specific one, which
joined with animal constitutes a species atoma; 2. it is possible to give a definition of man himself (e.g. animal gressibile bipes) which differs as much from another quidditative definition as animal hinnihile, degree (e.g. etc.; 3. differences belonging to the generic gKssibik or 'ungulate', etc.) can reveal the formal constituents of the quiddky as lirtle as
limnibile, etc.
nature of the stone as it is in itself, but without that nature being discovered to us; it signifies it as a thing to be known, not as thing known.
(Cp.
infra, p.
256, note
1).
254

etc.,
Th
'
255
frequency,
which serve
to distinguish a
body
in chemistry)
signalising characteristics receive the

is
name of 'properties' but its bea
nology (and of all terminologies). But I am convinced that the distincexpresses are founded on reason, and made entirely necestions which it
sary
wholly different and as little philosophic (ontological) as that of th chemical use of the word 'substance'. They are at once exterior
as
by the modern developments of the experimental
sciences,
whose
signs and
mode of conception differs essentially from that ofphilosophy.1
masks of the veritable (ontological) properties; they are empiriological

ones, substitutes for the properties rightly so called.
decode the
an
intelligible in
the sensible;
it
The mind cannot uses die sensible to circumscribe

the
is
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND CORPOREAL NATURES

Is
intelligible nucleus
fall
which evades it. Then we say that

within the grasp of our
form is too
impossible
there not
an element of bitter reproach in the fact
that,
while having
sunk in matter to
to attain
intellect. It
the essences
of corporeal things as its connatural object, our mind suffers,
by such
properties in
its
any degree whatsoever to the substantial

it.
faced with them,

itself,
J
from such serious defects that it is reduced to contenting

that imperfect
this
nature in itself or in
formal constituents:
This
is
do not. manifest
intellection.
it,
but hide
it is known by signs which what happens in perinoetic
in
one vast section of its knowledge of nature, with

from
St.
The
passages
Thomas which can be cited with

of the general
regard to
question are
confined generally to the affirmation
principle that substantial essences
Finally
we
of things and their proper differences are hidden from us, and that
can say that every (instrumental) sign reveals in concealit is
we need, in order
ing and conceals in revealing. In the case of dianoetic intellection

a case
of signs which reveal more than they hide: in that of perinoetic intellection, of signs which hide more than they reveal.
In a further definition of our terminology,
noetic intellection substantial natures are in
themselves, by signs which are their
from the accidents ('In rebus enim sensibilibus etiam ipsae differentiae essentiales nobis ignotae sunt, unde significantur per differentias accidentales, quae ex essentialibus oriuntur, sicut causa significant per suum effectum' (De Ente et Essentia, c. 6.) . 'Formae substantial per seipsa sunt igto attain to the essence,
to make use of differences grasped
notae; sed innotescunt nobis per accidentia propria. Frequenter

stantiales
enim
differentiae sub-
would say diat in diasome degree known in

I
ab accidentibus sumuntur, loco formarum substantialium quae per hujussicut bipes et gressibile et
modi accidentia innotescunt;

et rationale
hujusmodi; et sic etiam
sensibile
own accidents, properties in the philothese properties, they are
ponuntur
i,
differentiae substantiales.
(De Spirit,
Creaturis, a. 11, ad. 3.)
Cp.
sophical sense
of the word
Sum.
tion
tlieol,
29, 1, ad. 3, etc.
Writing at
a time when there
was as yet little

it is
differentia-
(as to
known by
between the experimental sciences and natural philosophy,

St.
understandable
other accidents
substances
which
are their workings). In perinoetic intellection,
how
Thomas was content
to stop at these very general statements.
and their properties are known by signs and in signs. By a latitude which is authorised by the indigence of human language,
false cartesian
Nevertheless other texts can be classified in two different categories, according to whether they relate rather to accidental differences which leave concealed essential ones
{vide the passages quoted supra, p. 215, note 1, and p. 252, note I, in particular the one from the commentary, In Metapk, book vii, Iect. 12, where St. Thomas opposes these
and every danger of a

ruled out,
I
or spinozist interpretation being
hold that
it is licit1
to say that in dianoetic intellection sub-
differences per accidens to those
per
se)
or as they rather relate to differences which,

'Quia
ac-
stantial essences are in
tainly 'purely',
some degree 'discovered' to the mind, not cernor from within (that was the error of Descartes' absobut discovered by
within,
their outsides (the accidents
while wholly belonging to the (predicamental) accident, are an intelligible manifestation
of essential differences, and led the mind to the knowledge of the
latter:
pnncipia essentialia
rerum sunt nobis

Et per
ignota, ideo oportet
quod utamur differentiis
lute intellectualism),
selves
them-
cidentalibus in designatione essentialium: bipes
enim non est essentiale,
sed ponitur in
not being
known from
which would be
to
know
them
designatione essentialis.
tionem essentialium.' (In
eas, scilicet per differentias accidentales, devenitnus in cogni-
in their derivation
from the substance, but by
their operations). In say-
De Anima, book i, lect.

earum mterdum
1).
'Quia substantiales rerum differentiae
ing that in dianoetic intellection they are attained 'openly', I mean in no sense to say that they are attained 'purely' or by the attributes which are the very constituents of the substance, but that they are manifested by their proper accidents. I am conscious of the imperfection of this termia
sunt nobis ignotae, loco
definientes accidentalibus utuntur,
quod
ipsa designant vel notificant essentiam, ut proprii effectus notificant causam;
secundum unde sen-
sibile, secundum quod est differentia constitutiva animalis, non sumitur a sensu prout nominat potentiam, sed prout nominat ipsam animae essentiam, a qua tabs potenria
fliit;
et similiter est
3,
de ratione, vel de eo quod

9, 2, ad. 5;
est
habens mentem.' (De

I,
Verilate, 10, r,
a d.
6) Cp.
De
Pot,
In Sent.,
dist. 3, q.
ad. 6;
Sum.
theol,
I,
77, 1,
Cp. supra, chap, i, pp. 41-3.
ad. T,I-II, 49, 2, ad. 3.
256

which
I
this oar
257
intellection
have called 'perinoetic'? If we
reflect
on
dox,
state
we are led to understand first of all that for a human intellect in
can be scientifically
known,
progressively deploying the possibilities of
th
of nature, or rather of primitive culture, the natural ordination referred to above is verified on an entirely other plane than that of
didac
by the very radical impetus of its nature, and the it. But though for the specific detail perfect which habitudes of the infradianoetic intellection
by a sort ofprofessional habitude' is always tempted to attach himself. The behaviour of savages with re! gard to the river, the forest, the animals which they hunt or fly from
tic
diought, to which the philosopher,
human world it must needs fall back on those empiriological substitutes of which I have spoken, in truth its most exacdy proportionate object in
.
the order
of the sensibly real is
man himself and world of his properties
which he presents.
Mind
turns towards mind; the purely spiritual to
their extraordinarily
istics
in the concrete implies
developed consciousness of differential characteran intellectual discernment which, entirely

as it
is, is
practical
and absorbed in the senses

are' these natural
yet very precise and exact
which they have to deal. It is in this humble and totally pre-scientific way, which, however enfeebled it may be by civilised life, nevertheless remains primal and fundamental,
beings with
that the
of 'what
human intellect first reaches the nature of corporeal things. We

knowledge of a peasant of the ways
craft
find
its
significant equivalent in the
S OBJECTIVE.
,'
TRANS-- INTELLIGIBLE,
of the land, or of the skilled worker of his
and his tools.

SE.IN
*s
To make use of a capital distinction of Cajetan, we can.say that it is a different thing to know things 'quidditatively' and to know 'a quiddity'. Thomists teach that the human intelligence has for its connatural object
the essence or quiddity
\ \
BEIN(|
PURE
SPIRIT.
of corporeal
things, they
have never
said that
it
should always
know this
object^quidditatively'.
is
That is a
perfection of
apprehension which can only be realised, and

tain narrow limits.
ral
only realised, within cerFig. 7.
The humblest form of human knowledge, that geneand inherited knowledge which is implied by language and nominal
with quiddities, but in the most imperfect fashion and
the purely spiritual; the spirit
involved in the senses to the
spirit
which
definitions1 deals
informs a body.
Our
intelligence,
which
is
naturally,
by
the fact of its
the least quidditative, like a needle in a botde

If it
is
of hay.
as cultivated
union with the body, directed outwards and towards the natures of this
a question of the
human intelligence
it is
and formed
which
world, needs to accomplish that grand, that precious, admirable, vigorous encircling
by
the intellectual virtues,
borne towards corporeal
essences
movement which is the knowledge ofthe world
which
is
with regard to this general human intelligence, not that of scientists, that St. Thomas, in exemplifying his logic, candidly takes the quiddity of a stone as designated by the property of laedere peiem, or that of a dog by the property of barking. To take him to task for this would show an entire misunderstanding and also the sin of pedantry. These are questions of an entirely external signalisation of the quiddity which is not
'It is
ultimately deceptive, whether philosophically or experimentallyin or-
attained in itself. These nominal definitions precede all science, and are prerequisites of any motion of intellectual search; but it is at once more humble and more certain to choose them as uluminations for a logical exposition rather than quidditative definitions, which are more perfect, but can also suffer the inconvenience of not existing.
then, by a double movement, it penebecome conscious of spiritual things and understand the works of man, by reflective and practical philosophy, ethics, die science of culture, aesthetics; and it soars upward to perceive the tilings which are of God, passing on into metaphysics. Such is its natural trajectory, by reason of which the figure of Socrates stands forever
trates
der to arrive at
man and the soul;
within, so as to
in
honour
at
our cross-roads.
258

which the
mind
discovers
is
it.
259
But let us return to the nature of corporeal things. The universe of the sensibly real is, we know, with its double value at once ontological and
empiriological, only the first stage, or the area
What
is
primarily known, and in which

intellect, is being.
it,
every object
ing
of thought
it
resolved for the
But nothdifferen-
of least
abstraction,
of the
knowledge which we have of these natures. A second area of intelligibility is that of the mathematical preter-real, where the mind escapes into
can be added to
extrinsically to differentiate
for
all its
tiations issue
from
its
own
depths, as
some one or
other of its modes,
proffered to the
mind by another concept: now that special mode of be-
of all in natural bodies, but which are at once purified and reconstructed, and on which other entities, indifferenta world of entities grasped
first
ing
which
is
opposed to another
mode of being, which one subject has

infinite multiplicity
and another has not,
and by which the
of essences
ly real or 'rational' are endlessly constructed; a sensibly real, but for
world which gives us the
which share in being is exhibited

a mode co-extensive
(thus, in the movement of our thought,
This
is
the reason
which we have to sacrifice the order of existence. why those philosophies which are committed to geo-
the conceptual object 'being' absorbs into itself both
genus and species):
now
with being, which everysubject has which has

of
metry from the outset are vowed to idealism. But there is a third area of intelligibility, which enables us to pass beyond the sensible without renouncing existence, and which thus introduces us into what is more real than sensible reality, or into that on which
that very reality
is
being,
and which
:
as a result constitutes like it a transcendental object
thought1
(thus
these are then the functions
of being
as such, passiones entis
being is crossed with itself in the transcendentals).
*Cp.
De
Veritate,
i,
I : 'Sicut in
demonstrabilibus oportet
fieri
reductionem in aliqua
alias
founded.
It is
the area, immediately successive to that
principia per sc intellcctui nota, ita
invesdgando quid
est
unumquodque;
utro-
of the sensibly real, of the
trans-sensible or metaphysics.
bique in infinitum iretur, et sic periret omnino scicntia et cognitio rerum.

Illud
autem quod primo

oportet
intellectus concipit quasi notissimum, et in
quo omnes con(lib. i, c.
cepdones resolvit, est ens, ut Avicenna dick in principio Metaphysicae suae
n.
METAPHYSICAL INTELLIGIBILITY
ix).
Unde
quod omnes
aliae conceptiones intellectus accipiantur
ex additione
differentia
ad
ens.
Actually things,
when they become the objects of our knowledge, do

us, either in itself
Sed end
non
potest addi aliquid quasi extranea natura per
modum quo
not only surrender to
or in
some
empiriological suc-
additur generi, vel accidens subjecto, quia quaelibet natura essentialiter est ens;
unde
etiam probat Philosophus in
cedaneum, their determined,

that Peter
is
specific or generic nature.
Before knowing
that he
is
is
sed
secundum hoc aliqua
quod ens noa potest esse genus, dicuntur addere supra ens, in quantum exprimunt ipsius
iii.
Metaphys. (com.
1),
thing,
is
man I have already arrived at the idea being. And this intelligible object, 'being',
a
someparti-
not the
cular privilege
calls species,
of any one of those
classes
is
of things which the
logician
it is
genus, or category. It
universally communicable,
non exprimitur. uno modo ut modus expressus sitaliquis specialh modus ends, sunt enim diversi modi essendi, et juxta hos modos accipiuntur diversa rerum genera; substantia enim non addit supra ens aliquam differentiam, quae significet aliquam naturam superadditam end, sed nomine sebstantiae exprimitur quidam specialis Quod
dupliciter contigit:
moduin, qui nomine ipsius entis
found everywhere: everywhere
itself and
everywhere varying, we
it
are
modus essendi,
Alio
scilicet
per se ens; et ita est in aliis generibus.
unable to think without positing it in our minds;

is
saturates
all things. It
St.
what the
scholastics called a transcendental object

first article
of thought.
modo ita quod modus expressus sit modus generaliter consequens omne ens; et hie modus dupliciter accipi potest: uno modo secundum quod consequitur omne ens in se; alio modo secundum quod consequitur unumquodque ens in ordine aliud.
Si
lute
sic
Thomas has briefly described in the double movement of resorption and

conceptual object, which is as
of the
De
Veritate the
transgression proper to being as a
much opposed to a pure monism like that

is
primo modo, hoc dicitur, quia exprimit in ente aliquid affirmative dictum absoquod possit accipi in omni ente, nisi essentia ejus, secundum quam esse dicitur; et imponitur hoc nomen res, quod in hoc differt ab ente, secundum Avicennam in
of Hegel
ordial
as a
pure pluralism like that of Descartes: for being
a prim-
natures)
and general conceptual object (contrary to the cartesian simple which (contrary to the hypostasized idea of Hegel) is at once and from the beginning essentially diverse in the diverse subjects in
quod ens sumitur ab actu essendi, sed nomen rei exprimit quidoitatem sive essentiam ends. Negatio autem, quae est consequens omne ens absolute, est indivisio; et hanc exprimit hoc nomen unum: nihil est ahum unum quam ens indivisum.
principio Metaphys.,
alteram,
autem modus entis accipiatur secundo modo, scilicet secundum ordinem unius est hoc potest esse dupliciter. Uno modo secundum divisionem unius ab altero; hoc exprimit hoc nomen aliquid, dicitur enim aliquid quasi aliud quid; unde sicut ens
Si
26o

these transcendental a trinity detaches
itself:
itself
2d I
Among
Being
dividual,
in
alone able to face being with an equal amplitude the (ontological) True, i.e. being as the expression of a
then, in relation to the
is
mind, which
opening a
but trans-specific, trans-generic, trans-categoricalas though little shoot one let loose a bird greater than the world. Let
thought from whence
it
emanates, and as intelligible in
us call
such a conceptual object a sur-universal

in diverse
The
scholastics called
it
itself in so far
analogic, i.e. realised
manners but according
to similar pro-
exactly as it is: and the (metaphysical) Good, i.e. being as the end in which love can delight itself, and as apt in stirring desire in exacdy so far as it is. Thus we see at once the value and the imperfection of our knowledge and, above all, of our idea of being itself with regard to
portions in the diverse subjects

ceptual object, essentially
a vaster amplitude,
tant point
where it is found. It differs, even as a conuniversals,
from the
not
not only because

this is the
it
has
but also and

it is
first
of all, and
most imporincludes an
also a flock.
of all, because
like
them purely and simply one and

;
what
is:
the
first intelligible
'formality*
by which what
it is
is
becomes an
all
the
same in the mind
(i.e.
monovalent)
it is
polyvalent,
it
is
object for us,

reality, is
which
is
attained in the concept

that
is.
of being, imbues
actual multiplicity ; the
bird of
my image of a moment ago

I
capable of
all
And
nevertheless
attained in the
Let us try to
objects.
comprehend the proper mystery of these

at a
transcendental
exists', I
concept of being
as already distinct
(by a rational distinction) from
When looking
M.
man
think,'
he
is
a being' or 'he
the transcendental formalities (attained
by the ideas of the one,

with it.
the true,
grasp a certain
determined being,
finite, perishable, fleshly, spiritual,
the good, etc.)
which
in
what is
are identical
subject to time, and,

as
Heidegger would
but the
say, to anguish,
and an
exis-
Aristode compared specific essences to the whole numbers;
an
tence similarly determined:
analogic object 'being', 'existence' so

it
added unity
constitutes a
constitutes a
new
essence.
transfinite unities
new number, so every specific difference One could compare the transcendentals to of equal potency. The transfinite unity of equal
as that
thought
by me overruns
and righdy
this
analogue so that
will also be found
inis
trinsically
in analogues which
and
differ from
man
in their very
being
and manner of existence. All that differentiates a
man from
a shell,
a
numbers has the same potency
of the whole numbers;
being,
and
vice versa, is
a matter of being; if there are electrons, an electron
or the true, or the good, has an equal scale in itselfto that ofthe three united.
finite
being, corporeal
perishable, subject to time, but not to an-
Already by perception of the specific or generic nature, the

attains in
intellect
guish; if there are angels,
an angel
is
a finite being, incorporeal and
an individual thing more than

universal
this in itself, a conceptual oball

is
above time; what divides

being
rect
it
all
these beings
one from another is that same

It suffices
ject
which is
and communicable to
individual things of the
which
find in each of
them
variously.
for
me to di-
same
species or the
same kind, and which
called univocal, because,
my attention on being for me to see that it is once one and multiple:

itself,
though surrendered to the mind by a plurality of transobjective subjects and restored to these in its judgments, it is purely and simply one and the same in the mind. Unum
actually realised in
ity
in multis, it
is
would he purely and simply one if its differentiations were not at the
in other words, if the analogic presented to the spirit
if I could think
same time
an invariant without multiplicity
made a complete abstraction of its analogues;

without having immediately present in
tion
is
of being
many, and positing thereby among them a commun-
my
mind (whether
is
my attenessentially
of essence. But in the perception of the transcendentals we touch on a
aware of the fact or not
is
completely accidental) the
nature greater than itself, a conceptual object which is not only trans-indicitur
different
ways
in
which
this
conceptual object
realised outside the
unum, in quantum est indivisum in se, ita dicitur aliquid,
in
quantum est ab aliis
mind.
It
would be purely and simply multiple
if it did
not transcend
its
divisum.
Mo modo secundum convenientiam unius ends ad aliud; et hoc quidem non

quodammodo
est
differentiations, in
other words, if the analogic presented to the
potest esse nisi accipiatur aliquid

est
anima, quae
quod natum est convenire cum omni ente. Hoc autem omnia, sicut dicitur in iii. De Anima (text. 37j- &*
Convenientiam vero ends ad appetitum exprimit hoc nomen bonum, ut in principio Ethic, dicitur: Botium est quod omnia appetunt. Convenientiam vero cntis ad intctlectum exprimit hoc nomen vcrum'
anima autem
est vis cognitiva et appctitiva.
ing'
I
made no sort of abstraction of its analogues: would be entirely ambiguous, and my diought would
mind in which case the word 'befall

is
in pieces:
to think: Peter only to gasp incoherendy.
would not be able
is
man, or
this
colour
green, but
262

or analogic, of that analogy which
than those in
agree univocal conceptual object
263
subjects other
The concept of being (and it is the same for all the transcendental concepts, essentially sur-universal
scholastics call 'analogy
the
with transobjective
which
it
was
originally grasped. It agrees intrinsically and

all
ofrightful proportionality', and which alone ocintrinsically
righdy
(ie.
not metaphorically) with

it is
the subjects to which
it is attri-
cupies us here)
is
then
and
actually multiple
in so
far as
it
only incompletely makes abstraction of its analogues, and

ferentiation,
that, in dif-
by its essence analogous: from the butable, because laid hold of by the mind in a subject it carries is which it in first instance
primarily and
in
it
from the
universal concepts,
it
includes a diversity which
the possibility
of its
realisation according to
its
proper significance
differ totally
can be
the
essential
and allows of an
infinite hiatus,
abysmal
distinctions in
relation
Iformaliter, is
the scholastic phrase) in subjects
which
and
way in which it is realised in things; and it is

it
one in a certain
absolutely in their essence from that particular one.
in so far as
makes incomplete abstraction of its analogues, and that it is detached from them without becoming conceivable apart from them,
as
Such objects are trans-sensible, since, though realised in the sensible
where
we first of all grasp
them, they proffer themselves to the mind
as
though drawn, without attaining to
it,
towards a pure and simple
transcending every genus

subjects
and category, and
as
capable of realisation in
unity which could alone present to the mind, if the latter could see it in
itselfand without concepts,
and
all
things.
(We
can say that
which would be at once itself the concept of being demands1 that its
reality
hended.
of a wholly other essence than those in which they were appreIt is extremely remarkable that the first object which our mind
attains to in things, being

it
which cannot deceive us because being the
first
place should be taken

beatific vision.)
by God
clearly seen, that it should vanish in the
cannot be enclosedin any construction built up in the mind, which brings
We say that
it is
one in a unity of
proportionality,
shell, has
It
its
in the possibility ofits defective compositionbears
on itself the sign that
the being, man, having his existence as a

existence as a shell,
signifies
man as
its
the being,
bebgsofanotherorderthanthatofthesensibleareconceivableandpossible.
I
and as the being, angel,
existence as an angel.
thus
grant that this
is
a case of an entirely undetermined possibility. But
not precisely an object, but a plurality of objects of which one
what determined incorporal subject is positively possible?
We can only
Do
unspirits,
cannot be posited before die

all
the others, because
mind without bringing with it, implicidy, all are bound together in a certain community by
which they sustain with diverse ends.
is
know such if we know that it exists,

such incorporeal subjects exist
created Being
thus concluding ab actu ad posse.

souls, pure created
human
the similitude of the relations
'Sur-universaT or 'polyvalent', a transcendental conceptual object
only unum
tn multis as
a variable including an actual multiplicity, and

positing the fact of any
by itself? It is by a reasoning process starting from the data which are given us by the facts of sensible existence that we are able to know them. by the intelligence it is clear that it is not first of all in the mirror of any other object that it is known. It is attained in sensible tilings by dianoetic intellection: as a generic or specific nature is known in itself by the properties which disclose
Since being
is
which
is
realised in
many without
It is
community
the
first
object grasped
of essence between them.
not analogous in the way in which a meta-
phor, but extrinsically and improperly, instandy makes an originally

J It goes without saying that I am only speaking here of a claim which is ineffective. John of St. Thomas explains (Curs, ikeol., i, P. q. 12, disp. 12, a. 2) that the adequate object of the created intellect includes in its fullness God himself seen by his essence, Dcus
its
is
essential difference, in die
known in itself by that of its
same way the analogic (analogum analogans) analogues [analoga analogata) which first
dare
visits contitietur intra
latituJinem objecti adaequati intellects creati.
But God clearly seen
fall
wholly supernatural object with regard to which the created intelligence has only an obediential potencyis above everything that the created intelligence can attain to by its natural powers alone and the concept of being; he is seen without concepts. The
a
tion overpasses this

in
its
within the grasp of the senses: and our power of abstractive percepanalogue itself which serves it as a means, to grasp
transcendence the analogic, of which
it is
only one of the possible
being itself, thus surpasses all the resources that the use of the concept of being, the instrument of our have natural knowledge, offers to the intelligence; in the beatific vision the latter will
amplitude of the 'adequate object' of the created intelligence,
i.e.
realisations.
There is thus an
our intellectual
intellectual perception
acts,
of being which,
in-
cluded in
all
'passed away'.
the beginning,
commands in fact all our thought from and which, disengaged as itself by abstraction from the
264

our primordial philosophical
intuition, "with-
u tely different
different
265
trans-sensible, constitutes
ways of being
there are essentially and absolutely
possible for us to acquire the science man born blind to acquire that of colours. In this metaphysical intuition the principles of identity: being
out which
it
-would no
more be
ways of causing; to understand the word cause only of

all
of metaphysical
realities
than for a
mechanical causes for example, either in order to subject

universal
principle
things to a
is
not not-being,
all
being
is
what
is
is
not only
its
known
but an
in actu exer-
determinism or in a contrary recoil against the value of the of causality, is to misunderstand this analogy, and to strip off
cito
and
as
an ineluctable necessity for thought,
itself is
seen
the
ontological necessity
ontological
the possibility of metaphysical thought.

ter
By virtue of the essential characit
first
law of being
and
is
not a
logical,
and analogic immediacy of the supra-universal object on which
(meta-logical) principle;
logical order,
est affirmare et
this is
why, when
transferred into the
bears, the
axiom of identity is
where it becomes the principle of non-contradiction: non negate simul it is also the first law of the mind. And it is
cible diversities
same time the axiom of the irreduof being; if each being is what it is, it is not what the
at the
others are. This
from
similar intuitions bearing

in the
on
the primary aspects of being (and
Parmenides,
solute one.
provoked
mind by some
true,
sensible
physical axioms proceed, truths

wise.
selves
known
as
example) that the other metasuch by all, or at least by the
is what is not seen by those philosophers who, following demand of this principle that it draw all things into the abFar from making all things identical it dwells in our minds
is
because
it
maintains the identity of each,
the guardian and protector
Many,
it is
who lay claim to deal in philosophy flatter themthat
of universal multiplicity.
transcendent
save its
And if it obliges our intelligence to affirm the

because that multiplicity
itself
by
putting these axioms in doubt, without even perceiving
One,
it is
demands
it
to
on which they are sitting; they only prove that such intuitions are irreplaceable; you either have them or not; reasoning presupposes them; it can lead thither by illuminating
they are cutting off the branch
the meaning of terms,
it
own existence.
is
In a sense there
perceive
it
no
greater poverty than that of being as being: to
we must cast away every sensible and particular covering. In

it is
cannot supply their place.

in an entirely other
see a subject in
another sense
the
most
consistent
is
and most
steadfast
of notions; in
it.
First principles are intellectually seen,
way
than
all
that
we may know
is
there
nothing which does not depend on
that
of empiric authentification.
is
do not
which
a pre-
This steadfastness
lost sight
of by those
who
take being for univocal,
dicate
shut
up as in a box;
see that the intelligible constitution of one

is
and
who make of it
as
a genus, at once the vastest
and the most pure.1
It
of these objects of thought cannot exist if the other

plying or implied
fact
first
not posited as imas
would then be,

discernible
it is
Hegel saw, on the rim ofnothingness, and even hardly
by
it;
this is
it is
not a simple affirmation
of that of a
from nothingness.
and
stand,
all
On
the contrary, because
it is
analogic
science
known by
principles
itself.
the senses;
the intellection of a necessity. Thus the
a consistent
its
differentiated object
of thought on which
impose themselves absolutely, by force of the notion of

is
can take
without thereby hypertrophying itself in a panlogism

essences.
being
Their authority
they so
little
so independent,
and
so rooted in the pure

or
which destroys
intelligible,
belong to a simple inductive generalisation
The fact remains

those obsessed
that being as being
is
manna with litde savour for

life
to a priori forms destined to
subsume
the sensible, that sensible appear-
by
the garlic of experience. Descartes had already deto have for once in his
ances are in a
ill
way disconcerted by them and only fit themselves with an

which they
rule over things; I affirm
it
cided that it
truths
was sufficient
is
considered the
first
grace to illustrate the fashion in
the principle of identity and then look at has aged,

it is
my face in a mirror: already
no longer the same.
founded, and to consecrate a few hours in the year to metaphysics, which was thus already reduced to providing ajustification for science. Since Hume and Kant, numerous philosophers have
on which physics
Finally, the first principles are analogic like being itself. Every contingent being has a cause, but the object of thought, 'cause', is polyvalent
êing
as being, the object
of the metaphysician who
grasps
abstractio formalis,
with the
essentially various intelligible consistency

as
comprehension, must also be clearly distinguished from being

ahstractio totalis as
by virtue of an of its analogical grasped by a simple

it
like the object
of thought,
'being'.
As there
are essentially
and
absol-
the most universal of the logical categories.
266
refused

all
rid
267
rightful intelligibility to existence, seeing in
it
only an empty
of the universal
'
as
known in the most
general and so least deter-
concept, or a pure case of sensible position, or a pragmatic sentiment. It is difficult to think of a more radical error, or one more offensive to the intelligence.
since being
is
mined way,
other world,
dental objects
oftlie g cneric categories of natural things; it is a wholly the world of the supra-universal, the world of transcen-
Not only has the notion of existence

exist)
(and that of being,
which
are so disengaged, not as categories
which require
what can or does
an
intelligible content
which
is
absolutely primordial: if existence in act does not offer to the apprehen-
progressive differentiations which come as it were for their completion offering a sphere of intelligibility having its ultias but without,
from
sion of the
sented (so
mind any other content than existence as signified or reprethat from the notion of an All-Perfect having necessarily
and able to realise itself outside the mind mate determinations in itself the grasp of the senses individual subjects which do not fall within
in
existence to the
number of his
perfections
cannot conclude that
this
nor are subject to

perience.
all
the orders
and
is
differentiations
of the world of ex-
All-Perfect
must needs
is
effectively exist),
on
the other hand, existence as
This
is
why metaphysics
a perfect knowledge, a true science.
represented
there
is
a wholly other thing for the
mind than
non-existence:
much more in a hundred existing thalers than in a hundred posBut still more,
is
in as Not widiout reason Aristotle studied the categories in logic, first instruments of apprefurnishes the these of knowledge much as the
hension, introduces us into the science
sible ones.
is
existence
is
the super-excellent perfection, and

if it
is
of things. If metaphysics
studies
like the seal
and stamp of every other perfection,
true that one
substance, quality, relation, etc., if natural

substance, quantity, action
philosophy studies corporeal
existing demi-thaler
worth more than a hundred
thalers
it
which
are
and passion,
etc., it is
from another point of
simply possible, and a live dog than a dead lion: doubtless
does not say
view, in
as
much
more for itself than a p ositio extra nihil, but it

this or
is
the position extra nihil of
mobile and sensible

is
being or of as these are the determinations of being as apprehension seen, have we as case, last the being (in
its
of that, and to
is
set outside
nothingness a glance or a rose, a

is
man or
all
.
only complete in
is
own order if the knowledge of the experimental
an angel,
something
essentially diverse, since it
the actuation of
sciences
the perfections of each of these essentially diverse subjects. Varying in

itself
to
degree added to that of philosophy). The human soul, in the entirely which it is a spirit, and is capable of activities in themselves
and admitting
all
the degrees of ontological intensity, in accord

it,
immaterial, as
object.
of an entirely immaterial
1
is
subsistence,
is
a metaphysical
with the essences which receive

pure
state,
existence, if anywhere
it is
found in a
Anthropology
thus
on the frontiers
of natural philosophy and

its
without an essence
distinct
a being exists
whose
essence
is
to
from that which receives it, i.e. if exist, must there be identical with a
being with
its
metaphysics,
and by
it
natural philosophy achieves
metaphysical
crown.
The
sphere of metaphysical
wisdom
contains in itself reflective

(the critique),
bottomless and infinite abyss of absolute reality and perfection.
knowledge on the relations between thought and being

tran-
Being disengaged
as
such
by
ahstractio formalis,
knowledge of being
the
as
being (ontology in the

spirits
strict sense
of the word),
scendental properties and the cleavage
which
it
presents through the
knowledge of pure
and of God
in so far as either
of these
is
whole extent of things,1

It is
constitutes the rightful object
of metaphysics.
(the
not a case of those supreme forms, like the categories, where the
attains to the first outlines
natural theology). accessible by reason alone (pneumatology or time; in rousing from above rises Like mathematics, metaphysics
things another universe
mind only
of the objects of knowledge

so far as
of
intelligibility
than that of the experiment-
natures of things)
which
are only completed in the specific degree, and
sciences (and ofnatural philosophy) , it grasps
aworld ofeternal truths vahd

all
so belong to a wholly incomplete
form of knowledge in
is
it is
not for
knowledge of the
real.
The
object of metaphysics
not in the
least the
but for some one moment of contingent realisation, order to in need, existence. Unlike natural philosophy it has no
possible
establish
satur.
lM Ilk scientia est maxime intellectualis.quae circa principia maxime universalia verQuae quidem sunt ens, et ca quae consequuntur ens, ut unum et multa, potentia
n do not mean by
physics,
this that it is a
phUosophy and metahybrid between natural
but that
it is
philosophy and so the highest section of natural
w communion
et actus." St.
Thomas,
in
Metaph., proccmium.
with metaphysics.
268

which
are superior to time, to find
its
verifica-
269
in the very
fact that
these truths
tions
end in the
reaches grasp which

ct
up
to them, separated
from our mind

is
of the
it
senses. But, unlike

it
mathematics, in the establishing of these

existing or possibly existing subjects. In
which unites
it
with them.
A paradox which
due to the
truths
always sees before
brief, it
does not make abstraction of the order of existence.

its
The mathe-
matical preter-real does not imply matter in
notions or definitions,
but
when
taking on a
form
it
can only exist
{if it
can
exist) in matter.
an object which another subject has rendered preintelligence, and which, being in itself one of the analogues, our to sent 1 analogic, makes us pass through it to those other one of the values of an the divine perThus themselves. to in attain not which we do
in they are attained
analogues
The
metaphysical trans-sensible, being transcendental and polyvalent

is
fections are attained
by us
in the perfections of created being, pass
which by
(analogic)
also exist
not only free of matter in

it.
its
notions or definitions, but can
the
analogy of being makes us
on uncreated
issues,
2
being,
whom no
without
the objects
why the order of existence is enracinated in of metaphysics. To allow objects which had only rational
This
is
If,
mind spirit whatsoever can attain to himself.

I call this
universe in
which metaphysics
an
art
the knowledge of
invisible
being would be unworthy of the science of being as such.

as I
1
moreover,
which implies a
ceaseless recourse to
of deciphering the
pointed out before, metaphysics descends to the existence in act of
in the visible, the trans-intelligible:
not certainly because it is
unintelligible
the things of time

time,
it is
and ascends to the existence in

is
act
of tilings
outside
in itself (on the contrary it

that it
is
is
the sphere of absolute intelligibility), nor
not only that existence in act
die super-excellent sign of the
unintelligible to us;
intellect, it is
is
but because, being out of proportion with
of existing, it is also and above all because existence itself is, as I said, the seal and stamp of all perfection, and cannot remain outside the sphere of the highest knowledge of being.
intrinsic possibility
our
human
means, in other words,

is
only intelligible
not intelligible by dianoetic or experimental not connatural to our powers of knowledge: it nocturnal to us by analogy. Our eyes, like those of
birds
by
daylight, can only discern this purest light
by
the interposition
of the obscuring
things of this
world.
To penetrate into this transintelanalogue

is
THE METAPHYSICAL TRANS-INTELLIGIBLE AND ANANOETIC

INTELLECTION
If an analogic intelligible
is
the object of dianoetic intellection,
it is
not
J that the transfotelligible It is by means of the transcendental analogic this point known in the analogue which is proportionate to our intelligence. See on I'andcgk en thhbgie dogthe admirable comments of M. T.-L. Penido, Le RSk it
the same for those of its analogues
which do not at first come within our
matique, Paris, 1931.
grasp, and which are known by the intermediation of the primordially apprehended analogue. They are known in the latter as in a mirror, by
where
inferior *rhe subject of metaphysics is the analogic being considered in the predicawe in fact apprehend it, created and material being subject to the ten potmulopUoty, and unity of features its with tions (it is there that being appears to us
act, etc.,
analogues
virtue of the similitude
which it has ofthem; a knowledge by mirrors or

can
call
ency and
by analogy,
which
we
ananoetic intellection. Strictly speaking

these are realised are not subject to
as objects; it
is
what in
this present
and it is by such analogues study I have called the
trans-sensible intelligible.
this is that we attain to it dianoeacally) ; But the same
the transobjective subjects in
which
our intelligible grasp, do not surrender themselves to us

essence or intelligible constitution which
is
not
of our presentative forms and our concepts;

intrinsically
by means never dieless they are known

objectified for us
as objects
sdencewMchhassuA things for %wi bears afc^^ the higher analogues issues in what is here called the transintelligible {i.e. for us), i.e. considerare substantias of being. 'Unde oportet quod ad eamdem scientiam pertincat subjectum . ipsum solum . considerat ut separatas et ens commune. . . Iste scientia passiones quaenmus, ens commune. Hoc enim est subjectum in scientia, cujus causas et
. .
. . .
and righdy designated, constituted
ofintellection
genenon autem ipsae causae alicujus generis quaesiti. Namcognitio causarumalicujus autem subjectum hujus ris, est finis ad quern consideratio scientiae peningit. Quamvis
scientiae sit ens
but
at a distance
and not
'in
themselves': the ray of intellectual light
which readies them has been refracted or reflected, and diey always remain above the knowledge which we have of them, superior to our
1
dum
ilia
esse et
separata a materia secuncommune, dicitur tamen too de his quae sunt separan dicuntur, non solum rationem. Quia secundum esse et rationem
intellectuales substantias
quae nunquam in materia esse possunt, sicut Deus et etiam ilia quae possunt sine materia esse, sicut ens commune.
geret, s i a materia
*&
See supra, chap,
i,
p. 70.
secundum
esse
Hoc tamen non cononIn Mteph, prcemium.j Thomas, (St. dependent.*
270
ligible is

the deepest desire
it
271
of our
intelligence;
it
from
the beginning
belongs to
it
being known in itself. It is, moreover, highly remarkablethat
knows by instinct
Aristode,
it
that only there can
come to rest. And according to
has a greater,
more precious joy in guessing obscurely in the
what the moderns call by the privileged title of science can only (dianoetically in mathematics, perinoeticaUy in physico-mathematical apprehension) constitute itself in the highest degree
poorest fashion some fragment of that world than in clearly possessing in

the
of
rationality
by
most perfect fashion what is on our
own level. The intellect thirsts

1
is
making
use, as
we saw above,
of a
prolific
crop of ideal constructions
for the things that are divine.
What is
and
unpardonable in Descartes
comfortable
his
having
preferred to this effort
this stripping, a
installa-
ing,
and rational beings, while philosophy is wholly absorbed with real beand is only constrained to have recourse to the artifices of ideality
(primarily in the
tion in the
world of
clear ideas: that
he so preferred the
ease
of
the
form of
rational distinctions
(the plane
founded
in re)
in the
understanding to the dignity of its object (and the spiritual perfection of

that very understanding).
ananoetic section
It is
of metaphysics
of the
transintelligible).
possible to distinguish three degrees or stages in the ananoeticintel-
What I have called dianoetic intellection is thus seen as held between

an intellection which
fection
is
lection
of things superior to man. The two first belong to metaphysics;

spirits
imperfect
by reason of the
is
oncological imper(peri-
the third is supernatural.

It is
and sub-inteUigibuity of the realities to which it is applied
impossible to say that the idea that pure
can exist implies a

far
noetic intellection)
and one which

and the
imperfect by reason of the too
contradiction: for the notions
of the
spirit,
of knowledge, of love,
great ontological perfection
super-intelligibility
of the
realities
which it knows (ananoetic intellection).

gistration these
On either side of dianoetic reanother,

different. Perinoet-
from implying existence in matter, rather imply as such immateriality. Of the fact that pure spirits exist we have indeed (leaving aside the certitudes furnished
two imperfections
in a
way correspond to one
by
revelation) well-founded indications in the natural

spirits, substantially
spirit,
but their rightful conditions, their forms are entirely

ic intellection stops at
less
order:
we
ourselves are
united with matter, ex-
the surface, at substitutes for the essence, nevertheit
periencing in ourselves the life of the

life is
and aware
that in us this
the
means which
employs are
full
of riches,
and give the under-
at
an inferior and sickly degree.

life,
What is more reasonable than the
standing the
maximum of self-content
it
(not without a certain final bit-
thought that such

ible
which cannot issue from the energies of the visto the consistency and vigour expressed in the
terness) and, thanks to their incessantly increasing technical perfection,
world, can be known in the invisible world in higher degrees, which
lay
open to
an unceasing advance in the more and more detailed

essences
are
more conformable
of the
spirit? If the
knowledge of the bearing of those

themselves, but as
al object.
which
it
does not grasp in
idea
tial
course of earthly events

at
is
subject to a providen-
though
'blindly',
and which remain for it a connatur-
government which
(I
each instant
is
capable of the most delicate
Ananoetic intellection uses weakly means, which give the unlittle
modification
side the
.
am referring to the natural order in itself, leaving on one
derstanding very
self-content
it
(it is
from
its
object that
its
joy
it
question of miracles) so that at the prayer ofa free creature the con-
comes), and which renders
only the more conscious the more
stellation
litde
knows of the disproportion between it and what it would know; nevertheless,
of causes which prepare for the death of some sick man can be by litde diverted, is it not reasonable to think that the world of sennot closed upon itself, but rather open to the action of assistants, by which become perceptible, in the course and pro-
thanks to the analogy of being and the transcendentals which

as instruments, this intellection,
sible causalities is
serve
rious
it it
however imperfect and

of
its
preca-
invisible
may
be, yet bears
on the which
essence
object, enigmatically
that
attained in other natures

1
reflect it
and without anything
gress of time, the free decrees of motionless eternity? This philosophical correspondence gives, with regard to the natural reason alone, a high theoretic probability to the existence of these 'separated forms'. Again,
De part, animal, i, 5. 'De rebus nobilissimis', says St. Thomas in his rum, 'quantumcumque imperfecta cognitio maximam perfectionem animae confert'. (Contra Gent.,
certain sensible facts,

lative rarity, in
which it is permissible to examine, despite their resaints,
the biographies of the
in treatises of demonology,
272

for
them in an angel as in man limited or circumscribed by
tellect
273
in the annals of spiritualism and of clairvoyance, etc., seem to exhibit in the empiric world the traces, as irrefutable as diey are disconcerting, of
(we know equally
example that essence and existence, substance and potencies, the in-
such existence.
and the will are really
distinct in both).
We can say that the anal-
Even when, moreover, such

physics
is
things are held as simply possible, meta-
1 ogy here employed is an inclusive or circumscriptive analogy. It
not thereby dispensed from a consideration of the laws which they may exhibit. He who has never meditated on the angels will never be a perfect metaphysician. The Treatise on the Angels is a theological
one, where
St.
goes without saying that this
is
not the case in our knowledge ofGod.
In what way
sense,
by an instinctive uprush in the knowledge of common

demonstration in the case of metaphysical knowcertitude
by an
explicit
Thomas
bases himself on revealed truths.
But it virtually
ledge
does the rational movement proceed by which the existence of

on our
intelligence?
contains a purely metaphysical treatment
immaterial subsistents,
of the ontological structure of and the natural life of the spirit when detached
God imposes itself with an exact know that God is already and in
To
is
that very
knowledge our mind
from the chminutions of our empirical world. The knowledge which we can so acquire of pure created spirits belongs to the first degree of ananoetic intellection or by analogy. The transobjective subject dominates the knowledge which we have of it,
and only becomes an object for us in the objectification of other sub1 jects which lie within our grasp transcendentally considered; but nevertheless the higher analogue thus attained does not overrun the analogic
concept which apprehends
spirit is sufficient
it,
subject to the absolute transcendence

tellection
of a reality to which ananoetic in-
only attains in knowing that it is surpassed on every side.

its
Let us try to retrace, in the course of one of

this
typical trajectories,
movement of the
whose
reason.
it is et
The
philosopher thinks, he grasps reflec-
tively his act
of thought;
a reality of a certain quality or ontological

nunc
is
value,
existence hie
to
him
indubitable.
Even
if he has
never read Pascal, he will

than the least thought
know
that myriads
of solar systems
are
less it
the transcendental scale of the concept of
which knows a blade of grass and knows

this as
that
to include that
of the pure created spirit.
Not only are
knows;
say
less,
not in setting
is it
common measure between two

on the contrary of two
in-
notions such as those of substance, essence, existence, knowledge, appetition, etc., realised
comparative terms, rather
a question
in the angel formally or in their proper significance
commeasurable orders, but as two orders without a (univocal)
common
(although eminendy or in a
fication),
x
way which transcends our mode
of signi2
measure which can be compared in their (analogical) participation in

being.
but the reality which they signify being

its
finite, is contained,
This philosopher
In scholastic terms,
pp. 282-3.
knows
also that his thought, a

is
mystery of vitality
itself a
quiddity escapes us,
cte
forma separata non
scitur quid est. See
with regard to the world of bodies,

tery
at the
same time in
mys-
infra,
of debility.
Not only is
it
subject to error, subject to time, to for-
which they make known in itself, which to nor, a fortiori, as a thing which could be 'comprehended' by us, in the sense in
2 It is
not contained by these notions as a dung
is
getfulness, to sleep, to distractions
and languors, but
in
its
very struc-
comprehend' implies to exhaust, or

the knowledge and the
make known
cept
adequation (cp. Sum. theol, i, 12, 7) between by these notions as a thing which they it analogicallyand, a fortiori, without our being able to 'comprehend
full
ture
it
suffers
it is
conditions of servitude which are almost unworthy of

itself, it
known.
It is
contained
thought;
not transparent to
it, it
breaks against objects which re-
main dark to
rate logically
logic,
must needs
is
divide, recompose, reconstruct, elabo(his
in the exhaustive sense of the
wordbut which does not surpass
the analogical conis
which we make of it for
ourselves. In the absolute sense there
nothing which
data which
not logical, but real
eyes have no need of
we
can veritably 'comprehend' here on earth: we comprehend that 2 and 2 add but we do not exhaust the intelligibility of this property in numbers. I should even with regam to that this is due to the weakness of our discursive intelligence
n*i
they have only need to open)

precisions
^hese
spirits is, I
with regard to our analogical knowledge of the pure created

15
things at the lowest level
of intelligibility; on intelliof God comes from die infinite height of the object with regard to all created gence, even under the conditions of the beatific vision (cp. Sum, theol, ibia.j.
the other hand, the incomprehensibihty
am convinced, in line with, though put in very different language, the doc(Num
intelligentiae sint
trine
expounded by Cajetan, JrtDe Bitter Essentia, c.vi,q.

8
nobis quidditative cognoscibiles in hoc vita).
M.D.K,
274
275
by the consciousness that he has of this servitude, the philoand in its pure and formal line sopher biows that thought taken in itself order, whose ultimate end he can transcendental a of exigencies holds determine. He has kept in mind the true lesson of modern idealism, understanding how this latter, born from the reproachful sense that
Finally,
experimented in the non-sufficiency in itself of his nhilosopher has experienced the 'insertion' in it of the creative nowise has he thought: on which it depends, but he cannot think of this non-sufficiency
activity
in itself of his
thought without knowing that his thought depends on an-
human thought may not be pure thought,
is
in itself a marvellous witis
but
its
othernot only on the material conditions which limit it here on earth, on something unknown from which it holds its very actuality and
being as thought, and which
causes in
. .
1 This absolutely pure thought ness to the privileges of pure thought.
is
therefore
act
Thought or supra-thought.
in so far as
it
absolutely self-sufEcient: for his object, absolutely spontaneous,

exist
is
it
to
He
me
with
in
me my
which
of thought,
(and
has
to think,
thought: if it has things,

cause
it
and to think not of a thing, but of the very act of it is not because it receives anything, but be-
being.
Thought
my thought
it
would
it still
be my
thought) will only be a
moment? Then it would

is
share in the weakness

also necessary to
makes them.
of
my
thought and in multiplicity, and

is
would be
It is
thus clear to our philosopher that
he
is
not thought himself. He
say
of this that it
caused,
not
self-sufficient
Effect in itself of an-
thought. But if he has it without being it he must is not thought, he has other than himself: a cause? The principle of something receive it from a cutting-up of the sensible but from necesfrom rise not does causality
sities
other thought? I
case
do not know if this supposition has a meaning,

is
in any
an
infinite series
is
certainly not impossible in

it is
itself,
but here an in-
finite
regression
not possible, since
a reason of being for which
intuitively grasped in being;
from the moment
that there
is
we are in search, and an

(each
'infinite series' is
exacdy 'not a reason of being'
diversity
of things, each does not

all,
suffice in itself for its existence, other-
wise
it
would be
therefore
it is
necessary (even
when we have never
term turns endlessly back on another, in postulating this reason of being). 1 There must therefore be a thought which will be Thought,
sprmgingfrommechanicism), they reduce themselves to the spatio-temporal condition, which of a phenomenon, or a network of determinations with which this is bound up, profoundly remodelled as to make the is only an analogue of the concept of cause so
use
,
conscious of muscular seen one ball in collision with another, or been

effort, etc.), that it
in which
It is
it
finds
its
depend onanotherwithoutwhichitcouldnotbeand 2 rightful sufficiency. In this case it can be said that our
idealism has been exactly
of the
word very
a highly remarkable thing that the result of modern
not the 'cause' in these senses

logical
1
nearly an equivocation. (See supra, pp. 182-3.) It is evidently of the word which is in question here, but its full onto-
the symmetrical reverse
Philoof anthropomorphism: a 'theomorphism' of thought. imaginative of mode a him in to attributed God, of existence sophers, recognising the maximum in the line of erethought the perfections of the created carried to their had not risen to the degree of cted perfections; they anthropomorphised God, since they
idealists rose (frequently abstraction requisite for veritable analogy. In revenge the abstraction, and it is the of degree that doing) to were what they realising -without of thought (analogically common to the uncreated and the created)
meaning.
it is
Whatever the way in which

is
employed, the consideration of intermediary
causes
used in an entirely other fashion
by
St.
Thomas than
it is
by
Aristotle.
In
the
analogic perfection
which they carry to a pure state, but in working in terms of 'Thought' in

fact
general
(in
lead to system the series of subordinate causes enters into the reasoning to Prime Mover by a hierarchy of cosmic degrees, whose structure absorbs the metaphyenters in fact as an auxisical presentation of the real; with St. Thomas this series only any case it cannot liary means which is only employed to make the fact visible that in does not carry a result the structure of this causal series
Aristotle's
on this process to infinity, and as
speaking of on human thought) without knowing that in reality they arc (leaving out thought of God the Creator. They thus reach a notion of thought which
the
is only apof count the numerous confusions, inevitable under such conditions) true God; they propriate to the divine thought, although they do not recognise the
interest
citly
known as
i,
lead will be explimetaphysics, for in fact the Pure Act to whom these ways intermediary [Sum. the creator, and the creation of things admits of no
45, 5).
theol,
Thus, from the beginning,

metaphysic
is
if St.
Thomas
shared Aristotle's image of

line, free
the physical universe, his

that
on the other hand, from the first

this causality (cp.
of
'theomorphise'
frThe 'cause'
Thought
whose
in general.
is
image.
With
regard to creative causality the hierarchy
of intermediary spheres
E. Gilson,
(ontological) conception so imposes itself on. us
so
little
:
de-
plays
no
part, all things
being equally open to

c. iv).
L Esprit de
^ rived from an an thropomorphicschematisation of experience that it is in the causes o eulty and on condition of a considerable diminution that we discover it common experience. As to the 'causes' of scientific experience (and of the philosop y
only with
h philosophic mediivak, i,
ities
have their part,

St.
of things, where created causalthan that of Aristotle our image of the physical universe fits better
As
to the conservation
with
Thomas' metaphysical doctrine (Sum.
theol,
i,
104, 2).
27 6

will be the
first
which divides
277
and which
cause of
my
thought, and from which
him from
all is
crossed
by
ananoetic intellection; but
its stuff or any material causality has every relation such as that which excluded a cause comprehending been has thought my to with regard
in
its
separated
pure efficiency the entire being of my thought, and absolutely by its very essence from it (which thus really remains my
It is this
of which it makes use avow in that very use their the analogous concepts impotence to enclose or delimit the reality which they thus describe. Ut omne genu fiectatur. They can only make God known in falling on
their
knees before him.
thought).
very absolute uncaused Thought which causes in and
May I be permitted to point out what delicacy, what filial fear shines
through that very word, paths, used
demonstrations.
with
me my act of thought. I have already indistinctly seen the rightful
by
St.
is
Thomas?1 They are proofs,

with things proportionate
object.
in itself its existence and its conditions of such a thought, which has are those of an existing reality. I now know that its privileges
But when our
business
with or connatural to our intelligence, demonstration, which, while

being entirely submissive to the object, also in a
ject to
Absolutely
perfect:
self-sufficient for existence,
he
is
pure
act,
and thus
infinitely
way subjects
it,
the ob-
knowing
that he exists I deduce his infinite perfections
from his
our grasp, to our means of verification, which measure, which
aseity. It is
by
a palpable sophism that
tion rests implicitly

St.
on
the ontological
it:
Anselm, and
falls
in ruins with
Kant claims that such a deducargument used by Descartes and for it is by no means in the iden-
delimit,
lates
which define
it.
it. It
takes hold of the object, grasps
manipu-
and judges
This
is all
the
more obvious when the question is one

have inher-
of more material procedure.

ited the
And perhaps Scholastics, who
that the ontological argutification of existence a se and total-perfection from the ment consists, but in the claim to deduce its real existence
high conception of a chaste science, whose very rigour and came from a religious respect, an exigence of purity intellectuality strict
before being (and their mission
forget
tion,
is
simple idea of total perfection. If I first of all (starting from a fact such as the existence of
exists, I
know and by another way

that being a
se
to maintain this like a sacred good),
my thought)
sometimes to what a point the terms of science, of demonstrasince
am evidently led to
conclude, without the slightest recourse
to
of proof, are charged with materialism in our modern usage,

all
the ontological argument,
that, as the
notion of aseity includes that of
thought turned before

to 'verify'
to the domination of sensible nature, so that
total-perfection (and vice versa), this being a se

all-perfect.
who
It
exists is effectively
paratus
of a laboratory. In a just
only evokes the idea of methods of measurement and the aprefusal of this degraded terminology
And the purport of this course of reasoning?

thought.
has led to the necessity
they thus risk insufficiently explaining their
own. But
in
any
case they
conceptual object: ofbringing to a pure state the analogic and polyvalent
know
that to demonstrate the existence
of God is not to subject him to
And
itself,
infinitely surpasses
Thought the higher analogue thus attained as absolute but the idea of thought, since it is not only thought,
our grasp, nor to define or lay hold on him, nor to manipulate anything
other than ideas
which
are inadequate to such an object, nor to judge
being in
der; and since

signified
orand every perfection issuing from the transcendental is what is It it is all this in absolute unity and simplicity,
anything except our rightful and radical dependence.
The
process
by
which the reason demonstrates that God is puts the reason itself in an attitude
by the analogic concept of thought, thatand infinitely univocal series, a first St. Thomas' paths do not end in the first of a beings: greater, highother like being cause which is like other causes, a the concept of being. by circumscribed perfect, but like them more er, Roy is a This is why the criticism of them formulated by M. Edouard Le
veritable ignoratio elenchi.
more.
All has
thin air
ofnatural adoration and intellectual admiration. changed since the cartesian clear ideas, which dismissed into
all
ananoetic intellection and knowledge
by
analogy.
To
enter
They lead to a first without any common

the subsequent series, to a
mea-
by the intelligence into a mystery has become since then a contradiction in terms. If the cartesian reason, wholly suspended from God, will not treat of God as a thing made subject to it, it must needs submit itself to
sure with the second or
all
isofirst separated,
him with
closed eyes,
i,
and only open them when
it
turns to the
lated in infinite transcendence; the infinite
nature abyss of difference of
^p.Sum.theol.
2,2; De
Pot., 7, 3; Contra Getit. i I2;iii 39-
27 8

loffues)
these analogic intelligibles,
279
of the created and the finite, and it is in tins sense that Descartes never treated of die infinite except as subject to it'. This is the source of that great and seeming holy flight which precipitated him downward to earthly things. After him the same reasonwhich only
consideration
we
cannot think of them without

signify,
(junking, at the
same time
as
of what they
of the
distinct out-
they have in the things where we originally lay hold on lines which them: we can only think of being as distinct from knowing, of knowing
as distinct
knows
the
in judging according to
its
own measureis
applied
by Male-
from loving: but
branche and Leibnitz to the justification of God: natural theology took on
ananoetic intellection,
if we have comprehended the nature of we know that there are two tilings, which are in-
name o theodicy, and set to work to comprehend the ways of God in order to render them acceptable, thus religiously preparing the way for
it is He who hath done them, says made them because it is well done has who He the christian reason. think how to do them better, says to difficult it is also why, know and I
separable for us, distinct in themselves:
what
is signified
by
the analogic
atheism. All tilings are well done for

It is
and polyvalent concept, and the mode of our perception, limited to the inferior, material and created analogue. This significance belongs to the
divine analogue, belongs to
him even before it

The mode of
applies to creatures
and
more properly than
to
them: in itself the name of being belongs to God

perception in
Leibnitzian optimism.
A materialised and corrupt scholasticism which

to a Thomas Aquinas.
before being applied to things.
no
sense
would have seemed not only impious but absurd
1 applies to him, not only, as in the case of the angels, because this
mode
is
applies exclusively to a material

spiritual,
analogue, while the higher analogue

it
is
but
much more
generally and radically, because
applies ex-
m. THE DIVINE NAMES
clusively to a created
analogue while the higher analogue
uncreated.
Our knowledge of God

analogical intellection. It
ing, uncircumsaiptive.
does not only proceed from ananoetic or

that this analogy
is
must be added
uncontain-
Our way of conceiving being is All this comes back to saying

ing except as delimited
tinguished
totally deficient with regard to
God.
that not only can
we conceive of noth-
In what I have called the transintelligible, the deity

that
(let
us describe by the ipsissimum
(it is the same for being itself, in so far as it is disfrom its determinations), but more, that sometimes the limit
name
is
the divine essence as considered in
itself,
belongs to the very significance

as
itself, this is
the case in notions such
divine)
infinitely more
above the angels than the angelic essence above

describe those perfections
those
of the body, of movement,
etc.,
which cannot be applied to God

this
the body.
The
concepts and names which
except metaphorically (perfections of

eminenter),
kind are in
God
virtualiter-
which
and in
belong to the transcendental order belong to

their rightful sense;
him
intrinsically
sometimes the limit only comes
from our manner of con-
they do not vanish, do not
fly in pieces, or
order, ceiving, as is the case in notions which belong to the transcendental

2 and which can rightly be applied to God. Being, knowledge, goodness
lose their proper significance when applied to
God. But although realisuncontained and un-
ing themselves far better in
God
than in tilings, they neither enclose

1
nor delimit the divine

circumscribed. 1 Because
^Sic
igitur,
reality,
they leave
it
'In
nominibus vero quae
Deo attribuimus, duo est considerare et
scilicet ipsas
per-
we
receive
from
creatures (their inferior anasig-
Quanfecdones signiflcatas, ut bonitatem, vitam et hujusmodi; et modum significandi. tum igitur ad id quod significant hujusmodi nomina, proprie competunt Deo, et
magis proprie
nificat illam
cum aliquod nomen ad perfectionem pcrtinens de creatura dicitur, aliis: puta perfectionem ut disrinctam secundum rationem disrinctionis ab dutincperfectionem aliquam sigruficamus dicitur, nomen sapiens de homine cum hoc Sed cum tam ab essentia homirds, et a potenria et ab esse ipsius, et omnibus hujusmodi. v hoc nomen de Deo dirimus.non intendimus significare aliquid distinctum ab essentia quodammo o
potentia esse ipsius.
quam
ipsis creaturis, et
per prius de eo dicuntur.
Quantum vero ad
significant
mbduni significandi, non proprie dicuntur de Deo: habent enim modum

hunc qui
the
creaturis
compear.' [Ibil,
modus significandi
St.
This distinction of the signification and Divine Names; it is dominates the whole thomist doctrine of the
i,
13, 3-)
everywhere in
Contra Gent.,
i,
Thomas. Cp. In I
Sent., dist. 22, q. I, a. 1,
and most of all,

s
a, 2;
Et sic, cum hoc nomen sapiens de homine dicitur, Deo,^ se circumscribit et comprehendit rem significatam: non autem cum dicitur de significationrelinquit rem significatam ut incomprehensam, et excedentcm nominis
em.' (Sum.
theol.,
i,
30; De. Pot., 7, 5;
De Ente et Essentia, c. vi
(and q. 13 of Cajetan
com-
mentary), etc.
a
Cp. Sum. theol,
i,
13, 3, ad. 1
and 3.
13, 5.)
280
are in

God fortnaliter-eminenter,
i.e.
2gl
as
what is
signified
by these concepts
(which remain and do not perish), but in a

said
mode not only as has been
subject to the principle of identity 'as to the Styx or not that God can be 1 But if that principle is a law of being as such, to which all the fates'.
created or creatable things are subject,
viajuclicii)
it is
goodness are in the things where
of the angelssuperior to that by which being, knowledge and I grasp them, but so much superior
(in the ontological order, in
because primarily God is, in the very essence and the thought
which distinguish them and without which I, in myself, cannot conceive of them {but without which they can exist, since they are analogic, and their delimitations
that these intelligibles lose there the delimitations
in which this
ation;
axiom has, like all

it
the eternal truths,

is
its
root and its found-
our knowledge of God
subject to
his
subject,
he renders
necessary
by
God in himself is not so rightful necessity; in such a way

it,
belong
to their created analogues). All the divine perfections are
that in order to annihilate the truth and necessity of the principle of

identity, it would first
strictly identical in
God. The word being, when

1
tinues to signify being
I say it of God, conand does not signify, does not bring to my mind
of all be necessary to annihilate the divine essence.
either goodness or knowledge,
and nevertheless the being of God is
his
knowledge and his goodness, his mercy and his justice.
which starts from below, the divine being is one of the analogues of the concept of being, which precedes it. In itself it is the divine Being which comes first, giving a basis to the intelligibility of anFor our knowledge,
alogous being,
Thus the deity

being; the idea
2
is
above everything which circumscribes the idea of

archetype,
and infinitely transcending
all
created or creatable being.

itself,
of being, when held by itself like a platonic
The
divine essence, constituted as an object for us, not in
but
God is very, self-subsistent Being, ipsum esse per se subsistens; the name He who is is pre-eminently his rightful name; the concept of being passes over into God with all
remains infinitely inferior to God. Nevertheless
its intelligibility,
by the objectivation of created

of a transcendental order),
is
subjects (considered in their perfections
attained
and known in
things
which
at
once resemble and infinitely differ

Physics,
from it. 2 In the very degree to which
and the law of being
as
being, the principle of identity
two things identical to a third are necessarily identical with one another, when
with
this third
continues to verify itself in God, or rather begins to verify itself in him: 3

*Cp. Sum.
theol.
i,
their identity
belongs at once to the real and notional orders, but not
1 3,
4.:
'Hujusmodi nomina dicta de Deo, non sunt synonyma'.
*Cp. Cajetan, In
est
1,
39, 1, n. 7: 'Res divina prior est ente et

.'
. .
omnibus differentiis ejus,
enim super ens et super unum.

prima
St.
Thomas writes against the Platonists, In lib. it

inquantum est esse infinitum;' the esse infiwould be the idea of being in the impossible
Causis, leer. 6: 'Causa
est supra ens,

itself what
when it is accompanied by a difference in these notions (in his quae sunt idem re et ratione, sicut tunica et indumentum; non autem in his quae differunt rationes). St. Thomas does not mean to say here, as at first sight it would seem, that no difference as to notion should exist between the third time and either of the other two; one could then object, taking up again Auriol's argument, that this would destroy the whole
theory of the syllogism, since in every proposition the subject and the predicate are notionally different. As Cajetan points out, he wishes to say that the two extremes only
nitum infinitely transcends in
hypothesis that the latter subsisted according to the platonic conception.
need to be identical in
what makes
their notion identical
with the middle, in other
on the Trinity, St. Thomas shows that however profound the depths of the mystery the principle of identity is never in default. Let us remember that this principle in no wise consists in a simple reiteration of the same logical term, but that it expresses the extramental coherence of being with all its analogical degrees; in God
In the
treatise
it refers
Words by the very reason of their identification with the middle. 'Non oportet eadem medio identificari inter se, secundum id in quo non identificantur medio; id est quod one non est ratio identificationis medio.' The divine Persons are really distinct the
ipsi
from the others by reason of their

each
is
relative opposition;
to a transcendent
and
infini te esse, to the deity itself,
whose
plenitude necessiet formatter
really identical
with the divine
essence, each has the
but by reason of absolute reality same absolute reality, and
tates a parte rei
our rational distinctions, and which contains emmentissime
by reason of the absolute reality there is no distinction between them.
the totality of all perfection and the relations of the Trinity (Cajetan, In
I, 39, 1);
and
because the divine essence is thus 'virtually multiple' a real distinction can intervene, by
the fact of the relative opposition, between the hypostases which from the point of view of their absolute perfections only differ from the essence by a rational distinction. Cp. Sum. tlieol, i, 28, 3, ad. 1 (and John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, on the same article,
disp. 12, a.
3 ):
ject
and to subof God as though he were some Jupiter or Saturn, (Desand the fates, to say that these truths are independent of him.' him. but cartes, letter to Mersenne. 15th April, 1530.) They are not independent of they depend on his essence in so far as it is distinct from his intellection, not on his free
Ît
is
in effect to talk
him
to Styx
In God the subsistent relations are really identical with the divine essence,
will,
!
but his creative will. Cp. Maritain, Le Songe de Descartes, chap. J.
iv.
from which they only differ by a rational distinction, and nevertheless they really differ from one another; because, 'as the Philosopher says in the Third Book of the
'Unde simihtudinem rerum
Dionysus,
UCael Hier., dissimilcs similationes.'
translatas vocat sensibilium ad substantias immateriales de Tnn., q. 6, a. 3. St. Thomas, In Boet.
2 82

us,
which
is
283
they make it known to
our concepts, while remaining themselves, are
certainly
comprised in that essence, but which we cannot conit is,
absorbed into
being able to
its
abyss; in
God they lose
their significance,
without our
ceive otherwise
than
is
which we
attribute;
and
that a predicate
is
at-
know how,
according to our
mode of conceiving. The
tributed to
God
in itself a result of our inadequate manner of conthere is
divine essence is thus rightly attained to
by our metaphysical knowledge,
1 ceiving, for in
him
no duality of subject and predicate:
to know
but without being penetrated; it is known, but its mystery remains intact, uncontaminated. In the very degree to which we know it, it escapes
him as he is
should be an absolutely simple vision.
our grasp,
infinitely
overflows our knowledge.
intellectus concipiat,
St.
'Quamcumque formam Deus subterfugit illam per suam eminentiam,* says

St.
technical sense
Indeed the highly formal language of St. Thomas has here the precise of the Peripatetic School, and it would be a total missit
understanding to think that scire de aliquo an

sively in its
or quia
est consists
exclu-
Thomas,1 echoing
Augustine and Boethius.
bearing on judgments of existence with no knowledge of
The very Doctor who asked "What is God?' in the first awakening of
his intelligence,
what the thing is.
who
never ceased explaining and detailing the divine
To translate scire quia est accurately into modern terms case, to know in the order or perspective it is necessary to say, in the first
of a simple affirmation of fact, in the second, to
perspective
perfections,
and whose
own particular task was

as
to lead the
human soul
quid
know in the
order or
to
some
and
intelligence
of the mysteries of the
deity, affirms that here be-
2 of the reason of being, or of explication. All knowledge
low we cannot know God

est,
he is in himself, nos non scimus de Deo

that apprehension
est, scitur
which does not
attain to the essence in itoe//"belongs to scire quia est. In ap-
may only know him in
which
assures us of
prehending a thing not in its

tence, in
own essence, but in what relates to its exis-
his existence; quamvis tnaneat ignotum quid
tamen quia est.
apprehending
it,
Previous comments have given us in advance the sense of these formulas, in which it would be vain to seek for a shadow of agnosticism or semi-agnosticism. The first does not mean: 'We do not know what God
is,'
but only in that of fact,

the thing
is
it
not in the perspective of its reason of being always attains in an imperfect manner to what
posit
its
(if
not,
it
would not know how to

knowledge of the
existence);
it
includes a certain diminished

itself
essence,
known, not
in
in the sense that
we do not know what predicates
should be
intrin-
in dianoetic intellection,
but in another thing.

it is
sically
and in
their
proper meaning attributed to
God; for we know by
Thus in a nominal
definition,
already the thing which
is
signified,
certain
knowledge, more
certain than that of mathematics, that
God is
although in a way which is highly confused and imperfect: as in empiriological
simple, one, good, omniscient, all-powerful, free

tain
We are more cerwe do

not
knowledge where the
essence
of corporeal
things
is
attained,
of the divine perfections than of the beating of our own hearts. This formula means that 'we do not know what is God', in the sense that
we do
God,
lIn
not attain to the quiddity of God in

itself consists;
itself,
know in
what the Godhead

it is
for in attributing any
predicate to
not in
dist.
its
formally grasped essence as such, but a perfection

I,
which are like a succedaneum of it. Much more, when we know God by means of created perfections, which in their very essence, in their most intimate and radical depth, stamp in the not heart of things a likeness to God, do we know the divine essence, imassuredly is which definition certainly in itself, sicuti est, nor by a real
but blindly, in the signs
possible,
I Sent.,
22, q. I, a.
'Sicut
Deum imperfecte cognoscimus, ita criam imperThomas

takes
an analogy but very truly and very certainly, by virtue of
fecte norainamus, quasi balburiendo, ut dicit Gregorius.' (Ibid.) St.
up
rightly which, while being wholly uncircumscriptive, attains to what is
and explains the same formula in

tellectus nostri quasi
De Pot.,
7, 5, ad. 13
omnem formam intellectus nostri
'Deus subterfugit formam inquo cxcedens; non autem ita
the and intrinsically found in that essence, and so allows us to assignin mode our to according place of an impossible real definitionwhat is,
intellectus noster
secundum nullam formam intelligibilem Deo assimilctur. 'Deus est potior omni nostra locutione et omni cognitione et non solum exeedit nosmentem tram cognitionem et locutionem, collocatur super omnem
sed universaliter
St.
The of conceiving, the formal constituting factor of the divine essence. the divine prevent thus not does inviolable secrecy of the Godhead
1 2
etiam angelicam et super

c. I.lect. 3).
omnem substandam,'
Thomas says agab
(In Div.
Nom->
Cp. Sum.
theol,
i,
13, 12, ad. 2;
De Pot, 7, 4et sa nature,
See R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, son existence
5th
edit., p.
5"-
284

known by us, not in itself, but because it communicates
a
285
essence being
created participation of itself to
expressing in the noetic order

ledge, the
what is not itthis word, 'participation', ontological order the same thing as is expressed in the
Subsistence presupposes a (substantial) nature which is individual and of nature or essence, its ultimate point of singular (i.e. having, in the line
actuation
as it finds
and determination); and what it righdy signifies, in as much 1 in the order of creation its final achievement, is that this
that
it is
by the word 'analogy'. And the more close is the knowmore it witnesses to the transcendence. A formula of endothermic reaction which the chemist quietly writes on a sheet of paper
nature,
cate
by the fact
endowed with subsistence, cannot communi-
with any other substantial nature in the very act of existing; it is, enclosed in itself with regard to existence. if one may say so, absolutely
and arranges with his pen announces a vertiginous conflagration; in saying, 'Subsistent Being itself', or 'in Him there is no real distinction between essence and existence', the metaphysician unseeingly describes that sacred abyss before which the angels fall trembling with love and terror.
My personality
its
exists
before acting; and
it
possesses
its
existence, like
nature, in
is its
an incommunicable
it
way which is absolutely its own. Not

unshared with any other.
only
nature singular, but
so possesses the existence which actu-
ates it that it desires single possession,
The divine nature remains veiled, hidden from our metaphysical gaze, not objectified in what it is in itself, attained in things, ungraspable in
itself.
Ifin all things that are
not
God essence is really distinct from existence,

as that
and is found in the same relation to existence

is
of potency to
act, it
And yet,
thanks to ananoetic intellection,

stable
it
constitutes the object
nevertheless clear that the act
of existing does not achieve

(it
the essence
declares the
of completely
knowledge, of a science which contemplates and
in the line
of the essence itself, since it is of another order
draws out determinations in it which only imply negation in our mode of conceiving. Loyally leaving intact its absolute Simplicity, and precisely because
it all
position extra nihil
we are loyal to the point of misconception, we introduce into

intelligence
of the essence entirely constituted in its line). In order that the existence which it receives should be Us essence, actuate it as righdy belonging to it and unable to actuate another at the same time, it
is
our rational distinctions: such a perfection and such another,
therefore necessary that the nature receive
first
of
all
another kind
science
of simple
and science of vision, antecedent and con. .
of achievement or termination, a metaphysical

will face existence as a closed
itself
mode thanks to which it

which
appropriates to
is
sequent will, determining and permissive decrees.
The
multiplicity
whole,
it
as a subject
of these rational
the reality to be
distinctions, requisite
because of the very eminence of
the act of existing
which
receives. This
that subsistence, about
made known,
It is
attests
only the humility of such a form

is
which there has been so
much
dispute, the notion
of which imposes
it-
of apprehension.
not the divine Simplicity which
divided, only
our concepts which we adapt and twist and bend, so that together with them our intellects may bend and work, so as to know the Almighty
according to the
genius self the moment one has grasped the bearing of the intuition of deintelligible its all with itself essence by which St. Thomas saw in the
terminations a potency with regard to the act of existing.

Subsistence
is
mode of our poverty.
When
THE NAME OF PERSON
this
nature
its unity. for the nature like the ontological stamp of is not a body soul separated from its
is
complete
(a
person),
above
all
when it is
able to possess of Peter
itself,
to take itself in
hand
A person is a centre of liberty, which confronts

God,
talks
tilings,
the universe,
intelli-
The
finite
and created
subsistence
signifies that
no other
substantial nature
with another person, communicates with them by

affection.
can share with
gence and
The notion of personality, complex as it is, belongs

It is
uncreated order, him in the act of existing. If one passes over into the it can share th that signifies nature divine the uncreated and infinite subsistence of the
:
act
of existing with nothing which

is
primarily to the ontological order.

perfection
a metaphysical
and
substantial
Divine Persons
itself. Each or the not itself or which is not already existence which is God, and thus each exists with the same common
is
which opens out
and in die operative order in psychological

called subsistence.
the uncreated essence itself.

sistence
God
is
eminendy
all
things
moral values.
of the Word,
since
it is infinite,
its
can 'terminate' and cause to
and thus the uncreated subexist with divine
existence a finite nature (without
own subsistence) hypostarically assumed.
The first metaphysical root of personality is what is
2 86

the intellect
personality In the one as in the other the
287
by
and the
will, in short,
when
it relates
to the spiritual
order, then the subsistence
of such a nature is
called personality.
is
Such, in the vocabulary of the Schoolmen,
the metaphysical notion
of the true God is destroyed. that the god of immanence, be it the naive immanence of It is obvious the senile and rehashed immanence of modern the old pantheists or
idealism,
we all make use (like M. of personality: it is this man every has a personality, is a perthat say we when Jourdain's prose)
notion of which
son,
cannot be a personal god,
lost as
he is,
either in things or in the
endowed with
spiritual,
free will.
But
in subjects
which
are corporeal as
thought of professors and philosophers. On the other hand, the idea of divine transcendence, when too humanly understood and insufficiently
transcendentally, seems at first sight equally incompatible with personality:
well as
ity
and who share one
specific nature, so that die personal-
of any one implies his individuarion by matter, and which are dark to themselves, and whose rightful condition is mobility, this metaphysical root, hidden in the depth of being, is only made manifest by a slow selfconquest, achieved in the course
like his liberty,
immense, high above
all
things and
all
the concepts which
we employ to name him, how can he be a person, one who says 'I' as we
do? In speaking so
intellection
we
have
at
once forgotten the bearing of ananoetic

are
still
of time.
Man must gain his personality

not a person in the order
and the
real
meaning of personality; we
dominated
and
it is
dearly bought.
stti
He is
of action; he
l
is
only causa
Spirit
if his rational energies
and virtues and his
0Ve
and the
in tnanibus
of God
mea
meis semper
and into the hands of God. They give a

is
gather
of
his soul into their
handsanima
face
seal
by images, both in representing the divine eminence and in thinking of the concept of a person. All that the latter includes of the laborious and the limited, all that is at
once indigent and complicated, of re-working over a poverty-stricken
centre
itself,
to the torrent
of multiplicity of which he
the stream-bed, freely
him with knows true
the ontological seal

personality
his radical unity. In this sense one
the
and narrow plans, the current notion of the word personality whole weight of the anthropomorphic charge which weighs it
It
and liberty, another knows diem not. The

is
per-
down
(and how can that surprise us?
describes in
man the high-point
sonality (in metaphysical contradiction)
subject to
many checks in the

and
cheatings,
its its
of humanity) uniquely belongs to the link in us between personality and

individuation,
psychological and moral order.
It
runs the risk of contamination by the
and thus to our material condition.

this
We
must
free the
misfortunes of material individuality,

vanities, its
by
its
lyings
word personality from

ananoetic force.
matrix to grasp
its
transcendental value and
complexes,
its
narrownesses,
its
hereditary oppositions,
The
great ontological characteristics
which
have
sig-
habitual regime of rivalries
and
all
contradictions.
For the same man who is

is
nalised remain: individuality (not individuation: individuation

ter is
by mat-
a person, and subsists with
the subsistence of his soul,
also
one of
a species and dust in the wind.
exclusively a characteristic of bodily things), unity and integrity, the subsistence, intelligence, will, liberty, the possession of the self by
self.
The
great truths
weigh heavily on the shoulders of men. One could
'The notion, person,' says
St.
Thomas,
'signifies
what is most perof angelic
transay that India has not known how to bear the idea of the divine an to her led had God scendence, as if an intense sense of the solitude of
fect in nature.' 1
Dream
for a
moment of the
possible nature
personality!
Such a one
is still
a created subject, but each includes in his
a-cosmic metaphysic which, in a despairing

ing in
felt
its
circle,
runs the risk of ruin-
sole self a specific essence; finite
with regard to God, he
is
infinite in
turn this same transcendence.

is
On
the other hand,
by having
wide-exstriking
comparison with us; immutably
subsistent above time, a mirror of God
too keenly that there
nothing, if one
may
put
it
so, so
tended
as the divinity (for
against the manifestation
universe there
is
we cannot make a step without the of an attribute of the Creator), so that in saturated and sacred nothing rightly profane, but all is
Graeco-Roman world fell into
the adoration
and of the universe, a personality transparent to itself, who knows himknows all self in the word which expresses his very substance and who
things in the depths
of his
it is
self-consciousness,
and whose
liberty
knows
only unconfined acts;
among these myriads, of pure

intelligible
i,
spirits,
resonant
with the signs of God, the
from the height to the depth with
communications and the
of creatures and
into Stoic or Neo-platonic pantheism.
^Sum. theol,
27, 3.
2 88

in the angels,
by reception in existence
is
289
interchange of speech unconfincd by sounds, that the concept of personand purity of its trans-intelligible ality begins to show in the amplitude
analogues.
in essences distinct
from it).
We
and
know
that the divine transcendence
that
of an absolute
subject1 (on
passivity
condition that
we take away in the notion

significance
is
of a
subject
all
one escapes from images in thinking of the divine transcendence, one sees that it necessarily and absolutely requires personality. This personality is the very seal of transcendence, lacking it,
In
reality, as
soon
as
receptivity,
and leave only the
of a
so
reality in itself and for
itselfwhose transobjective profundity

blessed spirits
subject,
immense
it);
that even the
who
see it will
never comprehend
the superexcellent
the ocean of infinite perfections,
however high above our thought we
recognise them as being, would not achieve separated existence, and transcendence would give place to that urge for an endless over-passing, a passing beyond the already experienced, which the Modernists substitute for
it,
by its very infinity from all others, crewhose unending multiplication could never add one comma to the perfection which He already is (with their creation there would be beings, not more being)
separated absolutely
ated or creatable,
.
and which only
attests
the inexhaustibility of our
own
Knowing
that
he
is
thus truly and really transcendent in his essence,
nature or the indefinite spiritual
becoming which is
ours. If God lacked

attributes
we know
being
personality, the universal participation
of the divine
would
intimate to
never be united in an absolute self-sufficiency which has no need of things, the resplendent warp and woof of divinity would never be
he is immanent in all things by his immensity, more them than their own selves, in order ceaselessly to give them and movement; we know that all mutability being on the side of
also that
things,
not of the pure Act, who alone
specifies his science
and his
love,
woven
in one.
O
its
treachery inherent in metaphor! That personality

is its
absolutely
nothing would have been changed in him
if he
had not
cre-
should be a core, a synthesis of many,

creature, but in
rightful condition in the
ated things,
and yet he knows and
really loves
them
since they fall as
uncreated analogue
there
is
it is
a pure simplicity.
contingent terms attained in fact, but not as specifying objects, under

the very
In the Pure Act
absolute unity, absolute integrity of nature,
absolute individuality
there
is
(i.e.
perfection of nature in
its
ultimate degree),
he loves himself, the will
knowledge by which he knows himself, the love by which by which he necessarily wills his goodness.
seems,
subsistence
which is identical with the

precisely
essence: since subsistence

since
By
this, it
we
are given a chance of glimpsing
how
the evil
its
gives to the essence the
power of self-appropriating existence, and

its is
which he permits
which
which
supposes the existent creature and

is
the divine essence
is
own existence, these three terms are abin

its
voluntary deficiency,
in itself only a bankruptcy of the good

for its cause, the
as
solutely identical in
God. In him thought
pure
state,
and, in
self
which is due
creature
can be known by God without having God

initiative in the line
necessary consequence, love and
liberty; there is possession
of the
having the primary
of evil,
God in
the
by
the self in
its
pure
state, since his
existence
is
his intellection
and his
love.
Thus he not only exists and knows himself by intelligence and by

as
line of good. And we can also on the other hand dimly see how his love of his creatures to the point of making them enter, as other than himself,
love
do created minds: uncreated
Spirit, for
him
to exist
is
thus his
having that community of
life
with him which
is
natural to
selfknowledge.
Thus metaphysics knows demonstratively that the divine essence subsists it
unchanging love which he bears to himself and his unchanging joy'Enter into the joy of your Lord'is so profound a characfriends, into that
teristic
in
itself, as infinite
personality (and faith holds
by
revelation that
subsists thus in three
one from
Subsistences or Personalities, really distinct the other, but not from the divine essence; so that in the
is
of the Godhead that there was need of the christian revelation to tell us it like the proper name of God Deus caritas est.
:
So
it is
that integral realism first
godhead there
at
once a trinity of persons and perfect community
subsisting outside the
mind, in order to
knows things, intelligible subject mount to the transintelligible

and sovereignly personal.
subjectivity.
and without any sharing of the same individual nature, because there is perfect personality widiout any shadow of individuation, not even, as
cause
of things,
infinitely transcendent
'In that sense
we can allow Kierkegaard's saying that God is infinite
29 o

is
tidpation with his very deity
friends.
291
his
This sovereign personality inflexible infinite confronting
what
my
from usthe mere manhoodand what is nearest

is
at
once
farthest
and
his
inward
life,
and make of us
Purity has a face, a voice, has set to us, since incomprehensible

it
me before
light of
to confront
it,
that I
may
speak to
him and he
respond.
The
stamped upon us. 'What is man that thou his countenance has been dost thou set thy heart upon him? Thou shouldst magnify him? or why
visitest
THE
WAY
OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE
WAY
OF IGNORANCE
long
.
morning and thou provest him suddenly. How dost thou not spare me, nor suffer me to swallow down my spitde?
him early in
the
Since our concept of being, and our concepts of all the perfections belonging to the transcendental order, cannot be freed from the limitations which belong to them, not in regard to what is signified, but as to
their
hands have made me and fashioned me wholly and now destroy me! ... But yet I will speak to the Almighty, and thou wouldst with God. . Who would grant me a hearer, that the reason to I desire
Thy
mode of conception and
signification,
while being
itself
and
its
transcendental analogues lack in
God
these limitations,
it is clear (St.
Almighty may hear

a book- that
I
my desire; and he himself that judgeth would write may carry it on my shoulder, and put it about me as a
the
Thomas, echoing the whole tradition of wisdom, repeats it incessandy),1 that apophatic theology, which knows God by the mode of negation or
ignorance,
knows him
better than cataphatic theology,
which proceeds
Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said: up sentences in unskilful words? Gird up wrappeth 'Who is this that 1 thee and answer thou me.' All mysticism ask will I man: a thy loins like anonymous interlocutor witha dialogue, one that is addressed to an
crown?
. .
.
Then
by that of affirmation and science.

Nevertheless this implies an essential condition, that this apophatic or negative theology should not be that of a pure and simple ignorance,
but of an ignorance which knows, in which
atheist
lies its
is
mystery. If not, the
out personality avows

able to
itself
a deception
by
the
that fact.
Though
still
un-
who says
St.
'There
name
its
the Father, the
Son and
Holy Ghost,
metaphysics
dom
with
Paul.
no God' would be possessed of an equal wisNot knowing how to write because one does not
is
should find
Personality. If it
forgivable. This
natural and necessary end in a recognition of the divine does not do so, it lacks its aim, it betrays itself, it is unis
know
rules
and being unable to write because the Summa which you have composed now seems to you only straw; to ignore the
the alphabet,
what
St.
Paul,
mundi, called 'keeping truth captive'

thoughts'.
when he condemned the sapientes hujus and 'fainting away in their own
of art because you cannot learn them or

at
to ignore
them because
you can use them

cause
your
pleasure, to hold oneself
below reason be-
one
is
not yet born into rational life, or above reason because one
creation has a meanSince God is sovereignly personal, the notion of liberty, of all things and intelligence ing; he is the absolute cause, by his to mar the order meaning: has a sin of notion which are not him; the of freeself-government the demands what is nature of by which the and necessarily loves: wills is to wound God himself in what he wills
justice,
has entered into contemplation, are
two different forms of behaviour which must not be confounded. In finem nostras cognitionis Deum tanauam ignotum cognoscimus, at the end of our knowledge we know God as
unknown,
says St.
he adds, 'that the

it is
Thomas, quoting Dionysus. 2 'For it is then above all', mind has the most perfect knowledge of God, when
and in what he
required of
wills
is
and
freely loves: things
and created
wills
(and since they are there
an order a justice which concerns them,

nature,
in this present state
known that his essence is above everything that can be apprehended of our life. And thus, by the very fact that in itself
there
is
which
and which the positive law, of revelation has a meannotion the divine or human, can achieve);
is
them by
the
1
Godhead remains unknown,

I.
a greater
knowledge than ever

more pointed
in
i,
Cp. In
ing: he can speak to us,
the notion of grace has
chooses; by human instruments which he parinto a meaning: he can make us enter

8; xiii, 3;
Sent., disc. 22, q. 1. a. 2, ad. 1 (the expression

i,
is still
De
30;
and in Sum. theol, w, 49, and numerous other texts.

ffl-> 7, S, ad. 2,
13, 3, ad. 2,
and
12, ad. 1); Contra Cent.,
ôb, vii, 17-9; x,
xxxi, 31-6; xxxviii, 1-3-
"Myst.Theolos.ci.
202
293
1 ignotus cognoscitur. It is not that he remains of God even as he is,' tanquam known by us, is known in himself, as reis he that unknown to us, but
not yet a leaving behind of cataphatic theology, a passing over into a higher kind of wisdom, in as much as these truths are only known, not
experienced, only spoken of, not lived.
be the
first
maining unknown.
philosophy (natural theology) in the order of purely rational knowledge, or,
would be nodiing, since this purely conceptual apophatic theology the method of ignorance in orby advances only knowledge negative method of concepts. There is indeed an der to pass beyond the limited
of reason elevated by faith, theologia per modum doctr'mae seu cognitionis. Thus in the Summa the via negationis seu remotionis is systematically employed conjointly with the via excessusscu eminentiae in the building up of sacred doctrine. In particularin conformity with that methodological principle that, in the imperfect knowin the order
phrase, which explains its varying forelement of equivocation in the the dividing line of the rational and the on suspense holds us in
tunes;
it
ledge of the essence or quid implied

[quia est),
by all science set in the simple perspective of fact what, in the case of material substances, is knowledge by some proximate or
accidents
mystical,
and can hold a
different sense as seen

via ncgationis
from
the one side or the
remote genus and by certain characteristic

substances,
de Trin., q.
becomes, in the case of immaterial
other. In as
much as the
it is
announces that
God is like no cre-
knowledge by negation or by the way of causality and eminence (cp. In Boet. Q. 3 and 11 of the ParsPrima, which treat r, a. 2, and above all q. 6, a. 3)
one of the ways of metaphysical or ordinary theological as theologia negativa apprehension at its highest point. But in as much order (and that higher a of wisdom constitutes a form of knowledge, a
ated thing,
is
of the things 'quae ad divinam substantiam pertinent' (q. 14, proem.), are placed primarily under the sign of the via negationis ('quia de Deo scire non possumus quid sit, sed quid non sit, non possumus considerate de Deo quomodo sit, sed potius quomodo non
sit,'
certainly
what
is
meant when
it is
distinguished
from theology
q. 3,
proem. ;
'et
tunc de substantia ejus
erit
propria consideratio,
cum cognoscetur
as
ut ab in se
omnibus distinctus.
Contra Cent.,
i,
Non tamen erit perfecta cognitio, quia non cognoscetur quid

iii,
mystical experience or it is nothbeing theology of another kind), it is experience mystically in that to order in itself ing. It establishes
sit',
14; see also
39); while in questions 14-28,

(q.
things 'quae pertinent
ad operationem ipsius'
(q.
14, proem.), after the doctrine
mode without modes what cataphatic theology knows
in divine things
logy has been expressly disengaged

nentiae
12-13),
it is
the via
which treat of the of anacausalitatis and the via emivia negationis is, as I have
*
which appear the most (without,
certainly, excluding the via negationis, for in

7, a. 5,
which is the crown of the from the outside, in that reserve of ignorance say that in God there is To communicable knowledge of these things.
neither limitation, nor mutaneither composition nor imperfection, as things are fair, is not beautiful not is God that nor multiplicity,
bility,
reality these three are
connected, cp. DePot., q.
and the
recalled above, the highest).
Two classes of references are found in St. Thomas in regard to the via negationis. The
first
belongs to the
calls
St.
Thomas
as things are, loves
lation of theses
i'Et sic
we love, is still to be occupied with the formuscience), is (although negatively, as may happen in any
not
as
est, scitur
(q. 2, a. 2, tia
method of negation used, as we have seen, in the theology which modum cognitionis (i, 1, 6, ad. 3). Cp. for example, In Boet. de Trin. ad. 2) :'Hoc ipsum quod scimus de Deo quid non est, suppler in divina scienper
distinguitur res ab
aliis, ita
quamvis mancat ignotum quid

5, ad. 14:
tamen quia
est.' St.
Thomas, In
locum cognitionis quid est; quia sicut per quid est hoc scitur quid non est;' and again, Contra Gent, i, 14.
per
The
other relates to knowledge
by ignorance considered as
constituting the highest
Bex*. Je Trin., q. I, I, a. 2, ad. I.
quat,
'Ex quo intellcctus noster divinam excedens, et in Dei substantia remanet nostrum intellcctum quoa ultimum cognitionis humanae de Deo a nobis ignoratur; et propter hoc illud est quod est, omne ipsum Deus quod illud cognoscit, quantum in nescire, sciat se Deum
Cp De Pot., 7,
*,J,_, substantiam non aaae-
kind of wisdom, in other words to apophatic or negative theology in so far as this signifies a knowledge higher than that of cataphatic theology. Apophatic or negative
theology
is itself is
hoc ipsum quod
est
then identified with mystical theology and thus
(since mystical
theology
de eo inteUigimus, execdere.' Cp.
also
De
Veritate, 2, 1, ad. 9.
with knowledge of God per modum inclina/;* tionis or the wisdom of the Holy Ghost (i, 1, 6, ad. 3; ii-ii,45.2)- Cp. for example, Boet. de Trin., and Div. Norn., c. vii, lect. 4, cited supra, p. 292; and a. ad.
identical
with the pad

2,
divina)
de Deo quid sit. . *'Hoc ipsum est Deus cognosces, quod nos scimus nos ignorare aivinae ipsa profunditate ab illuminatur cognitionis statu in tali Deum Et sic cognosces
sapientiae,
q. r,
1,
also Contra Gent.,
iii,
49: 'Et
hoc
est
hac
vita,
Deum quam perscrutari non possumus. Quod etiam intelligamus possumus, ex incompre omnia, non solum quae sunt, sed etiam quae apprehendere vu., lee Ibil, In Div. Norn., c. sibili profunditate divinae sapientiae provenit nobis.' en ad nc these designate S it is used to
The pkase 'apophatic theology',
if
esse sup
unde Dionysus
sit,
dicit in libro
ultimum et perfectissimum nostrae cognitionis in de Mystica Theologia (c. ii) quod Deo quasi
contingit
ignoto conjungimur.
Quod quidem
dum
de Deo quid non
sit
cognosacogni-
mus quid vero

4.
tions,
then relates to the via ncgationis, which
is
opposed but
strictly
cp-
via eminetitiae, these
two ways being alike at once implied by the doctrine apprehension, wiucn names, and both making part of one and the same discursive
""^"^yine of the
7
tionis
ignorantiam
mance incognitum. Unde et ad hujus sublimissimae acccssit ad dempnstrandam, de Moyse dicitur (Exod. xx, 21) quod
penitus
cfl%mem;i2H(iew/Dei;'andagak,'QuandobDeumprocedimusperviamremotionis, quod primo negamus ab eo corporalia; et sccundo etiam intellectualia, secundum intellectu inveniuntur in creaturis, ut bonitas et sapicntia; et tunc remanet tantum in
294
295
Apophatic theology has only a meaning when it is more than cataphatic theology (as a mode of knowledge); it is not its double, it should not
no further revelation than the theologian, the The contemplative knows which he covers is no more extensive; his knowledge is only more
field
be substituted for it;

only better.
affirms,
It is
it
stands upon its shoulders, it knows the same things,

it
penetrating,
negative, not because
simply denies what the other
accessible object
more unitative, more divine. There is no supematurally which is attained by contemplation which is not
attains more by affirmation of negation, i.e. more enunciations, because it experiences by the mode communicable than by of ignorance the reality which the other affirms and can never affirm
but because it
spoken of
actitude
is
by dogmatic formulas infallibly and with a perfect exand absolute truth. But in its way of attaining exacdy what
its
taught in dogmatic formulas, in

is
way of
apprehension, mystical
sufficingly. If an
ignorant shepherdess can be raised to such wisdom,
it is
theology
If the
higher than its speculative brother.

re-
true that she
is
ignorant of metaphysics and theology, not that she
is
an
wholly apophatic theology of Philo of Alexandria did not

pure agnosticism,
it is
ignorant; she has faith, and
by
faith she grasps in their divine source
solve itself into a

taphatic
because in reality it implied
a ca-
those truths
if she
is
which theologians
disclose in the
sweat of their brows. And
theology against which, dazzled by the divine transcendence,
ignorant of cataphatic theology, there are others in the Church
Philo unwisely turned, in order to destroy as
unworthy of the
divine
who are wise in it. In itself, on the ladder of apprehension, this theology
is
a step
nostro, quia
which comes before contemplation and should lead est, et nihil amplius: indc est sicut in quadam condone. Ad
esse,
thither,
ultimum
autem etiam hoc ipsum

et tunc
secundum quod
est in creaturis,
ab ipso removemus;
tum ad statum
est
remanet in quadam. tenebra ignorantiae, secundum quod ignorantiam, quanviae pertinet, optime Deo conjungimur, ut dicit Dionysus, et haec
caligo, in
the ground on which he stood, without seeing that he was destroying in the same stroke the affirmation of transcendence itself. In the course of that admirable progress to which it has been constrained by revealed dogma, and which began in the first centuries, to reach in Thomas Aquinas its perfect doctrinal formulation, christian philosophy has grown to
quaedem
qua Deus habitare
diritur.' In
Sent., dist. 8, q. I, a. i, ad. 4.
understand
more and more
that pantheism
and agnosticism can only
This last passage is full of very obvious echoes of Dionysus, and could lead one to believe in a dialectic ascension leading in itself to the divina caligo. In reality, for St. Thomas,
there is only here an appearance of dialectic,
i.e.
the rational movement which successive-
both be struck down because a knowledge of the affirmative and prepositional order is possible, courageous in the very degree to which it is
ly posits these various negations certainly corresponds to an intellectual consciousness
humble, speculatively valid and rigorously true, but

ananoetic
ful sense
at the
same time
which accompanies and justifies
it,
which
bases
on
reason for the contemplative the
and inevitably deficient in mode, which can

is
signify in a rightin a present-day
movement of his contemplation: but
this takes place

it
by
virtue
of the connaturalky of
what
in God. 1 Certainly
is
no advantage
lies
love, not by virtue of a dialectic. I believe
was already so, though much less clearly, for pseudo-Dionysus himself, who close as he was to neo-platonism and endowed with a wholly neo-platonic culture, thought out in terms of neo-platonic conceptualisation a doctrinal substance which in reality is much more Pauline than neo-platonic. In historical fact, I am led to believe that the author of the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology could believe himself a good platonist, and twisted to his use neo-platonic terminology in order to express an experience in reality incompatible with it. A sort of tutelary displacement of terminology was thus produced, thanks to which negative
retrogression, as
the desire of certain so-called modernist philosophies,
to Phuo's position.
An apophatic theology which ascends at the expense

is
of the cataphatic, which
reduced to a simple
'as if',
or regarded as ap-
proximate, will vanish in

H.e.
smoke in the same degree to which it soars.

known
to us the perfections which are found
op.
tit.
not metaphorically, but making
formally and intrinsically in

"'Intellectus negationis
God. Cp.
p.
304 and M. T. L. Penido,
Holy Ghost, in fact, I believe, prevailed (in actu exercito) in the pseudo-Dionysus, despite his outward marks of neoplatonism which are so marked, and incontestably prevailed in the Fathers, even in the
theology, in the christian sense of the wisdom of the
use
scious
hoc patet semper fundatur in aliqua affirmatione: quod ex aliquid quia omnis negativa per affirmativam probatur; unde nisi intellectus humanis si de Deo affirmative cognoscerct, nihil de Deo posset negare. Non autem cognosceret,
nihil
certain platonic formulas, until christian thought, having become fully conof itself, could with St. Thomas, then with St. John of the Cross, expressly (/ actu signato) build up from this negative theology or wisdom of the Holy Ghost a speculative and practical science, freed from all neo-platonic contamination, where the es-
of
quod de Deo
i,
dicit,
de eo
verificaretur affirmative.' St.
Thomas, De
Pot.,7, S}
<
vere formari de Deo . It is al13, 12: 'Propositiones affirmarivae possunt mode of sigways the same principle (the distinction between what is signified and the et negan: aflirnifying) which applies: 'Possunt hujusmodi nomina et affirmari de Deo
Sum. theol,
sential part
played by the connaturalky of charity (hardly indicated

c, iv,
Divine Names,
by Dionysus, St. Thomas, led. 4, 9-1 1) is fully recognised and made manifest.
mari quidem propter nominis rationem, ncgari vero propter significant

{Contra Cent.,
i,
modum.
30.)
296

why was it that
the Alexandrian School
depends purely
order),
297
But
were led
despite themintel-
on
the object, which
is
here entirely of the rational
selves to leave only a negative dieology? Because, being absolute

lcctualists,
sometimes
as
tending towards an end immanent in philosophy,
they desired an intellectual knowledge of God of which the
very
mode should be
that this
lectual
divine, not human, and wished at the same time supreme and apophatic knowledge should remain in the intel-
mode, should be a philosophy. And it is impossible to have at one and the same time a philosophy which to be true must enunciate, and a philosophy which in being true destroys enunciation; the one cancels out the other. Thus, and as an effect of this same absolute intellectualism,
the tendency to reject or depreciate affirmative theology
order to constitute its proper object and to which intervenes in it in very purity of philosophy as such seems, the case first specify it. In the unphilosophical, to run the risk of concealing the of eyes the above all in but at least there is a pure and urgency; this of efficacy the and value
die
authentic contemplation to
In the second case, the
which
it
may
bear the soul beyond
itself.
was
for
them
is
very confusion suffered by philosophy makes urgency; and it more manifest and sensible the presence within it of this which, aspirations eternal to given is which witness this too beautiful
in their
bound up with the mortal equivocation of the neo-platonic apophasis, which claimed to be mystical, and at the same time remained metaphysical, a dialectic ascension to ecstasy. The same ambiguity reappears in history with every return to neo-platonism. Nicholas of Cusa extended one
hand to pseudo-Dionysus and the great mystics of the Middle Ages, but
the other to
describes
very
fall
and
at
whatever
sages
price, cause the metaphysician to
revere Plotinus
and the
as
of old
India.
But
it is
in nothingness-
taking the
end
simply naturalthat
this issues; or, at least, if higher
whether they come from the angels or from grace, it in which deception will play a great part. is indubitably still a confusion,
influences enter in,
Boehme and
Hegel.
The
phrase apophatic theology then
an intellectual super-knowledge raised about yes and no, where
THE SUPER-ANALOGY OF FAITH

If mystical
essentially
contraries are identified, in place
of the
reality
of apophatic theology
contemplation {or the veritable apophatic theology) is importance necessupernatural, a new principle of capital
which
saints.
is
'mystical theology'
itself,
the contemplation in charity of the
This contemplation
is
essentially supernatural.
As
hope
to
show in
sarily
the next chapter, there
is
no
natural mystical contemplation. But, in a

possible to
metaphysics and that here supervenes, between the domain of all supernatural life. of root the faith, of contemplation: theological
much more
does not
general sense,
it is
have a natural
spirituality,
which belongs
to the natural love
of God: because
this natural love

all things,
suffice to
make God
effectively
loved above
it
nor
to
to the connaturalisation of the soul with the deity, mystical contemplation righdy so called; but
that
it
cannot lead
can
inspire the desire of

is
advance cataphatically, making known communicable enunciations the mysteries of the Godhead to us in too gready anticipabefore raising us to such experience. Without indicate here a third only ting the substance of later chapters, I would must here be which intellection degree of analogical or ananoetic
And
this faith itself
must
first
unknown union which in

it is
fact that
contemplation
alone able to
signalised.
realise.
In effect
it is
God
he
himself, as he
is
is
known
to himself, the divine
Whether
directed towards
God known
or misknown, loved
as
transintelligible as
God or at least desired as

sophy
the supreme truth of which
we know not the

all
name, such a motion, such a mystical urge animates
great philo-
say,
ex parte subjecti: because no
man is a philosopher, if he does

it.
not love the absolute and wish to be united with

sophy, and which does not intervene in
But sometimes
it
much as he able to lay hold but without meanwhile our being himself an object by and himself in of him, without his becoming only the object of our for us, not seen as the blessed see. He is
and to the blessed-in as
attained
himself-to himself in himself and object to our grasp who is to himself gives
by
faith:
animates philosophy as tending towards an end which transcends philoits
understanding in the ananoetic
mode
or as in a
minor-ftr
speculum
specification (for this latter
of God has already aenigmate-o( which die metaphysical knowledge
98

i.e.
subjects
intel-
299
furnished an example,
by the
objectification
of other
remains conceptual and which it ends, and

1
human in regard to the cre-
which
fall
within the reach of our senses and are in themselves
ated objects
through which
ligible to us,
and whose
attributes
have in the Godhead
their sovereign
of our most earthly
it passes. These created analogues form part and human world what is more earthly than a father
:
analogue.
and his son?
What notion is more common, more
heavy with human
But a
capital difference
with metaphysical knowledge here
inter-
knowledge of God it is in the heart of the intelhaving discovered the ananoetk value of being intellect, ligible that our and the objects which belong to the transcendental order, rises, thanks to these, to the divine analogue. On the contrary in the knowledge of faith
venes: for metaphysical
it is
back? Thus the super-analogy of faith is echoes, than that of buying more humble than that of metaphysics, it wears the livery of poverty.
But
does not
den
we know from God it attains to divine secrets which metaphysics know. Once shown by revelation as likenesses to what is hidin God, the mind perceives that things like paternity and filiation
in the very heart of the divine transintelligible, in the depth of the
Godhead itself that the whole process of knowledge starts in order to reby the free generosity of God, choice, in the intelligible universe which falls under our senses, of objects and conturn thither, that it makes,
analogical value of can be referred to the transcendental order, have an and Holy Ghost are rightful proportionality. The names of Father, Son
or cirnot metaphorical, they describe (without all the time containing cumscribing) what the divine persons formally and intrinsically are.
knows that they are analogical signs of what is hidden in him, and of which he makes use to speak of himself to us in our language. No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son,
cepts
of which
God
alone
The word redemption

expresses the
work
is not a metaphor, and intrinsically and formally accomplished by the Son of God. Under the livery
vigour, by of poverty the superanalogy of faith hides a supernatural
it
who
is
in the
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. That the notions of
we attain in darkness
to the
Godhead itself,
the divine essence in that in
generation and sonship, or of three having one nature, or of a coming in

the flesh and a personal union with
cipation
which no creature can participate naturally, and as no created perfection

can in itself show it to our reason.
It
human nature, or of creaturely partiin
and of brotherly love with the creature, could have a value
should be added that in order to
make
us attain to the intimacy of
the very order of the deity itself and in regard to the inward life of God,
we
should never in any
way have known
if
God
himself had not re-
God it does not only make use of the notions whose ananoetic value makes use of norevelation itself so to speak disengages for us: it also
tions
vealed it.
which cannot be in themselves

as it is
transcendentalised as such, and
The analogical instrument put in our hands wherewith to
attain
God
whose ananoetic value, assured
by
revelation, remains as a result

itself do
by such notions is not only an uncircumscriptive analogy: it is a revealed analogy, the proxy or substitute of vision, what we may call a superanalogy.
that
concealed in a metaphorical analogy: in the Apostles' Creed
we
not say 'and sitteth at the right hand
of the Father'?
The whole poverty
The mode of conception of signification is as deficient here as in of the metaphysical analogy; but what is signified revealed, i.e.
of the tongue of men
is
thus
the inspired Scriptures, all the

It is
redeemed by revelation: all the imagery of symbols of the Canticle of Canticles are
stripped of the veils
which belong to our natural knowledge, but
left
or
shown
under other veils
is
this
time the Godhead
as such,
God
as
he
sees himself,
and who gives himself to us
in darkness and without our
faith that it does object that it must be said even of elevemur ad aUquod 'Quamvis enim per revelationem quod alio modo cogcognoscendum, quod alias esset nobis ignotum, non tamen ad hoc quod impossible est dicit, Hier., Cael noscamus nisi per sensibilia; wide Dionysus, I
because
it
does not see
this
not
know God
quidditativcly.
laying hands
on him,
is
for
we do not see him.
(Indeed the divine essence,
which
surpasses every concept, could
grasped if it
seen
by
itself
only be intellectually possessed or and without concepts.) Such an ananoetic

object in
knowledge is thus supra-rational with regard to the uncreated

x
divuium radium, nisi tircumvelatum in substanaas minum. Via autem quae est per sensibilia, non sufficit ad ducendum quod formae immatcnaies superna Wrales secundum cognitionem quid est. Et sic restat, ratest, sive natural noa sunt nobis notac cognitione quid est. sed solum cognitione an est per similitudines quae revelationc ione ex effectibus creaturarum, sive ctiam ex
nobis aliter superlucere
1
vanetate sacrorum veia-
John,i,i8.
sensibilibus sumptas.' St.
Thomas, In
Boet. de Tritt., q. 6,
a. 3.
300

as
Dionshould they
301
in
thus admitted to bear witness to the uncreated Glory. Indeed,
ysus points out, terms of the lowest extraction furnish the best images, because they hazard less than the more noble the risk of forgetting
the divine transcendence. St.
teach infallibly, if these enunciations
and notions did not
analogical a (superanalogical)
are in
deity, afar
mode
this
signify exactly those things
which
Thomas
quotes this passage from Dion-
God?
and
We
understand by
how
it is
that faith attains to the
ysus, in the article in the Summa where he explains that sacred doctrine had
that in enunciations
which
are rigorously true, but yet
from
the right to use bodily metaphors. All these metaphorical terms truly
at a distance, i.e.,
dianks to the analogical process implicit in
make known
ness
although improperly when taken

it is
literally
the inwardsignificance
the very use
of these notions and enunciations. In order to become wis-
of God, because they conceal an authentic ananoetic

too rich for any
(an analogy of rightful proportionality),

1 recourse to other names, although
which appears when we have
dom and contemplation, the knowledge of faith must, by a divine and yet always in a trans-lumigrace of inspiration and illumination
name to suffice
Bible, says
St.
nous obscurity,
which
will remain as long as
God is
i.e.
not seen in him-
to express
its
plentitude: so that in the

St.
same
text
of the
selfcease to advance/rom afar
and at a distance,
must become experi-
Thomas following
senses.
2
Augustine, there
in
its
may be numerous
by which
its
mental and advance apophatically, in freeing

intellectual
itself
from
the limited
literal
it
Thus considered
maximum
amplitude,
even
comprehends sacred metaphors, the superanalogy extends

to the point where
transcends mode of concepts, not by an which tastes divine that are things those for passion yes and no, but by a
knowledge which
confines
one might christen it the parabolic analogy. The para-
Yes. and touches in the No the infinite profundity of the
bole in fact
is
a metaphorical analogy
which
conceals,
and
in this very
assignable
fact lies its mystery,
an analogy of a rightful proportionality,

itself,
and expressible in
sion of it. 3
It is
but inexhaustible and so superabundandy

is
crowded with meaning

written that
that the sense
always more than any expres-
ments of skin.
God made for Adam and Eve in their exile garHe has alike made for us, by means of his prophets, then
woven of words and of
since
it
of his incarnate Son and his Church, clothing
notions to hide the nakedness of our exiled minds, until we see him.
So
it is
that faith
must necessarily proceed cataphatically
com-
municates to us, in virtue of the testimony of the First Truth,

infallible veracity
i.e.
by the
of the Church, the knowledge of what

Godhead.
should they be taught if not
1
of God's revelation, and thanks to the propounding is hidden in the depths of the
How shall they understand if they are not taught? And how
by
enunciations and notions?
And how
expressius
'Ea quae in uno loco scripturae traduntur sub metaphoris, in

tlieol,
i,
aliis locis
exponuntur.' Sum.
'I&uf., a. 10.
i, 9.
'Unlike the myth, which signifies fictionally certain traits of the creature, but which with regard to divine things has in itself only an entirely undetermined metaphorical value, and holds in itself no rightful assignable analogy of proportionality.
PART
TWO
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL
KNOWLEDGE
Chapter
V.
Mystical Experience and Philosophy
Chapter VI. Chapter VII.
Concerning Augustinian Wisdom

St.
John of the
Cross, the Practician of
Contem-
plation
CHAPTER V
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
I.
THE THREE FORMS OF WISDOM
It should be made
plain
from
the outset and once and for
all
that the
words 'mystical experience' are used here in no more or

sense
less
vague
{covering
all
manner of phenomena of a more or less
mysterious
and preternatural character, or even simply religious feeling), but in

that
divine things which
of the experimental knowledge of the deep things of God, 1 the passion of leads the soul through a succession of states and trans-
formations until in the depths

divinity
of its own being
it
knows
the touch of
and
'feels
the life
of God'. 2
on
above
On
the other hand, the highest degree of the inferior borders
the superior:
sary to think
and
if,
in using the word philosophy,
it is
all
neces-
of the philosophy of nature when studying the
relations
between experimental science and philosophy, here, in

chapter, in
first
this present
speaking of philosophy
it is
of metaphysics we should think
ofall.
It is fitting,
indeed fundamental, to distinguish three degrees of wis-
dom
in the rightful
meaning of the word; wisdom being denned
as a
St. Thomas in describing the pat i divina speaks sometimes of 'quasi-experience', sometimes of 'experience'. (Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Revue Thontiste: Nov.-Dec,
1928, pp. 469-72;
A. Gardeil,
serve the privileges
ibid. May-June, 1929, p. 272,) This quasi is there to preof the divine transcendence: it in no way diminishes what is prois
perly experimental for us in infused contemplation. It
clear that
an
absolutely
im-
knowledge of God is reserved for the beatific state. But on this side of that end a knowledge truly, however imperfectly, "^mediate may begin in this life (see the necesinfra, p. 3 22, n. 3 ) which, making all sary reservations, as P. Gardeil has pointed out, permits as fiec a use of the words 'expenence' and 'experimental' as served heretofore for a John of St. Thomas.
;
mediate and therefore perfectly experienced
St.John of die Cross, The Living Flame of Love,
str. 1,
v. 1.
303
M.D.K.
306

metaphvsic

already an object
1
307
supreme form of knowledge having a universal object and proceedin from first principles. The first and least elevated form is
knowledge, the highest science of the purely rational or natural orde This, rising above the world of visible things for which it seeks the
of thought which reaches beyond
the visible and itself
constrains the
tations
rest.
ulti-
mind to conceive of a zone of being freed from the limiof the sensory and to seek in that region for the reasons of all the Thus our native position in regard to the being of objects on the
is
mate
first
rationality, recognises
by reasoning
So God,
the existence of God,

his existence
as the
same plane with ourselves

to rise to
like
some bait, some allure, which forces us

agree with Aristode in saying
it,
cause and author of nature.
and
perfections
a superior plane.
From the point of view of speculative know-
his unity, his simplicity, the real
and absolute
distinction between him
ledge, as
that
Vovs,
from
that
of
ethics,
we must
is
and the world,

rots
all
fwfwtv1rising by die chain of causality to

thus obtained
may be known by reasons drawn from created things

the
first Principle
human
nature exacdy
by what
essential in
that
is
to say the
of
demands of us an ascension above the human.
being. 2
Metaphysics cannot of itself attain to the divine essence: neverthe-
The knowledge of God

logy'. It
is
by
the reason constitutes
that
less it
may righdy know God,

which are
and
in the divided mirror of those transcen-
prime philosophy, metaphysics, or what Aristotle called natural

ananoetic knowledge or
theo-
dental perfections
the creation;
analogically
common to the uncreated and

manner native
to
knowledge by analogy, which is by

It
as it lays hold, in the imperfect
no means
for the
to be confused with metaphorical knowledge.
makes
use
limited things,
on
those realities which, in their pure fullness and over-
knowledge of God of those notions which we seek for in things,

as
flowing the limits of all our concepts, pre-exist in the incomprehensible

simplicity
and which we, because of this, in

things, conceive as limitations,
much as
they are realised in created
of the Infinite.
but which
in themselves, in their signi-
ficance,
imply neither limitation nor imperfection, and which can
Above this wisdom of the natural order, metaphysics or natural theology, stands the science of revealed mysteries, theology properly so
called:
therefore be applied in a rightful sense to the Uncreated as well as to the

creation.
which
rationally develops, in the discursive
manner which
is
of
light
of knowledge broken in the prism of

necessary to say? never regarded the
creation, but
our nature, the truths virtually comprised in the deposit of revelation.
veritable for all that.

St.
Proceeding according to the method and sequences of reason but rooted
Thomas,
is it
human intelof spiritual

is
in faith,
from which
it
receives
its
principles, the rightful light

is
of theo-
ligence as in itself limited to sensory knowledge, to
which could be
ochis
logy,
drawn from the
science
faith.
of God,
not that of reason alone but of

itself is
added in
illusory prolongation a metaphorical perception
reason illuminated
by
By this very reason its certitude in
and
invisible realities. This
contemptuous interpretation, which
higher than that of metaphysics.
casionally put forward, represents a radical misinterpretation of
Theology has for object 1 not

as
God as witnessed to by creatures, Deity

God
in the very
alone;
life,
thought. If our intelligence, in as
much as it is human, is dinated to the perception of being made concrete in sensible diings, it
also, just in the
primarily oris
the
first
cause or author of the natural order, but

inaccessible
mystery of his essence and inward

not
by reason
degree to which
it is
intelligent, ordinated
with being
things
is
God known
in those things
which reason
discovers he has ana-
in
its
fullness,
and the perception of being drawn from material

i,
logically in
his
common
with other beings, but God in the absolute of
1 2
St.
Paul, Rom.
own
being, in that
which belongs
will
20.
theologians say: the

It is known that this point has been the object of a definition by the Church at the Vatican Council, later made still more precise by Pius X: 'Deum, rerum omnium principium et finem, naturali rationis lumine per ea quae facta sunt (cp. Rom. i, 20) hoc est, per visibilia creationis opera, tanquam causam per effectus, certo cognosci,
God who
be
to him alone, deltas ut sic as the known face to face in the beatific
vision.
the distinction established

science.
order to avoid unnecessary verbal complication, I have here taken no account of objectiim of a by the scholastics between the subjectum and the
adeoque demonstrari etiam posse.
,'
. .
Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, i,
P. q. I. disp. 2, a. 11 (Vives, 1).
308

as such,

But it is
in the
lif
Deity
tion,
he
who
is
above
309
all
being and
all
conceivable perfec-
God
considered according to his
own essence
and
his
inward
sub rations suae propriae quidditatis, 1 so to speak, the inwardness, the <W simtttn of Deity, is the common object of the vision of the blessed th theological virtue of faith, and of dieology. But these diree
tain to their
'
symbols of language and through the medium of huthis communication is made. How else indeed that thoughts man could speaks in our tongue that he may be heard God it? receive we by us.
These means of transmission of the divine truth, these conceptual enunciations by, which we attain to the uncreated lightand which the
visions at-
end in three
differing ways,
by means of three
reasoning
processes
which are formally different.

his very essence, sicut in se est
*
Church, the mystical

Spirit,
body of Christ, whose
head, assisted by the Holy
The beatific vision knows him by and in

as
tends our belief, sets forth in strict exactitudeare the interme-
diaries
of faith, which she
he is in himself, in a manner adequate to what he is, without the mediation of any creature or any idea. It is scire de Deo quid est, to know
his
3
uses to attain to deity; are, in the

silver
words of St.
John of the Cross, that outward

die pure
by whose means
is
the spirit grasps
gold of divine reality.
We may say that this
essence in itself. 'Then', says St. Paul,
'I
shall
know even as I am known',
the object of faith,
John: see him as he is, sicuti est, k*6<1>s (mv.' i In that vision the divine ipsissimum will be apprehended as in itself it is.
St.
and
"We
not as taken
creditae,
from the side of the thing itself believed in, ex parte ipsius rei
credentis. 1
shall
but from the side of the means or signs which serve the believing
soul,
ex parte
Faith, the craving

life,
here below for that vision, the beginning of eternal

infallible ad-
knows
the
same object without seeing, by means of an
We see here a certain return to the method ofknowledge by analogy,

in the
degree to which revelation makes use of human terms.
It
hesion given in our obscurity and uncertainty to those things which the very Truth has revealed of itself. virtue essentially supernatural, supra-
does not
determine the prime

tent
is
form of the
as in
object
known,
for the essential con-
God, not known
metaphysics
by analogy with the creation,
rational, because its
formal motive, Veritas prima
revclans,
is itself essen-
but in die depth of his selfhood.
But
it
reappears just in the degree to
tially supernatural, faith also
knows, in die very imperfect manner
which
which such signs and terms present that object to our awareness.
press the
To ex-
is
alone possible for die communication to
mankind of the
trea-
mystery of the Trinity it is necessary to make use of the ideas of
sure of revelation, that which God and the blessed see in God. In its adherence to the testimony of the primal Truth, it reaches up to the inwardness, the selfhood of God, Deum secundum propriam quidditatem, 6
Father and
Son and
Spirit,
of generation and procession, of nature and
person, notions already supplied to us

himself, speaking
tern
by
the creation, and
which God
though unseen. This

before which
it
by
his
Son
who
It is
is
in his
bosom and by
is
the Church,
is
stays, 6
the object which is the end of faith, where it is fixed by revelation.
the thing
primam tendit ut in objectum;

sit
et sic nihil prohibet veritatem
primam esse fidei obthus the quiddity of
jectam, quamvis
complexorum.'
because the end of faith
God himself, secundum

Cajetan, In Sum. tlieol 1,1, j: 'Dcus secundum jpsam rationem deitatis.' John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, in i, P. q. r, disp. 2, a. 11, n. 4. (Vives, B. 1.). God, in the very nature of Lis deity, sub ratione deitatis, is the prime object of the beatific vision, of faith
seipsum and in his indivisibility, that
it is
necessary to say that
and of theology,
reason alone (unpossessed of even implicit faith), though it may know certain truths of the natural order implicit in the truths of faith, such as the existence and unity of God, cannot thereby by any means or in any fashion attain to the object of faith. 'Quia
ut Phil, dicit
as also of infused wisdom. All these, at the same time, have also the creation for object, but all in reference to God, and dius only as a secondary.
*St.
DC Metaph., in simplicibus
(Sum.
defectus cognitionis est
solum in non
atting-
endo
totaliter.'
theol. ii-ii, 2, 2, ad. 3.)
Thomas
also uses the expression secundum
quad in
se est.
ad. 3; 8,2.
s
Cp. r Sum.
theol. ii-ii, 1, 2.
Ôbjectum fide
et sic
dupliciter considerari potest:
uno modo ex
parte ipsius rei creditae;
objectum
ICor.xiii,i2.
<JhnnU
'Czjctw, be.
Alio
cit.
"Actus credentis non terminator ad enuntiabik, sed ad rem. (Sum.
per
theol., ii-ii, 1, 2, ad. 2.)
modo modo enuntiabilis. ...
incomplexum, scilicet res ipsa, de qua fides habetur. ex parte credentis; et secundum hoc obiectum fidei aliquid complexum
fidei est aliquid
est fides,
:
Cp.
De Veritate, 14, 8, ad. 5. 'Veritas igitur divina, quae simplex est in objectum; sed earn intellectus noster accipit suo modo per viam composiaonis; et sic, per hoc quod composition! factae, tanguamverac assenrit, in veritaibid.
16,
In
ad. 2.
symbolo tanguntur ea, de quibus
inquantum ad ea terminatur actus
cre-
seipsa, est fidei
dentis, ut ex ipso
modo loquendi apparet
actus autem credentisnon terminatur ad
enun-
dabile, sed ad rem: non enim formamus enuntiabilia, nisi ut per ea de rebus cognitionem habcamus, sicut in scientia;ita in fide.' St. Thomas, Sum. theol, ii-ii, 1, 2, corp. etad. 2.
3io

together

in the degree
3n
which guards and explains die words of the Son, has gathered
in dogmatic enunciations: analogical concepts
light
of reality which it has attained, it knows God in his essence,
of faith,
made use of by th lumen infitsumfidei, which is something more 'formal' dian

vitally supernatural, to reach after the inward-
of his essence. In other words, the super-anaor according to the nature

logy offaith accommodates to our weakness a mode ofknowledgewhose
formal rule (veritas prima revelans) is absolutely above us. Thus there is for faith an astonishing disproportion, dislocation, if I may dare to
speak so,
is
they,
ness
more secredy and
of God.
important, as has been pointed out at the end of the preceding
It is
between the end of knowledge, the
reality
made known which
chapter, to distinguish clearly between this use
of analogy in the domain
of faith and in that of metaphysics.
It is
a capital difference which can-
God in the very nature of his inwardness, in his most holy and indivisible essence, revealed by the witness of the primal Truth, and the
1 formode of knowledge which remains proportionate to our nature. essentially superhuman, which is a mode of knowledge mal object
not be stressed too often. In the case of metaphysics analogy constitutes the very form and rule of knowledge. God is not attained either
pure and simple essence, but only
but truthful
tq us
in his
selfhood or his incommunicable nature, in the indivisibility of his most as he is manifested in the changeable
reflections, the analogical participations,
which
is
essentially
human, here
lies
the reason
why
faith,
even
noted just now in passing, perpetually strives to overpass her

ner of knowledge;
as we own man-
which
are
shown
why, unlike metaphysics,

meaning of the word,
2
she will always hold in her
by
the things proportionate to our reason.
We do not attain to his

manner of knowledge
soul, at least at its root,
the unconditioned desire of mystical contemthat contemplation

herself,
essence,
only to that which
is
told
by
created things as they themselves

is
plation in the exact

abides in
its
which
speak to our intelligence. Thus, not only
the
own
sphere and to which faith by
by
her
own
human, but, even more, the very object which is set before the mind and constitutes the end of knowledge (sub rationeprimi entis) is only grasped,
so to speak, in the degree to
powers, cannot
attain.
The God thus known by

seen,
faith,
known on
as
the testimony of the Pri-
which he condescends
to the
human reason,
mal Truth and by means of dogmatic

is
definitions, believed in
but not
showing himself in the mirror of sensuous things and by the analogy of being. 1 Metaphysics stands on the summit of the created world and
also the object
of theology,
seen
from
the standpoint of 'vir-
tual revelation', as it is called, that is to say, those things
which reason
from there gazes towards

that purest light
the invisible point
where all the perfections of

it
illuminated
by faith draws from
the principles
of formal
revelation.
the creation converge, that inaccessible
end which
can only
know as
point faith
is broken in the multiplicity of its perfections. At that home, dwelling in the heart the Increate; only God has laid his hand over her eyes. And it is by the images of those created things which she remembers from the earth below that she shows forth is
not the place to enter into any long discussion of the nature of theological wisdom. It is only necessary to affirm that it is something
This
is
at
quite distinct
from
a simple application of the philosophical method to

a
the matter
1
of revelation: truly
is
monstrous conception, which would

St. John,
i,
This is so because faith
a revealed knowledge.
18.
Here the prime form
his mystery.
it is, but unseen, and without other power of apprehension than by analogy with those created things which God has chosen for our instruction. It cannot, by these ananoetic means, know
Faith attains to Deity as
who has revealed and to his knowledge in

a
under which the object is known belongs not to our manner of knowledge, but to are forms itself. Thus both faith and theology
Him
of knowledge inferior to the knowledge of God and of the blessed. ad hoc quod homo ordineSt. Thomas, De Veritate, 14, 2. 'Unde oportet quod repromittitur. in'bonum vitae aeternae, quaedem inchoatio ipsius fiat in eo qui xvii, 3: Haec est Vita autem aeterna consistit in plena Dei cognitione, ut patet Joan, Unde oportet hujusmodi cogmaoms suvita
Cp.
tur
aeterna ut cognoseant te solum
the divine essence in

Just
as,
itself, scire
tantum de
Deo
quia est?
and yet
already,
Deum verum.
knowledge acquired by our own proper powers, die formal principle itself by which the object is conceived of as an object is itself relative to our manner of knowing and in the same degree as it.
in all
pematuralis aliquam inchoationem in nobis

'(Fides) est
fieri; et
haec est per fidem.
. .
IlM. ad.
r.
prima inchoatio
et
fundamentum quoddam
quasi torius spiritual yitae.

tides
John of St. Thomas.
Cm. theol, ii-ii, q. 1, disp. 2, a. 1, n. 9- (Vive^t. to. p. 28):
"Cp. chap, iv, pp. 282-3, 298.
importat norum quemdam intellectus ad visionem in qua quietatur.
312
submit the substance of revelation to purely
human observation and subordinate theological knowledge to philosophy. 1 There is no scien or knowledge which does not meet in the soul with a proportionate
in-
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 313 To sum up: God Himself as seen or quidditatively known is the object
revealed,
of the vision of the blessed. God himself, believed in and formally is the object of faith. God himself believed in and virtually reis
tellectual virtue, a light
of discernment proper to
its
object.
When that
by the
that of
vealed
the object of theology.

the-
object
light
is
those depths
which
are divinely revealed, inaccessible

light in the soul cannot
its
It has been said that over and above metaphysical wisdom stands
of reason, the responsive
be only
ological
wisdom. Above theological wisdom again

is
there stands infused

consists in
object, the light of superboth the natural movement of reason and its native manner of knowledge. Theology then is not the simple application of natural reasoning and philosophy to the
philosophy, but must be proportionate to
wisdom, what
manner in
also called mystical theology,
which
know-
natural faith
where
it
takes over
and
directs
ing the essentially supernatural object of faith,

in a
itselfsuperhuman
it is
God as he is in himself,
and supernatural. In the profound words of
sub-
pseudo-Dionysus, here
necessary not only to apprehend but to enIt is

all
stance
of revelation, but the elucidation of the substance of revelation
dure those things which are divine.
to
know God by
experience,
by a faith vitally united with reason, progressing by reason, armed with philosophy. This is why, far from subserviating theology to itself,
philosophy is rightly the 'servant' of theology, and
is
when
all
creatures are silenced
and
representations dissolved, in a
fitted to the service

is
manner of knowledge proportionate, in as far as may be possible in this world below, to the end for which it seeks. For this faith alone will not
suffice; it
of
its
master.
Theology
choose
is
under no obligations to philosophy and
must be made
perfect
by
the gifts of the

It is this
Holy Ghost,
the gift
at liberty to
among
as
philosophical doctrines whichever will
of knowledge and above all of wisdom.

supernatural order
mystical experience of a
serve best in
its
hands
the instrument of truth.
logian loses the theological virtue of faith, he
And when a theomay keep indeed all the
whose conditions we are now called upon to study.
machinery, the intellectual paraphernalia of his craft, but they will be only dead matter in his mind: he has lost his rightful light; he is no more a theologian than a dead corpse is a live man.
THE BEATIFIC VISION
'with the gifts
H. SANCTIFYING
GRACE
In seeking righdy to define the mutual relations of mystical experi-
seen in his essence

(sicutiest)
ence and philosophy and for the
more
particular consideration
is
of the
problem whether mystical experience of a natural order

God
is
possible, it
of Holy Ghost (mystical wisdom) experienced

formally revealed
necessary to begin
witnessed
to
In his proper
life
experience
city
is
faith- alone
by the
Primal
by an examination of that supernatural mystical by all the saints and whose authentiwhich is indubitable, and also to conduct our study in no empiric or exwitnessed to
(sub ratione
deitatis).
ternal fashion,
strictly
but
scientifically
and on
firm foundation. For
this it is
and reason
.
virtually revealedj
Truth
j
necessary to have
(theological wisdom)
minology of philosophical thought

God
considered as
thi
recourse to theology, for the processes and teralone are essentially insufficient in
is
reason
(metaphysical
regard to a supernatural object. This
why it is necessary to commence

St.
wisdom)
with a theological exposition, drawn from

faithful interpreters;
Thomas and
his
most
shown by his
effects
First
Cause
and where,
in order to treat
of mystical and super-
(sub ratione
"' ,
primientis).
intrinsic prinnatural experience either scientifically or according to nearer at those to elements ciples, proceeding from the first and radical
see
Cp. my Songe de Descartes, chap.
also F. Martin-Sola, 'L'Evolution
3 On the relations between theology and faith, homogene du dogme catholique, Fribourg, 1904.
.
hand,
it is
First,
of all to consider briefly certain experience, the primary ontological conditions of this
necessary
first
points. that
is
to
314

and the inhabitation of the three Divine Persons in then, in the sequence of exercise and operation, the manner
in

planted in us here
r adical principle
31 5
as a
say, sanctifying grace
below according
to the
is
the soul;
manner of nature or
of that full flower which
the beatific vision.
which
gifts
this
experience takes place and
The first
its
conditions, that
is
to say, the
of the Holy Ghost and the connatural awareness of supernatural

the
charity.
gift of love, given without claim or merit, it is a new spiritual nature grafted into die very essence of our soul, which asks as its due to see
The whole theology of sanctifying grace is founded on

St. Peter:
God even
words of
as
he
sees.
As our thinking nature
has as proportionate
object the being
of things material
iivinae nahirae. 1
grace makes us participants of the divine nature, consortes can we be thus made gods by participation, re-
as ourselves, as angelic nature has
How
for proportionate object spiritual essences, this spiritual supernatural

principle has for
its
connatural object the supernatural Subsistence;

to an object
ceive the communication
of what belongs to
God
alone?
How can
makes us proportionate in the depths of our nature
finite subject participateformally in the
nature of the Infinite?
is
so
The Thomists answer: it is by right of'relation to the object that the soul made infinite. A formal participation in the divine which would
as
which
is
essentially divine.
And
is
if
without doubt
is its
it
will only flower
in the fullness
of the vision which
end,
it
flourishes here
in
below
in supernatural charity,
which
'on earth as
it is
heaven, in however
be impossible if it meant to have the deity

not divine should have the divine for
possible in that
it
its
our essence
is
(that
what is
is
imperfect a manner; for of
its
nature
it seeks that vision
and only
essence
a rank absurdity),
proceeds
from
this
faith in the degree to
which
faith
is
the ambassador of
means to have the divine for
object: that
what
is
not
God
the vision
of beatitude. 1
should be
raised, in the depths
of
it
its
nature and in the energies
which precede
telligence
dominion,
And with and through charity, its inseparable new nature develops in us a complete organism of supervirtues,
its its
operations, so that
love,
has
God
as
the object of its in-
natural energies, the theological virtues of hope and faith, the gifts of the
and
God
as
he
is
in himself,
is
impossible
by
the
Holy Ghost, the infused moral

tion which is in heaven'.
which
establish
our 'conversa-
force
of nature
alone, but not
an absolute impossibility. Grace super-
on us the intrinsic power of laying hold of the Pure our object; a new root of spiritual action which gives us as our specific and proper object the divine essence in itself. 2
naturally confers
Act
This
is
how grace, while it leaves usin our order of beingwholly

from
2 the Pure Act, is
as
and
infinitely distant
in the order of spiritual
operations
and of
relation to the object a formal participation in the
In the intuitive vision of the divine essence the beatified creature will receive and with no shadow of pantheisminfinitely more than the
most audacious pantheism has ever dreamed: the

dent
infinite
and transcen-
God himself, not that miserable totem-god tangled in matter and Egging himself forth by our efforts imagined by pantheism and the
philosophies of becoming, but the true God, eternally self-sufficient, infinitely blessed in the trinity of the Three Personsin this vision the
seed of God: semen Dei? This is nothing metaphorical, or simply moral: but a 'physical' reality, in the word of the theologians, diat is to say, ontological, the most solid of realities, than which nothing
divine nature.
can be
more
positive or efficient.
It is at
the point of this radical trans-
figuration,
which
modo
and renders us in truth the adopted sons of God,

aeterno, in the
makes us
live
very
life
of the
Eternal, that
we must
be-
becomes the very God himself, not in the order of substance, but in that of that immaterial union which fashions the intellectual
creature
act.
any not too imperfect idea of that distinction the tween the natural and supernatural orders which is the very heart of backany grace of idea Catholic faith. If we hold a sufficiendy high
place ourselves to have
Sanctifying grace
l
is
an inherent quality, the
vital
germ or rich seed
up Jolm of St. Thomas, iM,i-n,q.7^<&P- ^-a- 3- n

a
'
28 -
6ets
kowwvoI
<fiweot)s,
H Peter, i, 4.
Curs, theol.,
i-ii,
Council, precisely with reThis h the sense of the definition of the Fourth Lateran similitudo quam sit gard to grace: 'Inter Creatorem et creaturam non potest esse tana
Cp.John of St. Thomas,
q.
no,
disp. 22, a. 1. (Vives,
t. vi,
p.
790
semper major dissimilitudo notanda."

"John, 1,3.
Sqq.)
316

Doubtless
3I?
Some, like Leibnitz, more or less confound the kingdom of grace with that of spiritual beings. This is
a capital error.
sliding into naturalism becomes impossible.
by our very nature as reasonable beings we are capable of an
approximation to the divine essence as our object of vision. But we are only so ordinated by grace, it is die quality of grace so to shape us, radically
There
is
a spiritual, metaphysical order superior to external nature
by
itself,
proximately by the light of glory.

capacity for this proportion
First
And
this
is
entirely
where not only the metaphysician but the poet

hidden in the deepest
recesses
may live,
this
is
above
all
all
the
is
supernatural.
The
lies
in the obediential
mechanism and laws of the material world. With

of our personality
such
order
that
potency of our souls with regard to the

In any supernatural operation
Agent.
connected, the freeas
dom
of moral
activity, the
motions of the will in

as
it is
much
as
they are
is
self-contained in the
mind:
no
part of this universe (that
why the angels do not naturally know the secret of hearts1 ), it rises above
the created world, the sensible
two activities are united, but not in juxtaposition: nature does not begin from below what grace completes from above; from the beginning nature only acts as grace has raised it up. If nature and grace shared in the performance of supernatural acts, in
the vision
earth,
tion.
an
arte/actum, a
work of art. But
and the supra-sensible both, precisely as this world of spirits and of liberty, far
its
of God
in heaven, in
then there
would be brought
an act of theological virtue here on in an element of mechanical addi-
from including in itself a formal participation in deity, is rather the summit of nature, in the general sense of what has
in so far as that can in as
No:
it is
precisely because our natural powers of action are in
own proper consistence
themselves in a condition of docility and potentiality with regard to
be said of something other than God, and it remains,
God that supernatural acts rise out of the depths of our nature, from the
heart
much as it is not freely raised above itself, an entirely natural world.

is still
of our soul and our faculties, but only as they have been raised up by
possibi-
There
an
infinite distance
is
between
this
order and the order of
grace, as they
lities
above not only the world of the senses, but the whole creation and potencies of creation of nature, all the natural exergrace, grace
cises
which
have been drawn on by infused qualities toward which are entirely inaccessible to our nature in itself.
of our
liberty. Supernatural charity
is
infinitely
its
more above
the
highest created
child's act
mind than
more
that
is
mind
is
above
body: the
smallest
THE INHABITATION OF THE THREE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY IN THE SOUL
of faith or love
something incomparably more precious, incomparably surpasses the most

all
more
vigorous,
efficacious,
re-
splendent natural act of the highest of
sence
the angels. Pascal's famous
The effect of our elevation to of God widiin us, what
a state of grace is a new form of the prethe theologians call the coming of the
phrase about the three orders expresses an elementary truth of Christianity. Bonumgratiae mitts majus est, quam bonum naturae tortus universi 2
three
Divine Persons and the inhabitation of the Trinity in the soul. God is present in us, at the most intimate heart of our nature, at the
The
cated.
itself,
theological reasons for this fundamental truth
very core of our being,
by his immensity, his
infinite effect, for at each
have been indiinstant
Grace ordinates us to the vision of the divine essence, of Deity which is above all being, whereas by nature we are ordinated
he endows
us with our action and our being.
But
it is
quite an-
other matter than this general and

tion here. It
is
common presence which is in

which is peculiar
ques-
only to the knowledge of things in general and the being of sensible

things.
It is
that special presence
to a soul in the state
geneof grace. 1 This special presence without doubt presupposes God's

exisrit in aliquo; mitti, secundum quod novo modo horum est nisi secundum quod habetur ab aliquo. Neucrum autem modus quo JLJeus secundum gratiam gratum facientem. Est enim unus communis presentiam: sicut causa in ettecnest in omnibus rebus per essenriam, potentiam et est istum autem modum communem,
obvious what danger lies in the slightest confusion between these

objects. It would be to risk confounding our natural our knowledge in grace.
Curs, theol,
i-ii,
i,
^Divinae Personae convenit
two formal
lect with
intel-
dari autem,
^p. John of St Thomas.

2 St.
P. q. 58, disp. 22,
a. 3.
(Vives,
t.
iv.)
bus parricipantibus bonitatem
ipsius.
Super
Thomas, Sum.
theol,
113, 9, ad. 2 .
unus
specialis,
qui convenit creaturae
rationali, in
qua Deus
dicitur esse sicut cog-
31 8
ral

would be impossible, but in itself,
in
its

own
ter in
3I9
presence and without it

it
proper exigency,
implies a real and physical (ontological) presence of
God within us.
the present, to be reserved wholly for the future life. Carissiml, 1 nuncfilii Dei sumus, says St. John: here and now we are already
the sons
How
It is
is
this possible?
By what reason? By right of the object.

efficient principle
no more by reason of the

gives
is
of primary
causality
which
the soul
being to the soul, but by reason of that end to which directed, redirected, converted, ordered, the object of its
all its
its
of God. 'Do you not know that your members are the temples of the Holy Ghost, who is within you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own?'2 The beginning of eternal life is here and now. This life begins here on earth, it should grow in us unceasingly
till
the dissolution
of our bodies, 'when
so as to fully realise
as
knowledge and
question, not in
fruitful,
lovebe it added
by
mystical ex-
at once, for this is the heart
of the
perience
and infused contemplation,

of our
faith,
it
much as
is
any generalised sense of love and knowledge, no, but a an experiencing love1 and a knowledge which bring us into possession of God, unite us with him not at a distance, but in truth. For if the Three Divine Persons give themselves to us it is so that we
possible here below,
in the night
be',
3
hath not yet appeared what
we shall
is
exacdy that possession of God for which
sanctifying grace
es-
sentially ordered.
may
Thus mystical experience and infused contemplation

est
are seen as the

that high-
possess them, that they
be ours? The
we
are given, in the
words of St.
of God is of such a nature that Thomas, the free enjoyment of the

gift
normal end, the rightful life of grace, one might even say are
point towards which
all
Three Persons.
How could this possibly be if they were not really, onlife
human life is
directed: for, in this
world at
hu-
once fallen and redeemed, where grace presses in on every
side, all
tologically present, giving themselves to us, within us?
Doubtless it is only in the future

will enjoy this perfect possession.
and in the beatific vision that man
man experience leads towards the christian life, just as all men belong by right to Christ, the head of the human race: and the christian life itself aspires
But God does not give himself to us as
and leads towards the life of mystical experience.
the object of our fruition in order that this gift should remain a dead letnitium cognoscente, et amantem in amante. Mt quia cognoscendo et amando creatura
ranonalis sua operatione attingit ad
THE
Sanctifying grace
GIFTS OF
THE HOLY GHOST

in the soul in a state
ipsum Deum: secundum istum specialem
modum
and the indwelling of God
sit
Deus non solum
dicitur est in creatura rationali, sed
dam
habitare in ea sicut in
templo suo. Sic igitur nullus
alius effectus potest esse ratio
quod
divina Persona
novo modo in
of grace: these are the ontological

experience.
bases, the first principles
of mystical
creatura, nisi gratia gratum faciens. Unde, secundum solam gratiam gratum facientem mittitur et procedit temporaliter Persona divina. Similiter, ilium solum habere dicimur, quo libere possumus
uti vel frui.
rationali
Habere autem
potesSt.
What are the secondary principles, in other words, how is it realised?

ii)
tatem fruendi divina Persona est solum secundum gratiam gratum facientem.' Thomas, Sum. theol, i, 43, 3.
This question of the presence of grace and the
^John, iii, 2. Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, i, P. q. S, disp. 8, a. 6. (Vives, book 'Hie autem est unio fruitionis inchoata, et imperfecta. Vere tamen rarione illius dici:
indwelling of the Trinity in the soul is
by John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, i, P. q. 43, disp. 17, a. 3. fVives, book iv.) These pages together with St. Thomas's articles on the mission of the divine Persons represent the essential doctrinal source. Cp. A. Gardeil, La Structure de lame etl experience mystique, vol. ii, .
set forth
magnificendy
tur Deus,
non solum communi modo
suae immensitatis et contactu operationis esse

et
in anima, sed per
modum inhabitantis,
amid, et conviventis
et finis possessi.
Nee
solum hoc
intelligitur fieri in gloria, sed
L Habitation
a
pp. 74-7,5;
de
pp 238
,
56f
^J R
Garrigou-Lagrange,
'
la Sainte Trinite et l'expdrience
Dec., 1928, pp. 449 ct seq:
mystique' in Revue the thomiste t Nov.-
Personarum, per quam dona ejus, non solum fit in gloria, seel etiam quando fit sanctificatio in gratia, vel aliquod etiam 1** I Cor speciale augmentum (ut dicit div. Thomas, q. 43. a 6 )> f" 16-17, ubi dicit Apostolus: Templutn De! estis, et Spiritus Sanctus habitat in vobis,
visibles missio
-
etiam hie quando datur gratia; turn quia inSpiritus Sanctus personaliter datur, et non solum
'Novo modo
effiarur
Deus praesens mediante
ner cognoscibile et
disp. 17, a. 3.
*St.
fruibile intra
gratia ut objectum experimentalanimam.' John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol, i, P. q. 43. *
statim: si quis autem templutn

stolus
s
Dei violaverit, iisperiet ilium Deus. Loquitur ergo patriae. de statu in quo potest hoc templum violari, qui est status viae et non
Apo-
St.Paul,ICor.vi,i9.
IJohn! be.
cit.
Thomas: In I Sent,
dist. 14, q. 2, a. 2,
ad. 2.
320
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE Two characteristics of this experience strike us first of all in a theolosuch as
this.

rational
object.
powers, such
knowledge of a superhuman kind: second, it is a manner ofknowledge by connaturality. It is a superhuman and supernatural manner of knowledge. The
first case, it is
gical analysis
In the
We
as the theological virtues, which are divine in their
are like children
natural art, a pencil
who have been endowed with a superwherewith to write on the sky. It is necessary
that
na-
tural
human manner ofknowledge
God himself should put

lines.)
his
hand over ours
(natural, mutatis mutandis,
to guide our trembling
even to the
angels), consists in knowing
by ideas or concepts, and then, in what con-
cerns the things

are
of God, by analogy from those created things whence drawn the measure and manner of significance of our concepts.
is
Mystical experience then is knowledge in a superhuman manner, which presupposes a special inspiration from God, which is given by
gifts
the
This
why faith,
his
though it
attains to the
knowledge of God in himself

quidditatem,
and in
the
inward life, secundum suam propriam
of the Holy Ghost, at least by those which are most concerned with our knowledge, the infused gifts of knowledge and of wisdom.
only does so
in
at a distance
and remains an intermediate knowledge, enigmatical,

St.
words of
Paul, in the sense that faith has to
make
use of the
CONNATURAL KNOWLEDGE
Mystical experience has a second characteristic
connaturality.
:
formal means proportionate to our means of natural knowledge, concepts and conceptual formulas, analogical, or at best
superanalogical
notions.
it is
knowledge by
There are two methods, says
St.
Thomas,1 ofjudging, for example,
in
In order to
know God no longer at a
distance, in as
much
as it
is
pos-
those things
which concern
chastity: either
we may have in our intelliintellectual proportion

it is
overshoot the natural human method of concepts John of the Cross so often insists, to abandon all distinct conceptions, all clear knowledge1 not only is there need of some direc) tion from above, but specifically of a principle of superior objective
(and so, as
St.
sible in this life, to
gence that moral science which creates in us an
with the truths concerning chastity, and which when

sponds in pure observation of its object.
the virtue
into
consulted re-
Or we may have the desire for

grown
in the
in-
of
chastity incorporated in, rooted in our faculties,

reply,
direction, in other
words, the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
our bones, which desire enables us to
no longer
chastity.
Mystical experience is a knowledge which is supernaturally inspired. On the other hand, if it is true that mystical experience is in line with the normal development of the life of grace, there must be in the soul in a state of grace filaments delicately sensitive to the breath of
manner of external knowledge, but by

clination,
instinct,
by our immediate
by our
co-naturedness (connaturality) with
Face to face with

ledge
God we have no other means of surpassing knowby concepts than our connatural knowledge, our 'co-naissance', as
it
heaven, in scholastic language, permanent dispositions or habitus, which

assure the possibility, the
Claudel has called it, our co-nativity with him. 3
normal
right,
spired knowledge.
lar office
is
Such are the
gifts
of the achievement of this inof the Holy Ghost, whose particuteaches, in a
What is
is it
in us can
make
us radically connatural with
God?
Sancti-
fying grace,
in us
by which we
are
made
consortes divinae naturae.
And what
God by
to render the soul exquisitely sensible to divine inspiration.

so, that, as St.
which brings out

which
as
into action,
makes flower
this
connaturality
(All the
more
Thomas
much more
general
8
rooted in us? Supernatural charity.

charity. Charity,
is
We
are co-natured with
manner
these gifts are themselves necessary for the christian

first
life,
since
reason alone cannot be a sufficient
principle for the use
of super-
once at a dista ani tb*b n only be Meanwhile, the darkness will grow in proportion as the dtstance diminishes. St. John of the Cross, Cant., str. i, second redaction.
l
jj* ff realised m the beaofic vision.

2
lmow God
at
not the name for any kind of love, but which presupposes sanctifying grace, whose dominion it is, and which lays hold goodon God, really present within us, by the gift of his
knows him
ness,
our friend, our eternal companion. More, charity wins to God as in

Hbil
a
ii-ii,
Sum.theol.,i-ii,6S,2.
45. 2: cp.i,
r, 6,
ad. 3.
P. Claudel, UArtPottiquc.
322

is,
himself he
in the inwardness
of
his life
which
is
our
beatification.
God in and by and with God.1 To go more deeply into the points which have here been gathered from such theologians as John of St. Thomas and Joseph of the Holy Spirit, 2 would imply a long development. Here a brief summary must
Charity loves
suffice.
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY of God, but it is God himself whom we experience in our love. 'It is
the
very virtue of the
gift
of God',
by
writes
John of St. Thomas',
*and in
the
things,
union of experiencing love that mystical wisdom attains to divine which that love makes more at one with us, more
immediately
is
touched and tasted, and enables us to see that what

tions
is 1
so
felt
by the affec-
The things of God having been so intimately joined with our nature made ours, bred into our bones by the love of supernatural charity, the property of the gift of wisdom is to make use of this love, this infused charity, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so that it may progress in scholastic language from the objective means of knowledge to
the objectum quo, 3 in such a
2
higher and more excellent than any consideration of the cognos-
manner that we not only experience our love

infra, p.
God while remaining at a much as faith is 'the substance of things not seen', but charity attains to God in himself, intimately united to that which is hidden from faith, And thus though faith rules over both love and its union with God in as much as it is faith which proposes their object, yet
citive virtues.'
And
again: 'Faith attains to
certain distance, in so
Cp. the passage of

infra.
St.
Thomas quoted
334,
and
also chapter vii, pp.
in another way, by virtue of this union by which the soul takes an immediate hold on God, the intelligence is raised by this affective experi-
394-8,
ence to a point
Spirit,
where it may judge of divine

hidden things
things in a higher
it
manner
and
*Cp. Joseph of the Holy

Bruges, 1925 et seq.
s
Cursus theologicae mystico-scholasticae, ed. nova,
than
is
possible to the obscurity
of faith, because
penetrates to
knows those more

conditionem
objecti.' John
which faith
itself cannot
make
manifest,
'Et sic affecrus transit in
of St. Thomas, Curs,
theol,
i-ii,
ever finding there
more
q. 68-70, disp. 18, a. 4,n.
n.
to love and to taste of in love: and the
Under the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit the soul so passes from the side of the
an objective condition, not to be itself the object known, but means of knowledge or objectum quo (cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection chrttienne et contemplation, 6th edit. vol. ii; Revue thomiste, Nov.-Dec, 1928, pp. 46 3-6; A. Gardeil, Structure, vol. ii, p. 248; Revue thomiste, May-June, 1929, pp. 272-3).
object, or enters into
love experiences these things
which
are hidden the
judge of divine things, by a special instinct of the
more more highly does it Holy Spirit.'2

bears
rather to be the
A precious passage which demonstrates how mystical wisdom judges

the things
of God by an
affective experience
which
it
onto
those
What I have
actual
here called objectum quo
is
neither charity nor
wisdom
taken as
habitus,
John of the Cross {he. tit.), since these created

which, as in a mirror, a certain likeness to
effects are
no longer there
like a quod in.
but the feeling actually experienced
by the
soul, the actual effects
which
serve as an
God may be read,
but only as a quo or means
medium ofknowledge under the illumination of the Holy Ghost. So God is still known by his effects (necessarily so in so much as he is not seen in his essence), but these
no longer the things or objects already known to the soul by which it rises in the ananoetic manner of human knowledge, where God is known by his shoulders, in the words of St. John of the Cross (Cant. str. 32, 19. See also chap, vii, infra); they
effects are
of attaining to
ing through
God himself.
This is not an absolutely immediate knowledge (only the
are like the touches
which
the things
of connaturality which are felt under the light of the Spirit, and by of God are experienced in themselves. Briefly, the objective inter-
knowledge truly ifimperfectlyimmediate, without passany created quod in order to reach the divine; so that God is attained, not only without the reasoning whereby a substance is known per accidens, but touched and obscurely experienced: what the mystics in speaking of the highest stages of experience and union have described as 'substantial touches' and as 'a meeting of naked substances, that is to say, the soul and the divine' (St. John of the Cross, see infra, chap. vii).
beatific vision is that), but it is
mediary is there neither an infused idea nor a principle of inference, it is the actual infused love which has passed under the illumination of the Spirit into the' condition of an
objectum quo,
by which and in which the contact between God and the soul is felt: 'Spintus testimonium reddit spiritui nostrum per effectum amorisfdelis, quem in nobis
Thomas, In Ep. ad Rom.,
viii, 16).
If it is necessary to be still more precise, we may say that infused love and the touches of connaturality here spoken of are not in themselves 'formal signs' or the pure in quo of intellection like the concept, but that, under the illumination of the Holy Ghost, they
are able to play a part

is
facit' (St.
When the soul has become nothing but

Spirit or
comparable to that of the formal sign, but in a knowledge which wholly obscure, experimental and apophatic, which unites the soul to a hidden God,
J
love,
when nothing in the soul presents an obstacle to the light of the Holy snys in self-consciousness, it becomes wholly
a certain spiritual touch
quasi ignoto.
and savour. So that according to a superhuman manner God 1$
means of perceiving God by means of a instead of being known by his effects even
translation, chap, iv, pp. 1 3 8-9
John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol., i-ii, q. 68-70, disp. 18, a. 4, n. 9, and 5. In the French and 1 42.
known
immediately or 'by his face' sayi
St.
324

which
arc hidden
tilings
from faith.
divine reality is hidden from us
the very degree to which the transcendently beyond the grasp of any
It is in
its
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY experimental fruition in God which mystical wisdom seeks
here below.
325
to realise
created
art a
idea that
this secret
wisdom knows
experience. Truly thou

FIDES ILLUSTRATA DONIS
It is
hidden God, the
saving
God of our salvation: all the more die living and God in that thou art hidden! The soul cherishes these shadows of
it
obvious that
this is
an experience,
as present,
if the word experience signifies
knows that they are fecund, because it knows, it feels that them can it intimately taste, know by experience the depths of in only our God. This is the theological root of the doctrine of St. John of the Cross: 'Seek him by faith and by love, and like a blind man these two
faith because
the
knowledge of an object
where
the soul takes the impress
of an action exercised upon it, and perceives by reason of this submission. It is a vital, a free, a meritorious operation, but one in which the
soul does
not
move itself (in as much as
'to
move oneself' is to perform
by roads thou canst not know into the secrecy of God. ... He is hidden from thee if thou doest not hide thyself like Him in order to know Him and to feel Him. If a man wishes to find someguides will lead thee
by virtue of an anterior act), but where it is moved and put into immanent activity solely by the work of the grace of God, as the living instrument of the Holy Spirit, which raises it to a higher direction in the
an act
suspension of its
scribe
it
thing hidden he must enter into the secrecy of its hiding place to find it,
human manner of action: which is why the mystics deor non-action. This experience can be
it
and when he finds

that he is hidden
it
he
is
hidden
as it
is.
Always thou must know

.' x
. .
as a passivity
called
im-
and serve his hiddenness in hiding thyself.
mediate in the sense that
makes use of no intermediary images, drawn

not the vision of the
us,
Thus,
finally, it is the connaturality
of charity of which the inspiration
from
ogies.
creatures, since
it
goes beyond the method of concepts and analit is
of the Spirit makes use so that we may judge of the things of God under a
direction
tain, in
But it is
not immediate in the sense that
from above, by a new formal reason: in such a way that we atdoes theological
faith,
divine essence
effects, i.e.
and God
is still,
as St.
Theresa1 teaches
known
by his
the obscurity of faith, not only to an entirely supernatural ob-
by
ject, the ipsissimum divine as such, as
but
also to
very roots
which he produces in the affections and in the of the powers of the soul, and which are like some touch or
the effects
manner of knowledge which is in itself superhuman and

Illustre
supernatural.
taste which is spiritually
known in the darkness of faith.2

effects
quiddam cernimus,
Cp. her Autobiography, chap, xxvii, 'By the
which God produces
in the soul
Quod nesciatjinem pati. ..?

It
must be
clearly understood that

is
what
am speaking
of here
is
not
speaking here of 'the presence of God quietude which is often felt by those who are favoured with the union of prayer and Christ. But the and which she opposes to the intellectual vision of the humanity of condition words are applicable to all the degrees of mystical experience of deity, on the
we understand
that he
is there.' St.
Theresa
is
a perfect experience, that
reserved for the kingdom of die blessed, but
that it is clearly
slightest inference
the
commencement of
that experience,
which can never be
fully or
remembered that in the highest degrees there is no knowledge of the from the effects to the Cause, but an immediate
3, supra. Also,
question of the
wholly achieved in this with
life;
how charity, by virtue of its affective union

Ghost,
Cause in the effects.

!
God dwelling in our souls, under the motion of the Holy

hand
experiences and possessively knows near at
by the suprarational
as a
It is
perception of the gift of wisdom God

gift, as
made
present in the soul
the object of experience and possible fruition.
the dedication
itself; this
written in the heart of the very nature of sanctifying grace

a
eaamsi in animae quo experimentaliter senator, corpus reddit vwum et sua substantia non videatur, est informatio et animatio, quae objectum conjuncaoimatum, ita contactus Dei quo sentitur experimentaliter, et ut intimae, quo operation* contactus tum, etiam antequam videatur intuitive in se, est eo quod imcttoeps operatur intra cor, ita ut sentiatur et experimentaliter manifestos, experimental datur earns docet nos <k amnions, ut dicitur I Joan. iv. Haec cognitio tactnme effectus, quasi per
17, a. 3, n. 13
Cp. p. 322, n.
John of
St.
Thomas,
Curs, dieol,
i,
P. q- 43. <%>
and
17: 'Sicut contactus
St.John of the Cross, Cant.,
res intuitive
str. i,
second redaction.
vivificationem sentiatur, sicut

intuitive
Hymn for the Transfiguration.
non videatur in se, sufficit quod per proprios cognosomus, etuu animam nostram experimentaliter ejus substantiam non videamus.
326

truth! I
327
What then has become of concepts? They have not been obliterated
that
mean the actual distinct use of such conceptual formulas as a for-
would be contrary to
be.
the very nature of our intelligence,

are
still
which has
need of them to
They
there.
But
all distinct
concepts have
mal means of knowingit obliterates in a certain way, not by sight but that distance from its object which is die by the experience of love,
state
grown
silent, are asleep, as
And
the
on the Mount of Olives. confused concepts which intervene, and which may remain
the Apostles slept
of faith alone. So,
as
Joseph of the Holy

its
Spirit has
shown,1
it is
faith itself which
in attaining
object
by a new formal modality due
wholly unperceived, only play a purely material part. I would say indeed that if mystical experience passes through them, it is not by way of the
formal means of knowledge which regulates and measures our knowing, it is without being measured by them, as conditions which are required on the part of the subject, and that
fused, so indistinct, as
little
is
to the gifts
itselfis rendered
of wisdom and knowledge, and of which it is incapable by more savorous and penetrating,2 and makes us ad-
here in a purer,
ject,
more
perfect, a
superhuman manner
to
its
ultimate obare the sign,
to that divine reality

is
of which the conceptual formulas

spirit:
why they may be so

will: the
con-
and which
there possessed in the unity of the

3
Qui
adliaeret
formal means and the law of mystical knowledge come from elsewhere. It is the connaturality of charity as it is guided by the Holy Spirit which plays the
formal part.
love which
discernible as
one
Domino, unus spiritus est.

It is
bounds of
freed
a disastrous illusion to look for mystical experience outside the faith, to imagine the possibility of a mystical experience
The proper light of infused contemplation is the ardour of a bums in the night. This is why this supreme wisdom, this
from theological faith. Living faith illuminated by the gifts of the

very core of this experience, and to recall the royal words of of the Cross, which no philosophical commentary will ever be
it is
Spirit is the
St.
knowledge of love, which, says St. John of the Cross, we may compare to 'a warm light',1 is described as a renunciation of knowsupernatural
John
able to efface,
cal
die single direct and proportionate
way to the mysti-
ledge and an ignorance,
ray of darkness for the mind', in the words of Dionysus the Areopagite. An apophatic or negative' contemplation, we
'a
union.
HI.
may add, which unites

superior to
all
A TRANSITION TO THE CONSIDERATION OF

necessary to
insist
CERTAIN PROBLEMS
us experimentally to die
ignoto.
our knowledge, Deo
God hidden from and Finally, we see how mystical
It is
wisdom, feeling andsuffering by love those things to which faith attains in

concealment, enables us to judge and to estimate in a higher and richer manner than we can know by faith, but does not discover any other object
the
of the experience
on these theological considerations, they are what one is talking about in speaking knowing unique method of new probof divine things. Before approaching any
lems certain explanations are necessary.
of knowledge than that offaith. Mystical experience perfects faith in the mode of knowing, not in the thing known. Indeed, how could it go
beyond faith when faith is

of the inward and hidden
perienced here on earth
at the centre, possessed in itself of knowledge

life
pure and simple, the There is only one spirituality for man in the that which is given spirituality, absolute sense of the word: supernatural life into love, renwhole our translates by the Holy Ghost, and which
I'fides
of God?
It is
the
God of faith who is
ex-
illnsn donis
est habitus
conterapkrionem.' proxlme elidens divmam
Curs.
by his
theol.tnystico-schol.,t. u.dtep. I3,q.i,sect. 3,11.15.
reverberation, his implanting in the soul
by
love, the
God of the
beatific vision
who
will be at once seen and
tasted in the life
of the world to come: for mystical experience is the beginning here on earth of the experience of our homeland of heaven.
.Icco^pta^^g m Wînaihersense.afdthwMchis^
-St. Christ
.
Thomas (Hi, SS, a. ad. 1) says that jU,faft. a faith which sees.'.
the faith
of the Aposd
"**
ofcheeyes.butbythesupernaturalHghtofcheg^
tion
Whenin the act ofinfused contemplation the gift ofwisdom, under the
action of God, delivers faith from the
that
of die Holy Ghost by the gift

fl
* ? X mdmnatmht, ^yn^^^^co.m^^^^^^^^^.
using the savour
of love
..
human mode of concepts and ana-
asitwerei
tion,
i^.^R.Ga^^
2.
logyI do not say from conceptual formulas which express the revealed
1
6th edit. v.
Seem/,chap.vii,p.4i7.
s <5
Be KoXXAnevos
t Kvptm
ev
mefya
eW,
Cor.
vi. I7-,
328

it

mathematician and the logician:
practical intelligence,
329
in this sense that St. Paul speaks of th spiritual man in opposition to the 'carnal', the animal or physical marf to everything which is not of the order of holiness. 'For the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is
is
den
entirely spiritual. It
we
can also find
it
in the
work of the
for the will like the intellect
is
a spiritual faculty
foolish-
ness to him,
and he cannot understand: because it is spiritually
and there can be neither liberty nor virtue without some spirituality: already it is there, like some secret principle of animation, in the humblest
efforts
examined"
But the spiritual man judgeth all things and he himself is judged by no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.'1
earthly things.
of the peasant or the artisan to impose the form of reason on But it is in the moral life of metaphysics or poetry (of the
Why it
natural
is
everything which comes to him from them by means of intellectual activity. Reason, which transcends the senses, works nevertheless in their stockyard. Even the highest philosophy remains a
man
so I have already endeavoured to explain: 'The animal or

receives
any other of the creators of forms), when man is by an inspiration which, whether it directs him to rise upward 1 or to sink downward, remains or may remain nevertheless in the natural
poet or the musician or
touched
by
his senses his ideas
from without: he gathers
8 order, that this natural spirituality is rightly seen. In
its
highest degree it
shows itself as bound up with that natural love of God which is inscribed
in the heart
charity
it
of our being, but whichwithout grace and supernatural

this is
tributary of
their materialism.
cannotestablishits single dominion overourwill; and

of those
why
'This
is
why mystical language knows only two terms: life

life
resembles a strange reflection, a strange homesickness for the spiritual
according
plenitude
I
to the senses and

those
senses
whom St. Paul calls 'perfect* or

as
'the sons
of God'.
in the spirit: those
who watch
and the
in the Spirit.
who sleep in their sensuality and Because we have only two sources- the
would hold in particular,

and
has been pointed out in the last chapter, metaphysics:

it
that a mystical inspiration traverses all great
would ap-
Spirit
of God.
'Man has a spiritual soul, but it informs a body. Reason cannot suffice life. Man's sole authentic spirituality is bound up with the grace of the Holy Ghost' a -this applies to spirituality in the pure and simple meaning of the word, that fills and takes hold
to bring us into a wholly spiritual
of the entire being.
pear,
effective
we will return to this point later on, that a definitebut indesire to know the first Cause in its essence is like a secret fire
mark of spirituality may be imprinted on only some part of our being or our life, on some one aspect or from a certain side. This is
already spirituality ofa kind. In this sense there exists a natural spirituality and of various kinds, by which the human soul bears witness to its proper essence. find it in the exercise of the speculative intelligence: weighed down as it is by other things, there is a spiritual element in the work of the scholar and the philosopher, of the pixels Sivriv XpioroO fop*. St Paul, I Cor. of multiple degrees
But the
would like to reproduce here a note from my RJponse a Jean Cocteau (pp. 58-9}: or rather the author of Ethics to Eudemes, has written, It will be asked perhaps if it is a man's good genius which makes him desire what he should and when he should. Without thinking, deliberating or taking counsel, he is able to rliinV and to wish for what will suit him best. What is the cause of this unless it is a man's good genius? But what is this good fortune in itself and how does it come that it holds these
I
Aristotle,
happy inspirations? This comes back to asking what

motions of the soul?
is
the supreme principle
of the
Now it is manifest that God, who is the origin of the universe, is
We
also that of our souls. All things are moved by him, who is himself present in us. ... The origin of reason is not reason, but something higher. But what is higher than reason and intelligence if not God? This is why the ancients said, Happy are those who
remLt ^Tt \
sed
COmmetlt oa j*
-
sa
dorSr
-
ii,
14-16
without deliberating are moved to do well. This does not come from their will, but from a principle which is present in them, which is superior to their intellect and their will Some even by divine inspiration foresee the future.'
<ct:
'. . .
In omnibus
ille
qui recte
se habet,
The old philosophers are not alone in recognising

the natural order, the theologians
this special
Vlgikm enim ^cte ju dit
do
so also. Cp.
R. Garrigou-Lagrange
movement of God in in La Vie
er se vigilare et
alium dormire;
spirituelk.Jvly,
1923, p. 419.
^^^"Pinmakhomojudicarenon potest, sicutnec vigilans a dormiente.' J antan Dk % Chronic h Roseau d'Or,

' .
On this problem of natural spirituality, cp. the forthcoming book by Charles Du Bos, Dm spirituel dans Vordre littiraire, of which the first chapters of an admirable and
penetrating quality have already appeared in Vigile (1930-3 1).
1928
330

of the metaphysician.
331
in die heart
He does not know what he so

that love
desi
When this
of
'
the philosopher as such cannot even have an idea
of the beatific vision

is
spiritual
what God has prepared for those

mystical.
him. This desire
nativd
ascetic
of and makes use of those natural means of a moral and order which contemplation righdy so called normally presupin quest
'natural contemplation'
is
cultivated
by minds
perfection
On
its
poses, it is
understandable
the other
hand
there
isif one
takes the
word
contemplation
in
become
difficult,
widest sense, as meaning a
form of concentrated meditation

Magnus,
'is
why the discernment of the difference may despite the diversity in their essential natures and the
there is
a natural contemplation', which, said Albcrtus
fection of him who contemplates, and which remains in the intellect" without 'passing on into the heart by love'. Contemplatio Philosophorum
est
for the per-
of various means ofjudgment. are well aware, for example, of the difference between animal and vegetable species, but in a given instance the biologist may know considerable hesitation between
possession the two. Let us
sophers' in a
We
only here remark that

state
this
propter perfectbnem contemplantis, et ideo

in
'contemplation of the philo-
eorum
sistit in intellect, et ita finis
hoc
est cognitio intellects.
Sed contemplatio Sanctorum

idcirco,
est propter
amorem
remains as the highest point of that rational and discursive activity which is righdy human, but whose stability is al-
pure
ipsius, scilicet contemplati
Dei:
non
sistit
in fine ultimo in in-
ways precarious, for nature

not
to
rest. It
is
always pressing us on.
It soars,
tellect per cognitionem, sed transit
but
it
can-
ad affectum per amorem?-
The "contemplation of die philosophers', ifit does not progress into the heart by love that is to say, for it is necessary to take these
words in the
proceed by the steps of love, gressi bus amoris, and does not proceed by the very quality of the union of love (which would suppose the love of supernatural charity)may
itself
strictest sense, if it
has neither that inert passivity of those subnormal

is
states
due
temperament, sickness or imagination (which

rests
a sort of pseudo-
contemplation which
sivity
but cannot
soar),
nor the supernatural pasis
does not
of
'the
contemplation of die
saints',
which
in reality the
most
neverthe-
be united with a natural love of the contemplated object, be filled with a fondness for it, which gives it the colour of an affective and exless
incomparably profound activity, and which produces in the soul a unique suppleness and self-mastery. That contemplation at once soars and reposes: et volabo et requiescam.
perimental experience.
It is
in itself an entirely different thing from
mystical experience properly so called,
where distance is overpassed and

contemplated and
affec-
IS
THERE AN AUTHENTIC MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE NATURAL ORDER?
which
attains
not only an object
intellectually
Thus
we have
admitted on the one hand the existence of a natural
tionately coloured
by reason of its conformity to
the desires of the mind,
spirituality'
(taking the
word
spiritual in a relative sense)
and on the
a
butlayshold onareality which is loved with passion, penetrated through and through with the fire of the love with which
it
other that
of a natural contemplation'
(the
word contemplation being

is
enflames the soul,
used in a loose and inaccurate sense).

natural mystical desire
tion;
and with which the soul is united. There, as we have seen, it is the connaturality of love which, under the illumination and special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is the formal means of knowledge. Still, in regard to the exterior and outwardly visible signs by which outsiders judge of
these things, certain extrinsic resemblances two conditions.
adf ert
We have admitted that there
or natural aspiration towards mystical contempla(in the large sense
and that there is

not in
of the word) a certain natural con-
templation,
itself mystical,
which can neverdieless be made use of

are confronted
by this mystical desire.
may be found
between
die
The ground being so cleared, we much more relevant question: i.e. Is
by another and
of a
Evi-
there a mystical contemplation
boT ?
a ,.rW
fVeo,chip
t
be.
. (JUbZ* [Revue Ihomtste,
"inasm now on again rul Scheebcn d'AJbert

l
,.'
'
After for a time having attributed this precious

recognises Albertus
le
natural order? Is there a mystical experience in the natural order?

little
Magnus
as its
denuy, if one gives to the words 'mystical experience' a vague sense, inclusive
<Les Ecritt
Grand
d'apres les Catalogues'
of
all
the diverse analogies
which the natural order may preanswer

is
Mar.-Apr. 1931).
sent to infused contemplation, an' affirmative
easy and
$32

allow it
It
easily
would be useless to dally over a mere

its
333
But
the question so put loses all
quarrel of word
is, is
i
interest.
The
question
there
authentic mystical experience in the exact

(i) neither
i
an'
meaning of the words,
There can be no 'immediate seizure' of God in the natural order: authentic mystical contemplation in the natural order is a contradiction in
terms: an authentic experience
and makes
a counterfeit nor an illusion; (2) which bears on God himself us sensible of the divine reality: is an experiencing
which
of the depths of God, a
felt
contact with
God, zpati divina, can only take place in the order of sanctifying grace
and by its means.
FIRST OBJECTION
ledge of God possible in the natural order?
know-
To
this
question
we must reply in
For
it is
categorical fashion.
the negative and that in the most

distinction
the
whole
grace which
between nature and
God is sovereignly intelligible being sovereignly immaterial, the pure

act
is
here called in question.

exposition
of intellection in himself.
It is
because of this that he
is
present within
God, of that proper and special presence of the Trinity in the just soul as a gift and object of fruition, is to render possible that passion of divine reality this experience of the deep things of God. To realise this experience of God is the peculiar end of those gifts of knowledge and wisdom winch, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, raise the mind to know its object a superhuman mode due to connaturality and charity It is therefore precisely and only the supernatural which permits of an experimental knowledge of God and this is its particular direction. To admit in any degree, even in the simplest
above has made evident one capital truth: that the exact quality of grace, of that infusion which grafts into us a new spiritual nature and turns us face to face with
The theological
which has been
set forth
us.
Does not the immaterial presence of such
mtelfigibility in a created
mind suffice for it to perceive at least obscurely that presence? This does not suffice. (If it were sufficient we could then
least
attain at
confusedly to the formal object of the beatific vision and even

beatific vision itself here
know the
halves.)
right
on
earth, for the question
is
that
of
perceiving
God in his
is
essence
and
that cannot
be done obscurely or by
There
another condition necessary for
God
to
be present
in
of the
object:
the powers and subjective vitality of the created
mind
must be proportionate to
this absolutely transcendent intelligibility.
And what makes

sence
is
the created
mind
so proportionate to the divine es-
sanctifying grace in
its
radical principle
of operation; the im-
imaginable form, an
mediate means in the case of perfect possession are the lumen gloriae, or, in
the obscure
living faith
authentic experience of the depths

necessarily imply:
of God upon the natural plane would
and imperfect possession which can be known here on earth,
and the gifts of the Holy Ghost.
Either confounding our natural intellectuality, which is made by being in general, with our intellectuality in grace, which is made specific by the divine essence itself:
1.
specific
SECOND OBJECTION
According to the teaching of
loves
St.
2.
Or confounding
all his
sent in
rteof^te
3-
of immensity, whereby God is precreatures by the power of his creative might, with the WeUing f Gd that s eciaI resen in the soul in a P P
'
the presence
Thomas, 1 every
creature naturally
God more than itself, though ineffectively in the case offallen man,
grace cannot rightly direct himself towards his true end.
is
who without
There
therefore a natural love of
God which
is
distinct
from superproduce,
as
Or again muddling up
natural charity. 2
in the
TTl
4-
d der(m te h sicd P y n f Ur finally attributing to
same hybrid concept the wisdom of of God what

exclusively
Why
cannot
this natural
love of
God
^^)^meinfus C dgiftofwisdom:
to
charity in the supernatural order, a knowledge
of God by connaturality?
the natural love
belongs to supernatural charity.
God
Reply: Connaturality means conformity in the same nature. Now is supernatural subsistence; and it is absurd to suppose that we
5:
confound what is absolutely propertogracewithwhatisnatureandoftheorderofnature.
>
one way or another
this
would be
ûm. theol, i, 6, p.
"fflictlonibus.
and i-ii, 109, 3.

this
^The church defined
point against Baius. Cp. the Bull of Pius V,
Ev
omnibus
334

bein R oursel^
can be connaturalised to the supernatural without

naturallove, can make us connatural with
attaxns to
335
naâhsciOrJythethcologicdvirmeofcharitv.beiurS
God.
( i) It
or linn
SUper"
incapable of our rightful connaturalisation with divine love of God is procuring a knowledge of God by connaturality, a things and so of mystical experience of the deep things of God.
Wg
God
The
^^^ledge.firp^^bythemktheW.brSr
of love really present in us by of 9/ andasthefriendin whose life and beatitude we ing from supernatural faith which however obscurely and at a attams to God according to his essence, and not nosauve vn-tues are to reaching its object by means of conceptual
God as
the object
mayshawSpf^
X
it
Without doubt,
man
and resemblance of his Creator, assume

ture,
being made, in die natural order, in the image we can very well admitif, at least, we
as
consS
Sf
hypothesis the standpoint of the state of pure or integral na-
tW
where
we would
all
be able to love
God
as the
author of our being
Z
s'
effectively that this
by our simple natural powers we can well admit natural love of God, which is supposed as loving God in an efabove
W^jy and
natural love
object as
fective fashion,
it
exists in itself, charity
already nere
bdoTkv
pathy with
may create an active similitude, a form of natural symGod in so far as he may be attained to by creatures. From
in
himself^
faith
cannot know him);
ZsGod
Even
which would follow an affective complaisance towards the rationally
of God has none of these

all,
known object and even, under a special inspiration of the natural order, judgments on the divine perfections by the processes of inclination and
characteristics.
sup-
instinct.
effectively love
God above
This
this love,
^ce as creatures infinitely distant
fiJJ" from the Pure Act, whi ZZt b

which proceeds
ence,
but which,
would produce a very high analogy with the mystical experino more than any other analogy, cannot be taken for
For
it
the thing itself.
implies
no
for
rightful experience
of the divine
reality
present within us,
no passion
God suffered in the soul, no felt contact

is
with God, but a
knowledge which
affection.
always essentially
at a distance,
knov
good
TZ X
u ht
anal0glCaI
^Tentt^XGotT^r eood-ilT3i? much v Ae ^ ' ^

C
1S S
fa^fcdge where God is only 31 bd y rigk f fc

k"
as
i.
V
*
however determined by
of which
And this feeling or natural sympathy
transcendental
God:
tical
at least, if
we have spoken cannot be called a true connaturality with we are not to confuse all words in one, the words myswhat is
i.e.
suprcme
subs stent Gq
experience must be reserved for
a formal
and not only vir-
tual participation
in the divine nature,1
participation in
God
in as
amoris.' Jl/i a d. . 3
S
g
'
iUmmm *< Deo

, J
much as he is God and not by example of created things. But, most of all, this state of pure or integral nature does not exist:
conjungit, spiritual* vinculo
fact,
in
the possibility
all
De
^^ ôoâd.i;^,^^^
cannot exist without
A rigbt&AfrienJship between m
CW/tote
,
of loving God the author of our being effectively and

has simply not been given to us.
state.
disp
m!?
St
11
?d " not Possiblc

duri
na^^ order and

t.
above
things
by our natural powers

is
tV
* (S^^ticensis, Curs, theol,
xii,
The hypothesis
a fiction and is without any relevance to our real
deiry andinwardVe
ly attained to
d ,1C su reme Good dbt Go^ l !*** P
Nevertheless the rough outline of this natural resemblance of the way of the natural love of God to mystical experience remains possible: in
fact this love,
quod est
4,7.
co&&io non potest attingcre Deum, secundum objectum beatitudinf. S* proutreadltinipsum S pe S etcharitas.'5M m.//p/.,ii-ii, "
by
charity 'Natur V
but in his Godhead, in his . JCCt. fsu P eraatu <*I beatitude and is immediate-
for
all
all
that
it
remains incapable of making us effectively
prefer
This
God to
is
things
else,
can yet be both profound and intense, and
why no virtual participation in the divine nature suffices to create a rightful friendship between man and God. (Cp. Salm., he. (it.).
336

effect, if not in

'"
realm of our speculative pirations: it can create in the soul this outline of resemblance and *t this which raises to a purer and higher degree of inspiration and
life,
have
337
our
at least in the
2 Massignon1 and Asin Palacios on Islam, the contemporary study ofHas3 sidism, and the personal testimony of a Father Wallace or Mukerji*
to
natural
spirituality the various natural analogies to

shall consider at a later stage,
Hindu spirituality, or still more the works of present-day ethnographers

other truths
the
contemplation which we
THIRD OBJECTION
which are contained in a confused form in these two first. Cp. the study by Rev. Fr. Schulte, Fides Inplicita, Pustet, Regensburg and Rome. An adult can only bejustified by some manner ofbeliefin the redemption worked by
the mysteries
There are mystical schools among Mohammedans, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Their claim to mystical experience does not rest on theological faith. There is therefore a natural mystical experience.
One
thing
is
certain: if
we
experience, these cases result
so encounter cases of authentic mystical from divine grace and from infused con-
more or less modified in their typical forms by special conof development, existing outside the affluence of sacramental grace and the visible radiation of the revealed truth. 1
templation,
ditions
Redeemer allows of three different degrees or states: of the Incarnation and Redemption such as we Christians know; the idea of a mediator between God and men; and finally the conviction that God in his mercy has foreseen in some manner the salvation of the human race. St. Thomas, speaking of those who lived before the coming of Christ and who are saved by following the voice of their conscience, writes, 'Although they lacked an explicit faith (in a Mediator), they had nevertheless implicit faith in the divine providence, believing that God would save men by some means pleasing to him.' (Sum. theol., ii-ii, 2, 7, ad. 3.) Thus to believe that God will save by those means which are pleasing to
Christ. This faith in Christ the
explicit belief in
him is to
possess
an implicit
faith in Christ the
Redeemer.
It is difficult
to sustain the
Everything
leads
idea that the conditions are different for those
who, living after the coming of Christ,

est-
us to think that such cases do exist, for we know that the unbaptized, though they lack the seal of unity and cannot participate by virtue of the Church in the proper work of the Church, which
is
have never heard of him. (Elisee de la Nativite\ L'ExpSrience mystique d'Ibn 'Arabi elk surttaturelle? Etudes Carm^litaines, Oct. 1931.)
homines sine exceptione vult salvosfieri
tus Jesus
fuerit, ita
the continuity of
it
The teaching of the Church should be remembered here: 'Deus omnipotens omnes (I Tim. 2, 4), licet non omnes salventur; ChrisD. N.,
nullus
sicut nullus
est, fuit
redemption,
natural
life
may
nevertheless receive without
knowing
that super-
homo
erit,
est, fuit
vel
erit,
cujus natura in
fuerit; licet
which is the divine life-blood in the veins of the Church and the direction oftheSpiritwhich guides the Church; may belong invisibly to the Church of Christ, and have sanctifying grace and so theological faith and the infused virtues. 2 From this point of viewworks like thoseof *A man who has not been given a good as a birthright values it the more because he Has had to win it for himself. Many of us Christians could from this point of view
take lessons in fidelity from these infidels. But the very degree of the prestige in which contemplate is held by the spiritually-minded in paribus infidelium and the resources which they dispky in translating and considering what they have obtained, particular^ where the faculty for poetic
;
vel
.
pro quo passus non
illo assumpta non non omnes passionis
.' (First Council of Chiersy. Cp. Council of Trent.) Bas. words of St. Paul, that Christ died for all men (II Cor. v, ij), the Church has condemned the following propositions: 'Semi-pelagianum est dicere, Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortuum est et sanguinem fudisse:' 'Chris-
ejus
mysterio redimantur.
ing herself on the
tus dedit
semetipsum pro nobis oblationem Deo, non pro

'
solis electis,
bus et solisJidelibus-' 'Pagani, Judaei, haeretici aliique hujus generis

cipiunt a Jesu Christo influxum
J
sed pro omninullum omnino ac-
'Extra Ecclesiam nulla conceditur gratia.'
L Massignon,
2 vols.
La
Passion d'Al-Hosayn-ibn-Mansour-al-Hallaj, martyr mystique 4e
1'Islam,
Paris, 1922; 'Le
Diwan
i'lA-HaUa},' Journal asiatique, Jan-.Mar. 1931.
in our estimate
expression exceeds the experience,
may
deceive us
pHyaolop which prepares for and accompanies

accidental guts
is
of the stage which they have reached.
On the other hand, the whole
with Al-Hallaj, the hero of the primary work of Louis Massignon, Ayn al-Qudat alHamadani, a mystic of the same lineage, may be connected, whose Sakwa was published
contemplation (without speaking of
by M.J. M. Benabdeljali (Journal asiatique.J3a.-M.s1. 1930).
which
stretched to
'
its
are frequently suspect), in these cases where the human search uttermost, may stand out in particular relief. If these observations are
purLr^
""
lMa must be i
ea
cristianizido, estudio del 'sufismo' a trove's de las obras de Abenarabi de Murcia, Madrid, 193 1 . The case of Ibn-Arabi appears to call for much more
Miguel Asin Palacios, El Islam
re g<fcd as quite exceptional in its elevation and
reserve than that
of Al-Hallaj. The simple value of verbal correspondences
gives
little
ground for pronouncing, even approximately, on the value of a mystical experience.
S)? ~ ^"'^to<S t p, 4Hcb.xi,<0, M rfatIeimplWtIy bytkt^^

l
the two first truths of the supernatural order ft-S^-V T' J Sf0rm ? y sdvati0n '^wm save thosewhoseekforhim^sine fide
fi!t
adteren
Cp. Horodetzki, Ha-Hassidout-ve-ha-Hassidim, Berlin, 1922;

sidischen Biicher,
M.
Buber, Die Ckas-
1928 ; J. de Menasce, Quand Israel aime Dieu, Paris, 193 1.
D. G. Mukerji,
cismepar
la route
My Brother's Face,
1929;
W. Wallace, De I'Evangelisme au
Catholi-
>
deslndes, Brussels, 1921.
338

and complicated region. and something very
in

However
cases
is
339
on primitive prayer, give us the most precious confirmations offact.1 And

these are only the first explorations in a difficult
seem, die discernment of these authentic not impossible, at least in the order of probability. The criticism
difficult it
may
But
it is
of no syncretism that
essential object
we
are thinking,
different
from
a phenomenalistic
comparative mysticism, occupied

all spiritual
of expressions and evidence, the study of their analogies with and correspondence to the witness of the saints can help us; and no love which dis-
effacing
ial
its
and reducing
things to the mater-
plane.
would
seek to discriminate
What is desired is a theological comparative mysticism, which among and deepen the righdy spiritual
man of himself is without its indications, however fugitive they may be, when it penetrates the whole being with the desire to be
possesses a
dissolved
and to be with God, that
desire
of two
aspects
of which one
values and recognise the passage

his witness.
tion to
of God, who leaves no spot without Only such a comparative mysticism would be in the posidiscern and preserve everywhere what is authentic, because it
a
cannot exist without the other.
On
states
the other hand, a large harvest of doubtful or apocryphal cases
appears only too probable
when we
take into account the fact that
would refer all likenesses to

with a
hilate
series
known face, instead of peopling the world
of vain images which resemble nothing and which anni-
one another, or the endeavour to create a supposititious image by piling all the disparate elements in one confusion. Because there is a
of intense meditation and concentration more or less privileged, more or less forced, may present an external resemblance to supernatural contemplation, and that what may be called the 'physics' of the interior life
with all its train ofphenomena
('the weakness
of ecstasy', in the
who leads it is also the guide of those 'other sheep' who without knowing him have also received of his plenitude and who
flock the Shepherd
wordsof St. Hildegarde), may be roused by purely natural causes as well as by higher influences. In those instances where that natural or philosophical 'contemplation'
siderable part,
it is
have not yet heard his voice. Because she has received the deposit of revelation in
its
which was
that
it
in question
above plays a constate.
integrity the
Church permits
us to
honour wheresoever
seldom and
continues in a single or pure
they
may be
the scattered fragments of that revelation.
The
saints
who
Where it is not
larly
assisted
raised
above
itself by actual graces, particu-
belong to the visible Church enable us to recognise their far-off brothers
where
its
'realisation' is
most passionately sought and
lacks at the
who are ignorant of her and who belong to her invisibly:

Cross enables us to do justice to Ramakrishna. 2
Christ; the apostle Paul is the leader
St. John
of the
same time the disciplining control of dogma,
how
can
it fail
to
be ex-
The perfect imitator of
posed to corruptions and illusions, to the lower influences of bodily conditions
of all the truly spiritual men of all the
and of the imagination, and to higher influences which are yet
world, in whatsoever country they

virtuous
the spirit
1
may have been born, and just as the man is the measure of all human things 3 so in this supreme son of
all
of the natural or preternatural order, which are not divine and deed be perverse?
This problem of the relations between the
other separated intelligences
lation to diose regions
is
may inthese
authentic mystical
(supra),
life
finds
its
exemplar and its measure. 4

la psycho-
human mind and
Cp. L. Massignon
and
also infra, chap. vii;J. Mare"chal, Etudes sur
presented with particular sharpness in re-
logic Jes mystiques, vol. i (1924);
O. Lacombe, Orient et Occident, Etudes
carme'litaines,
Apr. 1931. And the works of Rudolf Otto,
E Heiler, P. Maison-Dursel, M. Horten, etc.
vealed and
where
nevertheless a heroic desire of spirituality
where the 'too great love of God' has not been remay come
to escape
*I do not at all ignore the dubious elements in the earthly destiny of a Ramakrishna, whose own personality appears to exhibit the features of a veracious contemplative,
to light. It is
fallen spirits
not only a question of those frauds and deceptions of the
serve; elements
and with regard to whose school and his continuators there is need of considerable rewhich are the less surprising in the lack of the maternal succour of the visible Church.
*Aristotle, Nie. Ethics,
which menace the reasoning animal seeking

of his nature.
of die soul in
itself,
from
the mediocrity
We cannot exclude the idea that certain

in non-christ-
ascetic efforts, certain sequestrations
book x, chap. v.
ian regions,
Both Deissmann (Pauhs, 1911) and Evelyn Underbill (The Mystic Way, iojr) recognise this pre-eminent and universal importance of St. Paul. (Cp. N. Arseniev, Das 'ganz anien' in ier Mystik, Philoscphia perennis, v. ii, pp. 1043 et seq.)
may
tend in fact (on die side of die subject) to a mental
commerce with the angelic nature as such, which is the same in the good
and the
evil angels;
and that
these dispute, for their
own
ulterior ends
340
341
the possession of this immaterial conwhich are proper to themselves, care which St. Thomas took to refute The soul. human vivium with the and others on the possibility for man Averroes Avempace, of the theories the world of pure spirits by intellecof achievement immediate of an 1 point this temptation may prove seductual intuition, shows to what case which I have suggested hypothetical philosophers. In this
tive to
human reason, which in its essence it is. At the same time the waters of the joined by less pure currents and tributaries. original spring have been
If the
pantheism of the Vedantas

1
is
more apparent than
real,
endured
and seems to be produced most of all by the lack of conceptual technique, if the immense mystical effort which runs through
rather than desired,
however, the
traction,
human spirit might find that it had conceded to not so much in a desire of seeing the pure spirits and
this at-
Hindu thought brings clearly into play those natural aspirations for perfect contemplation which seem to prefigure it in the natural order,
the natural processes
sharing
of asceticism and intuition which prepare its resting
their beatitude,
but in order to receive their assistance in being carried
to a
superhuman contemplation, where it might imitate in some fashion,
the perplace, and a metaphysic which looks for and prepares for it manent temptation for those who seek to conquer by their own efforts
a supernatural gift,
but quite another night than in a suspension of knowledge, in a night luminous cloud about Tabor, that of infused contemplation and the
which runs through all this thought, of thinking of a

is
choice of a supreme despair or pure abolition as the absolute good,
an
of the Supreme. their manner of self-knowledge and knowledge a certain kind of intelhow understand If it is so, we can more easily
lectual mysticism,
unequivocal sign of the fact that where infused contemplation has not
been given by grace
it
cannot be arrived
at
by natural means. 2 The
in-
which
seeks for ecstasy or 'realisation'
by means of
evitable alternative remains: either an authentic and supernatural mystical
asceticism
and an
entirely metaphysical dialectic,
and of which we can
experience (which may be overlayed by adventitious but accidental
find examples
among
the Neoplatonists and the Gnostics or in various
elements) or a natural contemplation

reality:
which does not
unite with divine

natural ex-
oriental schools
of thought,
may achieve
that absorption into the unity
form of of which Porphyry speaks apropos of his master, and so reach a intelhigher superhuman state which seems due to the collusion of a
lectual
may be variously commingled: no perience of the depths of God is to be found.

though the two
world: but
it is
equally comprehensible
how infinitely far such

against an angelic
al-
metaphysical ecstasy, where the human mind brushes

abyss,
is
DOES METAPHYSICS ITSELF REQUIRE A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE?
from any
interpenetration of divine things,
and indeed must
A new
question requires to be examined: can a mystical experience
most inevitably find its end in pantheism. It remains that the authentic forms precede the
the sacred traditions of India I
originally, in the first case, less
others. In regard to
of divine reality be incorporated in any fashion in philosophy or metaphysics? (or rather, supposing that the philosophical intellect is in a condition to overpass the
would hold
that die Upanishads depend
method of concepts, would
it
in itself be capable
source,
and on a powerful
intuition,
on a philosophy than on which is more mystical than meta-
a contemplative
of such an experience? or, on the contrary, since the philosophical intelligence, reduced solely to the conceptual process, would be by its nature incapable
!
physical,
this, of the transcendence of the Supreme. Neti! Neti! It is not been has contemplation this it is not that! The tragedy has been that one continued into a luxiant, hypertrophic rationalistic discussion,
of completing its metaphysical enterprise,
in the degree to
Paris,
Cp. R. P. Dandoy, L'Ontotogie du Vedanta (Coll. des Questions Disputes),
1932.
a In order to avoid any misunderstanding arising from a dubious use of words, it is perhaps not unnecessary to recall here that the words natural and supernatural are being used in the sense of Catholic theology (see pp. 314-17. *P0> noc "* &* lessenccl
which has never been
proper form according to the the laws of philosophy and metaphysics, like any odier work of
able to disentangle
its
l Sum. contra Gent, book iii, chaps. 41-j. Cp. also Sum. thcol. i-ii, 3, 7: 'Aliqualem autem beatkudinem imperfcctam nihil prohibit attendi in contemplatione angelor-
sense
allowed by some, notably
by
certain interpreters
which
thing
'natural' is applied to sensible
of Hinduism, according to and empiric nature and 'supernatural' to every-
um, et etiam altiorem, quara in considerationc scicntiarum speculativarum.
which transcends
that nature.
342

world,
It is
which it has an absolute need of the mystical experience to attain its object and fulfd its line of development, in order to become wisdom, does
it
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY which it has made, by its own abstractive power, its
by
343
object.
only
carrying the rational instrument to the highest degree
in itself demand to
be completed by this experience?). In other words,
does the
wisdom towards which the metaphysical effort tends require of
purification, in having recourse to the most strictly of intellectual that we may come to sure determinations in abstract demonstrations,
this
itself a mystical experience, apati divina?
order of knowledge
which
is
precisely that
which
is
least
open
to
This mystical experience which

effort
Once again the answer must be in the negative. would be required by

would
necessarily
is
experiencing.
metaphysical
Does
this necessarily
be either natural or supernatural.
We have
al-
physical experience? I
imply the do not think
denial of the existence of

so, at least in a real
all
meta-
meaning of the
ready seen that there

natural order.
to
no
rightfully described divine experience of a
views of M. Bergword (and here I am in agreement with certain of the

son).
To
affirm the possibility
of such an experience would be
Being
as
we
are spirits in the highest part of our nature,
we
can
compromise
radically the distinction
Would
the mystical
between nature and grace. would be required by metawhich experience

of infused contemplation?
it
spirit even while remaining on have an experience of the things of the experimentally not only know may we that. the natural plane. It is so
physical effort be of a supernatural order, that
This experience certainly

regard
it as
exists,
but to incorporate
in philosophy, to
demanded by metaphysical effort, is once again to make a confusion between the orders of nature and grace, by making an
in itself
essentially supernatural
of the soul and of our free will, but may also arrive at a cerperception of the liberty of the spirit tain obscure and experimental regard to the whole material universe, in transcendence its and within us
the existence
and even
ingness
(as is
notable in
much contemporary literature1 ) of the nothcreated. Again, a truth of the
knowledge a
requisite or constituting co-prin-
immanent in everything which is

the First
ciple
of an essentially natural form of knowledge.
natural order, such as the basic reality
The dilemma is brutal. I know of no way of escaping from it, despite any of the intermediate degrees which may be observed between metaphysical knowledge
phenomena or the
and infused contemplation.

exist
existence of of immediate ence of actual grace reach the intensity of an intuition, something revelation sudden a like receive can evidence; the intellect
of being hidden under sensible Cause, may under the influ-
Such intermediary degrees
without doubt.
When anyone thinks

of divine things it
that philosophy itself postulates a mystical experience

is
because
we have classified as mystical

beyond the
is
experiences,
making
use of the
abstraction which has been the proper object of the third degree of witness: 'Before being are mine of friend intimate very words of a the experienced a sudden infaith,' she said to me, 'I often
received into the
tuition
ciple
word mystical in an improper sense, states which, though not yet rightly mystical, are yet
natural demands.
limits
of the
reality
of my
of metaphysical science and
its
which divided
me
But it
clear that the existence of these intermediary
whose force was positively
of the profound, original prinfrom nothingness. It was a powerful intuition, gave me frightening to me, and which first
own being,
conditions denotes
no
intrinsic necessity in the
nature of philosophy by
diird degree of ab-
3 any knowledge pf a metaphysical absolute.'
Or even
better, at the
which it must end in mystical contemplation.

Metaphysics belongs in
straction, die
itself to
the
domain of the
will suddenly know in sight of a blade of grass, of a windmill, the soul that there is a an instant that these things are not only themselves and
Correspond* de iFor example in the letters ofJacques Riviere to Paul Claudel (see
Jacques Riviire etPaul Claudel, Plon, 1927).
such and of pure immateriality. Under pain of risking the value of our faculties of knowledge and the power of
world of being
as
the ananoetic process in
itself,
which
is
essential to
our natural
knowpro-
>A
similar experience
I
is
ledge of
it is
God
morning, while
flash
was
still
(as
in
dogmatic definitions and the formulas of belief),

admit that the intelligence, by
its
hand, towards the woodpile,
Autobiography: 'One mentioned by Jean-Paul Richter in his doorstep, looking to my lefta child, I was standing on the heaven, like a suddenly there came to me from
when
a
certainly necessary to
own
of lightning, the idea: I am on I

as
(Ich bin ein let),

all.
which since then has never Ids
per and exclusively intellectual means, can take cognisance of that
me;
though
saw myself as
self once and for
344

we may

Garrigou-Lagrange, the existence of
this
345
God. 'Suddenly', to quote the same friend again, 'all creatures seemed to appear as symbols to me, to have no other office than to show forth the
Creator.'
admit, in accord with the Carmelite theologians and Fr.
acquired contemplation, of
But
science
far
from being
integrally part
of or
necessarily requisite to the
which the prayer of active recollection described by St. Theresa in chapter xviii of The Way of Perfection appears to be the highest point.
of metaphysics, these forms of metaphysical experience or intui-
But
its
it
can be seen that
this
contemplation, which
faith
is it
supernatural in proceeds, and

definition
tion, whether they are of an exclusively natural order or are supernatural
object and by the virtue of
from which
its
in their
science,
means of production,
are all outside the proper sphere of that
which
alien
nevertheless remains natural in

passivity
mode, and so by
and may even, without its proper regulation, however true they may be in themselves, give rise to the most fundamentally false interpretations. Far
from the
gifts,
which
is
proper to the supernatural
mode
of
are
of the
cannot be called mystical, and remains on
this side
from being the exclusive property of the
metaphysician,
far
that experience
where the
soul truly endures those things
which
no
discipline
is
without such privileges and indeed they are
most
fre-
divine.
by poets. Let us not forget that it is supremely unreasonable to make use of what is accidental to judge a thing in itself. Because God filled Beseleel and Ooliab with a spirit of wisdom and understanding that they might make works of sculpture and of art, for the graving of stones and the carving of wood, for the weaving of patterns
quently encountered
in rare purple, in glowing scarlet, in velvet
that these arts in themselves
On the other hand, bearing as it

it is
absolutely apart
but the
reason.
does on the mysteries of revelation, from and above, not only metaphysical science, whole order of the truths which are as such accessible by
indication of any necessity
it
In consequence
it offers
no more
imma-
and
fine linen, 1
is
no proof
nent in the nature of metaphysics for

grate itself in mystical experience.
to overflow
its
limits
and inte-
demand
all
a mystical communication. Be-
There areand
these will
be the ob-
cause St. Theresa received in supernatural prayer the infused
know-
ject of our final considerationliving relations, in the synergic activity
ledge of the presence of God in
things in his creative immensity is no

is
of the
soul,
between mystical experience and philosophy, but without
proof that
alone,
this
metaphysical truth, which
in itself accessible
by reason
all
demands for its understanding a mystical experience. Because

prove that that idea
any transfusion, any mixing of their natures. Philosophy considered in the exigencies of its own nature and essence does not itself require a
mystical experience.
the pagan philosophers exhibit themselves as incapable of setting out

in a clear light the idea of creation does not
accessible
is
The intermediary states which are discoverable be-
in-
by
philosophical reasoning and postulates in itself the light of
revelation. Because for certain
people the form of metaphysical ex-
tween the two are outside the proper sphere of metaphysical science, whether they are essentially so by and through their object, as in the the mancase of the prayer of acquired contemplation, or per modum, by
ner in
perience
which
have described
may give
is
support at certain points

least
to
which knowledge is given to the soul,
as in the case
of certain ex-
the rightful science of metaphysics

science needs in itself to
not in the
a proof that that

exist
periences of metaphysical intuition.
be completed by such intuitions in order to
in itself as a perfectly certain

effectual knowledge
method of knowledge and
to attain an
of being.
THE NATURAL ANALOGIES OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

If there is
Another of these intermediary degrees between metaphysical speculation and infused contemplation is furnished by what is called acquired
contemplation, which
is
tural order, nevertheless
supernaonly a rightful experience of divine things in the has been (as order not find in the natural
do we
like the fruit
of the
exercise
this
of meditation.
Without entering
into the controversies

1
which
notion has aroused,
God) already pointed out with regard to the effects of the natural love of Asexperience? this of modes of knowledge which are like analogies
suredly.
Exod. xxxv, 30-35.
Those forms of experience and metaphysical
intuition
which
346

just
347
been in question are an example. Further, and in a much have more general fashion, all forms of natural knowledge by intuition and
sympathy, or by connaturality, supply a more or
less distant
moral activity. Knowledge by connecessary to consider matters of of the artist, in the worlds of in the activity also place naturality has a
art
I
analogy
and poetry.
of mystical experience.
am
Where do we
ledge
find at every instant in the natural order this
know-
places us in
not referring only to aesthetic contemplation, which at once connivance with its object, and in which one can often see,
1
is
by inclination?
In the immense
domain of those judgments which

It is
and not widiout reason, a far-off image on an inferior plane of mystical

contemplation.
are concerned with action,

excellence
of practical judgments.
a domain par
of knowledge by connaturality, which
necessarily intervenes
The point in question

there
is
the virtue of art
itself.
If in the natural order
in all prudential judgments,
where the object being singular and contin-
any
man who
has an understanding with, who, if I
may dare to
the poet,
art, in
art',
is
gent the intellect needs to judge in conformity with the rectitude of the
will.
use the words, has entered into a sort
of metaphysical complicity with

it is
Let
me recall my
human
quotation
measure of all
acts;
from Aristode, the virtuous man is the he judges of them according to the inclination
example which he
uses
God
he
the
as the Cause of
all
being,
it is
not the philosopher,

also a creator,
who
in his
own human manner is

is
and whose
of his
is
virtue: according to the classic
and which
words of Dante,
'the grandchild
of God'.
'Il
faut ignorer son
taken over
by
St.
Thomas, the chaste man judges by
inclination in
writes Claudel, 'pour trouver au Votre quelque defaut'.
The poet
those things which concern chastity, in consulting his

ing.
own inward leanSt.
These are certainly judgments with an intellectual value, and

is
Thomas
trary,
on
his
guard against any disregard for diem (on the conlife),
more prepared than any in disto know those forms of metaphysical experience which have been spirit, in the to gives joy which something create to cussion. His aim is
which shines the radiance of a form; he gazes into things and offers a witness, tremulous as it may be, to the spirituality which fills them; he
is
other to understand the things that are above,
he makes them the particular instrument of our moral

as
but
which, connected
trated
they are with the practical

appetite,
intellect, interpene-
by the will and the
remain
alien to the speculative
mode
connaturalised, not to
God himself, but to the mystery, which comes

through
all
of science and of philosophy.

It
from God and is
scattered
things,
of those
invisible
powers
should be noted that the moral virtues
and even the
first
natural
outline
of these
virtues in us
create in the soul a certain affinity with
the spiritual order, in the
most indeterminate sense of the words,
and,
* which play through the universe. poetry', is 'pure even poetry, Prayer, sanctity, mystical experience none of these things. But it is their most beautiful and dangerous na-
feebly
it is true,
can also incline the intelligence and the instinctive
tural
symbol. 2
And because it responds

all
it,
to the allusions
itself is
which
are scat-
judgments in favour of the great trudis of natural religion. This is one of the notable ingredients in the philosophy of Rousseau: a disposition towards these truths, an aspiration for metaphysical knowledge.
It is clear
tered
it
through
nature and because nature
a reference to grace,
gives us,
widiout our knowing
a presentiment of, an obscure desire
for
all
that that in this expectation
we
are very far
from
the
for, these
of, the possession of a sure means of determination problems of primary philosophy. Furthermore, these judgments are only capable of certitude on the supposition of their being
knowledge
the beautifiil object,

ject,
^he psychological process nevertheless is quite different in the two cases. Before we perceive the beauty before being connaturalised with its obwith it, a symand it is this perception indeed which makes us enter into sympathy Mantain, on its own side will determine a form of knowledge. (Cp. J.
it is
pathy which
Art and Scholasticism, note 55). While in mystical experience
the connaturality
in reality
more or
less
conscious apperceptions
of
common
of
sense or
which causes the perception.

to make, in a For this aspect of poetry, and for the distinction which it is necessary poetry, making use of the most accurate sense of the words, between art as such and Rtponse a Jean cp. my essay on 'The Frontiers of Poetry' {Art and Scholasticism) and my
Cocteau, 1926.
of the spontaneous
order.
intelligence,
which
are in themselves
a rational
But
it is
not only in the region of the practical intelligence that
it is
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE for, supernatural life. Someone who has never written a poem, but who is yet a true poet, said to me one day, 'I do not think it can be possible
348
to be a poet and an atheist.'
349
The Song of Songs, St. Paul's teaching of the great mystery of the union of Christ and the Church under the figure of marriage, lead us to
see in the
But he did not for
all
that imagine because
love of man and
woman an image, which may be impure but
of this that poetry must needs be an integral part of philosophy.

Finally, to bring these considerations to
an end,
we
must not
forget
which always retains some impress of its original nobleness and its metaphysical dignity, the image of a love which is better and essentially holy.
There is no more powerful thing on earth nevertheless it is only a simple image, a weak and rather inconsistent image, of that which it signifies.
:
the most obvious and

cal
most natural of all the natural analogies of mysticontemplation, the one which mystical language uses as its current
tongue:
human love, with
its trials
and
its
joys, the
profound and
its
hid-
den experience of another which
it
produces
even in
If the
image
is
so borne
on by the force of its
similitude that
no
creature
most mortal
madness, for divine things are so lofty and transcendent that sometimes
it is
can ever be truly loved without that infinite exigence wherein human love sacrifices itself, how can the trials and interchanges of this love, the
only in the negative correspondences of sin that they are able

'
to
mutual
gift
which
it
demands and unceasingly demands of the whole

of all analogies to the
trials
show forth their analogies.1

1
personality, fail to present the directest
and
An analogy is a delicate thing and difficult to manage. The
danger always
exists
of
interchanges of mystical love?

soul
is
It is
remarkable that the more innocent the
taking an analogy between essentially distinct and even infinitely distant terms
the case
(as in
the less
it
seems to hesitate before using for the things which are
where one analogue is formally divine by participation and the other may be subject to sin) for a natural continuity or tendency: to which danger Plato and numerous heretical mystics are witness. Actually it is necessary to point out from this point of view the defects of a certain kind of literature which usurps the name of mystical and which risks compromising the best efforts of the art of to-day, efforts which are difficult enough in themselves. 'There is only one love', a certain reverend Father wrote some years ago, captivated by the lofty sentiments and the dialectic of
'It is with the same heart that we love God and man; the object varies, but the moving principle, the feelings are the same (I speak of love, not of debauchery). ,Takc a human love, cleanse it from all its ugliness, from all its insufficiency, idealise it to
divine a symbolic language of which in the
human
order
it
has
no
experience.
THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN METAPHYSICS AND MYSTICISM
final
question remains: in order to distinguish absolutely,

is it
as
we
have done, between mystical experience and metaphysics,

to suppress all
necessary
the Symposium.
organic relation between them?

It is
Certainly not. There are vital relations between them.
advanta-
the point of the ineffable, extend it to the infinite, fill it with grace: if you bring to bear such a passion on the sole Being who can fulfil it, you have the love of the mystics.'
[Translator's note.
geous to affirm these relations and
to endeavour to
(1)
make
their nature
M.
more precise. They imply

(2) a
at the
same time
an ineffectual aspiration,
Maritain
is
probably referring to the
work of
the
Ahbi
Bremond,
as also in his reference to 'pure poetry' supra.) This idealism is as false as it is ambitious. If 'the object varies' and if 'grace informs it', is it not obvious that the love specified by a divine object and proceeding from sanctify-
dependence of
fact, in the subject and
by reason of
subject, in
metaphysics with regard to mystical experience.
One might
without
it
say that, without the

its
power of attaining it by itself, and
ing grace
is
intrinsically different
from human love, the one being

one being purely
supernatural quoad
substamiam, the other being natural: the
being necessary for
own
proper achievement, meta-
spiritual, the
other composed
etc. ..." is
of flesh and
spirit like
man himself? 'Refer such a passion to the sole Being,
physics aspires in
some way
to mystical experience. Let
what I
am say-
a phrase which, truly,
means nothing or is an error: for either this idealised passion remains natural in its essence, and then it cannot attain to God as an object effectually loved above all, it cannot be brought to bear on God, so as to constitute an authentic mystical love. Or better still, it is supernatural in its essence (the love of charity) and so is not brought to bear on God because it is God who makes it specific, and it is he it seeks first of all and above all. It is with the same heart that a man loves God and his beloved, certainly: but not with the same love. I would pay tribute to the generous intentions criticising.
from the tempests of the world, have something better to do than to platonise about tears, at Eros. The less protected life of laymen, who have to batde through this vale of least assures for them a surer experience of certain themes. The love of charity may inform and vitalise profane love. Otherwise our poor psyand accichological mechanisms would have to find a place for numerous interferences two loves. It dental collusions, notably in certain cases of dubious mystics, between the between them: the is therefore all necessary to mark the essential difference
the
more
But
am obliged to add
that religious
of the author whom I am under vows, happily cut off by the three vows
essence former is not in any way a 'sublimation of the latter, it is a love of a more sublime where the features of profane love may be discovered anew analogically.
350
351
ing be clearly understood.

itself postulate,
We have found that metaphysics does not in

itself require
does not in
mystical experience in order to
venes and flowers in a man, it does not procure him this vision here on its proxy, which is infused contemplation; which earth, but a foretaste,
exist in
its
own species, effectively to grasp the intelligibly real, or to arof certitude which
it
know
the First
Cause in
itself' is in fact
or materially
{identice)
the
same thing
as that
rive at that perfection

essence.
needs
by
reason of its
But
it is
a general
specific
law
that the
lower
without quitting
own
its
limitstends always towards the higher and own nature and its with it: supremum infimi attingit ad infimum continuity into enter seeks to
supremi.
thesis,
which theology calls 'to see the deity face to face' or 'as he is'. The philosopher as such, powers of his reason, does not know this, because he limited to the use of the unaided this identity. has no idea of the second term of
His desire to
know the first cause in itself is a desire
produced by and deriving from
We
can
now
add, which in
no way
contradicts the previous
produced, but entirely spontaneous, instinctive, unconsidered the nature of the intellect, beforehand, and provoked by a knowledge of that first source which precedes all reflection
but only completes it, that metaphysics naturally engenders in the
on the means for realisation of such a

even,
desire.
On reflection it will appear to him
soul an inclination,
which it has not the power
to
fulfil,
a confused and
is
indeterminate desire for a superior knowledge,

tically realised in mystical experience, in the
which
only authen-
contemplation of the saints.
when he perceives that no simply human or natural process of knowledge is capable of attaining to God himself, he may judge that it is unrealisable: Hindu thought aspires to a nirvana witness at once to this is not the way in which natural desire for the knowledge of God in himself and to the renunciation by the inas conditional (or
How does this happen? Firsdy because there are many problems, particularly those
which are concerned with the destiny of man and with the
solve,
conduct of the universe, which metaphysics can posit but cannot

or only solves imperfecdy, and whose solution, given us
seen in its truth and its fittingness
by faith,
is
only
of so seeing him?) Thus the desire of nature to see the First Cause is conditional in so far as it is simply natural. This is why, if man had been placed in the order of pure nature, or if in fart the means of achieving the vision of the divine essence were lacking, this natural desire would find itself frustrated or only satisfied by inferior substitutes which procure a
tellect
by
relative
and fleeting beatitude
without thereby any violation of the
principle
of final-
the light of infused contemplation.
ity,
Again, because metaphysics, like

unsatisfied.
all
other
first
human
sciences, leaves us
which protests against any desire of an unconditional nature being in vain. But when once man is raised to the supernatural order, he knows on the one hand
Directed
as it is
towards the
cause and filled
by
nature
that the desire to
know the first Cause in itself is the same
thing as to see face to face
with the desire of perfecdy knowing

should
it, it is
natural that metaphysics

all
the
God offaith; and on the otherbeing assured by faith that he can attain to absolute
make
us desire
with an ineffectual and conditional, but for

it is
beatitude
his natural desire to attain to the first
that real, desire
the supernatural desire
of the
beatific vision,
Cause in itself, perfected by grace and becomes by the same act unconditional. He
satisfied (it
to see the cause as
in
itself:
die desire to contem-
then understands that if the natural desire to see the first Cause cannot be
ing an obediential
thing natural),
be-
plate the essence

J In the first case
of God.1 This
thirst it
cannot
slake.
When
grace super-
power and a means of elevation to an order which is above everythe principle of finality would be violated, because this desire, which
is
the object of
my desire is God as I know him (by reasoning) as thefirst
is
conditional in regard to nature alone,
in
fact, for
him, unconditional, in so far
as
cause of beings,
though from without, in virtue of the 'ascendant' analogy which is proper to metaphysics, the denomination 'known in himself or in his essence' taken from other created things which are so known by me,
I transfer, as
and to whom
grace has perfected it with a supernatural desire.
This view is,

3, 8,
I believe,
in accord with the arguments
and
i,
12, 1. St.
Thomas only demonstrates

without this
the possibility for
of St. Thomas, Sum. tlieol, i-ii, man of seeing the
without knowing if or how this

plete indetermination as to the
to
is possible in
the case
of Cod; and remaining

it is
in
a state ofcomis
divine essence, because
possibility the natural desire
would be in vain,
as
nature of such knowledge. Briefly,
God who
known
me by his effects whom I desire to know in himself.

In the second case,
theologian, not simply as a philosopher, and in presupposing the possibility of man's attaining perfect or absolute beatitude (of which faith alone assures us, for this beatitude
is
it is God who is known to me according to his proper essence diat I know in himself. The object of my desire is the God whom I know (by faith) secundum suam propriam quidditatem (and in Trinity), and whom I know as able to give himself to me even as he is the object of the divine knowledge itself, by grace of an incomprehensible communication of which revelation has assured me the divine essence can
desire to
above nature, beatitude excedit omnem naturam creatam, i-ii, 5, 7, also ii-ii, 4, 7, ad. 2, and therefore reason alone can only supply arguments of suitability), and then in en-
visaging a natural desire
which
homo
perfects
it
which is rendered unconditional by the supernatural desire quamvis and which proceeds from the knowledge of faith. And so,
infinem ultimum, non tamen potest
illius finis.
i,
naturaliter mclinetur
naturaliter ilium consequi, sed

6..a. 4,
ii-ii,
and whose 'supra-analogy' produced by faith, in search among created things for a means wherewith to describe it, tells me that it is to see God in his essence even as I am seen by him.
be the formal end,
solum per gratiam, et hoc est propter eminentiam

S.)
(InBoet. de Trin., q.
12, 4;
i-ii, 5. 1
ad.
See also Sum. theol,
i-ii,
114, 2. Cp. Sum. theol,
^d 5;
2, 3;
De
The
Christian,
who has
Veritare, q. 8, a. 1, 2, 3;
Sum.
contra Gent.,
iii,
theol, 48, 50-2. 57. 6y, Compend.
an idea of the mystery of the beatific vision,
knows
that 'to
cap. 104-5.
352

the highest aspirations
353
fulfils
can have no idea,
of metaphysics but of which metaphysics and by which it remains astonished: crucified wisdom
to the wisdom
gifts,
which is foolishness
of pure reason.
to
knowledge, such as the existence of die transcenjects of philosophical to the first principles of the reason, 1 by how even and cause, first dent much more must the light of the highest wisdom, the mystical experience of divine things,
assist
Lacking supernatural
metaphysics runs the danger of trusting

for infused contemplation to
and purify the philosophical
intellect! St.
some more or
rect
its
less fallacious substitute
di-
Thomas himself is
that the
a supereminent example of this truth.
And if it is true
aspirations for
knowledge by pure awareness and the
intuitive
human intellect is so feeble by nature, so debilitated by the heriit
possession
of
the absolute. Finally,
we
can say that the
intellect, in as
tage of original sin, that
cannot attain to a complete philosophical wis-
much as it is a perfection of a transcendental order, realised in varying degrees on the ascending scale of minds, tends in an impotent desire to
surpass those specific conditions
dom
that
is
not mingled with error without the succours of grace, one

its
can hold in fact that metaphysics can only be kept in
purity
among
the ex-
which belong
to
it
in
human
being,
men if metaphysicians
perience
are comforted at times

divine.
distinctions
from on high by
is
where
it is at
the lowest stage.
And it is by this
many
that
we can understand
of those things which are of the thomist
the existence of that nostalgia for a higher contemplation to which, in the vast reaches of human history, so
witness.
The
stood.
significance
I
sometimes misunder-
schools of philosophy bear
have said that the three forms of wisdom, metaphysics, theology

distinct,
and mysticism, are really

objects
is
because they are formally different
On the other hand, it is very clear, when we consider the subject and
its
and correspond to
specifically distinct degrees
of illumination.
It
synergic activity, that formal discontinuity does not destroy the
soli-
the proper nature
of these three forms of wisdom as such which is here

specific object
darity
state
of the living being. There
is
profound solidarity in the soul in a
in consideration.
Metaphysical wisdom, having a
of the
of grace between supernatural and human energies. "Without doubt

without doubt it is not usually among philosophers that the
natural order, does
not carry in
itself, ratione sui ipsius,
any
intrinsic or
mystical experience is entirely independent of philosophy, marvellously

overleaps
it;
necessary claim
piration
on
mystical contemplation, but only an ineffectual asit:
with regard to
does not require, for the exigencies of its
own
great contemplatives are found. But, to consider things in the concrete,
proper essence, any other cognoscitive energies than those of the natural
reason.
metaphysics
itself,
for
all
that
it is
not itself dependent on mystical exinferior to

it,
perience, finds in us, just because
it is
a certain dependence
on this experience. But how? Because

so
the virtues
which perfect our
intelligence are like
many
ordered and united
lights, are
themselves in a hierarchy and
But we must not forget that it exists in a subject, in a human soul. And this subject is not itself in a state of pure nature, but of fallen nature, or in a state of grace. In fact, metaphysical wisdom, wisdom of an essentially natural order, cannot be constructed among us without being
soiled
lower supported and fortified in its proper place by the higher. In the same way, says John of St.' Thomas, as the lower angels
in solidarity, the are illuminated
with errors or avoid all the accidents which menace it, unless some
habitual or actual grace,
is
help
from on high, coming from

not
sufficient to
by
the higher angels they are fortified
by them in
their
assistance of the natural reason: for our nature
come to the weak and has been

to
own rightful intellectual light. 1

Thus metaphysical wisdom,
to
it,
wounded.
It is
have the
gifts
of grace within one
in regard to the truths
which
are proper
avoid metaphysical error: that,

dition
alas,
would be going too far! But a constate
which are demonstrable by reason alone, is fortified by supernatural faith and by theology. And if the lights of faith and of
the truths
speculative theology bring to the philosopher greater
may be necessary
(morally necessary in the present case) without

If,
being by that sufficient.

ourselves, metaphysical
tain itself
given the
of nature
in'
which
we find
perfection and certitude in his act

l
power, of purely rational adhesion to the ob24 (Vives, vol.

vii).
greater
wisdom can be achieved by man and can mainat least in the straight
q. 1, disp. 2, a.
widiout defect, or
path of a higher
and a. 9
(vol. i).
Curs. theol,
ii-ii,
q. i. disp. 2, a. r, n.
"Cp. John of St, Thomas, Curs, theol, i, P.
(n. 17)
354

is

need to be initiated into some inferior science, such
example,
as
3J5
tradition, it
because the supernatural energies of grace have
at certain
mathematics for
moments, in one way or another, come to the aid of the reason. Thus, by reason of the subject, ratione subjecti, which is wounded in its
nature and called to
rise
1
1
same
when he would deal with certain questions. He ou<dit in the way to ask the guidance of a superior science when he seeks, even
or in fact raised to the supernatural order, metar
for his
own philosophical ends,

1
to deal with an object
which
essentially
physical wisdom clearly demands, at least in the normal course of things, a passage upward into the wisto be consoled by a better illumination, the other differences between of of the saints. Without speaking
surpasses philosophy.
iSee for this question the study by R. F, Mare"chal, 'Science empirique et psychologie
religieuse* (Etudes sur la psychologie des Mystiques.vol
i, 1914), and the articles by Roland 'Unc nouvelle interpretation de St. Jean de la Croix* (Vie Spirituelle, 1928: 'The integral interpretation of mystical experience must be theological or it cannot be',
:
dom
the conceptions of Thomism and
that
of M. Blondel, the
conflict becertain
Dalbiez,
tween the two

spiritual
tial
is
sharply delimited
the
by
the following point: a
dynamism which
one explains by the exigencies and

of
M. Dalbiez writes very justly)

de la vie mystique' (Vie
also the writings
of R.
P.
Benoit Lavaud on 'Psycho-
essen-
logie independante et priere chretienne' (Revue thomiste, 1929)

spirituelle,
and on
'Les
Problemes
needs of knowledge and philosophy, and the other by the conditions

it
of the subject and the synergy in

virtues.
1
specifically distinct intellectual
The pages of this book
June, 1931). were already in the hands of the printers

la
when M. Henri
It illustrates
Bergson's Les deux sources de
morale et de la religion was published.
in
its
own way what I have said in this chapter, and have already treated at somewhat greatif,
The
its
fact remains that

2
as I
have already endeavoured
to
demon-
erlengthin my Questions disputees, v. swpw.note 2. Since everything that is human interests
strate elsewhere,
state in
the
we properly distinguish the nature of philosophy and subject, we have to affirm at the same time that philo-
the philosopher,
it is
eminently fitting that he should meditate on whatis at the very
n
i
heart of humanity, the mystical life
and sanctity. But, while
all
the time keeping to his
own proper standpoint and his own rightfulmeans ofprocedure, he must then have recourse, because
sophy in itself is a purely rational knowledge, and depends intrinsically only on principles of the natural order, and that it can only find the requisite human conditions for its full development in truth when it
ology;
reality
ciples
its scientific
of the intrinsic exigencies of such an object, to the information of thepowers are alone competent to deal with such a theme: for the
grows under the heaven of faith.

Finally, let
it
these
is
which he is studying in this case is not purely natural and is moved by prinwhich are superior to reason alone. If the unbelieving philosopher cannot admit principles and in consequence the theological science which is founded on them,
is
be noted that
life
if it
true that mystical
wisdom
is
the
his
information will inevitably be deficient.
highest point of the
of the
soul,
where both knowledge and

for their
love
This
not the place for a
full
examination of a book in which appear, together with

that scrupulous attention to experience, that
bear their noblest
fruits, it is
equally certain that the philosopher and
that serene elevation

subtilty which
of thought,
happy
the metaphysician will find the greatest advantage, even
own
we admire in M. Bergson's work, the same refusal to depart from a radi-
proper object, in the study of so transcendent an activity. But they can
cal
empiricism and that 'ontological bankruptcy* (G. Marcel) with which one must re-
proach his philosophy. I must limit myself to a few brief remarks on the theme which
is
only rightfully do so
when they have recourse
to the light of theology,

It is
the concern
of this chapter.
My aim
is
not to
criticise a
courageous mind which,
in
which is
and
alone proportionate to such an object.
a scandal to the insee psycholoseizing
spite
oj its philosophical appearance, in fact,
due to its
fidelity to its
inward
light,
pur-
sues a purely spiritual trajectory; but the need for truth demands nevertheless the point-
telligence
gists
and a profound offence to the sense of order to
ing out of certain discordances.
sociologists, or
even philosophers and metaphysicians,
hold of mystical experience in order to judge of its nature by

in other words, to systematically misunderstand
tin being so limited the conflict, as
gravity: for in philosophy the reasons
I
their light,
it.
The philosopher has

loses
M. Bergson has no difficulty in transcending the schemes of a vulgar psychological phenomenalism and in exhibiting the great mystics, whose 'intellectual robustness' he admires, as souls who have achieved a life which is in some way superhuman; his book has
pages
on this theme which are

and
effectual.
particularly
have previously pointed out,
none of its
as,
attention, almost
an affectionate emotion with regard
moving, which show more than deferential to a reality which he feels as
by which a conclusion is reached are quite

I
or
present
But the
total interpretation
even more, important than the conclusion itself. (Cp. J. Maritain, Reflexions sur
ligence, p. 86.)
intel-
which, in the absence of the proper instruments for a veracious

grateful for so
which he himself proposes (and in analysis, one must be
in so far as
chr/tiennc (Coll. des
it
many apt observations ex communions) in itself shows that philosophy, ignores die mystery of grace and of the Cross, cannot attain to the true
life,
*De k pbibsophie
Questions Disputes) Paris, 1933.
nature of the mystical
even when
it
pays honour to
its
good faith.
It is
possible to
356

M.
Bcrgson's attempt, in as
ask whether
ideas put
much

of
an
all
forward in L'Evolution
Criatrice,
bound up with the system does not become in spite of everything

as
it is
357
endeavour to reduce the spiritual to the biological, a biology, I admit, made so transcendental that it is conceived as the creative source of the universe, but which remains always biological, in the sense in which that word applies to the stages of life which are
characterised
man
his
consequence 'it matters litde if Christ is described either as a men', and where in philosophical doctrine which dissolves all ontological values, or not' (p. 256). His
abandonment in the regions of metaphysics, morals and
religion,
of almost
all
the
above
all
by
the organic
and the psychical, where life
manifests
itself in
intellectual and rational certitudes, his fundamental omission of the order of properly experience presupposes the naturally and supernaturally known mystical that fact
reality
of matter and its immanent activity is in consequence essentially bound up with the conditions of transitory action and productivity. It is true that on this side of the world of grace and of supernatural life human spirituality can only transcend the biological sphere in a more or less imperfect manner.
the animation
If we believe in the experience
of its object, and that
it is
nothing
if it
is
not an adhesion to the subsistent Truth,
his theology into a form of fundamental pelagianism, where thus against his will lure distinctions matter the least. the most important of mysticism it is best to listen to the mystics themselves, If in forming an estimate
testimony to the end?
of the mystics, why should we refuse to accept their When they say that they are united to their source as the life of
and
if the
mystics' (p. 243), it
only mysticism which has plainly succeeded is 'that of the great christian is unreasonable to reject their evidence on what is to them more
life,
their life, they are thinking
of no
elan vital or
any anonymous
creative urge, which
important than their
and to
fail
to listen to
one can only conceive of as personal under the influence of a burst of enthusiasm or emotion; it is towards the depths of a supreme personality in the fullest sense of the
experience, far from having a content which we

faith (p. 268), is
them when they affirm that mystical may regard as independent of revealed
faith:
only the perfect blossoming of that
word that they cry out that they are turned, it is to the deity itself that they adhere, the infinite 'fullness* ofbeing and ofperfections, to a sovereignly subsistent Other, of whom, before 'negatively* proving that he is above all names and all thought, they know already with all the fullness of certitude, the existence and the name. Far from being uninterested in such a question, they
the philosopher to ask certain meta-philosophical questions
which then certainly causes and direct himself towards
know perfectly,
they do not cease from
testifying,
superior sources, but ought he not to love the truth more even than philosophy itself and its 'autocracy'? He will so be led to recognise, as has been set out in this chapter, that all authentic mysticism which has developed in non-christian countries, and which finds in the contemplation of the saints who grow endlessly in the Church its achieved
that the source to
which they are united is

is
'the transcendent cause
of all
things'.
They
declare (and
it is
here that
to
M. Bergson's book results, to say the least of it,
in an equi-
life
exemplar, should be regarded as a fruit of the same supernatural life, that supernatural which Christ, sovereignly generous in his gifts, communicates to those souls of
no pure endless extension, no joy of the creative urge finally released from all termination, but exactly, on the contrary, to an infinite end that their will and their love is directed; and the prodigious impulse which animates them has its meaning and its existence only in the degree to which, it brings them to this final End, where they are fixed in an unfailing life. They testify that their joy is not their joy, but
vocal position) that it
the joy of their Saviour, divine things is founded
good will who do not visibly belong to his flock. Cp. Etienne Borne, Spirituality bergsonienne et spirituality chrfoknne, Etudes carmelitaines, Oct. 1932; M. T. L. Penido, Dieu dans le bergsonisme (Questions Disput&s).
and that it
is
crucified: they witness that their experience of

their faith, that
it is
on and proportionate to
inseparable from
the doctrines wherein the primal Truth has made himself known to them, and if it is obscure and
won by love, it is nevertheless a sovereign
knowledge, the intelligence being
nourished in this 'unknowingness' by its most noble object.
contemplation overflows into action (for the

retic like that
They testify that if mystical wisdom of the saints is not purely theo-
of the philosophers, it is also practical and the regulation of life according ii-ii, 19, 7, and this is in fact the sign of the superiority of christian mysticism), nevertheless its 'last stage* is not 'to sink into an abyss of action' and 'an irresistible urge which sweeps onward to unimaginably vast enterprises*. For the action of the great christian mystics, for example the Apostles and the founders of
to the divine rule, Sum. theol.,
the Orders,
is
never anything but an overflow from their contemplation, whose

clearly as the divine
pri-
macy only appears the more

sentially directed to
union
is
the
more perfect.
Besides, if
of humanity, it is because it is first of all and esand to the personality of their neighbour. Finally it is forbidden to us to attribute to any elan vital marching to the conquest of the world what springs essentially from divine grace and is superior to all created or
their love extends itself to 'the infinite'
God
in Three Persons
creatable nature.
M. Bergson has taken up a standpoint from which, as he says, he 'sees the
divinity
of
CONCERNING AUGUSTINIAN WISDOM

he
is
359
a friend
of the
angels,
and
it is
with
their tranquil
and powerful
to our-
eaze that he lights
up for us the
secrets
of divinity and reveals us
who can only be faithful, chaste, a crystal-clear founselves. He is the son

tain
where the waters of divine wisdom ceaselessly accumulate; made to lighten down the centuries and teach all minds.
It is
mind
not only a delicate and

has to renounce
difficult task,
it
paradoxical even, to
at first impossible.
CHAPTER
VI
pare
St.
Augustine and St Thomas,
seems
comThe in-

A TYPICAL PROBLEM
its most normal procedure of comparison, the things are placed and confronted on the same two which by process coincidences and deviations. plane and in the same light, the search for
tellect
we would make apparent, by a particular example, the nature of the problems which may present themselves in the order of the most secret
If
dimension of the
turns back
ting tion
its
spirit,
of that mysterious 'depth*

towards that
in
which the
spirit
must needs transport itself to another plane and seek another illuminon-coincidence that unity nation, where it is exacdy in those points of are both worth exacdy as discorctism and Concordism be perceived.
It
will
upon
itself
and
which
it
contains, differentia-
little
and proceed from the same

the one hand the
is
optical error.
no longer according to objective degrees of abstracand intelligibility, but by the very liberty of its standpoints and its
operations
On
originality
regard to each other
irreducible; their intellectual attitudes
of Augustine and of Aquinas with and their
rightful finality, the history
of western thought presents to our
atten-
tion
and
St.
no more striking Thomas.
case than the reciprocal situation
of St. Augustine
will not coincide. systems, if one reduces St. Augustine to a system, of the one and of the other the other hand, there is between the wisdom is unity. fundamental a and a harmony, but
On
not only an accord
How
bishop of the fourth-fifth century, a scholastic of the thirteenth
not only are their epochs, their controversies, their intellectual circumstances entirely different, so also are their tasks.
entering into those controversies this antinomy to be resolved? Without to indicate what is to endeavour would I which divide the specialists,
The one
it
is
a fisher of
dis-
my eyes the basis of the solution.

par principe et demon'Le cceur a son ordre, l'esprit a le sien, qui est Saint Paul ont I'ordre de stration, le cceur en a un autre. . . Jesus-Christ,
la charite,
men, the other an
architect
of
truths.
it,
One
it,
is
the begetter, the
coverer of christian doctrine, holding
fighting for
in opposition to
it
the wisdom of this world: the other perfects

itself.
consolidates
for and by
One is the source, the other the fruit.

is
Saint non de l'esprit, car ils voulaient ^chauffer, non instruire. digression la dans Augustin de meme. Cet ordre consiste principalement
Their vocation, their witness
different.
The
dwelling-place of the
is
one
to
is
in the heart of our humanity, everything in diat heart

it is
known
him, and
with the voice of the depths, the abyss of the
soul, that
he speaks when he would witness to the supreme truth: even on the purest heights of his theology we recognise that tone. He is a prodigal
son, a lover, a convert, a
montrer toujours/ chaque point, qu'on rapporte a la fin pour le but it suggests the precise, more made This view of Pascal's needs to be of view, of lumen. point formal of order, essential point: a difference of men, he wished to of hearts the in fire a kindle to Christ not only wished
sur
instruct
St.
them: but in the order, the

is
man saved from the deadliest errors of the mind

with
evil,
Paul
in
of the divine revelation ttself. gift of prophecy in its the order and the illumination of the
light
and of the
flesh, instructed in, filled
before the experience of
highest and holiest form.

to philosophise. St.
The one and the other are too exalted to

is
deign
grace reared
him up
to the height
where he
lays
hold on those
things
Augustine
it is
1
that are divine; a

souls,
man made
to be a leader
of
men and
a shepherd of
philosophises abundandy,
by
and it he alike in the order of chanty; order by in and teaches he that love
from one generation
Pascal, Pensies.
to another.
358
The other
lives in the intellect,
3 6o

to

infused. In the
361
one and die same movement

and towards
its
move
this
human
being both
practically
City of
God
there are defined and differing functions:

a theological discipline,
is
final end.
How
can be will be considered
the teaching office
of St. Thomas, universal as
moment.
St.
Thomas
is
in the order
of intelligenceput
to
work by
love, in
not that, yet more universal and supra-technical, of an Augustine. recollect that the wisdom of the saints, which It is here necessary to
judges of divine things
sive connaturalitas,
pursuit of love, but conducting his
the rarefied atmosphere of objective exigencies (which only seem cold to those who do not love
the truth).
It is
work in
by loving inclination or connaturality, compassio

it is
and by virtue of union with God,1 presupposes not

experimental, that
it is
in the order
of and by the light of theological science and
only
faith,
but charity; that
not only specu-
of philosophy that he teaches us: in a discipline proceeding according to

the
lative
but also practical, proceeding from union with God and directing
mode of pure knowledge.
our activity towards that union, ruling

ally,
human life by
on
divine laws; fin-
that
it
may make
use of both discourse and argument. 2 Imagine

ineffably concentrated
this
wisdom, no longer
is
the passion of divine
THE GIFT OF WISDOM MAKING USE OF DISCOURSE
diings, as
the case in mystical contemplation, but royally overflowing
What then is
bold to say that
Ghost.
I
the true source of Augustine's teaching? I

this
source
is
die highest of all,
would make die wisdom of the Holy

because
in
as
does a
communicable knowledge: not in the endeavour to express lyrically, St. John of the Cross, or if I may say (with no play upon words)
itself,
have said that he teaches by love.
Why is this, if not

gift
oratorically, as does a Berulle, mystical experience
but in order to
the play
he
teaches us in the order
and light of die
of wisdom?
It is that
extend over
rational
all
the field of the intelligible and join in
all
of the
wisdom which
back to
his
furnishes his point of view,

all
it is
from
there that his
thoughts rush forth to surround

their centre. In the period
diings
and
ceaselessly lead
them
in
is
powers, making use of all the natural instruments of knowledge with that respect, that courtesy towards both nature and the reason, but
also that confidence, that ease, that
of his philosophical intemperance,

it is this
it,
hardihood, that sovereign loyalty
wanderings
among
It is
the sects and the systems,
that he
which belong
to the true spiritual liberty:
such
is
the
wisdom of an
ignorandy seeking.
from grace alone
that
he won
and without
Augustine (and,
more generally, ofall the Fathers). The wisdom which is

of the
its
doubt one could descry from that point of view a progressive affirmation
common to all Christians, doubly instinctive and spontaneousfor the

least intelligent
and growth
in his
thought with his conversion.

the full virtue the force of this
It is
in the degree
faithful has received alike
of the Holy Ghost

epis-
to
which he
teaches
by
all
received diat he holds
of the unction which he wisdom.
has
and
its gifts
reaches
supreme proportions, righdy fatherly and

great spiritual shepherds.
copal, in the
wisdom of these
The
science
of
When I say that the point of origin of the teaching of St. Augustine,
less
theology, not yet set apart in
its
condition as a specialised discipline (that

is
high than that of the teaching of St. Paul, and a fortiori than
is
that
of
was the great work of the
Scholastics)
found there contained in
its
Christ,
higher than that of St.
cording to the
it), let
Thomas (whose teaching proceeds achuman and rational mode, and is much more perfect in
that St.
source, in a state of immanence. (The age of technical study had not yet
*Cp. John of St. Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Ghost (French
tain, 1930).
2
trans,
by Raissa Mari-
no one think because of this
Thomas himself was lacking
in this infused
wisdom; he possessed it superabundandy, just as he was superabundandy possessed of mystical graces. Aquinas had need of it to
achieve his
John of
they arc not discursive in themselves, nevertheless

course: (1)
work
ing, in the field
as a theologian: but of theology treated
his
work in itself is,
stricdy speak-
of wisdom and knowledge, for all that do not always come without^disgifts of the because investigation and reasoning are natural to man and the
St.
Thomas
teaches that the gifts
Holy Ghost do not destroy but

ledge of Christ St.
as a science
(and in philosophy),
which are indubitably forms of wisdom but in the human mode, and, in as much as they are technical processes, inferior to die wisdom which is
Thomas admits
infused knowperfect nature; (2) because even in the comparison of the possibility of discussion and the
terms
(iii,
q. 11, a. 5); (3) because
teaches us truths
we do not ordinarily know within us a light cit., supra. without words and without comparisons.' Ibid., he.
which
362

is

the
363
begun, and theology

christian world.)
the
first
and
greatest technical process
of
wisdom;
and no one has a

gift,
clearer sense
of the
superiority, the heavenly

it
The supreme wisdom conquered all things, appropriated all, drew them all into its universal current: all the spoils of Egypt, all the treasures of philosophy. Let it be said, in order to draw a clear
boundary about these things, that these treasures are here the instrument,
not precisely of theology in so far
cal science
as it is distinguished
transcendence of that
of the divine mastery with which
makes
use of whatsoever instruments it will, than the great Doctor of Grace himself. What has an absolute primacy .what illuminates, discerns, com-
mands,' rules, measures,

spiritualis judicat
from philosophiessential
(which were neither of them as yet explicit in their
natures),
but of infused wisdom, of the
which dominates and absorbs

and charity.
wisdom of the Holy Ghost, them, and which is bound up with faith
of the
offices
what gives a right ofjurisdiction over all things, what exults in the breast of the christian like the waters of paradise which spring up to nourish and renew all the earth and all knowledge, is the gift of the Spirit in the power of love. A
omnia,
human
perfect,
instrument, which
is
certainly not mediocre, but
which
is
im-
awkward and dangerous, and to direct it the most perfecdy ensensitive
Thus
we
can see in
its
plenitude the mission
Fathers of the
dowed hand,
and holy,
intelligent
Church. 'The Fathers and the theologians', the phrase which recurs constandy in manuals of sacred doctrine, denotes
tirely distinct.
and sagacious, the

.
irresistible light
and wise, powerful, prudent of the superhuman Spirit this is the
two
which
its
are en-
Theology
is
found among the theologians in

its
rightful
ele-
admirable paradox of the wisdom of the christian Plato. Can we not see (and who is there perceived it better than St.Thomas?) die living sense
nature as a specialised science, having for
light that
is
of reason
vated by faith. Theology

tion;
its
as it is
found in the Fathers
in a higher condiit
light
is
the light of the gift
of wisdom making use of reasons; of sanctifying

grace. It
is
proceeds like doctrine

learning.
from the
light
holy
of this wisdom, the end for which such an instrument is used by such a mind? It is the pure universe of the christian mountain-tops truths, the eternal depths which are shown to us, those in any mainstrument an such consider To rise. has its theology where
terial fashion,
There will always be
new Doctors
in the Church.
The
age of
separated
from the
spirit
which moves through
it, is
to
the Spirit
is definitely closed, the age of that outpouring of the gifts of which was necessary for the birthpangs, the education of the Church. And what is most relevant in the Fathers is the purity of the
the Fathers
mix
ourselves
up
Augustine to neo-Platonism,
cords between him and St.
St. in an endless quarrel, in a vain effort to reduce disthe for search or in a Hteral-minded
Thomas.
genius,
waters of this impetuous flood of the Spirit, certainly

actual texture
more
so than the
What is truly remarkable and should be regarded as a sign of

is
of each of the
stones, broken from the old rock of philit
osophy, which that torrent sweeps along with
in
its tide.
of the holy genius of Augustine, in close dependence on al tact with which, while all the time remaining
Plotinus in philosophy,
the instinctive sureness, the supernatur-
he himself evades (one cannot say

(as
so
much for
the
THE PLATONIC REASON AND THE GIFTS OF THE
all
his disciples) the
SPIRIT
a magnificent rectification
most dangerous pitfalls of his Greek masters
of Platonism, sometimes by
when he makes
The philosophy of which

est religious philosophies
St.
Augustine made use (one of

is
the great-
of die world)
incontcstably deficient, torn
by force from
the ultimate defences
and
spiritual fructification
of dying
it.
sometimes by world of divine ideas out of die platonic exemplars), equipment platonic the which leaving unresolved those questions for its origin), someand soul the of provides no key (as in the questions
state which times leaving unachieved, in an indeterminate
is
paganism, the system of neo-Platonism. (He took it as he found
And
pathetic,
who
is
there
who
Augustine
this
philosophy
can read Plotinus -without gratitude? 1 ). But with is an instrument in the hands of the gift of
because
it is full
of expectation,
full at
those great doctrines (such as his doctrine
once of promise and of reserve, of illumination) which ne
^Plotinus inter philosophiae professores the phrase of Macrobius {Sum. theol.,

i-ii,
cum Platone
princeps', St.
Thomas quotes
without falling into grave could not with the equipment at his disposal,
error,
61, 5, sed contra).
exactitude. have brought to the highest point of
364

theological

and infused, which
it,
365
is
But what is most important, and is the central point of this brief study not the platonic instrument of which St. Augustine made use, but
excluding the distinction of the three forms of wisdom, metaphysical,

St.
Thomas was
later to establish,
but
his
wisdom in
use
making
is
that St.
of wisdom of discourse. This notion allows us to comprehend how it Augustine makes constant use of philosophy, and yet is in no
itself,
in as
much as it is,
as I
have said, the
gift
entirely ignoring to the false
for he only thought of opposing christian
wisdom
wisdom of
the pagan philosophers),
it is
clear that St.
Augustine in fact centres his whole idea of wisdom on thej^dsdomgar

excellence^vfhich. is that
way the inventor of a philosophical system; how so many defects in no way affect his light; how he is set above philosophy, above even theological science in the exact sense
which is
infused. It
is
towards
it,
deriving from
it,^hat the
of the word, and
how
he covers
the
whole flood of his thought returns and gathers in all his is in this that he sees profane and sacred science (in so much It thoughts.
as
whole
morals.
field
It
of theology, of philosophy, and the science of practical accords, I believe, with the admirable doctrine of wisdom
left to us,
in sacred science the aspect

it as
of science
is
found) receive participation:
they are subordinate to
they should be in the christian soul.
which
tions
I
St,
Augustine himself has
pletely incorporated
with
the requisite explications
and which has been comand differentia-
in the thomist synthesis.

shows how^science, in
supreme
science),
is
THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF AUGUSTINE
TEACHING
St.
When he
wisdom
(the
much as it is distinguished from the work of the lower reason and of

as
The
essential difference
between the teaching of
Augustine and
knowledge in the twilight of created

towards the labour of action, while
things,
is
always first of all directed

is
wisdom
the
work of the higher
that of St. Thomas is one of point of view and of perspective. In the one case, the standpoint of theological wisdom in the strict sense of the word, in the other, that of infused wisdom. One seeks for essences, the other is
reason and of knowledge in the light of divine things, directed first of all
towards the repose of contemplation^ when he formulates the great law,

whjchjfornina tes ove rall
civilisations,
of the inevitable choice between
/ wisdom and
w
\
of the latter.good as theyâre in jhjmselyes and neceKary^re^sju^Jjalanc^ bythe poverty of wisdomT s.Qjk-^. to choose them as an end is the crime of covetousness and avarice;
science, for alTthe riches
drawn on to the experience of Him who is loved. I have said that the wisdom of St. Augustine is the gift of wisdom making use of discourse. When we recall the particular qualities of the gift of wisdom recognised by the theologians,1 we shall understand the true point of view of St.
Augustine, and the character of his doctrine, without speaking of the
marvellous savour of his
style,
or that supra-technical spontaneity of

2
a deadly turning towards perishable goods!
when, with" an"incomp_

'
power of psychological analysis, he describes the economy _ofscience and wisdom in holy souls, it is clear that St. Augustine (without certainly
which I spoke, thanks to which that instinctive baptismal wisdom of the common run of christians is reflected in him. We shall comprehend that
to
//.&
him tru^j>hilosophymearmg^gr^jhjr^jdsdomii^jva^'
the' true
H know
intellect,
that in enumerating the gifts
towardTeternal beatitu3e,_and
3 vfruiphilosophus amaiorDei:
philosopherJsjJoverofjT^d^
characterised {Sum. theol,
of the Holy Ghost, St. Thomas had at first i-li, 68, 4) the gift of science as the perfecting of the practical
it is
the
wisdom of the Hojy_Ghost.
We~
/
and the
literal
gift
the
most
fashion to the opinion
nised that the gifts

itself:
of wisdom as perfecting the speculative intellect: he so adheres in of St. Augustine. Later (ii-ii, 8, 6), he recogof science and wisdom are both speculative and practical, as is faith
essential difference shall comprehend how, while perfectly jknowing the drawn from conclusions the and between purely rational knowledge
at. a. 7, n. 8),
""cd?
John St. Thomas has pointed out (he. although the wisdom of the saints may well be at once speculative and practical yet it predominates in speculation, while the gift of science, because it proUS "' Fcdorainatcs Poetical knowledge, though it may also be
the gift of wisdom in particular judging experimentally the truths of faith from of the divine realities; the gift of science, from the side of created things. But these two positions are not incompatible. As of
the principles of faith, he never
dreamed of systematically distinguishing
the side
no chart of intelphilosophical from theological discipline: he drew out towards its fruition in God the reason
lectual
arrangement; he spurred on
*Cp. John of St. Thomas,
"John of St. Thomas,
op,
JJ l*
op.
cil.
""
(French trans, chap.

3
iv).
cil.
*> Oft Dei, viii, I.
366

faith.
367
illuminated by
We
shall
understand how, while more
sensitive
dian any other

rejecting
man
to the true values
and dignity of speculation, while
with
all his
of any such thing) what

to
being (and truly without die capacity to conceive fifteen centuries later a disgraceful period was
intelli-
Ghost and by its gifts, is like the supernatural achievement of that movement of introversion which is proper to all spirits. It is this point, in all which is the centre of gravity for St. that concerns God and the soul,
Augustine's doctrine. If we lose sight of it, the profound meaning of his
teaching escapes us. This is the principle and origin of all his teaching, and
know as
philosophical pragmatism, this ardent lover of the
gence was able to play with entire liberty with a sort of pragmatism
living fact
in
even
when it
is
far
that of eternal salvation, which

its
is
integral in his
^/^J-f.
'""
becausej-infused
will
wisdom p roceeds from cha rity

final end.
the
wisdom movement of the
atmosphere,
x,
it is
characterised
away from this centre and circles in its own natural by an indescribable flavour of the experi-
towards
mental, at once delicious and living: a far-off participation in, hope for, promise of the supreme joy. That is why all metaphysical objects and
their purely intelligible constraints,
ûi~the~docrrine~of St.
''
,ti.,.v.,
Augustine faith precedes and universally pre- v
while he guards himself from deny-
pares the intelligence. Crede ut intelligas.

that the intelli g ence in question
is
Why should
it
be astonishing
ing them or
veres,
in the least reducing their value, while he

efficacy,
knows and
re-
.WJ
,
the knowledge of infused wisdom e x^
even more than Pascal, their
only present themselves to

the vibra-
IT-
^_tendedover_aU jhe ppssibk

presupposes theplogicalj'aith as well as th eological charity.
It is
him in the degree to which they are filled with the resonance,
absofaith,
.tions
of the
soul;
why
the rational proof of the existence of God, with-
lutely
-
essential to the
it
wisdom of St. Augustine

its
to proceed
from
out ever ceasing with
because
tends
St.
from
source towards the experimental union with

re-
way
of causality, also for
him to proceed per ea quae facta sunt and by the him starts from experience, this time a purely
of those immutable
truths
:.,?
God. Equally
Augustine knows from experience that in order to

its
natural one, the experience
of the reason
cover the integrity of

truths
natural vigour, even in the region of those
which
are accessible
by the demonstrations of reason,
the
woun-
1 which light up our changing minds. As to the soul's knowledge of itself,
if,
in the philosophical formula-
ded reason of the sinner needs to be healed by gratia sanans, 1

in our actual
And it is
tion
of his thought upon

it (in
this point,
and in certain psychological theories
movement towards
the primal Truth that he seeks to
guide and to instruct us.

.
He inculcates into us
the fact that the soul can only find

intus,
God by a re-
of sensation) St. Augustine with difficulty, clearly yields to platonic forms which are only defended and alinfallibly, that and all, the fact remains that what he saw before
connected with
particular his theory
turn and a progress ad
in
withdrawing from
all
things and from
the senses, in preparation for an ascension within.

in the profoundest depths
He wishes to be united
of the heart with Him who dwells there as in a
temple and in
philosophers and the wise men,
rest, not the God of the who may be attained without faith, not even the God of the theologians, who may be attained widiout charity, but the God of the saints, the Life of our life who gives himself to us
whom alone the heart can find
ways in a certain more or less remote participation with, in reflection nature and an experience of an order of things which is divine, is the is radically (but soul the which soul, by human the spirit in privileges of by its subnot in the state of union with the body) intelligible to itself
stance,
of,
and
may
It
only
know
material things
own
light
will be sufficient for St.
by immersing them in its Thomas to specify that here on

its
earth the soul only knows itself through
acts to bring,
here
as
every-
dirough grace and in love.

In mystically experiencing
*J as
the proof of the existence
of God
God the
soul experiences also, in the most

its
hidden point of
its
sanctified activity,
own
nature as a
spirit.
Tins
(from whom Pascal greatly deviated on this terra, clamant quod facta sunt; mutantur enim atque variantur.
se ipse
Augustine from the sensible world has in value: 'Ecce sunt caelum et point) its
double experience, produced by the special inspiration of the Holy

^Quamvis enim nisi
qua
aliquid intelligat,
nemo possit credere in Deum: tamen ipsa fide

1
credit sanatur, ut intelligat
amphora. Enar.
Clamant eoarn quoa . ergo, Dormne, teasa Et vox dicentium est ipsa evidentia. Tu enim; qui es, sunt enim. ea qui pulcher es, pulchra sunt enim; qui bonus es, bona sunt eorum, quo comconditor tu sicut sunt, ita Nee ita pulchra sunt, nee ita bona sunt, nee chap. xi, 9.; (Confessions, parato nee pulchra sunt, nee bona sunt, nee sunt.'
.
non fecerint.
in Psalm, cxvui, 18, n. 3.
368

else,

object
tion. It
where
strain
first
the doctrine to
its final
point. Indubitably, in order to con-
of his researches in the

is
specific light
of purely
rational specula-
men to see the
things that are indeed
above them,
St.
Augustine at
a higher
wisdom which has

is
given birth to those metaphysical
flew too high: but
when fully acquired the substance of his psychoas
intuitions in which his teaching
so rich.
logy enters completely and easily,

strated, 1 into the
Pere Gardeil has admirably demon-
if I may by the Angel of the Schools. Mystical wisdom may be called in some sort the activating agent, the catalysing instrument of augustinian introspection, thanks to which it appears
system of aristotelian notions revivified and,
Let us finally recall that such wisdom contains in itself, in its source and eminenter, what among the scholastics is divided and separately defined as theological
to delimit things
dare to say so, augustinianised
and philosophical
discipline; or,
more precisely and

let
with the greatest possible accuracy,
us recall that
such a
wisdom contains philosophy in
a virtually-eminent
manner and
as
the most marvellous instrument of spiritual observation. In the
theology in a formally-eminent manner (for in using a lumen higher

than that of the theologians, in being
did truly
exact degree to
which
St.
Augustine's psychology never leaves sight
more than theologians, the Fathers
of the concrete, and his moral science even less so perhaps than his
psychology,
analytical
it
and righdy theological work);
we shall so understand that the

of
St.
it differs
progresses in an entirely other
manner than
that
of the
teaching of St. Augustine differs

point of view
from
that
psychology of St. Thomas.
and the
habitus
of knowledge;
Thomas not only in also by its condition.
In
all this
we are in a region very different from that of metaphysical

if it
Here, a condition of formation and specific actualisation, the condition
knowledge: a region which would be inferior to metaphysics
were
only that of practical knowledge or psychology, but which it is entirely

erroneous to characterise as such; a region which in reality transcends
metaphysics, for
it is
of sciences and technique in their proper nature: there, a condition of transcendent fecundity, of a supra-technical wisdom obscuring these
sciences in its
sciences
pre-eminence: a condition which, in comparison with the

is
rightly the royal
domain of infused wisdom,

us
the
of philosophy and theology,

St.
a condition of virtuality. In
all its
all
prelude to the beatific vision, the return of man to the loving contemplation
ways, to transfer the teaching of
Augustine, with
proper and
of the three Persons of the uncreated Trinity dwelling in

is
by
exclusively augustinian characteristics,

systems, in order to
it. It is
on
to the plane of philosophical
grace. It
so possible to say
is
with Windelband that the philosophical

a metaphysic of the
make it one among them, is to distort and to destroy

as the
doctrine of St. Augustine
inward
life,
or with
shattered
and scattered
animals which live in the uttermost
M.
Gilson that
this
add that
The
phrases
of conversion, on condition that we no metaphysic in the proper sense of the word. of Windelband and M. Gilson are alike all the more ilit is
a metaphysic
depths of the sea,
when they are dragged out into the open air, are shat-
doctrine is
tered by the pressure of the air which terrestrial animals naturally breathe.
It is
luminating in the degree to which one grasps the fundamental impropriety, in this case, of the term 'metaphysic'.
St.
nianism,
wise to observe also the equivocal nature of the word Augustiwhich when used to describe the thought of St. Augustine in-
evitably suggests
by its impersonality the idea of a system. In this sense it

St.
Augustine's doctrine
religious.
is
then, definitely, essentially,
and in
its
very
is
not a paradox to maintain that
Augustine never professed Augus-
method
He does not despise, he in no way lessens

nature of things (whether
;
the value of
tinianism.
scientific research into the
it is
a question of
indeed,
One might add, Which Augustinianism? There have been, as many different and sometimes hostile forms of Augustinianhave been augustinian philosophers.
metaphysics or the sciences of observation)
he
is
too great a lover of
ism
as there
Plato not to see the universe as a great family of essences, not to

at
every
make use moment of metaphysical concepts. But he only uses them obof primary matconsider the
AUGUSTINIANISM AND THE TECHNICAL DIFFERENTIATIONS OF

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT
liquely and for quite other ends. If he studies the nature

ter, it is
under the action of grace.

1
On no occasion does he
el
1'experience
The foregoing
considerations
make
clear
what
it is
renders contes-
A. Gardeil, La Structure ie
I' Sine
mystique, 1927.
table the position
of
all
those philosophers
whom
the historians of
M.D.K.
370

this

ation
371
philosophy classify as Augustinian. Indeed
contention implies on the
Augustine, with only the weapons of Augustine, a complete systematis-
part of philosophy a remarkable ignorance of its
own limits:
to
demand
of philosophy and theology.
St.
Bonaventure was able to rehis
a philosophical system from St. Augustine is to claim for philosophy, and as if it were seen by its light, what proceeds in reality from the light of the highest christian wisdom, from faith and from charity. (Thus philosophical Augustinianism seems naturally linked up with an im-
cover the high inspiration of St. Augustine, a ray from

failed to articulate
It
wisdom, he
do so !). needed the weapons of Aristotle, it needed St. Thomas Aquinas. In St. Thomas's time scholastic Augustinianism was blocked in an impasse
tried to
any scientific work
(if indeed
he ever
moderate philosophising, which is patent in the Cartesian school, and concealed in certain of our contemporaries who contemn abstract
knowledge, but only in order to overestimate to an equal measure the modes of apprehension which they would substitute for it.) Whatever
reverence one
(and the efforts which it made after St. Thomas only make the fact more apparent) the means whereby it might become a science and, in consequence, for any progress, were visibly lacking. St. Thomas alone
;
was able to rightly

stroke the proper
establish theological
wisdom
in
its
own
right
and
may have for
St.
Augustine, whatever
new
or old truths
specific order, to establish
theology
as a science, in defining
by the same
we can gather from his treasure, whatever sense of inward reality we may owe to him, such treatment is a complete betrayal of his spirit and
of his thought. The Meditations touchant
the De Trinitate as
la philosophic
domain of philosophy. He alone was able to draw from Augustine, but with the weapons of Aristode, not of Augustine,
scientific
premihe resemble
theology and the science of christian philosophyand is it not

a science?
much
is
as
a photographer's dark-room resembles the

hardy' spiritualism of Descartes, the
sifallor
with the weapons of philosophy that theology is elaborated as
eye of a poet.
The 'engaging and
He
alone
was
able to systematise theologically and philosophically the
cartesian cogito (which
something entirely different from the
sum), the ontological argument, the theory of picture-ideas

substance; the theophilosophy
casionalism, the idea
and thought-
of Malebranche, the ontologism, ocfar
wisdom of Augustine, precisely because he placed this wisdom in the perspective of other less lofty but more technically perfect forms of wisdom, which have their irreplacable part in the economy of the christian intellect,
of vision in God,
from being
in the least even
because he had the courage to submit it to the conceptual re-differenit
authentic forms of the
world of augustinian
disintegration.
spirituality, are
only the
tiation necessary to change

It is
into itself on the plane
ofa new intelligibility.
remains
/
left
by
its rationalistic
only the ungrateful zeal of archaism which can be astonished that
An analogous
process of jnaterialisation has already been
known
in
the natural progress division into
theology,
"
)
when a Jansen transposed into
the thin substance of his theo-
of thought and of culture implied the necessary of philosophical and theological knowledge from one another,
special disciplines each
logical pessimism
and hedonism the diaphanous but difficult letter of St.
two
with a
special technique,
not certainly
'Augustine, his too vivid, too divinely human language concerning grace
separated, but distinct,

sciences. Spiritual
exacdy
as
subsequendy happened in the natural
and liberty adamic innocence and fallen nature, the delectations of sense
,
organisms grow like living bodies.

vitally articulate,
And how
can
and those of grace.1
do not ignore the
fact that a theological augustin-
heterogeneous functions, each

diverse specific objects
explicit in the course
which respond
to the
ianism is possible which will fall neither into the excesses ofjansen nor of
Luther, nor of those anti-thomist disputants
his inspiration.
of
spiritual activity,
not become progressively
from whom Luther drew

christian instinct
But
hazard that
it
will
be the
of the
Thomas Aquinas
sary. 1 In the face
at
of history? The explication achieved by St. the end of the Middle Ages was absolutely neces-
theologian which will keep
him in die right line of truth rather
than any
in
of the universe of truths which are naturally accessible
virtue inherent in his principles
of theological conceptualisation
themselves.
Indeed, mediaeval scholasticism endeavoured in vain to

*Cp. N. Del Prado,
draw from
J Cp. the remarkable study by R. P. M.-D. Chenu, 'La The"ologie comme science an Xin siecle*, Archives d'liist. dect. et litt. du moyen age, t. ii, pp. 31 et seq. There is for all that no 'rationalism* in the work thus accomplished by St. Thomas. To recognise the
De
Gratia et libero arhitrio (Fribourg), 1907.
proper value of the reason or of nature
is
neither rationalism nor naturalism.
372
373
and of truths rationally detachable from the principles of with equal qualities of discernfaith, the christian reason must be armed ment and knowledge. It must be able to judge by demonstration, by the
by
the reason
of the technique of Aristotle. He corrects Aristode, he honours Augustine as a son honours his father, and it is with the same piety with which he
offers at difficult points (very
frequendy
certainly) the assistance
of
pure light of objects and
intelligible necessities, that
is
to say, as a science.
his youthful energy. Let it be added that the more we exhibit the impor-
With St. Augustine, by the very degree to which it is absorbed in the discursive movement of a higher wisdom which is not in itself discursive,
theology
is still,
tance of St.
Thomas's
relation to Aristode
and
to the
St.
Greek and Arabic

Augustine and the
philosophy on the one hand, and on the other to
in relation to
its
own
proper and
human mode
as a
whole
christian tradition, the
more and with
the
same stroke
we
light
ofimperfection. Widi St. Thomas it is fully established in its own mode .which is the human mode of the reason; it has attained its human state of perfection. A scientific man faced with the doctrines
science, in a state
up the astonishing originality ofhis genius. When he treats of beatitude or of the Trinity, of eternal law, of the 1 virtues and the gifts, of contemplation, of evil, of providence and the
divine foreknowledge,
of St. Augustine
own
intelligible
by a world of religious wisdom in which his universe cannot be made articulate. If he adheres to
is
faced
of predestination, and generally of all the matters

is
of sacred theology, nothing of

St.
more apparent than

of
their
this perfectfidelity_
that doctrine in so far as
he
is
a believer his thought
is
cut in two: pro-
Thomas_to
St.
Augustine
in his theological synthesis. Everyone
'
gressing in the
world of his
own speculative development according to
knows
that the capital doctrine
agreement
is
the doctrine
of
the exigencies of a purely objective analysis, there according to the
grace. It is in St.
Thomas that we see, come to their perfect scientific for-
movement of love towards the experience which should absorb it. The marvel of thomist wisdom, of the metaphysic of being and of causes, is that such a knowledge, placed on the summit of human reason, and which knows that it is inferior to the knowledge of infused wisdom
,-
mulation, those essential truths which affirm the dis tinction and union
of the naturaland supernatural orders, the sovereign liberty of creative

love, the mtrinsicreality
gifts,
.
truths
which
the
and vital character within us of the infused wisdom of Augustine never ceased to proclaim
still
and superior
in the
to all else,
soul,
human
which only divides in ordertounite, establishes without any diminution or alteration and with the
against Pelagi'us,
but in a language which was
uncertain.
When St.
Thomas
caused
teaches the
motion of the human free will by grace and divine

that the free
rigour of a universal objectivity, a stable coherence and a vital solid'
causality, in
such a
way
mode itself of our voluntary acts is
arity
between the
spiritual activities
which reach up into heaven and

earth.
} those
which extend over and grow upon
by God, and that all their goodness derives at once from God as prime cause and from us as secondary cause, and that it is only for evil that we are the (deficient) prime cause, when he teaches how liberty (in the sense of autonomy) is the work of the grace of the Holy Ghost, it is
the very voice
It
THOMAS AQUINAS THE HEIR OF AUGUSTINE

There
is
of S t. Augustine, of S t. Paul,
that we hear.
a story that at
Cologne
Master Albert instructed his great
has been pointed out (and we can see the motive for this difference)
disciple to
always follow Augustine in theology and Aristode in philo-
that in the 'at times too literally scriptural'
sophy.
We must see this division less in regard to the particular subjects

once of science and of wisdom, one might say
the notion
than their formal aspects. In so far as philosophy and theology themselves contain the aspects at
than that
theology of St. Augustine of nature has a much more concrete and historical meaning of St. Thomas. 'While the nature explored by St. Thomas is a
2
metaphysically indestructible essence, whose intrinsic necessity
resists
that to treat
of divine and
human
things
Thomas Aquinas
asked Aris-
even the corruption of original sin, St. Augustine, in order to leave only
those graces
tode for his scientific equipment and received from Augustine, and from
the other Fathers and the Bible, the substance of his
delity to the
of which he
strips it
and the powers which
it
diminishes or
wisdom.
And his fi-
^p. the beautiful book by R. P. F. CaynJ. La

S
Contemplation augustimenne, 1927.

i.
wisdom of Augustine is even more perfect dian his mastery
A. Gardeil, La
Structure
k I'awe et ?expedience mystique, vol.
374

of nature the state in fact resulting from
makes more

explicit in
its
m
own
proper
perverts, describes
by the name original sin and what in that state may authorise man's hope of escaping from it. That, in the last analysis, these two attitudes are not dogmatically contradictory there is in my eyes not a shadow of doubt: StAugustine
own mode and according
to
its
perspective the thought
of Augustine.
also included in his philosophical synthesis,
But
St.
and to a
Thomas has much greater

method,
degree than
is
often recognised, if not the
does not exclude
St.
Thomas
is
in this central point
of all
christian
conceptualist
at least the essential elements
of augustinian
philosophy, rather he prepares for
him and invokes him; but

same
I
that the
thought.
It is this
its
plan of these
1 to sustain.'
two
expositions
the
think
it is
equally impossible
it is
that
we may recognise, made precise, developed, brought to

St.
share myself this opinion

is
of M.
Gilson's. Nevertheless,
St.
perfect point, in that metaphysical masterpiece, the thomist doctrine
necessary to add that this difference
purely modal, and that
Augdisdis-
of analogy and the divine names. For

use
Augustine there only makes

explicit the-
ustine alio taught as clearly as possible the ontological value
of the
of Plotinian terms for the adjustment of Plotinus to the
tinction between nature
and
grace, 2
and that he clearly affirmed this
ology demanded
by revelation, and he not only teaches that God is imis all
tinction even in tfa state of innocence: for to
him
grace
is
the root of the
mutable, immense, eternal, infinitely simple, that he
that
he
has, 1
supernatural privileges of Adam, such as corporeal irrimortality, which

is
Truth, Life, Beauty,

scious
Wisdom, he knows
also that
he
is
personal, 'conthat he
3 therefore supernatural also; it
is
positively
and intrinsically ordained
of himself and of his work',2 Deus non illiquid nesciensfecit,3

all
for the beatific vision,

that
which is not due to any created intelligence, even

distinct
has
made
things
by his will, causa omnium
quae fecit, voluntas ejus est*
of the
angels; 5
it is
6 condens et naturam et largiens gratiam).
from nature even in the angels (simul Here again thomist theology only
and that he is very Being, If sum esse subsistens, as St. Thomas will say: Deum nihil aliud dicam esse, nisi idipsum esse. 5 The augustinian proof of the
existence
of God
is
rediscovered equivalendy in the quarta via of

St.
St.
*E. Gilson, Introduction a I'itude de Saint Augustin, 1929, p. 298.

2 et
Thomas, 6 sometimes even

particular
x 'Quae
Thomas
appears to evoke
it
in
its
own
Cp.
De gratia et libera
arbitrio,
chap,
xiii, n.
25:
'Numquam aatura erit gratia? Nam
form, 7 despite the fact that the formulation cannot remain the
est,
hoc Pelagiani ausi sunt diccrc, gratiam esse naturam, in qua sic creati sumus, ut habcamus mentem rationalem, qua intelligere valeamus, facti as imagiaem Dei, ut dominemur piscibus maris et volucribus caeli et omnibus pecoribus quae repunt super tcrram. Sed nonhaec est gratia, quam commendat apostolus perfidemjesu Christi. Hanc
habet haec et
et ea
this
omnia unus est' (De
Civ. Dei,
book xi,
chap. 10).
As
M.
Gilson truly points out,
formula contains the germ of the whole mediaeval

existence (cp.
enim naturam etiam cum impiis et infidelibus certum est nobis esse communem; gratia vero per fidem Jesu Christi eorum tantummodum est, quorum est ipsa fides.' De praedest. sanctorum, chap, v, n. 10: 'Posse habere autem fidem, sicut posse habere caritatem, naturae est hominum; habere autem fidem, quemadmodum habere caritatem, gratiae fidelium. Ilia atque natura, in qua nobis data est possibilitas habendi fidem, non discernit ab homine homincm; ipsa vero fides discernit ab infideli fidelem.' Enarrat. in Ps. xlix: 'Manifestum est ergo, quia homines dixit deos, ex gratia sua deificatos, non de
substantia sua natos.
facit.
. . .
doctrine of the non-distinction in God alone of essence and book xv, chap. 13).
2
De
Trin.,
Charles Boyer,
VUk de Veritidans
10.
la
phihsophie de
St.
Augustin (1921), p. 108.
De Civ. Dei, book xi, chap.
*Enarr. in Psalm, exxxiv.
Qui autem justificat,
ipse deificar, quia justificando filios Dei

i,
Deditemmpotestatemfilios Deifieri (loan,
12). Si
filii
Dei facti sumus,
et dii facti
sumus; sed hoc gratiae adoptantis, non naturae generantis/
De morihus Ecclesiae, xiv, 24. Cp. De Trinit., book i, c. 1, n. 2: 'Quae vero proprie Deo dicuntur, quaeque in nulla crearura inveniuntur, raro ponit scriptura divina; sicut illud quod dictum est ad Moysen: Ego sum qui sum, et: Qui est, misit me ad vos. Such texts, together with De Trinit., book v, c. 2, n. 2, and Confess., book xi, chap. 4
s
de
Cp. Garrigou-Lagrange, Communication 24th Apr. 1930.

4 Cp.
(v. supra),
virtually contain the
whole thomist doctrine of the divine names and of
at
*La Semaine augustimenne de Rome,'
analogy.
De correptkne et gratia, chap,
"Cp.
xi, n.
R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, son existence et sa nature, 5th edit., p. 296.
29: 'Quid ergo?
Adam non habuit Dei gra'In the passage in the

sa
tiam? Immo vero habuit magnam, sed disparem.'

h
Summa contra Gentiles whose importance M. J.

omnis veritatis.'
Sestili
has right-
De
Trinit.,
boob xiv and xv
ly underlined: ' Yeritates intellectae
ipfundantur in aliquo aetemo. Fundantur enim in

(ii,
(notably chap. 3),
prima Veritate,
sicut in causa universali contentiva
84.)
*De Civ. Dei, book xii, chap. 9.
'
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE same in his hands (which probably explains why instead of developing
376
it
3T7
ex professo, he contents himself with

difference
making
St.
allusion to
it).
In
effect,
mentioned a few characteristic points. An infinity of exI have only amples would be needed to signalise all the augustinian riches which
were assimilated by the thought of St. Thomas, all the signs of the 1 with which the Angelic veneration down to die most minute details
by reason of the prime

as
;.e.,
between
Augustine and St. Thomfor the augustinian
1 as Pere Gardeil has so well exhibited, the substitution of the
aristotelico-thomist
dominant of
efficient causality
dominant of participation the eternal truths which St. Augustine indistinctly recognised, not only of the value of ideal necessity, but also its
illuminating virtue,
Doctor regarded the authority of St. Augustine. The more one studies either Doctor the more one verifies the phrase of Pere Gardeil:' One can
count the points in which they
differ; it is impossible to
count those in
made him direcdy pass on
to
God
the
first
Truth
in this
which they agree

stance
and
subsistent Light; while in order to find their
supreme truth
a
of the
The Dumb Ox had devoured all the spiritual subEagle of Hippo, made him, as much as Aristode, the very ?
it is
same first
Truth, and so to refer the truth in our

St.
mind to
first basis
of
2 substance of his mind.' If we consider the essential values of the thought
Thomas, who recognised in the acting intellect the active would have needed, I believe (if he had wished intelligence, our light of
a real order, to develop the augustinian proof itself), to pass through this illuminat-
of St. Augustine in their integrity,

thought in which
necessary to say, as
have
tried
here to explain, that the sole metaphysical systematisation of that

it
remains
essentially
augustinian
is
exacdy the syn-
ing created cause which

first
we bear with us, in order to

it
trace
it
back to the
thesis of St. Thomas.
Cause in whose virtue
participates.
Despite the fundamental difference of philosophical key of which
we
have spoken, one can
say, in
accord with the admirable studies of Pere

ianism
is
THOMISM AND AUGUSTTNIANISM
Boyer, that by means of a general transposition and the multitudinous

light variations required in consequence, the whole substance of Augustine's doctrine of truth has passed
How absurd it is to compare the systems of Thomism and Augustin(I
mean
the augustinianism of
is
St.
Augustine hismelf) The one

!
over into
St.
Thomas. Finally, it is visible

itself
a system, the other
not.
Thomism is the scientific condition of chris-/

St.
that the edifice
of aristotelian metaphysics and natural philosophy

its
tian
still
wisdom; with die Fathers and with

in
is its
Augustine that wisdom
is
\-G-J: 'J-
'>
could only find
achievement in the thomist synthesis thanks to the
spring. Between the head-waters and the
river in the plain
augustinian cornerstone, that is, thanks to the doctrine
of creative Ideas.
illuniinate the
there
no
opposition. It
is
not by
the side of thomist
wisdom, and
as if
For
it is
in
God
himself, in the creative Ideas
which
the spring overflowed the river, that the perpetual fountain of augustinian
Angels before causing things, that the created world has the supreme
principle
wisdom reaches us in its purity. This inspiration presided over the

it
of its order and of its movement. Augustine not only traced
formation of the thomist synthesis,

should continue to enter into
trine
it,
passed into that synthesis, and

it
it
the great lines of a theory
of creation, his exemplarism brings

St.
to the con-
to rouse
to fresh growth, for the doc-
ception of the world
which
Thomas developed
a full consistency, a
of St. Thomas is destined to grow forever. Doubdess, after invisible
supreme metaphysical hardihood, which the analytical circumspection

;,*-,-.
journeys, tributaries of the spring

are destined to increase its waters.
may
spring
up
beside the river; they
of Aristode had never known.

Structure de I'ame et 1'expirience mystique, book ii, append. 2. Pere Garcomments on and generalises die thesis set out in the study by M. Gilson, 'Pourquoi saint Thomas a critique' saint Augustin', Archiv. d'Hist. doetr. et litt. du moyctt
age, vol.
i,
Doubdess
'augustinian' systems will
A. Gardeil, La
continue to be elaborated in opposition to thomism; frankly they are only a testimony to the laziness of thomists, their backwardness in purx
It is
deil there
on
the sole authority
of St. Augustine
that St.
Thomas
admits that Moses was
and formation
1926-27. In everything particularly concerned with the notions of creation full space must be granted to the comments of M. Gilson [Introduction h
transitorily raised to the beatific vision.
ra-bas, Cp. B. Lavaud, 'La vision de Dieu
Revue tkomiste, Jan.-Feb., 1929; May-June, 1930.

*A. Gardeil, op. cit.
I'itudede Saint Augustin, p. 258).
378

work of universal assimilation and elucidation so
potently bethat work should
spite
379
suing the
gun by their master. Despite these delays and obstacles
exacdy because of the high level of their spiritual achievement that the Middle Ages were able to accomplish their universal work under the
headship of the Fathers and particularly of
St.
normally continue. Those 'augustinian' philosophers who, in
of
Augustine.
Our own
It
the inconsistency of their systematic position, rediscover anything of the intuitive vigour of St. Augustine, who throw light on the value of
epoch knows a less
liberal spiritual uprush,
but has more perfect instruhas an-
ments, surer means of verification and technical development.

other
neglected truths,
who extend our knowledge of inward realities, work

of St. Augustine, more disposed than was
to hazard itself in the zone of
work to
work.
accomplish.
And it is under the headship of the Theoloits
widiout knowing it for the philosophy of St. Thomas.
gian par excellence that christian thought should set its hand and
gies to
ener-
The
inventive hardihood
the theological prudence
of St. Thomas
If we like
we are
at liberty in
our use of names
we may
call the
r ,A.t>m
some knowledge of the actual succession of the events of human history; basing himself on the Bible, St. Augusthe probable, sought to gain
tine created the philosophy of history, or let us say more exactly (for the iUuminations of faith are here necessary) the wisdom of history, and the
wisdom of St. Augustine, or more generally, christian wisdom, which is infused wisdom making use of reasons and of discourse, 'christian
philosophy'. This 'philosophy', which essentially presupposes faith, charity
%
&f*
;A/*
and the
gifts
of the Holy Ghost,
the whole supernatural order,
is
not
V
t :-l.,_
of irreversible historical becoming, of the movement and development of the world in the sense of time, is in my opinion one of the
feeling
that to
work of the
exploration of the nature of things to which the
men
whom we
are accustomed to give the

it is
name of philosophers
raised
are de-
'__
most precious jewels in the augustinian heritage. There is a whole domain
voted, neither has it the means, since

certitudes
above the spontaneous
'"here, to be regained
from Hegel and to claim for christian wisdom. by the spirit of St. Augustine, will thomist thought one day be enriched by those conjectures in the matter of the exegesis of history
Stimulated
reflections
in the assigning
of ordinary reason, above judgments by demonstration, and of reasons of beings those truths which are accessible by of our mind alone. The proper instrument ofphilosophy
the single voice

is
which
on
culture always strive to
become? The
Discours sur
to
lacking to
it.
And when
which
is
that instrument serves our minds it has

it
its
Vhistoire universelle
might be re-written, and a more modern sequel The City of God would render great services.
It is
specific object,
the intelligibility of things,
has
its
own rules
and
its
own proper
light,
which
are those of the natural reason, not of
important also to comprehend that the state of incompleteness in which, despite multiple efforts, the'school or rather the plans
tentative
the infused gifts.

.
In order that the
names we apply
to things
may have some
corres-
for a school of so-called augustinian philosophy is seen to remain itself a promise of renewal or of progress. In
is
not
itself such
incomplete-
reality, we ought which is righdy a philosophy, a wisdom which may
pondence with
to call christian philosophy something

define itself as the
it-
ness
is
much more
a sign of imperfectibility.
How
can an organism
It is
perfect
self,
work of the
reason, perfectum opus
rationis,
and which finds
winch cannot even consolidate itself hope to grow? cause of its consitution as a science, with a clearly
equipment, that thomism, also
is
precisely be-
on
the side of die object, in accord with revealed truthon the

subject, in vital connection
defined systematic
side
of the
with those supernatural energies

but not detached, in the
chrisit
itself, but in another sense, incomplete, capable of progress and an endless increase. Far from saying that St Thomas has done everything, it declares that while history endures and continues to bring to light new problems there will always remain by so
whose philosophical
tian soul. In
suffices that this
all
habitat
it
is
distinct,
order that
should be in accordance with revealed truth,

its
philosophy should be true in
own order:
its
then, while
the time exhibiting 'the integral rigour of

all
rational exigencies",
much more to do as has already been

Let
done.
earlier
It is
while
the time following, not

it
a theological, but a stricdy
and purely
me
recall
what was
said
on an
page of the wisdom
of the
it
philosophical method,
x
nature and reason will display 'a conception of

2.
Fathers and that of die theologians.
possible to think that
was
St.
Thomas, Sum. theol.,ii-ii, 45.
So
381
open to the supernatural', 1 confirmed by its own natural gifts, and which
is
of
not repugnant to the supernatural substance contained in the deposit revelation. But, by the very fact that the human subject cannot
If one wished to enter into no doubt presumptuous precisions and seek out what distinguishes him among them ati, one might add that his individual note is a no less prodigious blaze of the gift of knowledge1
achieve in their integrity those supreme truths
which
are naturally
knowable without
philosophy demands that it should be developed, in the subject, in vital connection with faith, which
aid
this
from on high,
than of the gift of wisdom, whence comes his privilege of such profound supernatural penetration, not only of those things which are
divine, but
of the human heart and the inmost psychological
recesses
of
without entering into

criterion,
its
immediate texture or serving

it
it as
a positive
the creature.
performs in regard to
the part of an extrinsic regularising
with theology which, by making use of it as an instrument, corroborates it; with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which supernaturally comforts it also in the soul of the christian.
principle, veluti stella rectrix; together
St.
What is in question is mystical knowledge, which penetrates the creature with a loving light due to the connaturality with divine things produced by charity, and which corresponds to the beatitude of tears. Cp. St. Thomas, Sum. theol., ii-ii, q. 9; John of
l
St.
Thomas, Les Dons du
Saint-Esprit, chap. iv.
Augustine
to
thomism
live
recalls to us what thomists, when they allow their weaken within them, are tempted to forget: that christian
its
philosophy demands, for
very conditions of existence, that
it
should
and
spiritualise itself in contact
with the living
faith
and experience
into the
of the
christian soul; that it also
must enter in
its
own way
work of redemption, and that it be fortified from on high by contemplation. St. Thomas recalls to us what the
Augustinians seem to forget from the very beginning: that christian philosophy, in itself and in its intrinsic structure a form of rational knowledge,
is
anguish and the peace of the
rigorously independent of all the dispositions of the subject, and

necessities
must only be ruled by objective

sary to say, as
J
and intelligible
constraints.
What has been said of the wisdom of St. Augustine it is equally necesI
have pointed out, of the wisdom of the other Fathers.

what
the
M. D. Chenu,
Bulletin thomiste.Jm., 1928, p. 244. In thus distinguishing

ohjecti
notion of christian philosophy implies ex parte
me that the
truth in the remarks of P. Chenu [be. be reconciled. In what concerns the order followed by St. Thomas, it was in so far as he was a theologian, not in so far as he was a christian philosopher, that he followed the
and ex parte subjecti, it appears to cit.) and of M. Gilson [op. cit.) can
theological order. Moreover, in his commentaries

as
on Aristotle, he discovered, in so far philosopher (and a christian philosopher) the very order of philosophy itself. (For the notion of christian philosophy, see E. Gilson's lecture to the Socie"td fcancaiscde Philosophic (21st Mar., 1931), his two volumes on The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy the books by Regis Jolivet, Essaisurles rapports entre la pensie grecaue et lapemiechritimne (1931) and La Pkibsophie chr&tienne et la pensie contemporaine (1932). and my own litde book, De laphibsophie chritienne. On Augustinianism and its most authentic significance, see F. Cayr^, Les Sources d 'amour iivin d'apris S. Augustin [mi), particularly the author's introduction)
he was
a
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS

fused contemplation.
perience, a sort
383
And it continues in heaven, where an affective
ex-
of taste or touch of God through the gifts of the Holv Ghost accompanies, says John of St. Thomas, and responds again to the
beatific vision: so that faith will
come
to an end, but not the mystical
CHAPTER VII
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS, THE PRACTICIAN OF THE
which like charity remains foreverproceeding here from faith and in the world to come from the beatific vision.
experience,
municable knowledge as
CONTEMPLATIVE
I.
LIFE
of the Cross the great Doctor of this supreme incomSt. Thomas Aquinas is the great Doctor of supreme communicable knowledge. And it is in regard to the delicate
I
hold
St. John
COMMUNICABLE AND INCOMMUNICABLE KNOWLEDGE
Light and the great Doctor of the Night that
When we see God face to face we shall have an intellectual knowledge

of the divine essence which will be sovereignly clear and limpid; this knowledge will be nevertheless incommunicable, because the divine
essence will,be the
and so admirably instructive relations between the great Doctor of the I wish to examine in this chapter some of the aspects of the spiritual teaching of St. John of the
Cross.
For
ences
this it is
not necessary to consider the
historical facts
of the
influ-
immediate actuation of our intelligence, without any
which
Such
affected the reading or the quotations of St.

studies,
John of the
intermediary species or idea (for
no
idea, angelic or
quately represent the divine essence), and it is

cepts that our
human, can adeby means ofideas and conbeatific
Cross.
briety,
when
they are conducted with intelligence and soutility:
have an incontestable
but in themselves they do not consagaciously analysed and cataintellectual ingredients
knowledge is communicable.
this absolute
tribute gready.
Above
all, if,
however
Apart from
vision,
and divinely privileged case of the
logued under the appropriate headings, the
which is
tellectual
Its
once stricdy intellectual and strictly experimental, inknowledge, in heaven or on earth, is in itself communicable.
at
is
which enter into the composition of the

thesis are
Saint's
thought and
its
syn-
merely exhibited
in vitrio,
botded in a
historical retort, they
mystery
precisely this communicability. It
is
not communicated
primarily result in waste labour. History can give us precious evidence

as to
like
a material thing, like a piece of money which circulates from hand to hand. It evidently requires a vital, personal, irreplaceable act, an im-
the material conditions in
which
a man's thought has developed,

St.
it
can never operate the synthesis of that thought.

like
St.
who
manent work of thought on the part of him who receives as of him gives; but this is regulated and made specific by those objects which are precisely transmitted thanks to ideas, and which mean the
same to both
parties.
John of the Cross, St. Thomas, fed his mind from the most diverse sources; he had read
St.
Gregory and
or even
Bonaventure,1 Baconthorp and Michael of Bologna

St.
as
much
to
more than
is
question at issue
is
not whether he had read
Thomas himselfit may be so: but the St. Thomas. The question
its
But
place
bears
side by side with this communicable knowledge, which takes by means of ideas, there is another form of knowledge which on the concrete as such, and which exists by way of experience:
know whether
the testimony which he brings us, taken in
obof
jective significance, accords,

St.
and
to
what degree it accords, with
that
ters
an incommunicable knowledge, in which doubtless and guides, but they do not transmit to us the
we
can have mas-
Thomas, taken also in its objective significance. From this point of view it would perhaps almost be better to know that he had read St.
objects themselves of
their thought;
counsels
is
what they transmit to us are a multitude of opinions, and the rules which we need for obtaining a knowledge which
Such knowledge when
382
it
Thomas much less than we know he did, best of all if he had never even read a line of him! Then the results of such a confrontation of their two
1
life
We know that he recommended the writings of these great masters of the spiritual
to his novices.
in itself indescribable.
bears
on God
is
in-
384

It is

the part of principles,
3 g5
is
doctrines would be even more significant.
the differences of point of
and that
practical philosophy
it is
not limited,
it
as
it is
view and of situation, a knowledge of which is an essential prerequisite to such a confrontation, which I wish first of all to try and indicate here.
THE SPECULATIVE AND THE PRACTICAL ORDER
of all necessary to place in evidence a notion which,
Kant wished to limit

does not
it,
to ordering,
a knowledge,
knows: but
its
know
its
object veritably and completely, for

it
object
something to be done of which

II.
knows how
it
ought to be done;1
it
Ojxtey.
For
ill
this it is first
my
opinion, affects the
whole
field
of consideration
the notion of
practical knowledge.
In the speculative order the mind,

existence, rouses
when
it
considers the universe of
from
this
universe worlds of greater and greater purethe
ness
of intelligibility, each more and more detached from matter:
world of natural science and of the philosophy of nature, the world of the madiematical sciences, the world of metaphysics. Then, when it returns to the
world of existence considered
as such,
and
finds
its
end
in
the
human action which is accomplished in that world,1 the mind, philoknow, not only
object
sophising this time in the practical order, applies itself to

in order to
know
but in order to
act,
and to acquire an
;
which
is
something practical (an act to be accomplished) a knowledge which, proceeding in a practical manner in regard to
conditions
its
proper
finalities
and in the
of the
object, remains nevertheless, in regard to the general

speculative or explicative
and fundamental equipment of knowledge, in a

mode, and
which envisages the universe itself of action and operative values from the point of view of reasons of being and the intelligible structures which are immanent in it.
This
is
what Aristode
calls practical
philosophy: ethics, economics,

observations on
this
it
politics, etc.
One
could
practical philosophy,
make many important which the modern world

characteristic
so misunderstands:
could be pointed out
that,
although it has nothing to do with the degrees
Fig. 8.
of abstraction which are

verses the whole range
of the speculative
sciences, it tra-
of knowledge, from the sky ofmetaphysics, from
constitutes a
which
it
depends, to the earth of experience,

It
on which indispensably
this
it
experience,
also
knowledge which, however great a part in it is played by verification, but which is is not only a simple knowledge of
2
must be based.
1
could also be pointed out that in
order ends play
and by its essence a regulative, a normative knowledge.

operabilibus perfecta scientia
Specuktivum 'solum importat et

.'
suae, et
attingit objectum secundum rationem quidditatis eorum quae quiddicatcm consequuntur, ideoque respicit veritatem abstrahendo
. .
^De
a
non habetur
seq.
nisi scientur
inquantum
operabilia
sunt.' St.
Thomas, Sum. theol, i,
14.
i<5 et
ab exercirio extendi.
n.5.
(John of St. Thomas, Curs, theol,
i,
P. q.
i, disp. 2, a. 10,
On this point of capital importance,

JB
see pages 130-6
and 173-82 of the
collective
volume, Clairvoyance de Rome (Edition Spes).

M.D.K.
3 S6

I
SAINT
cal
The only point which

philosophy does not
wish to emphasise here
JOHN OF THE CROSS
is
that this practical
38?
suffice to regulate action. It
knows
contemplation,
is
in a manne
only explicatory, speculative and theoretic, things which have not only to be elucidated but to be done. It assembles into a
is still
which
ing
the point of view of this science. His teachenshrined in doctrinal theology, in knowledge in the
it is
from
speculative
and explicative mode.
scien-
tific
system
all
distance, that is
knowledge which is necessary to regulate action at a to say, all the rules of action which are discovered by the
the
seeking for a sure speculative elucidation of mystical theology, as of other supernatural mysteries, it is
to
And if we are
him first and before all that we must address ourselves.

THE PRACTICALLY PRACTICAL SCIENCE
intellect as it adapts for practical
usage an equipment, a
mode of discernphilosopher
ethics,
ment, which
is
is still
in fact typically speculative.
The
most aware, most competent in discussion of theoretical
who may
But in what concerns the exigencies of actual practice practical knowledge cannot abide at that point.
It is like
it
find himself disconcerted before the minutest practical act,
a great flood of intelligibility
and may even
which descends
as it particularises, as
himself lead an immoral
clasps closer
and
closer, to the
life.
Let
it
sophical
be added that if there are two perfecdy distinct types of philoknowledge corresponding to the speculative and practical
point of very contact with the concrete and particular act to be accomplished hie et nunc, the indefinite variety of contingent circumstances.
In
immediate contact with action,

the true practical
as the
orders, theological
tion,
knowledge, on the other hand, because of its elevaembraces at the same time in its unity both orders; there is only one
immediate regulator of actions,

is
knowledge
is
no longer what
its
called a
form of
knowledge, a science: for
at this point
object
is
theology, which is at once speculative and practical. 1 For in fact man as he acts here on earth, not being that abstract subject, that pure and simple
subject
not only a practical
object to be accomplished, but

singularity, in its relations
concrete conditions
I
of human nature seen by philosophy, but finding himself in which determine and universally affect his nature,
it is
cable personality, and this

tical
still more a practical object in its very with the end wished for by my incommuniis not the object of any science. The true prac-
knowledge
as
as the
immediate regulator of action

it
is
mean
the virtue of
hie et nunc.
it is
the concrete status of a world fallen and redeemed,
not any
itself
prudence. Prudence judges,
commands what is
once
to
be done
practical philosophy (at least in the degree to
which
this is
not in
And,
we know,
this virtue is at
intellectual
and moral:
illuminated
by
theology), but the practical side
of theology which
manner
in
bound up with the moral

in dependence
virtues
and necessarily presupposes the
recti-
holds the right and position to regulate our actions. The demonstration which has been made of the still speculative and theoretical
tude of the will. In this region the intellect does not
which
practical philosophy studies
its
practical object
(human
acts) re-
regard to the
work alone, but on the will and on the dispositions of the will. It is with direction of the action and the Tightness of the will that its
false.
1
mains equally true with regard to the practical functioning of theology. It is still in a speculative manner, and with the pure intelligence, that theology considers and regulates human
actions. It
is,
judgment
is
true or
A question presents itself. Is there not an intermediate zone of knowledge between speculatively practical knowledge and prudence? Fol-
we may
say, a
When St. Thomas treats of morality and of human activity, when he treats of that supreme
speculatively practical science.
lowing the principles of

science in the clearest
practical
St.
Thomas,
affirm that there
isa
practical
activity
which is mystiout,
it is
meaning of the term, what we may call practically

It is still a science
Cp. Sum.
tiwol., i, i, a. 3
it is
and
4.
manner of aggregation',
Thomas,
Curs.
As Cajetan has forcibly pointed
not
'in a
is
knowledge.
because, although
ethics,
much more
considers
its
by die very indivisibility of its

. .
once and completely formally and
essence that theology
at
particularised than
x
moral theology or
:
though
it
q If dh? 2> a Ia) Ic Js> &f pccu] ativ c more of divine things than of human acts. For it treats these m the degree to which man is ordained by them for a perfect knowledge of God, ia which eternal beatitude consists.' (St. Thomas, hc.cit. a. 4)
P.
.
*I, i,
eminently speculative and practical. {Cp. John of St. J
since it treats principally
^ ^^
'
Thomas, Sum. theol., i-ii, 58, 5: 'Utrum intellectualis virtus possit esse sine morali,' and 57, 5 ad. 3 Verum intellectus practici (in prudentia) accipitur per conforSt.
, '
Cp.
niitatem ad appetitum rectum.' Cajetan writes in a particularly important commentary,
apropos of this article, 'Veritas intellectus speculativi consistit in cognoscere, Veritas autem intellectus practici in dirigere.' See also J. Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, iv, 3.
88

it is

to I am inclined
389
cases in detail,
nevertheless
compounded
of, has as its
proper object,
think that philosophers have often, and particularly
But it proceeds in its fundamental the universal and reasons of being. structure of its notions and definivery the in knowledge, of equipment according to a quite odier mode dian that of ethics or theology.
tions,
neglected the importance of these sciences, in the present time, gravely
which constitute a register of knowledge quite different from their own. There is a science of the practician as such, which is not reducible to
knowledge in the speculative mode, and whose dignity and importance
both great in regard to culture: I am not only thinking of those vast universes of knowledge which belong to the various crafts, such as those
are
for the entire mode of The very method of knowledge is here reversed: implies that what is mean? It knowledge is practical. What does this
significant here
is
no longer to
explain, to resolve a truth,
even a practi-
What signifies is to prepare an cal one, into its reasons and the action is a concrete thing, And rules. immediate action and assign its
principles.
of the engineer or the doctor, the banker or the architect, die artisan or the military commander, in all of which a practical science is incorporated as well as an art in the rightful meaning of the term:
I
which must be thought of in its very concretion before being posited as joins together, i.e. in rebeing, knowledge here, instead of analysing, itself and its object between establishes which it in fashion the gard to all that is already known, all together gathers It truth. of relation a
explications, all principles
all
have
also in
mind
that
which concerns the moral
order, the
knowledge of men.
it is
In
many of
counter.
the great moralists, in Confucius for example,
much
rather a science
of the practician than that of the philosopher that we en-
and reasons of being, but in order to organise
And it is the same with the great politicians.

world of the mind
itself structural difFerentiations
from new points of view, which correspond to the exigencies of exthe position of the concrete act, and which are furnished direcdy by
these
We
return here to one of the fundamental themes of this book: that
there are in the very
perience,
whose part
is
here primordial.
It is
in this fully characterised

(practically practical)
sense that
sciences
thomists teach that the practical

1 compositive/ like art
and a diversity of dimensions which it is above all necessary to recognise, and, if we are to escape the gravest errors of interpretation, the greatest
care
this
proceed modo
or prudence.
And as
art
and
prudence each suppose a rectification of the appetite

in the order of working ends, in the other,
practical sciences also (because in the line
(in the
one case only

2 as such), the
must be taken to assign to each type of thought its exact situation in form of transcendental topography. The differences which are in
of human ends
question here concern that 'fourth dimension' according to which the
of doing they are
identified
with
art itself,
and in the
line
of action they are bound up with pru-
mind diversifies its values of knowledge according to their proper ends. From this point of view it seems to me that we are mistaken when we
seek to classify as psychology, as part
of the
speculative science of hu-
and take on in some measure its conditions), also imply and presuppose,8 in order that they may judge truly, right dispositions of the will and a certain purification of the appetite in regard
dential experience
man nature, the profound researches and discoveries pursued by so many great sons of intuition, by Montaigne, Pascal or Nietzsche, by
or Shakespeare or Racine or Baudelaire, by Swift and Meredith, Balzac obserpure not are Dostoievsky. These potent observers of mankind
vers, neither are
to those ends for

l
which they
are concerned.
]n the practically practical sciences the compositive or 'realising'
mode
invades the
intimate structure of knowledge, although in
fundamental manner than it does in prudence: the notional instruments, the means of apprehension and judgment, have themselves become fundamentally practical (cp. infra, pp. 400-1), and the relations
much
they psychologists': they are
much more truly moral-
less
of manners. Withists, not philosophers, but practicians of the science the word, the forof sense integral the out doubt it is not to a science in
mulation of its rules and precepts, but to
they have above
great deficiencies
all
its
of truth, on which the fundamental regimentation of knowledge depends, are no longer of a purely intellectual order: we may say that truth is taken according to the aitigere as if founded on the cognoscere. 2 Cp. CajetaninSHw. theol, i-ii, 57, 5, ad. 3. (Also Art and Scholasticism.) s In a lesser degree than prudence however, for it does not belong to them, as it docs to prudence, to determine the final practical judgment hie et nunc, and to lead up to the
experimental material that
with very devoted their energies (and sometimes
imperium.
It is the dynamdie side of its regulative truths). usage of freeactual ism of human beings which they have studied, die so that the end, last will, and die position of man with regard to his
on
jpo

on
their ideas

of
39 i
exactitude of their views docs not only

vision but also
their
depend on the acuteness of their of good and evil, on the disposition

an
request of Ms spiritual daughters, he is expounding a doctrine, he teaches.
own hearts with regard to the Supreme Good. They bring back
it is
This doctrine
proceeds by
is
practical1 ,
it is
formulated
as
a practical science, which
creating immediate notions for the regulation of concrete
admirable treasure-trove of great psychological richness, but
by
actions. In the writings
of St. Theresa, who always
refused to be
means of a practically
nical psychology.
made a
science.
practical
knowledge of human
actions, not tech-
And it is precisely because
doctor
of,
but whose doctrine the Church has

descriptive
glorified, there are a
they are not psychologists
number of the
and experimental elements of such a
but moralists that dicir psychological observation penetrates so infinitely deeper than all the psychological technique of the laboratories and
the
colleges.
In the writings
of
St.
John of the Cross
this science is there, in all its
dimensions, to such a degree that the theorist of sciences could find no
THE PRACTICAL SCIENCE OF CONTEMPLATION

It is
more perfect example of a practical science. For, just as practically practical knowledge depends on speculatively practical knowledge, the
practical science
of contemplation depends on moral theology. And
St.
important to comprehend that in regard to that action par ex-
cellence
which is the passion of divine things and the contemplative unis
ion with God, there
John of the Cross is not only a supreme contemplative, he is also a very good theologian: which is the reason why this practical science in his
hands reaches its perfection.
This then
tical science
is
also
not only a speculatively practical science

is
which
winch
is
is
that
of theology: there
also a practically practical science,

is
the place to ask what are the relations between

If we take the
this
prac-
not so
much
occupied with telling us what perfection
but
and theology.
word
theology in the widest
with directing us thither, the science of the practician of souls, of the masters of spirituality, of the artisans of sanctity, the science which
broods over our miserable hearts and would bring them

the possession of their supreme joy.
It is
at
any
cost to
meaning of the term, sacred doctrine,2 as embracing the whole organism of our knowledge of the mysteries, faith itself, theological discourse, the gifts of knowledge, counsel and wisdom, then certainly this practical
in this practical science of con-
science
of which we have been speaking is
a part
of theology so deas I
templation that
St. John
of the Cross is a master.

of St. John of the
Two elements must be distinguished in the works
fined.
But
if
we
take theology in the

as
strict sense
of the word,
have
done heretofore,
the speculative
meaning a virtually revealed

it is
science proceeding in
Cross: his inspired poems and the commentaries which he wrote upon them for our instruction. In his poems, written under divine inspiration,
mode,
equally clear that this practical science must

of Toledo: and that he
sometimes
I
through limpid,
uage
lyrical
symbols, he recounts, in so far as
human
strophes written in 1578, in the prison
said to
Madeleine of the
lang-
may
Holy
Spirit,
when
she admired the vivid and subde expressions in his poem,
'My
express the inexpressible,
which
is,
truth to say, very inade-
daughter, sometimes
God gave me them,
myself found them
out.' (Siv.,
quately, the mystical experience which he has livingly known. There he dreams of nothing but of singing.1 In his commentaries, written at the
Obras de S.Juan de
1931.)
Which
does not at
êt, perhaps, the very fact that he had received the grace and the divine impulsion to srag.of his experience already contained in itself the virtual intention (of which he
himself was ignorant) of teaching the ways of spirituality. Contemplathnemaliistradere
is,
Saint witnesses in
Cruz, vol. i, p. 325: cp. Louis de Trinite", Etudes carmelitaines, Oct., all, as the all prevent the poem from proceeding first of God', his prologue to Anne ofJesus, from 'the fervour of the love of
la
and from those inspirations, superior 'which aids our weakness'.

2
to all
human
explanations,
of the Holy
Spirit
Mother of God, the Carmelite vocation, and eminof the Cross, These charisma are given adutilitatem aliorum. Thus the function which I have remarked on must not be overstressed, nor made too iixed a basxs. Lyrical expression, in the very fact of its own being, contains in itself, implicitly and undefined, the first instant of expansion towards others.
ently that of St. John
in the words of Fr. Jerome of the
He
himself was perfectly aware of this.
He
taught 'the right
way which
leads to
ii,
y cierto camino de la union (Ascent ofMount Carmel, would be p. 7). He only spoke 'in order to say something which (Obscure Night, booki, chap. 7. Silv., ii, p. 386.)
union', el pun
2
Prologue, Siv., vol.
profitable' to souls.
Cp.
em
<:.
St.
it.
t? added jj j joim
at first four,
^krcdttowMew^g^H./ri^/
iforAni1 eofJesuS,ini584,
general
theology Thomas, Sum. theol, i, 1, 1. It is in thus giving to the word theology meaning that infused contemplation is itself called 'mystical
a very
by
then five, strophes to the original canticle of twenty
'
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE be distinguished from theology. A man may lose charity and remain a
392
theologian
tical

tween the
393
specifically
two must not go

as a particular
so far as to give to
them two
is
(if not
eminently yet sufficiendy),1 even in the case of mys-
different habitats, for the practical science
which
in question should
theology, if he has theological faith

St.
and can reason
well.
But
be regarded
although
Theresa preferred a learned and not very holy confessor
Enough of this
St.
development of theological habitude.1 digression. I wished only and primarily to make
clear
to a very holy confessor with litde learning (because she

less
was
directed
by
a confessor
than by the
Holy Ghost)
how could anyone
the grounds for that juxtaposition,
which it is now possible

that
to
make, of
be
Thomas and
St. John
of the Cross, in order

other. St.
we may righdy obas I
expert in this
way of the Holy
Ghost, and recognise practically, con-
serve dieir relations
one with the
Thomas,
have
said, is the
which lead die soul to infused contemplation, if he had himself no knowledge of this experience, which in itself presupcretely, the paths
supreme Doctor of dogmatic and moral theology, he is in particular the supreme doctor of the speculatively practical science of contemplation
and union with God.
practically practical science
poses charity?
This science, which is practical not only in
its
object but in
its
mode,
which
things,
is
founded on
it
faith
while
is
uses the principles
and presupposes the experience of divine of theology to guide souls on the inin the strict sense
of the Cross is the supreme Doctor of the of contemplation and union with God. The one explains and enables us to see, the other guides and leads; the one
St. John
throws
intelligible light
all
over
all
being, the other leads our liberty
ward way,
yet distinct
from theology
it
of the term:
through
the nights of denudation;
on
his teaching mission

It is
one
is
nevertheless
it is
bound up with
treats
in the closest fashion; for theology,

acts
demonstrator, the other a practician, of wisdom.
from
the point
even though,
final end, it
when it
is
of human
and of man's journey
to his
of view of this practical science that
it is
essential to observe to
compre-
does so in a speculative manner, seeking for reasons and exfor

all that eminently practical in a formal sense, with the sciences which have a more close rule
hend the teaching of St. John of the Cross.
planatory structures,
and has
a like continuity
m. THE
SENSE OF
HUMAN LIFE
actual practicality the spiritual
over action.
We may therefore
tellect is
definitely conclude that, just as the practical inan extension of the speculative intellect, but where new prin-
This practically practical knowledge presupposes speculatively practical
knowledge. Before examining in
its
of the appetite) necessarily intervene, in the same way the practical science of the inward way is a practical extension of theology, into which mystical experience and the gifts of the Holy Ghost intervene. And the clear distinction which must be drawn beciples (the dispositions
In itself the theological habit necessarily presupposes theological faith; but, different from the gift of wisdom, it docs not necessarily presuppose charity, for it can be substantially present in a sinner. Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs, tlteol, i, P. i, disp. z,
q.
a. J
doctrine
of St. John of the Cross,
it is
necessary first of all to consider the

this
theological presuppositions
of that doctrine. At
point
it is
impos-
sible to avoid the realisation of the profound, essential concordance be-
tween the thought of St. John of the Cross and that of St. Thomaseven
though, and
St.
it is this
that
makes it all the more
striking, the
language of
I will
John of the Cross is in no way dependent on
that
of thomism.
first
only indicate here

theological faith. 2
two
particularly important points, the

life,
concern-
2 and
8.
But that a theologian could be eminent without being

realities
comforted by the
gift
of wisdom and having some experience of the
ing the end and the meaning of human
the second, with regard to
about which he reasons would

et studia interced-
seem to be impossible. 'Etenim sive docendo sive scribendo hie divina pertractat, praeclanssimum dat theologis documentum illius quae inter sensus animi
ere debet necessitudo
Upjohn of St. Thomas, Curs, tlteol., i, P. q. 1, disp. 2, a. 10, n. 17.

"Many other points could be signalised: for example, the dependence of human understanding and discourse in regard to the senses
origin,
is
maxima. Nam, quemadmodum regionem aliquam longinquam bene habere cognitionem non dicitur qui ejus descriptionem quamvis subrilem cognovent, sed qui aliquamdiu ibidem vixerit, sic intimam Dei notifiam sola scientiae pervestigatione nullus assequkur, nisi etiam encycl. Studhrum iucem. (Cp. R.
(this
notion,
which is of aristotelian
his position
cum Deo
conjunctissime vivat.' (Pius IX,
Garrigou-Lagrange,
De Revdafwne,
chap,
i,
p. 21.)
John of the Cross; it elucidates how far possible with regard to the natural activities of our mind and meditation is from any love: neo-Platonism): the efficiency of grace and the liberty of creative and sanctifying
fundamental with
St.
394

St.

beatific vision
John of die Cross, as for St. Thomas and the whole tradition of Christianity, the final aim of human life is transformation into God
For
'to
m
God
'is
by
love.
become God by participation1 ', which is achieved

Holy Ghost and
that presence
and the love of beatitude, and here on earth by faith and The love of supernatural charity, by which we love God and
with a love that
is
in heaven
:
by
the
his creatures
righdy divine, makes us one with

spirit.
the relation of charity to the gifts of the
the virtues
the distinction
and makes us one with him in one

est.
Qui
adhaeret Deo, units spiritus

St.
between
grace, in which he inhabits the souls
v) the capital text
by immensity, by which God is in all things, and the presence by of the just, etc. On this last point (see supra, chap. is in Tlie Ascent of Mount CarmeJ, book ii, chap. v.
'The end of all human actions and affections', writes
Thomas,1
die love
diis love,
of God, and
but it
.. .
that
is
why
there
is
no measure which may

all
rule
Some have endeavoured to make a difficulty between this text and book ii, chap, xv*
where St. John speaks of 'this light which is never absent from the soul', and again when he writes, 'For then when the natural has failed in the soul which is already given over
and supematurally flows into it, for God leaves nothing empty that he does not 11.' This passage, where the word 'naturally' was omitted by the Saint's first editors, must obviously be understood in close relation to his general doctrine, and finds its natural commentary in the explanations which he has previousto love, the Divine naturally
is
the measure and the rule for
the
rest,
and can never

of the soul to
be too great.
The interior act of charity has final reason, for it is the

consists in the adherence
'It is
supreme good of man, which

God,
St.
as the
Psalmist says,
good for me
to adhere to
God.
.'
And
John of the Cross: 'As love is the union of the Father and 2 is the union of the soul with God.'
of
the Son, so
ly given in chap. v. There he explains that this 'divine light

soul* because
is
never absent from the
character
of God's presence by his immensity, and

can only take place
as St.
'the transformation
of the
soul
present state
into
God by love'
is
the union
of resemblance (or
when grace makes God present in the soul by Thomas says (i, 8, 3), when the known and the
and
it is
Canticle B has not yet been demonstrated, it certainly appears, in the of research, to be highly probable. But there is another question, which is no less important: that of the source of the
materials
from which
it
was
constructed.
The
hypothesis in question, that with the
loved
in
him who knows and

can break through the
loves),
only because the soul has already

(chap.
shamelessness which was characteristic of the period, the compilers rearranged and corrected, glozed or altered passages
'received
from God this rebirth and this sonship which surpass all understanding
veils
which they considered dangerous, and added, some-
v)\ that
it
and the entanglements of created

This
is
things and
times to enlarge, sometimes to justify in small details their

probable.
own alterations,
is
easily
establish itself in the
nudity of the
spirit.
the essential presupposed condition
But the problem
affects
other materials, which do not
come under the cate-
he writes in chap, xv, and this is why, when the soul supernaturalised by grace and 'already given to love' empties itself of 'the natural', the
Divine fills it immediately, naturally (by 'the substantial union
things'
for everything that
gory of these rearrangements, and which, present in the second Canticle but not in
common
to
all
created
by which
it
already occupies the soul) and supematurally, in the union of grace
and love.
This doctrine is again considered and expounded in The Spiritual Canticle, second redaction, str.n.
1
show a full agreement with the thought of the Saint as it is displayed in other which we know are his, and with so direct an impress of his style that it seems impossible that they could have been fabricated or set in imitation, 'in the manner of St. John of the Cross, an author in any case not at all easy to imitate. The only
the first, writings
psychologically satisfying explanation
is
that the passages in question consist
of frag-
ments from
ii,
St.
John's correspondence and notes of possibly oral instructions on the
Ascent,
str.
book
chap, v: Obscure Night,
book
is
ii,
chap. 20, Living Flame,
Canticle.
str. 1,
ver. 1,
2, ver. 6. Canticle, str. 27, 38.
Cp. 'What
gods, and to give us
by
participation
fire.'
what He
God desires is to by nature. He is
transform us into
like a fire
while enclosing
tion.
lar
The compilers of Canticle B would thus have saved for us precious material, it in a work whose production was due to the intemperance of devo-
which
Dom P. Chevalier (in Vie Sphituelle, 1926) has given a typical example of a simi-
would convert
Note.This sentence, quoted from Gerardo's edition of the Spiritual Sentences and Maxims by M. Maritain, is not included in the critical English trans, of the works of St. John of the Cross. See the 'Introduction to the Spiritual Maxims' in Works of St. John of the Cross, vol. iii.]
[Translator's
all
things into
method of procedure with regard to St. Francis of Sales. 'Three of the Vrays Entretiens (published posthumously by St. Jane-Frances de Chantal, in 1629) were not preached, but are taken from sermon manuscripts.' There are no additions 'in the man.' ner of. Such would be, if together with Dom Chevalier, Baruzi, Fr. Louis of the
.
between the two redactions of the Spiritual Canticle. The internal arguments hitherto deduced do not, in my opinion, however impressive they may be, carry as yet die weight of certain demonstration. The liberty of the wise man must also be taken into account; the son of man is master even of the sabbath, and St. John of the Cross is the master of his own text, and is free
to rewrite
It is
for textual criticism to decide the question
Trinity,
we regard Canticle B as apocryphal, the case for Canticle B. This is why I do not think it necessary, even if we regard it as a posthumous compilation, to simply throw it
aside
and disregard
it.
What is necessary, and I think is sufficient, is when one cites an

mention whence it comes, so
that the reader
instance
from it
to take care to
may know
seriously
order to make certain truths clearer, or to disengage new meanings, even at the price of a certain change of perspective. This is only a possibility, but the rules of logic demand that it should not be neglected. If, however, the apocryphal
it
in
of its attribution to St. John of the Cross. The work of P. Gabriel de StcMarie {Etudes carmtlitaines, Apr. 1936) militates against the negative theory advanced by Dom Philippe Chevalier.
the only probable nature
1
Sum. thcol, iiii, 27,
6, also ad. 3
Ca/ir. str. 12.
396

in charity, St.

In the state of beatitude it is
that vision will itself
Thomas says again, 1 that perfection consists: the perfection of divine love is commanded to all, doubtless not as an end to
It is
397
by intellection that we shall be deified, but

effect
it is
be the supreme
be immediately attained, but at
least as the
end to which
all
should be
perfection
d'etre
directed according to their conditions. Estate perfecti: the search for the of charity, which is die perfection of heaven, is the raison
love lays hold
on
its
supreme good, and
of love, the grasp by which from the delights of love

earth,
1 that that vision will flower.
Moreover, here on
but only by
where
we
can-
of our life. The meaning oflife is to be oriented towards the perfec-
not
know God in
is
is
his essence,
his effects,
no pure knowat
tion of Love. 'In the evening

'it is
of this life,'
3
St.
2
John of the Cross will write,

'Truly
ledge
able to unite us with
God
immediately and not

in this life
a distance.
by our love
that
we shall be judged.' And again:

this love.'
we have
But love
himself
able so to do.
'God who cannot
be
known
in
may be
loved in himself' and 'immediately', are the profound
It is our sovereign recompense here on only repaid by love', 4 and 'the soul which loves God does not wish or hope or ask for anything other than the perfection of
only been created for

earth, for 'love
is
love'. 5
Before we see
accomplishment of our life on earth

us*.
Despite
God in heaven as we are seen by him, the supreme is to love God 'as much as he loves human infirmity that is the condition of those souls who
spiritual
2 words of the Angelic Doctor. And again, "The love of charity bears on 3 an end which is already possessed,' Le. which already, primarily, has been given by grace. And what is the witness of the Catholic faith? That
God is love, as St. John has announced, on 6 6e6s ayairn, larw. So we may understand that if God has many rightful names, if he named himself to
have come to the

in a state
Moses
as 'I that
Am, and if the wisdom of the Greeks knew him

his yet
marriage;
who
attain in this mortal life
of ever accelerating motion and progress that equality of love with God which is found in the blessed in a state of consummation, with whom heaven and earth are indeed at one. Le amara tanto como es
amaia.
as
The Thought of Thought, the Gospel tells us

as subsistent Love. It
is
more secret name,

which he
is
showing him to us
in the degree to
Love
all
No more
he transforms us into himself, it is this name which contains his secrets for us. These truths over which we summer are the breath
that
potent words have ever been spoken, words which

like a sudden
illuminate
and cut through the darkness of our minds

Cross, the supreme
lightning or searchlight, for they reveal in the concrete, in the

St.
way
of
John of the
aim which
is
accessible here below,
regards beatitude as *St. John of the Cross is in full accord with St. Thomas when he consummated by love. (Cp. Canticle, second redaction). According to St. Thomas (and St. John holds the same doctrine, see Obscure Nigkt, book ii, chap. 20, and many other passages), it is the vision which formally and essentially constitutes
before the dissolution of our pitiable flesh: if I may dare so to speak, our penultimate end, our reason here on earth and in this perishable and
fleeting existence itself."
l
beatitude (cp. Sum. theol,
i-ii,
q.
3.
4 and
8);
the act of intellection is
thus that
that
by which the creature possesses God as its sovereign good. But it is in the will accomplished, and beatithe immensity ofjoy which is created by such an act is
scilicet
tude consummated, 'quia

Spiritual Maxims,
str.
ipsum gaudium est consummatio beatitudinis.'
(a. 4.)
Sum. theol., ii-ii, 184, 3.

28.
No. 57 (Eng.
trans.).
soul which are IntheCaticfe,str. 13, St John speaks of those greatest delights of the teologos, que es yet 'en el entendimiento en que consiste la jruidfn, como dicen los
*Cantkk (second redaction),
Cant. t sa. 9.
mi
*Ibil
str.
which fruition one proposes these words 'en que consiste la fruici6n , in in the intelligence and it is not thomism to place fruition of the spiritual not in the will, one can reply that it is by reason of the mutual inclusion
a Dios'. If any
consists, in
suggestion that
37. 1
life
to the future
would point out here that the Second Canticle itself, even if it removes the strophes in which this equality of love is described in all its force
faculties,
'quod
. 1
est in voluntate, est

. . .
etiam quodammodo in intellectu', so that
affectus
animae.
.sunt in intellectu
;
equality
and fullness, nevertheless affirms its possibility here on earth; though it may imply the of love which begins with spiritual betrothal. And these passages are the same
as in the authentic first Canticle.
principiati
voluntas in
quo habetur nono utitur in in De Anima, quod 'wide et Philosophus hoc modo loquendi St. John of the In ratione est'. (St. Thomas, Sum. theol, i, 87, 4-)
sicut principiatum in prindpio, in
Cross wished simply to

the doctrine of an
recall, as
R. Garrigou-Lagrange
of of fruition.
has with reason pointed out

beatitude,
equality
Whether one takes the second redaction as apocryphal or not, of love which begins here on earth and which
is
(Vie Spirituelk, 1930), that the intelligence, the seat
which consKtsin
the supreme aim of the aspi-
seeing
God,
is
in heaven the principle

i-ii,
rations of the soul, is essential in St. John of the Cross, as is attested, mations, by texts in The Living Flame, chap, ix, 12-6.
among other confir-
*Sum. theol,
"Ditto,
i-ii,
27, 2;
ii-ii,
27,
a.
66, 6.
'Amor charitatis est de eo quod jam habetur.*
39S

St. John

purity us 'truths in all their
399
'clear
of die Cross. That is why he says, 'There is no work which is better or more necessary than this of love,'1 and 'God makes use of nothing except love'. 2 That is why the idea that any pure knowledge or pure intelligence may be the proportionate means
of his nostrils for
union with
and
1
dieir force'
and
that
it is
and void
of errors and natural forms'.
The 'silver waters' ate the propositions or

compared to
silver
articles
of faith.
'In
order to
of
understand diese words,' explains the Saint, 'we must

is
know that faith

it
God
seems to him the height of absurdity. That

all
is
why he is
is
because of the propositions which
teaches us, the
persuaded, togedier with
Christianity, that contemplation
not an
truth
and substance
it
involves being compared to gold. This very subbelieve behind the silver veil of faith,
means and already in union with its end), and that it exists for the union of love with God; and that it is itself a form of knowledge by love, a 'loving attention to God'. 8
itself,
end
in
but a means
(a superexcellent
stance
clearly
fest
which
we now
we
shall
behold and enjoy hereafter; the gold of faith shall be made mani-
But when faith shall have been consummated in the clear vision
silver veil
We are here at the antipodes from any neo-platonic intellectualism. And we are in the heart of the theology of St. Thomas. We are also,
4
of God, then the substance of faidi, the

2 shine like gold.'
being removed, will
it
must be added, exceedingly far from certain modern interpreters of St.
Finally 'eyes so
much
desired' are the very substance
of
faith,
the
John of the Cross.

ticle it is
If his doctrine
is
written as a
commentary on
a can-
divine eyes, the divine truths considered in themselves, those living

truths
because it elucidates the moments of a dialogue of love, where end the lover and the beloved speak with only one voicetruly made one in a unity, not of substance but of love: 'Two natures
in the
which the soul carries

of faith (and which,
is
in
itself,
but only in 'an image', because of
the veil
we may remark, will be in eternal life not

but
still
in one
only the reality which

sees,
seen,
more righdy eyes by which one
spirit
and one love.' 5
because it is in themselves that they will be known).

is
THEOLOGICAL FAITH
This
in the
I
exacdy the doctrine which

theological
St.
Thomas on his
side
propounds
its
The second
Summa
by
when he
distinguishes in faith the reality in
theological postulate
on which
wish to
insist is
conthe
cerned with the nature of theological faith.

Spiritual Canticle bears precisely
ends:
is
God himself in the inwardness

the blessed
of his essence, the
same
is
God who
famous stanza of
seen
and the mode of knowledge, which
proportion-
on
this subject,
and John of the Cross
explains
it
in his
commentary in the clearest fashion.
O fountain crystalline,
Ifamong thy silver waters Suddenly thou wouldst letflashforth
ate to our nature, and which only offers us this divine reality in the shape of objects which have already been attained by concepts and the names which are our natural means of knowledge, and ofwhich God makes use,
by the ministry of his Church,
to speak of himself in human language.

this
Those eyes so long desired Whose image I have written on
The
capital
importance of
doctrine for mystical theology
is at
my heart!
'die soul derives all the
once apparent.
itself from
The
'crystal fountain' is faith,
from whence
in us:
*/J/,/.
the imperfect
this
The whole uprush and desire of human mode of multiple ideas, is to seize hold
same
reality' to
mysticism, in freeing
waters of spiritual good', and which the

living waters, causes to spring
l
Holy Ghost,
of this object,
which
we are joined by the light
of
the source of all

it
up
it is
like crystal in that
offers
Cant. second redaction,
str.
28.
'
book
lXT
d
amrOSa 3 DiS
ii-ii,
to our faith, which makes use of those ideas in a manner proportionate knowledge be essentially thus will nature. Contemplation here on earth true by faith, since supernatural faith is alone capable of attaining to the
life
Sin es ecificar actos 'P
Liv >i
#*. r-
3.
Cp.
Ascent,
of the divine
reality;
and
it
will be
knowledge
in
a superhuman
*Cp. Sum. theol,
180, 1;
1
i-ii,
^r ^j
68;
ii-ii,
45, 2.
'Cflfjf.str. 11.
matrimonio entrc Dios el alma, son dos naturalms en y une Spmtuy amor deDios.'C^ str . 27 .Cp. ^.conclusion, pp. 447 and45i-
2 Ihil
Sum.
theol,
ii-ii, 1,
26 and
ad. 3.
Cp. supra, chap,
v, pp. 308-9.
400

where faith will surpass its natural manner of knowing, will proside
manner,
gress,
401
on the other
could
of distinct
except
ideas, to die experience
of its
object
And how
things
spiritual
this be,
by
love,
which
enracinates us in those
which are
and which, in that form of pure and ineffably consciousness which is given by the Holy Ghost in the action
divine,
I
in which the concepts themselves are elaborated and remodelled, signify the real and take hold of it, in the way in which, if I may say so, the mind makes intelligible cuts into things. may say that in the speculative sciences concepts have their bare value of abstraction
We
and
intelli-
gibility,
occupied in an analysis of the real into
of its gifts, becomes itself the illuminant of knowledge?

Such
certainly, as
shall stress further at the
is
piriological) elements; in the practical sciences,

is
end of this chapter,
emon the contrary, they are

means,
its
ontological (or
the
thought of St. John of the Cross, which

theology.
Canticle,
incorporated into concrete harmonies, occupied in composing the
in full accord
with thomist
How does he continue his commentary on this stanza of the

aspires to see
it
the dynamic moments, by which action should come into existence. From
which
orders
where the soul
much
desired,
whose image
suddenly appearing those eyes so carries written on its heart? Before the
it follows that concepts which bear the same name in these two ofsciences, and ofwhich one is like the projection of the other into
beatific vision to
which it aspires, there is an anticipation, where already

imprinted on the heart, an another which and in virtue of 'the union of love' it retraces 'so infaith has
those eyes begin to appear. In fact, another joins itself to this first image of
divine reality
is the
another noetic space, will relate to the real in entirely differing fashion. Thus it is necessary to mark the different sources of the conceptual
which
work of love,
vocabulary of St. John of the Cross and that of scholastic theology: the language of St. John of the Cross relates to mystical experience, and to a
practical science.
This language of practical science
timately and livingly' the face

in the soul like
have just
of the Beloved in the soul that in fact it is
now
en-
deavoured to characterise. Mystical language, shown,1

bole
is
as has
been very well

there hyper-
its very soul, so that 'each lives in the other, and each is and the two are made one in a transformation of love', according to the words of St. Paul, 'I live not, but Christ lives in ra.t.'1 As he has explained at length elsewhere, it is in and by this union of love
is
necessarily different
from
that
of philosophy;
the other,
not an ornament of rhetoric but a means of expression wbic his ri gorouslyjecjuire d for exa ctitudes of meanin g: for in fact it is an effort
to r ender intelligible experienc e itselfand what_an_gxperience, the
and always in and by faiththat for St. John of the Cross contemplation touches and feels those things which are divine.
most in effable of
re ality
fe eling
?11
Philosophical language wishes above

to define
it,
all
to define
without feehngjt, mysticaljanguage
as
&ough~by"~
what
it
cannot
see.
How
many errors
Dicu
et la
are avoided
by
a right
'PRACTICALITY' IN THE
VOCABULARY OF
ST.
JOHN OP THE CROSS
Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, L'Amour
tie
Croix de Jesus, Introduction; and
We now come to that properly and essentially practical character of

the doctrine of St.
also the Postulatory Letter addressed in the

Frs.
name of the Angelico College by the Rev. Hugon and Garrigou-Lagrange to the Sovereign Pontiff, 14th June, 1926, in view
John of the Cross to which I have called attention from the first. Here again, rather than proceeding by an endless series of
examples, we will content ourselves with two which are particularly significant, in the
title of Doctor of the Universal Church for St. John of the Cross O.D.C. 1926): 'St. Thomas points out (In Isaiam, c. 5, 15) that hyperbole is found in Scripture. Mystical style is not scholastic style; the only error would be to
of obtaining the
[Anakcta
maintain ... as scholastically true propositions which are only true in mystical lan-
one
case, the
vocabulary of which
St.
John of the Cross
guage where hyperbole

2
is
allowed.'
makes
It is
use, in the other, his doctrine
of emptiness.
The mystic
is
says, for
example, in endeavouring to express his experience of that
to notice first of all that those sciences which I have called practically practical make a wholly different use of concepts than do
important
which
created before
God that the creature
is
nojhingx tioimi.g at
all.
Yes.
But
these
the speculative or speculatively practical
sciences, not only in regard to their determining ends and their manner ofprocedure, but in the very manner
1
have a mystical, not an ontological, significance. If we look for their ontological basis we will find it formulated by St. Thomas, in a passage whose metaphysise, cal import is immense: 'Prius~enim inest unicuique naturaliter quod convenit sibi in quam quod solum ex alio habet! Es7e~autem not habet crcatura nisi ab alio, sibi autem
expressions
relicta
Cant
str.
n.
in se considerata nihil est: unde"prius naturaliter inest
sibi nihil
quam esse.' (De
Aeternitate mwidi.)
402

between these two vocabularies! The misfortune of certain is to have confounded the two together.
differences are

stance
403
distinction
mystics, like Echkart,
and potencies:1 the question is for him one of the degrees of inwardness of the divine working. And when divine action, reaching
2 of all the substance, touches the
first
Yet again, these

gencies
I
not accidental, they belong to the
faculties in their root
exi-
and
their depth,
of the specific objects of the conceptual vocabularies in question. do not say that the passage from the one to the other is impossible; do not say that the formulas of a mystical writer, of a practical doctor,
and these are so

let,
spiritualised that
under such a supernatural contact they

it is
so to speak, the depth of the soul shine through, then

itself, it is
not the
b are substance which acts__orknows by

ten cies that
it
emairdvjiyjte polove, but in
are not pregnant with speculative values,

that point
and cannot be judged from

false.
acts
and it knows, 3 by the gifis_andbyjnfu<!pH

its
of view
as ontologically true
as it
or
The
intellect
can pass
a centre so
m rimateâLthe secret p oint where
potenrieTareTrooted
r from one
vocabulary to the other,

it
can pass from Latin to Chinese

it
that-no-particular-action - is- ernittedJjyêm^suicFtKyarllictuated in their Jjasis andtheir.roots, in darkness and in JKre^^ôtEaTablo.
or Arabic. But
may
not apply the syntax of the one to the other;
can only judge the ontological value of a mystical formula or a practically practical
enunciation
by keeping
in
mind
sensitive
the modifications to
v.
which they must be subjected when translated into the ontological order.
S t. John of the Cross_,describes contemplation_as_an absence of a ll
action ,1
to recall, for example, that he writes, 'God purifies the soul in its its external and internal powers' (Obscure Night, _ boot ii, chap. 6)rt6 coniprehend'tE'at the word 'substance' has for him a wholly concrete and experimental meaning which does not necessarily or always include the
*It is sufficient
and spiritual substancejmd in
sense
which
this
it
whereas
St.
Thomas
this
defines
is
it as
the highest activ ity. 2
For
all that,
John
s
wordexpresses whatjs most
holds in "the ontological analysis practised by philosophers. For Saint radical, most profound, most hidden. Cp. St.
ii.
Theresa, Interior Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap.
they are in entire accord: the one
speaking from an ontological point

is
In the
Madrid
(1630) edition
of the
Canticle, it
is
by means of the
will that the
of view, and from

adherence to God,
standpoint there
no higher
activity than a vital
divine attains the substance

se sienten
of the soul
de
('Asi
tambien el toque de las virtude^del Amado
ence of operating grace.
by infused love and contemplation, under the influThe other is speaking from the point of view
itself,
y gozan~en
el tacto
esta alma,
que
es
en
la sustancia
de el meiiante vohn-
tad'). Is this
a gloss of the editors? In any case, he writes
later on,
'Porque este toque de
of the mystical experience

absence of all activity.
and from
Dios
this
satisface
standpoint the sustilo.
grandemente y regala la
sustancia del alma, cumpliendo suavemente jm ape-
...';
then it is from there that the divine action passes into the understanding ('una
pension of all activity of a human kind must appear to the soul like an
subidisima
sabrosisima inteligencia de Dios
y de sus virtudes,
la cual
redunda en el en-
Not
to
move
oneself, to cease
every particular
atten-
tendimiento del toque que hacen estas virtudes de Dios en la sustancia del alma'). 13. '. . this most subtle and delicate knowledge enters with marand delight into the intimate substance of the soul'. That is to say, as the Saint almost immediately explains, 'substance stripped of all accidents and images', and
s Cp.
operation, to be in a state
tion,
of sovereign immobility and loving
Cant.,
str.
which
is
itself received
from God,
is
not
this to do nothing, not
vellous sweetness
in the ontological, but in the psychological
and
practical sense
of the
this knowledge is
communicated to
'the intellect called by philosophers passive
or passable,
word?
St.
because
it
receives passively, without
work on its part.
.'
. .
This last phrase (and many
John of the Cross

the savour o
also spe aks

life,
of certain divine
as
feelings,
where
the
others could be quoted) exhibits the fact that St.
s oul tastes
f eternal
experienced in the very substance

faculties; 3
soared philosophy,
and
that
he was not
excessively troubled
John of the Cross suffiriendy outby any need for stria

page of this chapter. Cp.
of the
i t is
technical exactitude in these regions.
soul, inopposition to
its
.powers juidjts
and
again, that
*Obscure Night,
into the substan ce
ofdiejod^hich is inaccessible by
in
thelenses and
book
ii,
chap. 23. See the whole
last
also
by demons,
clearly
that the joy

it is
of die Holy_Ghost penetrates.* But thecontext
shows that
no philosophical
sense that
he so opposes sub.
of the Cross speaks there of a 'm eeting ofnaked substances, that word 'subis tojay thesoul and the_Divinity\ The context shows that here again the t a_quesstance' has rather an experimental than a spcculativesense; on the one hand it is
Cant,
str.
32. St. John
tion..of aunion.which
completely escapes the senses, andofS%es'so_eleyatedlandsub-
îving Flame,
*Sum.
str. 3.
iheol., ii-ii,
179-80. See also
R. and
J.
Maritain, Prayer and
Intelligence.
^Living Flame, ax. 2,
'Ibid.
iesoulno much/row beyond', that the senses cm know nothing: on the other, know longer knows God 'by his effects and his works' (St John means that it does not God by his effects as by things that have already been known, and whjch Acrerbre make to treat the mind pass on to the knowledge of their cause; he'is manifestly not intending
stantial,
so
404
"

Finally we
lutely
in
no sign could be divined even by the angels of what is happening die deepest, most secret places of the heart.
a further instance needed?
405
know diat St. John of the Cross, like the Franciscan authors
Is
What
St.
John of the Cross
calls
pure
faith1 in the
nudity of the
matic
alysis,
faith,
but
it is
spirit is truly theological faith, certainly dognot theological faith isolated, by an ontological an-
the habitual reading of Carmelite houses of the Reform, makes constant use of the Augustinian division of the higher faculties into understanding, memory and will. Indeed, if from the point of view of
who were
in
its
own
species
organism,
it
it is
living
from the other energies of our supernatural faith which is at one with the charity that informs
2
it,
speculative
and ontological analysis the bipartite division into intelligence
and
will
is
alone conformable to realityfrom the standpoint of a prac-
and the
gifts
which enlighten
loving
faith, the
wise and
it is
tical analysis,
which must distinguish
fruitful
the potencies not by their essential
faith
which concretely
acts in die life
of the holy soul:

it is
in contrast
ontological articulations, but according to die principal concrete modes
to die
mixture of natural and sensible things that

St.
called pure faith.
of the activity of the subject in view of its ends, the Augustinian

sion
is
divi-
Thus
seeing him; 4
John and while a speculative

faitfiln
itself,
of the Cross will s ay that
by
faidi
we
love
God withou t
better;
it is this
which conforms with
reality,
with the
reality in
the ologian like John
of St. Thomas
question.
rightly affirms that
that jsjp say, without the gifts, does

it
I
From
this
standpoint he
is
admirably placed for distinguishing the

totality,
not knowhow to contemplate,^ the mysticalJDoctor will affirm with no

less
three principal functions
of the subject taken in its living
now as
truth that faith alone, that
turns towards objects in order to
is
to sayJaith_concretely taken as
know them
have
will
in themselves, which
here described it, absorbing into itself both love and the gifts of the Holy
Ghost,
is
be the understanding (which implies, in the concrete lexicon of St.
the immediate
and proportionate means of contemplation. 8
the question here whether in knowledge ofGod 'face to face*, not by his works, a certain
John of the Cross, the senses and the imagination, whence the intelligence draws all its ideas); now as the subject turns towards things in the
degree to which it has lived by them and will live, as they have interested
it,
by God in the soul itselfinfused love does not serve as a means (quo) of knowledge. See supra, chap, v, p. 3 22) it knows God 'without any other means than a certain contact with Divinity' (in virtue of the union itself, John of St. Thomas will
effect produced
;
as
they have touched
its
personal experience, as they compose the

as
say).
And that this contact of substance with substance
is
itself only suffetfd
by mrjm
mass of the past which grows unceasingly, which,

presses constantly in
M.
Bergson
it,
says,
ofthejtctuation of the potencies th e.Saint has himself ointe d out afew lin es earlier. p The whole of the opening of this passage should be read. Thejwhole qu estion deals with a subl tantial cohtacTbetweeh tKelouIancl theDiyinity which takes placebecause
thejattcr has fully invaded the potencies,
is
on the present in the

appetites).
desire to possess
which will
be the memory (which implies, from this point ofview, not only knowledge,
but affection and the
Now the subject rums towards

motion towards them
it
direcdy attained, nojjfarough an inference
frgmjffecato their C ause, but in virtue of the unio n itself, the union o f love w hich pe rceived an d possessed the presence of the divine essence in the substance of the soul.
1 2
things in desire
and in love, and in
this
be-
comes its
tical
is
interior weight,
which is the will. This is why almost all mysto adopt the augustinian division, which
Cp. Ascent ofMount Camel, book ii, chap,
chap. 23 Obscure Night,'hook i, chap.i 1.

;
authors have
good reason
this is
Cp. Sentences and Maxims: 'Todas las aprehensiones y noticias de cosas sobrenaturno pueden ayudar al amor de Dios tanto cuanto el memor acto de Fe viva y Esperanza, que se hace en desnudez de toto eso.'
ales s
traditional
with them:
why St. John of the Cross
makes a cor-
'En
respondence between the diree terms of this_diyision and the three theological virtues, linking Hope with the memory, Faith with the under-
la otra
vida es por
medio de
str. 3).
la
lumbre de
gloria,
y en esta por medio

Prologue.
trans,
de lafe
ilustradisima' (Living
*'.
.
Flame,
standin^randCharity with the wflTHe
is
thus able to
virtue
make
the
most
la Fe,
en la cual amamos a Dios
sin cntcnderlc.* Cant.
profound observations on the
relations
of the
of hope with the
John of St. Thomas, Les Dons du chap. 1. Cp. supra, chap, v, p. 3 1 r.

*For
this capital
6 Cp.
Saint-Esprit,
French
by Raissa Maritain,
see
memory and on the purification of the latter by the former.

But
all this
deimplies not the least mcompatibjhty_wi^hi the views
R Garrigou-Lagrange,
point which
St.
John of the Cross never ceased from inculcating,

i;
veloped by
sCThomas in the ontological order, on the number of the

and
their specification. Fr.
Perfection chitiemxe et contemplation, vol.

la
Crisdgono de Jesus
Sacramentado, San Juan de
Cruz, su oka
faculties in the soul
Crisogonojusdy remarks
will,
cientifica,
1929.
that
Bacondiorp, like
St.
Thomas Aquinas, made hope dwell in the
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE and he adds that he knows of no scholastic who has departed from this
406
doctrine; so that St.
this
40?
point 'has
John of the Cross in his method of exposition on broken with the whole tradition of the Schools.' 1 Cer-
he
But does he not forget that grace achieves nature, not destroys it? No, knew that far better than we. This is the crucial point of apparent anpractical
St. John
tainly,
from
the standpoint of both ontological analysis and scholastic
language of theology and the tinomy between the ontological a St. John ofthe Cross and the Imitation. of tongue mystical and
theology, the idea of situating theological
fesdy indefensible. Are
we to believe
hope in the memory is manithat St. John of the Cross did not
that
ofthe Cross lifts not a finger against the ontological order, and the persuper-elevation which nature receives from fection, the enrichment, the
grace;
perceive so patent a point

this
of doctrine, or
he wished to invent on
he presupposes
this
order and
all its truths.
He
preaches neither
point a
new theological theory, he who was never occupied with a

of such matters?
mutilation nor suicide,
nor the
slightest ontological destruction
ofthe
speculative treatment
He is not speaking as a scholastic

spirit. It is
theologian, but as a practician
of the things of the
from
most fragmentary filament ofthe wing ofthe smallest gnat. His standpoint is not that ofthe structure of our substance and its faculties, but a
point of view
the
point of view of die 'practically practical' science of hum an acts that he

has
his
on our proprietorship of ourselves,
the free use and moral

asks for everything.
made so large (and so potendy original) a part of his work deal with teaching on memory; 2 and it is there that he shows himself, to-
exerdse-which-we.make_pf ourjictivity.
There he
gether with St. Augustine, as one of those

into the mysterious psychology
who have penetrated farthest
of the memory.
There he wants us to give everything. He prea ches a very real death, a death much more s ubde and deli cate than that of material des tructio n, a death^vhichisjvitallyâctivcând effic^dom,^llyJtastedjind fee, which
passes
THE DOCTRINE OF EMPTINESS
in
and
through the heart of our mosrimmanent activity, which is made its most by.tb.at activity, which, grows with it, which coheresto
i
human means, whatsoever they may be, are inadequate to the possession of God in the fullness of his life, the best thing the creaSince
all
profound intimacy;
tW
k
r&f^s_ k ancWendersTt^
the fibres
This death doesjiot,obhteratejensitivity,
ture can
do
is
to
abandon
itself
itself,
exhaust
itself,
renounce
all its rightful
operations, to
make
void. This central thesis of St.
John of the
more acqudsiteiit does not harden supple and spiritualises themrjf &amfonS^mto
ment to a monument:
raises
it
of the so^, it renders mem

love.
us
Cross would be absurd if God was not there, supernaturally present in

the soul (and the question
templation), if God
is
LeTuTremember that grace is not added to natareliearoofor apediengrafts into

as in
it
that
of a soul already direcdy called to con-
a divine
life, it
penetrates
it
and
was not
there
on
the threshold, desirous of filling
the soul in
its
very essence
its faculties,
to operate in
those
the
whole
soul, to replace all that it has
Ic^wTdiarlcher life, the life of
divine 'works,
God
himself, the torrent
of his peace.
A mad courage, a heroic confispirit itself, to the
dence which responds, in the order ofthe
'mad' love
of the most holy

St. John
Godsuch is
the basic character ofthe spirituality of
ofthe Cross. 'Nothing, nothing, nothing, Vas he said to

'till
Ana de
whole world of grace and all is the meaning our natural faculties as they are elevated by grace. What principle of initial of this if it is not that the aim of all our growth, the government interior of our all our acts, the principal agent, the head us? 1 That is not should not be ourselves but the Spirit of Christ within
from which proceed
the
Penalosa,
1
one's very skin
and all the rest is lost for
Christ.'
possible
without a radical
dispossession. In as
iii,
much as we
are the pro-
rightly notes the practical importance
op. cit., p. 122. Later (pp. 3301) Fr. Crisogono of St. John ofthe Cross's teaching on Hope as against the quietism which would later develop in France and Spain, and whose errors the Saint (like Ruysbrocck before him) had already denounced among the false mystics and illuminati of his time.
Crisogono de Jesus Sacramentado,
The modem reader will find many remarks which the reading of contemporary literature will make singularly ape See particularly Ascent of Mount Carmel, book iii,
chap. 4.
'God being in possession ofthe into,bm. a ta transformation ties and being their sovereign master by their so to the Holy Spmt and who moves divinely commands them according ** produced distinct, but what is that the operations (of God and the soul) are not accordmg to the.word, or soul is from God himself. There are divine operations, taut:***>** n, Cor. 17). From Paul, 'He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit (I such souis drvând are and Ghost in union the operations ofthe soul areoftheHoly
Cp. Ascent of Mount Carmel, book
chap. 2.
md
M
m M
facul-
408
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE of ourselves we shall then be eclipsed. Nothing is more desired by love, since it is the seal of our union with the God who loves us
prietors
is

In fact
m
are transfigured
and in truth the grace itself which transforms us is the grace of our crucified Lord, and it is in order that we may share in the work
that
is
and of our transformation into him. Nothing

spiritual nature, since in this perfect spiritual
more
desired
by our
his
own,
that
is,
to die for the world, that
we
poverty the soul becomes
from brightness into brightness.
perfectly free, the
more profoundly
fully
the 'cause
of itself 'in the degree
to
which it has more

is
renounced being the principal cause. But there nothing which more strips humanity and empties it of itself, which
This
is
Oh, very truly, in the whole of this supernatural work, and from the very first stammerings in us of the grace of conversion, they are very real,
terribly, if I
may put it so,
ontologically real, the goods which
we must
demands more radical purifications and suffering.

_
renounce:
'grace perfects na-
why the practical realisation of the axiom:
not the most meagre pleasure, in the words of Aristode, the metaphysical flower of an act? Certainly they are not meagre the
is
r<
of the agony and death, not ontologically but mystically, of that same nature. 'Let us die the death of the angels', says St. Bernard. In human nature
ture and does not destroy it,' is only accomplished by means
joys
sake
which we must leave for Christ; we should love him litde if for his we did not quit things which are righdy beautiful and good. And
a form
this is
of universal destruction, for it is almost as hard, sometimes
which is not only wounded since the first sin, but gnawed to the heart by
concupiscencethis death cannot be accomplished without the great tearing up by die roots ofêjught_ofthe_senses and the night of the spirit, without which the grain will perish in the earth. Then we shall
not remain alone, then
even more hard, to detach ourselves from what
we might have had or

(that, at least, it
would have been able to have than from what we have

will
we have had). This expropriation of ourselves, of which I spoke a moment ago, is not done without proofs. The
remain always true that
torn and twisted limbs of the martyrs, the bloodstained destruction of
the great
we shall bring forth much fruit. 'In order that God should bring the soul to this union in his own way, the sole worthy
is
Victim on the
cross,
show
us the way.
as I
action
that
which unloads and empties the
faculties,
which makes
}
Meanwhile, what is needed first of all and before all,

lined,
is
have underthe
them renounce their naturaljurisdiction and operations, in order that they
that interior stripping,
which is itself bound up with charity,
may receive the infusion and the illumination of the supernatural.
'
dispossession
of
oneself: the rest, so to speak, follows naturally.

rest,
And
But the law of suffering goes deeper than this. For the soul which has been already elevated to the transforming union, and which therefore, on the testimony of all the saints, can no more suffer than God Himself,
is
given
all
the reality of this
the ontological whole which God,
by
his
law or
is
his inspiration or his providence, gives us space to re-
nounce,
definitely
only the ontology of a
certain usage
is
of our
liberty
more than
ever, St.
John of the Cross
tells us,
thirsty for suffering. 2
and our
divine.
faculties,
which
gives place to a use which
better
and more
it
never do works which are not just and reasonable, but their works alone are always just and reasonable: the Holy Ghost makes them know what they ought to know, ignore what they ought to ignore, recall what they ought to remember, with or without forms, forget what they ought to forget, love what they ought to love, and love nothing which xs not in God. And so all the first movements of the faculties of such souls are divine, and it should not be astonishing that the movements and the workings of such faculties should be divine, since they are transformed into the
St. John of the Cross. movements of nature are good and right', Jean-Jacques Rousseau will write {First Dialogue). The similarity of these two sentences gives the measure of that great chaos which separates christian wisdom from its
What we are so
deprived of matters gready to our

is
liking,
be-
longs to our flesh. There

there
is
not the
least mutilation,
its sacrifice
on
the contrary
an incomparable enrichment, in
for love,
which
is
worth more than all,

higher. 1
fection
and whose ontological perfection is incomparably
The
of
7aii 'AJJ the first
m7me!lts of *" facuIri in such souls are divine', says
the divine being'. 'All
metaphysical perperfection, not only the moral but the accomplished, been the human creature would never have
only in the line Charity, which has an immediate proportion to eternal life, is, not ontoIogicaUy, of merit and virtue, but in the line of being itself, speaking absolutely,
the
naturalist counterfeit.
most
perfect thing in
man:
it is
metaphysically
more
inperfect than the highest
1 2
Ascent,
book iii, chap. 2. Cp. Living Flame,

str.
tellectual virtues
str.
here below,
it is
degree to the only inferior in a metaphysical

theol,
1-11,
LgM
2.
Cp. Cant.,
of glory which reigns in heaven. Cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs,

I7i a- 3,
oisp. p. 07,
is. See infra, Conclusion, pp. 447-ji.
rm. 25-29.
410

fairest
4n
'
could never have accomplished, if the
of the sons of men had not
been immolated on the wood of the cross.
ower
of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings
And
reflux, the a marvellous
more he
despises creatures in the degree to
of the theological axiom, Nature is not destroyed, but made perfect by grace. For anyone who has heard the words 'Be perfect* nature has no right to count on any more
This then
is
the concrete significance
God, or objects of a possible choice against God, which they are rivals to he loves, in the dein and for Him them cherishes he more
the
whom
comfortable 'perfecting'. In the measure in which

etiolating its desires in order to cultivate
it
does so count,
it
creates
are loved by Him, and truly made, by the love which gree to which diey them with goodness, good and worthy to all things and infuses
them in peace,
only achieves
diminishing
itself in
order to suffer
less.
What is
be loved
there to complain of?
What do we want more

not more, but
proaches those
less.
than the Beatitudes? Really

is
This
why
St.
what we want is John of the Cross so ardendy reof ambition and

their fullest
For to love a being in God and for GodI am speaking here not the love of covetousnessis not to treat of the love of friendship, for loving God, that is to say, excusoccasion them as a pure means or (and in the same moment themselves in them from loving
2
.
ing oneself
who
It is
are afraid to suffer for their lack
ceasing* to truly
visible
its
love God,
it is
who
is
only truly loved
if
we
also love his
magnanimity.
when
annihilation
and suffering have

that love
is
images) ;
to love this being

itself
and treat it as an end, and wish for

merits to be loved, yes, as
this
scope, as in the great
Doctor of the Night himself,
and perfec-
good because in
and for
itself it
tion have also theirs.
And
a hundredfold reward
promised already
stated. 'Since I
is
very merit and
this final dignity
come from the sovereign love and sover-
here
on
earth.
But on the conditions which have been

I
have established myself in nothingness,

me.'
find that nothing
lacking to
they are both at rest in God, safe eign lovableness of God. In one stroke Not to be detained by the creature all quarrel and all vicissitude.
from
is
by an outstanding example how completely the speculative and practical sciences of christian reality are in accord, though they
So
see
we
speak in differing and sometimes apparendy opposed languages.
We
can comprehend in the same stroke the error which
lies
in vitiating the
one by transposing into it the terms of the other, which either produces, on the one hand, a form ofjansenist or lutheran theology, which teaches
the essential corruption of nature
other, the theory that perfection
of a love which will not fail, planted in the which pierces it. This is the underroots of its lovableness by the arrow end the saint surrounds with a standing of the paradox whereby in the more liberal, piety-incomparably universal love of friendship and of love of the possessive the than happy but also more tender and more passes with tune, all the voluptuary or the miser-^verything which he has abandoned a weakness and the beauty of things, all that
the creature's guarantee
and that grace
is its
enemy,
or,
on
the
He has the right to despise creatures. The

gian have not that right.
philosopher and the theolo-
is
a simple athletic development of the

grace, as though Christ had
Here again there will be a total
misunderstand-
natural faculties
which
are so
crowned by
chosen the thorns in order to leave us the roses.
Analogous observations could be made on the theme of that 'contempt of creatures' professed by the saints. The saint sees practically that
they are nothing by the side of Him whom he loves and the End which he has chosen; they can do nothing for him, they are not worth the price of his love. It is the contempt of the lover for all that is not his beloved, in this case, Love itself. It is nothing for him to give 'all the riches of his
house'. 'For
1
formulas of a John or the Cross. ing if we Rive a speculative sense to the nature philosopher who despises There is no worse philosopher than a one is itself nothing;
idealist mystery than the whole cherry between one's lips holds more of the maxims ot the philosophical misappropriation metaphysic. gives the* aR them the love which saints! which h* abstracted out of
despises
what
is
whom I have suffered die loss of all things and count them
I
creatures are meaning, leads to the idea that before God their humihation and have the right not to love them,
their
1
~^/V^
mo
.
but
as
dung, that
may
gain Christ ... that

r
may know him and
the
2
St.
Paul, Phil, in, 8-10.

est
Cant. of Cant,
'Amor Dei
c i : rkn' dt Thomas, Sunt, fa rebus (K. infundcns et creans bomtatem
,<,/ tnea.,
1,
viii, 7.
20,2.
412
so
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE that we need have no need to render them the honour which
our semantic considerations,

V.
is
413
MYSTICAL CONTEMPLATION
is
their due.
Finally, in returning to
There
is
one question which
obviously of quite particular imporSt.
we
should ob-
tance in this
Oragain:
double interrogatory of
Thomas and
,
St.
John of the
the spirit has of varying the actual meaning of its signs according to their proper ends: while speculative language,
since
it is
serve the
power which
directed to the pure object
of the
Gott 1st so viel an mir, als mir an ihm gelcgen. Sein "Wesen helf ich ihm, wie er das mcine hegen,
All formulas
.....
etc.
intellect, is essentially ontological,
practical
and mystical language, because it considers things
which are manifesdy scandalous if we

or doctrinal enunciations.
take
them as any kind of philopossibility
in relation to
sophical, theological
God
cannot annihilate the
the acting subject, sees

as the
them
as
incorporated in
very condition of its exactitude,
by necessity, and dominants which are psychoit,
has
of an ant without beginning by destroying its essence, for the possibility of things is only in their multiform ability to participate in the divine essence, which is eternally
seen
logical
and
affective. 1
Certain mystical formulas, for instance, con-
by the divine
intellection.
But he could without a shadow of change
in himself
cerned with the union of the soul with God, which are daring beyond the point of danger when understood theologically, receive
have neither created the universe nor the humanity of Christ, for the effective production of creatures out of nothingness depends on his sovereign liberty. It is the very
basis
their right-
of Spinozism to
fail
to distinguish the possible from the existing creature.
meaning when own. 2

ful
l<
we acknowledge
that love has also a language
of its
It is
possible for all that that, in speaking in this pantheist style, Angelus Silesius
was
thinking of something very different

preface to
from pantheism. He
It is
assures us so himself in his

is
The Cherulinical Wanderer.
not necessary to believe him, but it
inter-
The dictionary of the mystics is not
personal.
terarre,
ontological but affective, individual more than Louis Massignon, 'L'Expenence mystique et Ies modes de stylisation lit-
esting to
know under what conditions it would be possible so to do.
If one takes these
{Chronigues,4ih.no.oRoseaud'Or,i927).
'It would be foolishness', St. John of the Cross writes himself, 'to think that the bnguage of love and the mystical intelligence-and that is what these stanzas are-can be at all explained in words of any kind, for the Spirit of our Lord who helps our weaknessas St. Paul saithdwelling in us makes petition for us with groanmgs unutterable for that which we cannot well understand or grasp so as to be able to make it known. For who can describe what He shows to loving souls in whom He dwells? Who can set forth in words what He makes them feel? and lasdy, who can explain that for which they long? Assuredly no one: not even they themselves. That is why they use figures and special comparisons and similitudes: they hide somewhat of that which they feel and the abundance of the Spirit utter m secret mysteries rather than express themselves in clear words And if these similitudes are not received in the simplicity of the loving mind, and in the sense in which they are uttered, they will seem to be effusions of folly rather than the language ofreason. ..." Cant. Prologue.
phrases not put forward in any order of being or of intelligibility for the exof objects, but in the order of love and in order to express the experience of the subject, they can seem like the delirium of human words unable to express otherwise that unity of spirit which is known livingly by love. Translated into ontological language and understood in the light of the eternal predestination which they presuppose, they would signify in this case that the soul loved by God and chosen for always is the wealth of God and this wealth cannot be lost; and the truth which would
distichs as
planation
them in the ontological order and which would be their foundation (in which a real being is the basis of a rational being), is that the love wherehimself, with God freely loves the creature is the love with which he necessarily loves act, contingence being only on the side of the created end, not on the side of the divine eternity which is identical with the divine essence; so that supposing the choice from all
correspond to
the sense in
of such a creature
could his existence.
it is
entirely true that
it
could no more lose
its
election than
God
com-
^To consider at once the case most difficult to defend (supposing indeed that it can be defended) a problem of particularly thorny interpretation is presented by Angelas Silesius, when he says, for example:
Ich weiss dass ohne mich Gott nicht ein
(I
In fact, the language ofJohannes Scheffler is that of Boehme; if the that the ments have a value, it is necessary to admit (which is not at all impossible) case a one the in cases, different same vocabulary can have different values in two consideration value which is entirely speculative, in the other, wholly affective. A
foregoing
Werd kh zunicht, er muss von Not den
Ny kann leben:
Geist aufgeben.
instant:
which makes judgment manifesdy difficult; but we know that the always necessary, spirits is a difficult thing; and to judge in these things is not for a philosopher, who has quite enough on his hands with doctrines.
discernment ot
at least
know
that without
would necessarily give up the
me God could not live for an

ghost.)
The
were
I annihilated
fact
he
remains that if Angelus
Silesius is
orthodox
as
Dr. Seltmann wishes to
prove
(^/W Sfo.wJ*meMyrf^
of paradoxical enunciations which are sometimes
in
Or again:
Dass Gott so selig ist und lebet ohne Vcrlangen
the help
Hat er sowohl von mir als ich
von ihm empfangen;
on the very Jimi meaning; and he so appears as an extreme case, which is didackingdom of which St. John of theCross occupies the centre. Everything
their literal
eIve*
h"e
Jl^
4 I4

eness
415
of die nature of mystical contemplation in itself. Their teaching on this point is strictly in accord. For the one as for the other contemplation is an experimental knowledge of love and union.
Cross: the question
spiritualisation not being possible without an and more perfected because the spirit is in its heart, the Holy in the consciousness,
And it is
fullest
the principles
gians, such as John of St.
which have been developed by thomist theoloThomas and Pere Chardon, which give us die
St.
natural
of diis loving transformation in God, of this superGhost makes use connaturality, as the proper means of a rich and penetrating
knowledge, which in
sive
its
turn makes the love of charity

is
as fully posses-
understanding of the incomparable teaching of
John of the
Cross.
The doctrine of St. Thomas, to which St. John of the Cross himself direcdy
refers,1 briefly put, is diat charity as it
grows greater transforms

and
that this
and fruitful as is doctrine that he bases himof the Cross himself, and it is on this John St shaded and precise exposidelicately rich, profound, self in the divinely the whole life of conand science practical the of gives
tions
possible here on earth. This
the exact doctrine of
which he
us into
tic
God,
whom it attains
2 to immediately in himself,
templation. For
him as for
St.
Thomas contemplation is
the experience
it is
or conceptually constructed in The CheruhinicaJ Wan&erer makes of this astonishing
of that
still
union towards which

love.
all else is directed. It is
not only love,
and which had been for him, one can truly supposehe had written before a Protestant, Eke the anticipated avowal of the Catholicism of while he was Gertrude, Mechtild, Bridget and he already read heartthe more so
that,
still
poem
(which the author published in 1756, four years after his conversion, but which
his
as
St.
St.
St.
Tauler by predilection) a type of expression or stylisation of mystical experience or

retrospection,
its
more hy love.'1 'This science full of sweetness is out love, for it is itself infused by secret science of God, and which spirimystical' theology, which is the because it is It is most full of sweetness
tual
'The mystical knowledge of God can never be with-
men
call
contemplation.
to
where the profound remodelling due to literary elaboration is carried the maximum. And if the manner of this expression belongs essentially to the order
of affection and oflove, it nevertheless exhibits the fact that the mystical experience has at the same time undergone to the last limit a translation by speculative preoccupations. The most beautiful verses of Angelus Silesius remain cold poetic and didactic jewels;
they are not the pure witness plucked from the living heart of the
fire.
The versifi-
cation
of St. John of the Cross is more technical, but for all that his witness is absolutely pure and direct and flaming. Which shows that it is not the simplicity of the instrument which matters, but that of the spirit which uses it. It was in making use of the technique prepared by a Garcilaso de la Vega that divine inspiration produced in the
greatest
effable in itself,
and it is love which renders knowledge by love, love is the master of it, the supernatural love 2 It is produced by love itself, by it all so sweet.' of the Three Divine intimacy the of charity which causes us to enter into of the Holy Spirit movement the Persons, and which, searching under penetrating faithboth makes fcoff, roO the deep things of God, ri 0ft? limitation of the the from it delivers and rich, and at the same time
human mode of our reason.
And
human
because this love derives from
faith,
which
alone, in
its
super-
work where words alter least the substance, inwhich they enclose. The case of Angelus Silesius, which has only been cited here in order to bring into greater prominence a whole series of problems of spiritual semantics (signalised and studied by Louis Massignon in a most remarkable fashion. Cp. Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique mustdmane, 1922; Le Folklore chez les mystiques musulmanes, Melanges Reni Basset, 1923 op. cit., note 1, supra), verifies, in its very opposition to the case of St. John of the Cross, the general law of how much more a mystic hazards
of
all
mystical writers the
the abyss of obscurity, joins our intelligence to
deity, to tbe
fai th-tha
subsistent
supernatural,
it
is
necessary to affirm that
b
t
to say, as
we
have
seen, living faith

gifts
which
is
and
illustrated
ciple
'immediate and proportionof mystical experience, the unique

Night,
by
the
* of the Holy Ghost
formed by chanty pnnis the essential
ate
,
book
ii,
chap. 12.
CP
.
book
ii,
chap. i 7 : 'La
contempt
,
,
.
.
se
than regains
(it
may be only in his mode of expression, it may be in his thought itself),

human knowledge or
discursive speculation to insinuate
infunde en el alma por amor.'
when he
allows the taste for
itself either into his
his efforts to express
incommunicable experience or into the retrospective synthesis of it. Mystical experience stimulates speculation; it has die freedom
>OL st, 18. CP

by which
the Prologue,
'.
ofits very substance.

*Cp. Obscure Night, book ii, chap. 17.
2
es el
See supra, pp. 396-98, St. John of die Cross says the same: 'Porque solo el que una yjunta al alma con Dios', Obscure Night, book ii, chap 18.
amor
mystical wisdom to notes with an exquisite delicacy that the to the bosom o had the grace to be raised 'and led inwards 8 poses the mind, in the absence of all technical of scholastic theology. which belong to the purely intellectual order
truths are
rehshed not only learned, but
^^sT^
also,
atj
whicn^
S& ^^
j
P^^Wy
3-
lamDOns
*St.Paul.ICor.ii,io.
C? .supra, V .m.*-
4i6
ate'

way,
as St. John

more
it
4I?
acts
of die Cross never
tires
of reiterating,
to the divine
empties itself of particular knowledge and of the

is
of the units jour-
union.
derstanding, the greater

is
the progress of the understanding in
This
why contemplation itself is a night, wherein the soul renounces

and of all formulated knowledge, over-
the actual use of distinct ideas

passes the
ney to the highest spiritual good. You say that if it understands nothing distincdy it cannot be advancing. On the contrary, I reply, if it did understand anything distincdy then it would rather be making no progress. The reason is that God, towards whom the understanding is journeying, transcends the understanding and is therefore incomprehensible and
inaccessible to it;
whole mode of concepts,
divine in the infused light of faidi,

effects
which God produces in the

in the
which are by means of love and of all those soul which is united to him by love.
'a ray
in order to feel the things
Thus
it is,
words of pseudo-Dionysus,
of darkness for the
and thus when it

and walk in
is
understanding,
it is
not approach-
'The soldiers of Gideon carried lamps in their hands, which they saw not, because they were "within the pitchers". . But
.
intelligence'. 2
ing
God,
it is
rather withdrawing. Therefore the understanding must

itself1
faith, believing
withdraw from
ing.
faith
and not understand-
So faith, of which these pitchers were a figure, contains the divine light; and at the end of this mortal life, when the work of faith is over, and the pitchers are broken, the light and glory of God will then shine forth. It is therefore plain that the soul, which would in this life be united with God and com-
when they broke the pitchers the lamps gave light
And
in this
way
the understanding will reach perfection, for by

.
.
and by no other means comes union with God.

understanding
Wherefore
mune immediately with him, must unite itself to him in the cloud where, according to Solomon, he has promised to dwell: and in that obscure air, wherein he was pleased to reveal His secrets to Job; and
take
knows not what God is,2 it must of necessity walk towards him in submission, and not by understanding. In the contemplation of which we are speaking, wherein God, as we have said, infuses into the soul, there is no necessity for distinct knowledge, nor for the soul to make any acts of understanding: God in one act
since the
.
. .
communicates light and love together, with a loving and supernatural

knowledge, and which
up the
pitchers
of Gideon, that
it
may hold in its handsthat is in
may be
called a heat-giving light,
which
this is
gives
the acts of the
willthat light which is the union of love, though in the obscurity of faith: so that, as soon as the pitcher of life is broken, it may
see
out heat, for that light also enkindles the soul in love; and
fused
con-
and obscure to the understanding,

3
since
is
it is
knowledge of con-
God face to face in glory.' 3

Say not, therefore:
templation, which, as St. Dionysus says,
a ray of darkness for the
"Oh die soul is making no progress, for it is

is
do-
understanding.'
J
ing nothing!" For if it

fact that
it is
true that it
I
is
doing nothing, then, by this very

to
doing nothing,
will
now prove
you
that
it is
doing a
great deal. For if the understanding is voiding itself of particular kinds
of
knowledge, 4 both natural and

1Ascent,
spiritual, it is
making
progress,
and the
book ii, chap. 9.

en
esta vida,
passage from those articles where St. Thomas exwere captivated by faith ('et inde est quod intellectus credentis dicitur esse captivus, quia tenetur terminis alienis et non propriis, II Cor. x, 5: In captivitatem reJigentes omnem intellectum,' De Veritate, 14, 1)a captivity which is unde its deliverance ('Bonum intellectus est ut subdatur voluntati adhaerendo Deo:
One could also comment on this
plains
how
the intellect
is
as it
fides dicitur
intellectum expedire in
quantum sub
tali
voluntate ipsum captivitat.
*'... contemplaci6n, la cual es

ebla. Cant. str. 13.
3
como dice San
Dionisio, rayo de tini-
Ui'ii4,3,ad.8).
2
Ascent,
book ii, chap. 9.
'No puede saber como
es Dios'.
Cp.
St.
Thomas, Sum.
theol,
i,
2, 1:
'Nos non
sri-
'iloj actos de entender/ 'Entender' corresponds to the latin inteUigere. It is with the fallowing texts from St. Thomas: 'Secundum statum praesentis vitae . . non possumus
.
inteuigere substantias separatas immateriales

stantias
that
one
secundum seipsum' {i, 88, 1) and 'Per submatenales non possumus perfecte substantias immateriales inteUigere' (i, 88, 2)
is
mus de Deo quid est,' we cannot know what God is in himself. 'Quidquid intellectus minus noster apprehcndit minus quam Dei essentia, et quidquid lingua nostra loquitur quam esse divinum,' writes St. Thomas in his commentary of The Divine Nantes of void(chap, v, lect. i); which is the same as what St. John will say of the necessity
ing oneself of every distinct idea in order to unite with God in faith.
'Living Flame,
str. 3,
able to
commentate
this
passage of St. John of the Cross. Cp. Sum.
c.
G.
iii,
44-
redaction
ii.
He explains further on that 'although
the soul can
perform natural acts without understanding, it cannot love without
understanding: but
2D
M.D.K.
418

degree of hiding,
it
is

sometimes so absorbs the soul and
carries it
4Ip
Let us re-read the description of contemplation which he gives in The

Obscure Night: 1 'This obscure contemplation
is,
away, so
called secret, because
it
distinctly that it is entirely distant that the soul sees
from and
separated
as I
have said before, that "mystical theology" which theologians
call
a secret
wisdom, and which,

is
says St.
Thomas,
is
infused into the soul by
from all creatures: so that it seems to it that it is set in a vast and profound desert, whither no human creature can come, an immense desert extending inimitably. ... It not only comprehends
ated things in
love. This
tions
done
in a secret,
hidden
faculties
way in which
have no
it, it
the natural opera-
how mean are all cre-
of the
intellect
and the
share.
And because
the
faculties
of the soul cannot compass
being infused by the Holy
God,
all
it
sees
comparison to the supreme wisdom and the sense of also how low and curt, in a certain sense how improper, are
Ghost, as the bride says in the Canticles, in an

secret. In truth, it is
unknown way, we call it

this
the words
not the soul only that does not understand how

else,
and
and phrases with which in this life we talk of divine things, how utterly impossible it is by any natural way or means, however
as
happens, so
is it
with everyone
even the
devil.
it,
For the Master who
profoundly or learnedly, to understand and see these things
they
are,
where neither the devil nor the senses nor the natural understanding may come. 'It is secret also in the effects which it produces in the soul. For it is not
teaches the soul dwells substantially within
were
to
it
not for the illumination of this mystical theology.

as secret
. .
The way
God is
and hidden from the

is
one who walks upon the water

footsteps
senses of the soul as the way of from the senses of the body, and whose
souls
only secret during the darkness and sharpness of purgation,

secret wisdom purifies the soul,
when
this
cannot be known. The footsteps of God in those
which
but afterwards
also, in the illumination,

it is
he is drawing to himself, making them great in the union of his wisdom,

are alike
when
that
wisdom
is
most
clearly
communicated,
so secret that
it
unknown.
of love,
This secret
wisdom
is
also called a ladder.

is
cannot be discerned or described: the soul has no wish to speak of it, and
besides, it
The
principal reason for
which
is
it is
called so
that contemplation
is
can discover no
so
way
or similitude to describe
it
by, so as to
spiri-
a science
that it
a loving knowledge of
God which
is
in-
make known
profound an
intelligence, so delicate
an infused
fused in the soul,

kindles
tor.
it
and which enlightens the

raise it step
soul and at the same time
tual impression.
Yea, and if it could have the wish to speak of it,
how-
with love in order to

is
however many the expressions of which it made use, it would remain secret still and all to say. . Jeremias, when God had spoken with him, knew not what to say, except "Ah, ah, ah" Because it cannot be described by words pure contemplation is
.
ever great were the desire and
For it
love alone which unites the soul with
by step unto God its CreaGod and joins it to
Him.' 1
It
would be madness
is
to endeavour to attain such a knowledge of God

their
by our
ledge
own powers and

and
its
'rampant procedure'. 2 For such know-
thus called secret.
not only supernatural in regard to the virtues which it brings inobject, but also in
its
'There
is
yet another reason, which
is
because
this
mystical
wisdom
to action
mode. 8 The
soul acts in a
way
has the property of hiding the soul within

in the action
itself. For beyond the usual of the divine infusion which we are speaking of here it is different, because God can communicate himself to one faculty and not to another. And so he can
above
its
own
capacity, even that
of its perfecting in the supernatural
principal
order of the three theological virtues. God, in other words, is here the Agent. 'God alone is the craftsman, the soul does nothing
Obscure Night, chap,
xviii.
inflame the will
by
the touch
of the ardour of his love, although the understanding
does not This and similar passages are not in the slightest opposition to the doctrine of St. Thomas that love universally follows on knowledge. For, on the one hand, St. Thomas
see.'
understands not: in the same
way a man can warm himself at a fire which he
The
passages arc innumerable in
which
St.
John of
the Cross so describes contemplation as a loving infused knowledge.

! 3
same time that the degree of love is not necessarily proportionate to that of knowledge; on the other, that when God, as St. John of the Cross says, supematurteaches at the
ally inflames the will
'modos
rateros.' (Living Flame, str. 3 , v. 3 .)
without illuminating the understanding, there
is
always a pre-
supposed knowledge which is that of faith.
the supernatural received passively in the soul in v. 3 ) Th* u ner of God, and not by the natural way of the soul' (Living Flame, str. 3 , Holy Ghost which the exact doctrine of the 'superhuman mode* of the gifts of the
man-
'This loving knowledge ...
is
Obscure Night, book ii, chaps. 17 and
1 8.
expounded by
St.
Thomas in his Commentary on the Sentences.
4 20

1

care, part
421
by
itself.
'The
spiritual directors
of such souls must take great

the guide, the
Spirit,
ttributed
is
by
St.
John of the Cross to the
special impulse
of the
for
and
souls
realise that die principal agent,

is
mover of
such
tTlv Spirit
,
.
1 immediately understood.
It is this
which marks
not themselves, but the Holy
which
it
ceaselessly cares for
^g
passage
from the natural
to the supernatural
mode: 'Blow
them; they are only the instruments which

perfection
uses to bring
them
to
across
by
faith
'I
and the law of God,
as
the spirit
of God
has been
points
garden that the perfumes may flow forth.' And St. John say 'blow in my garden', but 'across my out that the soul does not
my
God is in this affair the principal agent; he is the guide who leads the blind man by the hand whither he knows not how to go, that is to say to those spiritual
given to each.' 2
therefore point out to the soul that
things which neither the understanding nor the will nor the memory can know as they rightly are. The principal care of the soul should be to
garden'.
first
'There is a great difference between these
two
expressions.
The
refers to the infusion
of grace, of the
gifts
and the
virtues in the
soul-
the second, to a
touch of God received by the virtues and the per-
put nothing in the way.

self to
And that will happen if the soul allows itthree: the spiritual director
is
to the soul, and which renews them and stirs fections already given may send forth an admirable fragrance and they that order them in 2 wind which reanimates the soul, which south divine The sweetness.'
loosens as it stirs the
be led and guided by another blind man, and the blind who may
perfume of the virtues in bud. 'By this breath of the

is
lead
it
from
the right
way are
and
(who
'batters
Holy
Spirit
through the soul, which
the visitation of the love of the
away
like a blacksmith' 3
ignorant of spiritual things), the devil
Son of God,
He communicates himself to it in a high manner
This
and the soul itself.' 1
What
other formal reason
is
there for the passivity'
of mystic
states
with a great desire this breath of the Holy is why every soul should desire Spirit to pass through its garden, and that its divine perfumes may
flow forth.' 3
than the fact that
God is thus
it
(and St. John of the Cross uses the
word
in the precise sense that
holds in the theory of instrumental causality)
A few pages earlier, after havingin an echo of St. Thomasinsisted

on the connection
such a
the cause or principal agent in such a
work? Tn
this state
on no account
of told
of the virtues in charity

the
(their garland
is
is
'bound in
all
must the soul be supposed to meditate or exercise

to seek savour or fervour: this
itself in acts,
manner by the thread of love that
if it
broken for one
the
would be to raise up obstacles in the way of the principal agent who, as I said, is God: secredy and tranquilly he pours into the soul wisdom and loving knowledge, without the specifiof acts, although often he allows them in the soul for a certain duration. Nevertheless the soul should be only occupied in loving attention to God, without willing any specific acts. It I
cation
same way', he writes, 'as the wind stirs and lifts the air on the neck, so the breath of the Holy Ghost stirs and lifts the strong love so that it may fly upward to God: without this divine
others are scattered'), 'in
breath,
tues
which
stirs
the faculties to the exercise of divine love, the vir-
could neither operate nor have effects, although the soul possesses
itself.'
should hold
itself, as
them in
The
and
soul in question here has already

its
said, passive,
without having any urge to
act,
in determination and lov-
tual betrothal,
virtues are instrumentally
come to the spirimoved by the Holy

will
ing attention, simple and ingenuous, like one open in the attention of love.' 5
the principal agent in the nevertheless an eminently vital and
is
who
has his eyes wide
Ghost.
When it comes
to the spiritual marriage,
it
have 'implored
If God
work of contemplation, which is

essential
of the Holy Ghost which is the disposition and the instrument proper to the perfection of this state'. 5 It is when 'it has
and obtained the breath
in perfection
immanent operation, the

.
the seven gifts
of the Holy Ghost,
as fully as it
is
able to
LivingFhmet m,i,v.i.
with which the Saint was inspired by of the havoc and obstruction caused to souls by ignorant and pre' sumptuous directors.
a long experience
*m All
Aft
/WJ,,str.3,v. 3
Hbil
receive them', that the soul 'will possess the seven degrees or
J
cellars
of
these pages witness to the ardent pity
The soul cannot receive interior communications 'if the Spirit and the Bride do not
Produce in it this
2
morion of love'. Cant, second redaction, str.
17.
Ci.,str.2<5.
Jitf.,str.22.
*IbH
*;/>ii.,str.27.

422
423

1
love*. In the end,

'the last
"when
it
holds in perfection the spirit of fear' which
is
o
ri
Jv
he has chosen that the motions whereby the better than the ones as principal agent and lifts it in a manner soul Spirit directs the
is
of the seven gifts'by which it began its ascension to wisdom perfection.' 1 St. Thomas says the same 'it has in fact the spirit of love in together, and that 'the gift of fear grow gifts when he teaches that the
is
hich
itself supernatural
to live a supematuralised
life,
are the
mo-
'But the interior blessings ns of love?
which
this silent
communica-
tion
only perfect in a soul if charity

8
and the
gift
of wisdom are perfect
in
of them
delicate
upon the soul without its perception and contemplation impresses they are in fact the most secret and for inestimable: are, as I say,
anointings
it'.
In
all this, as
in each time that
he speaks of knowledge and of wis-
of the Holy
and
Spirit,
whereby he
secretly
fills
the soul
dom, when he takes up and renders classic Tauler's doctrine of the three signs which are characteristic of the passage to 'the mystic state', St.
John of the Cross is in full accord with the teaching of thomist theology on the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the passage of contemplative souls
into the habitual regimen
with riches
and
gifts
graces; for
it is
God who does these things and

with which
St.
he does
1 them like God.* The
fiery criticism
John of the
the
Cross attacks directors

hinges precisely
who
forcibly insist
on
discursive meditation
on
the fact that these directors trespass
on
8
domain
of the gifts.
of the
Holy
Spirit
and rear
obstacles to
its
action
upon the
souls
who
In his concrete
unction
and vivid language, nourished on Scripture, it is as 'the of the Holy Spirit' that he most frequendy describes the action of
8
of its gifts. have already entered into the habitual regimen that the basic feaproves things these of consideration An attentive
tures,
the
gifts.
work
exemplifies the proper laws
Here again we can observe the rigorous manner in which his of the vocabulary of a practical
not the ontological analysis of the organism of the virtues
gifts
the
prime character of the
spiritual doctrine
of
St.
John of the
science. It is
more than all else to the practical explication of the theof the Holy Ghost. This is the supernatural essential to the gifts of ology
Cross, belong
and the infused

interplay
1
which above
all interests
him,
it is
their concrete
and the experience of their sweetness; and what words could

17.
which from the beginning to the end

stinately attached.
Ca(.,
str.
An effort has
been made to prove from this passage that

as the highest
St.
John of
the Cross regarded the gift
of fear
of the
gifts (Bulletin thomiste,
May-
John of the Cross remains obis a mighty demand for domain which is the preservation from the usurpation of charisma of a And if he leads essentially that of the grace of the virtues and the gifts.
St.
The whole of his
doctrine
July, 1930). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange
had no
difficulty in
pointing out
(as
has subse-
quently been recognised,
1931) that this was a gratuitous attribution to the Saint of an inadvertence diametrically contrary to all his teaching on wisdom, juge
ibid.,
May,
anysovereign degree of love and mystical union, it is not by gratui3 and shortened, but less certain way of extraordinary favours
souls to the
iLiving Flame,
!
convivium.
str. 3
v. 3
is
Some have wished to find a disagreement between St. John of the Cross and St. Thomas in the fact that St. John of the Cross reduces the passions to four, and not to
the eleven principals of St.
For beginners (that
entered into the habitual

acts
regimen of the gifts)
which have not yet to say, in thomist phraseology, for souls meditate and to make 'it is necessary to
life
Thomas. This
is
to forget the article
25, 4, where St. Thomas says that the four enumerated by
of the Prima Seamdae, Boethiusjoy, sorrow, hope
and fear
2
are the principals ut
cotnpletivae aliarum,
R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
'Saint
Thomas et
Saint Jean de la Croix', Vie spirituellc, 1st
injure them in msurmounted meditation, and it is possible to gravely (second redacsisring on forcibly bringing them back to it. See Living, Flame, str. 3, v. 3
and discursive exercises with the imagination'. (Ibid.) But souls which the Holy Spirit has brought into the contemplative
have
thereby exactly
Oct., 1930.
8It is thus possible,
tion),
3
on a hasty reading which stays on the words without passing on to
agree with
R.
P. Garate, followed
by M. I'Abbe" Saudreau and R. V.Gim&>*r

Interior Castle,
of the Cross refers very little to the gifts. In fact he speaks of them constantly, but not with the other words of a speculative theologian. Need we be surprised that with the great Doctor of 'hidden wisdom' science also should
be in disguise? Once again, if we seek to discover in him speculative science using its own particular language we shall condemn ourselves from the outset to misunderstanding. It
their content, to believe that St. John
of which St. Theresa speaks in The the gratuitousHouse, chap, iii, describes the beginning of ecstasy (and more generally ly given graces) which sometimes, but not necessarily, accompany rtnsefconKmpzLagrange, that the shortened way
tion.
htm
Cp. J. Maritain, 'Question sur la vie mystique et la contemplation,

that all souls,
Vie iptrimene,
,
.
Mar. 1923.
would be no less naive
to be astonished that St.

'nights'
Thomas
docs not talk the lan-
guage of practical science and that the
do not figure in his vocabulary.
by the very fact that they are infused contemheaven, have also a general and common call to enter here on earth by
The doctrine
ot called to the beatitude
424

it is

of
neCC
425
tously given gifts, the
by
the
normal way of the virtues and die

teaches in the
gifts
Holy Ghost,
1
those gifts
which
are infused in every soul in a state of
^j
Sanctity is the aim of this growth, dus developfor salvation. the organism of supernatural energies rerich flowering of
grace,
because, as St.
Thomas expressly
of this beatitude,
call is
Summa, they are
j fnr the salvation quirea 101 " v'

all his Cross founds
it-
of the soul. 1
It is
on
this basis that St. John
doctrine; he never
ceases inculcating
and explaining
of the ....
plation into the first fruits

theologians,
is
a doctrine
in entire conformity
v. 5.)
with the
which nowadays unites the best teaching of St. John of the Cross. (Cp.
as-
his
teaching
is
par excellence a practical theology of the contempla-
Living Flame,
sisted
str. 2,
This
not addressed in a special way to those who are
tive gifts.
by extraordinary graces to advance more rapidly (but not without danger) in the way of the spirit; the sole means required are living faith and that organism of the gifts which belongs to every soul in a state of grace, and that ascetic travail of the virtues on and which endures for the whole course of spiritual progress. From this point of view it ought to be said that he addresses himself to all those who seek christian perfection, in whatever particular way: 'To one and all, provided that
in the contemplative life,
CONTEMPLATIVE PURITY AND NAKEDNESS OF

I
SPIRIT
St.
described in The Ascent ofMount Camel, in the particular character which they take
should like further to point out
how
the very purity with which
John of the Cross,

the
more
rigorously than any other mystic, maintains
transcendence of the sacred
and 'hidden wisdom' of infused con-
they seek
this
detachment of the
spirit'
(Prologue to The Ascent). But it
is
at a certain
point in this path that he addresses them, at a certain stage of advancement.

derlined this himself on several occasions. Cp. Ascent,
(that
He has unfirst
of the
senses) concerns beginners, in the time

.
book i, chap. when God begins
'This
night
a
to bring tliem into
book ii, chap. 6; chap. 7: 'I am speaking now to the intelligence of the spiritual man, and particularly to those to whom God has given the grace of placing them in the state of contemplation (because, as I have said, it is to them in particular that I now wish to speak), and I will say how it is necessary to distate ofcontemplation.
.';
Ibid.,
and theological speculations is a signal with St. Thomas. We know what testimony to his fundamental accord for particular knowledge or the severity he shows towards all desires pages of The Ascent of admirable for revelations. Witness the
templation over all metaphysical
taste
Christ himMount Carmel where he explains why, since the coming of
rect oneself to
self little, in
God by faith and purify oneself of contrary things, and by making oneorder to enter the narrow path of obscure contemplation'; Ibid., book iii,
would have foundation if my teaching was only addressed to But the doctrine which I am teaching is in order to advance further, in' to contemplation and union with God 'It is needful to say that I am only speaking of those souls which the divine life has already worked upon, which have already been exercised by meditation (which they have one day laid aside) and by asceticism
chap. 2: 'This objection
beginners. ...
have become useless. dispensation, it 'The principal cause why, under the law of the old it was rightful why and God to was lawful to address these questions revelations of and visions for seek and the priests to
self, all
partial revelations
for the
prophets Gospel God, was that the faith was not yet complete nor the law of the interrogated be should God that need established. And thus there was
and that he should speak,
velations,
it
might be by
sirnilitudes,
parables, or
(which they never lay

is
aside),
who have been called by their name, in immediate fasharrive at this end, for the
salir
ion^ to contemplation/
(And few
or
by figures and
or
by visions and reby other means of communi-
heroic and rare'; 'como esta alma habia de

.
i hacer
raro,
que era unirse con su Amado divino. . .' Obscure Night, book ii, chap. been very justly pointed out (C. H. A br&'s de toute la
Croix, Prc&ce, p. vi),
union which he preaches un hecho tan heroico y tan

14). It has
cation
op. cit., p. 6 32, Ht is in this sense (quite a different one from that suggested by Caruzi, flatter never, which is totally alien from the doctrine and the spirit of the Saint, for the the theopatheven when 'he strains mystical thought to its limit', could have regarded condition ot the ic state-which nevertheless remains infinitely rareas the unique of St. John ot veritable for the soul') that the doctnne
doctrine mystique de SaintJean de la
'It would be an extremely dangerous error to apply to all souls, torn their first steps in the interior life, the rules which are drawn out by themysacDoctor.'Tocounselheroic passivity, which is the highest renunciation of the soul, to those whoneed to work themselves, and who have not been deprived by Godof a human mode of action, would mean the total ruin of the spiritual life. It is the very nature of quietism to place oneself, in a usurpation of divine action, in such a state of passivity. St. John of the Cross, like Ruysbroeck, was the merciless enemy of quietism, and it is to strengthen the defence against it (particularly against the quietism of the ^.W^thathemsistssomuch on the authentic signs which mark the dawn of mys-
^differently,
love of the soul for
God and God
the Cross unites
of with the doctrine of salvation. It is not a doctrine
salvation, but oj'per-
^Sum.
tlieol, iii,
68, 2.
salvation of the fection (and he very well knew that the perfect co-operate in the come to perfection adimpkntcs quae desimt vassionum Christi). But if it is not necessary to orientated towards it, in order to be saved, it is nevertheless necessary to be turned or matter or thing to if it is true that the perfection of charity falls on the precept, not as a tend according to should be immediately realised, but as the end towards which each book 1, Hs conditions. (Cp. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection chttienneet contemplation,
others,
chap.
3.)
^
426
'But
manifest in this era of grace, and there
is
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE now the faith is founded on Christ and the law of the
no need
to seek

is
42?
shalt
gospel
God
jd
anc to pass
anew through
life
and through death. Thou
not find
in this
in
manner, neither to ask nor that he should speak as heretofore. For giving us as he hath done his Son, who is his unique Word,
spoken
all
hend
what thou seekest in asking revelations and visions from me. Comprewilt find all and more than all that thou seekest it well, thou
already realised
In this
things
be added. This is
he hath and at once on this one Work, and there is nothing can the meaning of those words of St. Paul to the Hebrews
and given and known in him
'
condemnation of any
desire for particular revelations

life,
and for
where he seeks
the
to turn them from the ancient way which served under law of Moses, and exhorts them to fix their eyes on Christ
alone-
everything
which
way,
is
extra-ordinary in the spiritual
of any
reflection
it
by the soul on the clear and distinct events which

the spiritual
may
impress
on
"Multifarium multisque modis olim

sime diehus
istis
in this proscription
Deus loquens patribus in prophetis(Heb.

i,
novis-
bcutus
est nobis in Filio"
renunciation
turning
of
all
of any appropriation of them, charismatic communications however lofty,

and
this
this
i).
God hath now so

in
spoken that nothing remains unspoken; for that which he partially revealed to the Prophets he hath now revealed in its wholeness
giving us the whole, which is his Son. So he who should seek to question God, or wish for any vision or revelation, does not only a fool-
from
all sensible
particular things to the pure substance of
faith, this
insistence that the purely spiritual should alone

is
be allowed to
work in
the soul, St. John of the Cross
only applying his general prinsoul to be stayed for
ciples, his
obstinate intention
of not allowing the

is less
Aou
him
but offends against God, not having his eyes fixed solely on Chnst, without searching for some other thing or some novelty. To such a one God could say: I have spoken all by my Word, my Son; fix thine eyes upon him, for in him have I spoken and revealed all, and thou wilt find in him more than all thou desirest or askest. For if thou desirest partial visions, revelations or words, fix thine eyes upon him and
shalt find aU.
ish thong,
the briefest instant
by anything which
this
than
God himself. But
at
the same time and by

in
its
very fact he maintains mystical contemplation
absolute purity, exempt
from all parasitic curiosity, from every deof the

intellect
sire
all
for the purely human exercise
absolutely
free
from
the
equipment and paraphernalia of human wisdom. Quoniam non
cognovi literaturam.
is a wisdom of the poor; in its very made up of poverty and spiritual nakedness. It is naked wisdom, divine joy wisdom and joy which are alike crucified.
He
is
my
Voice and
my
Answer,
Revelation, which
my
The most sublime of all wisdoms

it is
Vision and
spoke, answered,
to be thy Brother, thy Master, thy
Mol T
JS I
of teact
^.^ ^ T?,^?
Y
made and revealed, when I gave Companion, thy Ransom, thy
order of knowledge
no
I
mot?" Tt
A anSWerS> and Bhrai
spoke before, iZke befit it > was to promise

'
"
t0
^ We ^ ^ ^ ^^
*
5) * '
.!*
descended on him, with my Spirit, on bel Ved S n whom r " well

1
Ifyou wish to
know
and we ought to
it
desire to know
turn to metathen you will
physics
and theology.
union and would come
thither,
kid
* *nd,
If you seek the divine
aH: harken to
*** ** Ae is
know
pass
this
even better,
will be in the exact degree to
which you seek to

self-
IeVed n r
ther
Christ;
*** be made ""** *

and if any asked of me thev
beyond knowledge
and in a way ofsuch unpossession, such

Beyond knowledge?
expropriation that
there is
you can
say indeed: / have been reduced to nothing and

Yes, into love: into
nothing more that I know.
the love
which is
penetrated,
and transpierced with die light of the Spirit, saturated with intelligence and wisdom. Now my whole extranslucid
^Sitf
it is
it
w77 1 "
37
aSked
me
r a
new <*;
<
add
ercise is to love.
If the renunciation
of knowledge
it
in
any human way
is
the condition
it is
not only orTlaVk lack of faith,
f^
lt Is
F* TT ^ "*bebeWd Son
t0
to ask
tQ
^^ ^ ^
=
bccausc
of tlris supreme knowledge,

it
follows as a consequence that

its
not in
that
human knowledge
it is
can find
rightful perfection.
that
It is
not from
St.
John of the Cross,
from Aristotle
we should seek for lessons
428

and
it is St.

ing
t
429
for with
John of the Cross himself who commands this course of action. For everydiing that is not the sole domain of contemplation and the union of love in nakedness of spirit, for any question ofregions ofdiought less lofty than this divine mountain-top, he
charges
us to return to the reason. In those regions
in metaphysics;
its
1
own
desire,
where
it
groaned that
it
was not, longed
DO
nging which springs from that reserve of radical obedience and which is enwound in the very heart tentiality before its Author
perfectly clear, the line of distinction assuredly
of its
own being.
is
he asks us to
see:
not to
Thus the division
shut our eyes, but to open them: St. John
wide-open and observant eyes.
of the. Cross wishes us to have Faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, in
only clarify the sight. St. John of the Cross both the order of nature and its limits. Why is it not good to askGodconcerningparticular things, why are these indiscreet
respects
making
superhuman mode which proceeds drawn, between knowledge in the and knowledge of a human kind Ghost, Holy the of ruling under the
which
is
perfect the reason,
regulated
by
reason:
by pure
reason if the question
is
that
of
interroga'it is
philosophy and metaphysics: by reason elevated by faith if the question To ask metaphysics to lead to this supreme contemis that of theology.
plation exhibits
tories displeasing to
God, even when

its
He
answers them? Because
the
mark of a vast ignorance, of metaphysics

is
as
of con-
not permitted to any creature to leave those boundaries which

naturally assigned for
action.
God has
templation: to regard reason alone as incapable
of metaphysical thought
a no
less
God has
assigned to
is
rational space: to seek to transgress these limits seek to verify and obtain such things by the
gress these natural bounds.
man a natural and not lawful: and to

path
is
is
without the assistance of mystical connaturality

the essential
violation of
order of things. St. John of the Cross no less than St.Thomas
spiritual
to trans-
protects us
from such weakness. And,
inversely,
whenever mystical
The
thing
is
unlawful:
God
not pleased
thereby, for everything which is unlawful offends Hun* Certainly St John of the Cross wishes to lead us above tatatc and above the reason: into
sobrieauthors, forgetting the great discipline of the Aposde, sapere sed ad

tatem,
concede in some measure to the temptation to speculate, i.e. in the
the supernatural order, into the supra-rational clearness
mystical order itself, seek to interrogate their holy wisdom
on particular
dom and faith. But

is
of divine wis-
beyond nature or beyond reason-certainly not: that
problems, to
make it leave its own repose and incline to philosophical or
thelast thing that he could wish;
theological discourse,
certainly
al.
hehas ahorror of anything irrationThe order of grace neither abolishes nor violates the limits of nature-
where reason can only advance haltingly and untowards clarification, or base themselves on interpretations
St. John
it raises
nature whither nature has itself aspired to come, without know1 Ascent, book ii, chap. 21.
which are often rash,

renunciation
of the Cross
sees
only a diminution and a
of the purely
often
is
divine,
to this he is the good disciple of the great Reformer of Carmel This horror of ûnreasonable, this profound respect for thenatural order is
ling, beautiful as it
and the peril of illusion in this mingnight in the order of poetry, of the mystical
oSrfSôSLtt
to her
C nd " Ct
1
WhM
human lights, lights which can only advance for a yet undifferenconfusion, tiated moment the progress of thought, and which is often a
with
leading in its
WOrk
t0 be
donc M^ted
by su-
forms of aberration to iUuminism and to theosophy.

I
This purity which

the
have
discipline tried to describe, this inflexible
of
mind,
this
connections,
profound the doctrine of the order established by God, not only in
for the essential respect for the distinctions, as
taught but in the doctrine lived, if I
may speak so, in the very configurathe
how
I
to
pi it in
set
oughfto
il ^=
SSOr
tTLZ ThZ
'
i!
'
** Ac
s shou[i be done he
de
k*
sign of of their sanctity, is the most moving, the most reverential St. John of the together unites profound, the fundamental accord which
tion
y^S. Voided that
Cross and
l
Thomas Aquinas.1
Bruno dejtofa Croix by Pere A, I wrote before this (Preface to Saint Jem between witnesses con Marie, pp. xxi-xxii), 'the accidental and reducible divergences
430
firm the veracity of their testimony, by showing an accord which is unpremeditated. Instructed as they both are in the two forms of wisdom, the acquired and the infused (for
the author
of The
Spiritual Canticle
had acquired from his masters at Salamanca and by
himself a solid knowledge of theology, and the author of the

the light
Summa
Tlieologica lived in
of mystical contemplation), but each having an office distinct from that of the other, St. John of the Cross and St. Thomas, the one from the point of view of mystical
ing Truth.
experience, the other from that oftheological science, are both witnesses to the same livAnd because St. John of the Cross never troubled himself in any way with
the making of a work of scholastic theology, but only with singing what he divinely knew, then of expounding in his commentaries the practical science of the road which had led him to such knowledge (not without reference then, when it was necessary, to
scholastic theology); because the
CONCLUSION
TODO Y NADA
of concentration all things, even those At a certain degree of depth and from the spirit, appear in their authentic substance are farthest
which
movement of his practical,
concrete, lyrical thought,
position; because he never even
with its harvest of psychological intuitions, is opposed to the methods of scholastic exdreamed, where the differences of standpoint brought
in their train apparent contradictions in the
manner of description, of explaining these

sig-
or establishing a correspondence, which for him existed in itself, between his language and that of speculationhis fundamental accord with St. Thomas is only the more
on the aspect of spiritual being. Taking the word rather hold that there analogical and widest sense, we should
to take
'spiritual' in this
is
a sort
of the best scholastic tradition in theology, but of the Holy Ghost in contemplation, only writing of 'the experimental science which he had lived',
nificant; a disciple
of spiritual density,
which
is
independent of whatever particular values

relation to the vital
his right-
a commentator, but to confirm this teaching livingly as a witness.' This book of Pere Bruno's, with M. Maritain's Introduction, has been translated into English by E. I. Watkin (published bv 7 Sheed and Ward, 1936).
like
.
ful
work was not
to continue the teaching
of St. Thomas
may be in question, which implies infinitely more in good or evil quality of a soul or a work or a period. For
the immaterial
each to its appointed weight which is a function of this density bears human history the of region central the to spot, and the nearer this is have very little who men Thus mass. invisible greater the gravity in this destiny and grave a fulfil can actions their weight in their thought or
can weigh heavily in the scales
It is
of time.
this inner ferment rises from a good of inertia. The fundamental appearance the face and there takes on the fact that, taking disequilibrium of the modern world is marked by
far
thing
when
to the sur-
life, the spiritual middle range of culture and the regime of human to weigh less than density of the truth has for several centuries tended
the
that
of the false.
And one
of
could say that in our
own days the inclination

semblance 01 his
of the balance had effectively changed its significance.
The
classical picture
man draped in the outward
an order, a peace, a selfishness at the foot of the Cross, an equilibrium, by the rich and by earth beatitude of pure nature, the possession of the crown recompenses eternal that mathesis which religion confirms and perfection or an admirthe and this is the He which a robust civilisation of the modern world able art had brought us to believe in the youth that but by demanding Jansenism endeavoured to redress the balance; reason or the shattering the christian soul should honour mystery by
431
432

also
TODO Y NADA
433
every man
tents
measure, however broken (which is quite another thing than the divine measure)it could only bring oppression instead of glory and bind once again the arms of the Crucified
and so
measuring with a
human
who is baptized who is put to death is a martyr Mighty por!
however have risen on the far horizon ofour most unhappy Europe atheism become the religion of the State is condemning everything on earth which is not to its satisfaction; and, if it is still making use of pretexts
for its death-sentences, in fact it is
With
this christian
naturalism
become normal and

any case
as
conscientiously
for the crime of rebellion against
this
practicable, legitimate, honest
and
stable, so that authentic Christianity
tends to pass for impracticable, in

in
inhumanthis is
the state
many already have been immolated, and the happy hour is coming when a man can die for God; not for the nation nor for
negative religion that
for
which our so-called
christian civilisation has

its
immobilised itself in the
flesh, in
which it has lost all
ancient
invain.
prevent the dissolution of the christian world: but as to the message which that world has been charged to deliver, it remains unearned, and the cry of the poor Roes ud r b r
of so many great
momentum of charity. The love
humanity, neither for the revolution, nor progress, nor for science, but God alone. More cynical and more brutal than that education
saints just suffices to
anition
by inby which western liberalism asphyxiated childhood, an attentive

is
pedagogical surgery
operating upon souls in order to cut away the

all that:
image of God; and that image will be reborn for
a poor child
who
believes
he
is
an
atheist, if he loves truly that
Meanwhile for one cannot escape from the angels,
menon has
an inverse pheno-
the face
of goodness, has turned to

I
God
which he holds for without knowing it. ... It is
taken place, which
is
to which the christian world has diluted its substance, in that same degree the world, the prince of the powers of this world, has concentrated his. It seems as if all the alembics of the invisible were at work to trans-
to-day become tangible: in the degree
with deep respect that

spiritual
write here of the Russian people and of the tragedy in which they are involved. If such a world of naivete
and violence, of faith and abnegation, is given over'to the false miracles of
the material
in
grandeurs of the
spirit
which
denies the
bolk^dte
' aSCeddSm SU P erfluous - contempLon perithe precept 'Be perfect' a work of supererogation They are fighting with the bubbles Y on the surface of the torrent! equUibriuni f Which I <* at the opening of this c
S
Lus lous,
^Vhonest SltS tr' ^ t ^^^^^P^^&teôftheMo.tHighbyconsiderChristians,
1 ll sac. st^"r^^-^^êorblackdrugsofhisother many who

SSjMeanwhile
judge
their
new n0t Want of ^ d**"**" GW r^ TTfWUch and which a*,

the
of quintessence. In art and in poetry, as in the life of the senses, of vice and of sin, of dreams or of financeor ofdeath, everywhere the pure spirit, the essential essence, disengages itself and stinks in our nostrils. The souls of men are subjecting 3 f flesh t0 an asceticism
mute
spirit, this
is
all
human
must be
things into the state
some form of immense
spiritual purification. This
not the place to
ask whether in the social
world, nature, for too long outraged by covet-
ousness
and egotism,
is
not seeking
at
any price
to find
an oudet for
^^^ ^
those claims
ofjustice which
are like her indignant soul. Here
we
are
'
* martyrdom
the
only considering the spiritual aspect

loose in history
effects:
of things. Once they have been let
Holy
the dark influences are fated to multiply endlessly their

is it
while the
but how
possible not to believe that there will appear at the

laid open,
same time, rising
from those depths which have been
when
in a
unhappy
human nature
prisals
is
so ploughed and harrowed, so stripped to the core, re-
CmSeIVeS t0
succesf of
of grace, divine regenerations, which will perhaps justify,
ttf and
PreSUm
^ US
manner totally unforeseen, the immense religious hope of a Dostoievsky

or a Soloviev in the destiny prays for
of their nation? Meanwhile the Church them lovingly; but the men of this generation, cold as the dead,
not certainly to commerce and rapine, but to the soul of this
indifferent,
formidable adventure,
flesh
ambXch^d mbwmchis led to the slaughterhouse r? the shedd

is
rr
not the Paschal lamb,and not
^ m^- *->
do they understand what Russia says to them, as and blood strive to do die work which the bearers of the name of Christian have neglected, do they also comprehend what a degree of
spiritual density,
what an inward
ascetic violence
Marxism
itself,
and
434

world held accursed by history must have had in the inof the heart of a Lenin for the outward explosion to
all sides,
TODO Y NADA
lohn
435
the hatred of a
visible universe
O n e fundamental feeling appears to traverse the entire work of St. sense of the almost insupportable and double paraf the Cross, the
condition of man and the works of God; the sense of a resolute
be of such a quality?
dox of the
Meanwhile, on
and even where grace
is
in disguise,
where
disproportion,
of the union of extremes, of annihilation
as
the condition
men do not yet know the true name of the divinity which works within
them, authentic spirituality aspires to reassemble
its
of death as the condition of supreme action: the of superabundance,

sense
forces
and the
Cerus to put
first
life,
world
tainly
itself presses
upon
souls
and turns them towards the
spirit.
His sense
of the Cross, whereon the mystery of the Incarnation is fulfilled. of life is not tragic, for tragedy as such has no issue and here
not in a refusal of temporal
work
love
itself compels
our hands to the works of time

necessity. If a
but in order to begin with the

first
blessed
hurries and precipitates itself towards a on the contrary everything and radiant end but superhuman, like beatitude itself, the trans-
of all for the secret of heroic the work he does for the common good will remain of little value.
If
man
does not seek
fixed heart
of the living God. But
all
things take
on for him
that super-
natural distension
of the earth towards heaven which
the figures
of El
we wish to be instructed in the things of the spirit the mystical Doctor will teach us. He knows the paths of the mountain inhabited by God,
plenteous in grace, compact of wisdom and of goodness: he traces, for those who have decided 'to pass through this
is
Greco proffer to our

a St.
outward
eyes.
While in
the speculative wisdom of
the mountain
which
the first
Thomas Aquinas, where everything is knitted into the height of Truth, it is unity above all which is discovered to us, explaining
of heaven of all
disparity Angelico painted in the practical wisdom of John of
all
and reconciling, ordering, justifying

the
as
nakedness of the spirit', the plan of the ascent of Mount Carmel. 1

1
dancing circles
St.
Thc symbolic design which
printed as a frontispiece
It is
have followed in this exposition is the one that is to the first edition of the Suhida del Monte Carmelo, Alcala, 1618.
I
la
the Cross,
where everything
is first
is
knotted up with the greatness of the
human
quished
heart, it
disparity
which
is
revealed, so that, van-
Cruz, Burgos, 1929, vol. ii)! The first sketch drawn by St. John of the Cross for the Carmelites of Beas, which is re^ produced in the book by R. P. Bruno de Je"sus-Marie {op. cit), has been later corrected and completed by the Saint himself (evidence ofMagdalene of the Holy Spirit. Cp. Sil-
reproduced in Silverio's edition (Obrasdesanjuande
by
love,
it
may be
led into unity. Christian
wisdom can only

security, joy,
truly attain
one extreme by the other, marrying peace,
everything
which
state.
rightly belongs to the state
of God, with
the
agony
of the Saint's work which is probably given us by the plate in the first edition, at least with regard to the general arrangement and the text of the legends (which are of primary importance). The neatly arranged steps of the mountain, the trees and the flowers and the coats of arms are evidence of the fact that the drawing has been copied and retouched for the printed edition by a somewhat
i). It is this
verio, vol.
final state
of desire, the sweat of blood, the death for sin,

our
St.
which are the truth about

says
human
'Who will
'For
it is
deliver
I
me from this body of death?'

me.
I
Paul;
and
also,
not
that live but Christ liveth in
can
do all through Him who strengthens me'.
heavy-handed professional draughtsman, whose signature, Diego de Astos fecit, figures in the top left-hand comer. Butthis is unimportant from the point of view of doctrine. It might be remarked that Chapter xiii of the first book of Tlte Ascent tallies with this symbolic representation and agrees best with the second state of the design. (See also book m, chaps. 2 and 15.) The way in which Hoomaert
leaves a
There are two bad roads and they are broad. There the soul loves
self
it-
with a proprietary love. The way of the
lost spirit
leads to the
good
things
of
this earth.
Tlte
more I sought
the less have

It is
I found. I cannot
good deal to be desired.

that St. John
has translated the legends
climb the
mountain, for I have chosen an evil road.
the road of death.
Some readers may perhaps be astonished

a graphic representation of spiritual
of the Cross had recourse to
The road ofthe imperfect spirit claims to lead to the goodness of heaven,
and perhaps
it
realities.
They
forget that, according to Pseudo-
leads thither.
But it is seeking there the satisfactions of the

less than if I had
Dionysus^twhichuaboveaUrepresentationmaycondescend to use the most simple images, and farmer that the Saint must have smiled as he drew. Others will find it an mstanceofa rather najve assistance to the memory. In truthitis something decidedly bCCn dc P Iorabl man kd P Cm ' the meticulous S acadermc^m of the copyist, butwhichmits&stsmdy y (see me drawmg in the workof Bruno ^sus-Mane.^.df.^) has a very pure and most moving quality
creature. Because
I soughtfor them I have them
mounted by
the path. I have dallied and I have not mounted so high because I did not stick
to
fcfZL*!^
T^k*
the path. It is
a road of servitude.
is
The good road

nothing,
were way of perfection; it passes, almost as if it the wind flanks whose between the two hills of egotism over
the
436

suitable for cars. It climbs straight ahead. It
is
TODO Y NADA
spiritual
two roads
narrow. Quant
437
arcta est via! It
docs not broaden out until
much
later.
The
soul there
love can unfold to
its fullest
dimensions.
The knowledge
it
loves itself as expropriated
of itself,
it
that
is
to say, with self-hatred,

self-loss,
and it
asks is
has torn itself from everything:
has consented to
decided to
it.
the
knowledge oflove, by which it shares a common life with knowledge proceeds from love, which by the inSpirit; and this
the
remit
its
spiritwinch
is
to
dieinto
the hands of him
who loves
This path leads to the land of Carmel, to
and above
mountain.
is
all tilings.
Thou shall
God perfectly loved in himself Tlw glory and honour of God dwell alone on this he by so much more as thou hast willed to be less. This
of God gives experience of God. The quality of the mind is its inwardness: how could the unity of the spirit which is formed by the
stinct
adhesion
!
oflove between
is
God and
the soul not re-echo in knowledge?

it is
Contemplation
it
the experience of union,
by the fusion oflove that

'it
the
way of liberty,
the only way of liberty.
feels
and lays hold on those things which are divine. Taught by love,
for
'all
The end of the journey is transformation in God, which is done here below by grace, by faith and by love, and which will be achieved in the
beatific vision. It seeks to
is
rich in savour',
that is
done by love is savourous and rich'. 1 In-
of die Father, and he is God. 'God communicates himself to the soul in so

love, diat
is
go thither where the Son is (he is in the bosom on the cross); it seeks to become one spirit with
far as it is
by love.'2 To become God by become love. 'The perfect soul is nothing but love.' 3 participation is to the most complex and feeble of beings, a prating aniTo ask this of
deed,
'nothing is obtained from God if not
advanced in
mal, a
visible
glutton
who
incessantly devours the
meagre
intelligibility
of
to say, the
more its will is conformed with God.
When it is
'by
things and the delights of the
moment, of a
Swiftly let
nature marred,
self-
totally conformed and alike, then it is totally united with and transformed into God in a supernatural way.'* This is given to those who
pierced
through with the lust of evil and concupiscence, whose
conceit debars it
earth, that
if
from loving! Hurry!

die, that the juices
him be dug into

dissolve
the
grace are reborn', and
who have received from God 'that sonship which

light should dwell
he
may
of the ground may
him:
surpasses all intelligence'. 2
nothe
will
The
remain alone, a seed flung on the manureheap of his

is
soul
is
like a
window, where the

removes every
by
nature.
heart,
Fortified
by
and never be delivered ! John of the Cross

is
pressed for time, he
grace, if it
obstacle,
every
stain,
every crea-
does
turely veil,
not want to lose a second. Because he
conscious as
no
other
it
will
become light by participation. 'God then communibeing in such a
cates his supernatural
man has ever been of the scale of the chaos which severs these extremes
way
that the soul

.
himself,
and possesses what God himselfpossesses.
. .
becomes God What leads to this
intellect, or the taste, nor imagination, nor feeling. nothing other than purity and love\ In the end 'die understanding of such a soul is the understanding of God, its will is the will
It is
union is not the
up with an unparalleled vividness the dynamism which is implied by the life of a Christian. Those ladders and escalades which mystical authors so often describe make all
prodigious
too feeble
which are to be united, he throws
an image.
It is
the
whole substance which must be in

liquefy
itself,
travail,
memory the eternal memory of God, and its delights God. And the substance of such a soul, while all
than the substance of God, for
it
of God,
its
which must groan,

eternal life.
which must
in order to
leap up
into
the delights of
And
this invisible
momentum
must
ceaselessly accelerate.
the while being other
mm,
cannot be substantially changed into

'
nevertheless
4
is
united with him, absorbed into him,
is
participation.
God by J
it is
Mercy on those sentimental beings who, shedding a tear over the courage which will be required for diem to part forever from their sins,
*k
that
it
may
be more comfortable to believe in God, and
that
one
The worth of contemplation

hfeofknowledge^tisabove all
I
is
not only,
it is
turns christian
is
not so
much
to gain a tranquil berth!

is
that
that
.
a life oflove, the space in
winch
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing: this

Cross.
the path of St. John of the
/W,bookii,cl1ap. J
str. 2,
tfta
mil
Knowledge and Reposenot this, not that. Joy and Honournot this,
1
^Living Flame,
v. 6.
Cant.,
str.
18.
Cp. supra, chap,

str. 1.
vii, p.
415-
Cant. t second redaction,
Hhil.ia.27.
43

and Liberty-not
this,
TODO Y NADA
To win to the tasting all, of Wish not to taste anything.
nor that. Security

this,
not that.
Nothing.
not that. Glory and Eniovmn.t Y n
m *W t~mt
And upon the Mountain

If the question
is
nothing.,
one of transforming a human being into love of bnngmg up in the manners of God, one cannot be astonished a 'the destruens winch are required. It is only too
To come to
the possession
km
Wish not to possess anything.
ofall, '
purification in the
obvious that a
manner of Plotinus
dial
is
cleaves an intellectual space

itself ls
which in relation
is
only a mere superficial erosion.
radically insufficient: that but " to the being of the subi
To win to the being ofall, Wish not to he anything.

THE MEANS OF ESCAPE FROM ALL FETTERS
John of the Cross, and which

Vety
no^ng,
our own, no f! even the empty space. All is surrendered, nn, docs not know that the creature so set at
oZ^l
eMds
-WSofb
it.
accomplished by God, cuts

S
22 ^^êav;su no^
lost:
The purificationâugltt^
When any one thing stays thee

Thou ceasest to plunge into the whole.
For to attain
to all in all
all.
and Plod
it,
live
with and in
dltiesas
oê^ôr
may b ^ toactinGodw^-
r
It dies
naught must
Xrbt
in
Thou must leave behind thee all and
that if
And when thou winnest a hold

For ifthou wishestfor aught in
ofall
Guard thyselfand wishfor nothing.

the
Destroying me thou changest death
whole
to
life.
'
*Be ye perfect as your Father in
Thou keepest not purely in God thy treasure.

oerfer-t
'
Heaven
is
<u
'
THE MEANS OF ATTAINING ALL
To win that which thou
Thou must go where thou knowest not.
knowest not
To win that which thou fastest not Tixou must go where thou fastest not.
under the habitual regime of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, will tend and consummate our purification, raising us to the height of contemplation by the paths of passiveness. 'I would teach the soul that in this affair God is *
This
is
Such conduct would be insane, if it were not that God begins it It is He who, in giving us grace, has planted in us a seed of himself. It is He who directs the travail of our will. It is He who, when we have come
must
must
the prime actor. not possible to the powers ofnature alone. In truth it is God who
.
To win what thou possessest not, Thou mustgo where thou

To win what thou art not, Thou mustgo where thou
set the soul in this supernatural state;
but the soul, so far as

it
it
can,
also
be in good dispositions, which
may
acquire
by
the help
possessest not.
winch God supplies.'2

It is
the nature
of the end
wins to
in
view which makes comprehensible
the
art not.
rigour of the means employed.
The love of creatures, though it is much

perfection (even of death and sin) than
efforts
more
THE MEANS FOR KEEPING ALL To win to the knowledge of all, Wish not to know anything.
also
rarely that
it
its
divine love, strews a myriad
deformed
bits
about
its
path.
There are
many
foiled attempts,
broken
and
disjecta
membra of lovers on
vii.
living Flame,
Âscent,
str. J, v. 3.
Sec also supra, chap.
book iii, chap.
1.
440
the

way of divine
'a saint
TODO Y NADA
imicates to
it its
441
love:
it is
one of the
sufferings
of a
thought that by his deformities

than
there
Christian, the
less
infinitude
all
of desire. Give everything, poor men: how

than
is
hardly anything
gracious
much
easier
it is
to give
by halves! Everything
that
we keep is
which
is
in embryo', limping with
egoism and imperfect virtuehe
may run the risk of blaspheming divine love among men: unhappy fellow, he knows well enough that only saints are free of the chrysalis, that only they are gracious and sure. St. John of the Cross has no wish
for cocoons.
gnawing at our entrails. like a cancer impurity The senses bring two forms of
contrary to the life
direct use
in their train: one
of virtue, and over which the
soul triumphs
by
the
He
repeats untiringly that the excellence

is
of
the love of
God, into which the soul must be transformed,

stripping to
the measure of the
in
of its faculties, of the senses themselves: and the other which is over which the soul triumphs contrary to the contemplative union and the former the ascesis ofJohn of the cure of For senses. the surpassing
the
must be subjected. The imperfect spirituality of profane wisdom asks a certain measure of such detachment: what is surprising in the demand of a divine spiritualisation for one
senses
which the
Cross
quer the vices
knows two remedies. 'He used to say that a man could conand acquire virtue in two ways. There is first of all the
ordinary
sin
that is so
much more radical?

of the Cross
is all
or a temptation
method and it is less perfect. It Consists in combating a vice, a by the direct opposition of acts of the contrary
The
telian.
life,
doctrine of St. John
the
more firmly based in

is
virtue. ...
the degree to
which
his
conception of human nature
entirely aristohis natural
To him man is no
pure
spirit
making use of a body;
and
is
even in the world of the spirit, thrusts its roots down into the senses, only exercised in the shaping of images: which is
why St. John"
at once easier, more fruitful and perfect. and destroys the temptations of the adverthe sole use sary, and raises itself to the most perfect degree of virtue, by of spiritual acts and motions inspired by love, without any other exer-
'The second
method ...
is
There the soul fights against
the practician
of human
souls links together the senses, die
reason and discursive meditation. In regard to the being are the country of unlikeness.
work of the of God all these

than
cises.
How is this possible? He explained it in the following way.

soon
as the first
He does not ask us to destroy the activity of the sensesno more

the Gospel, in speaking of those
for the
who
have 'made themselves eunuchs
of some vice makes itfor some self feltluxury, anger, impatience or the spirit of vengeance as is done virtue, injury, etc.do not oppose to it an act of the contrary of movement or in the first way, but immediately resist it by an act
'As
motion or the
first
attack
prescribes mutilation. He loved the beauty of which helped his prayer; he had an exquisite sensibility; he was one of the greatest poets of Spain and of the world; he was often depressed; he had a profound tenderness for his brother Francis the poor mason, and a deep delight in his spiritual children. But he wishes that in the use of notions as of sensible attractions our lack of possessiveness
kingdom of God',
spiritual
love which opposes
itself to the assault
and
lifts
the soul to
die countryside
from union with God; because in so raising itself the soul absents itself the by and him; to this life and is present with God and unites itself
same fact the vice or temptation and the
and remain frustrate,
enemy are defeated of their end effect, knowing not where to strike. The soul, in
abstracts it-
though not making use. Later, on die mountam, all will be transfigured. Meanwhile it is necessary to begin by losuig all; that is the rule of the road. In the order of physical and material being total renunciation is not possible, and the renunciation of particular possession by the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience
It is
is
should be absolute.
to use as
more where it loves than where it lives" divinely cannot find self from the flesh and from temptation, and the enemy there is Thus . escaped. has where to strike or to wound. ... The soul
which
"is
.
Angelic born in the soul diat heroic and admirable virtue which the
Doctor called the virtue of the perfecdy purified soul.'
the
To
senses
pnvdegeofafewbutintheorderofspiritualreahsation total renunciation is asked of all who seek after perfection. There is only one way out of die lamentablestruggleofaspiritenracinatedin
die flesh,
defeat the second
form of impurity which
fog
and winch hinders union and the love emptiness. Inis of creatures, there is only one remedy: night and
^Testimony ofEliseus of the Martyrs.
(Silverio, iv. pp. 349-50.)
produced by the a of contemplation with

is
which com-
442

is
TODO Y NADA
St.
it
443
purification, wliich
the particular interest
of mystical theology,
empties
itself,
the soul also begins to catch a glimpse of the peace of
John of the Cross

his doctrine
deals
with
in the fullest
and most complete fashion
in
into the prayer God, to enter

contemplation.
This night
spirit
of quiet,
that tiny beginning of infused
of the Night of the Senses.

have received the
It is
a double night, at once ac-
tive
and
passive, 1 or rather
perhaps a twilight, into which those souls

call
of the senses
'serves to
accommodate
the senses to the

rare souls
penetrate
who
to contemplation (the Saint only

side the soul exercises itself on
1 rather than to unite the spirit with God'.
With those
addresses himself to diese).

its
On the
one
whom God sees

cations, it is
are not too pusillanimous to be called to higher purifi-
own rightful initiative,

of
thinning
down the taste of the senses and the
complicated by particular sufferings and temptations: such

the manifestations of the angel of Satan or th?
spirit
force
side,
dieir attraction, putting the appetites to sleep.
On
the other
souls
know sometimes
God acts upon the soul and himselfpurifies it with an incomparably

Widiout
this
sometimes the spirit of fornication,

and passive.
It is as
of blasphemy and that ofverti-
greater effectiveness.
divine decapitation
of the
all
passive
go, which bar the entrance of the Night of the Spirit. Tins also is double,
active
night the soul

blots
would never be
delivered
it,
from
those
too visible
dense, as obscure as the darkness of midnight,
which
are imperceptible to
from the
desire for consolations,
from
tony,
tices
the spiritual presumption, sensuality, impatience, avarice, glut-
before the eternal morning of the vision. In the active night of the spirit, the contemplative soul purifies the understanding by faith, not only by
envy and
of the
sloth
which are the
common
defects
of the appren-
dwelling in obscurity
all
widi regard to
while
all creatures,
but by the
refusal
of
of perfection. In discerning the

senses, in rising
spiritual realities in the representa-
distinct light, the rejection,
it
seeks for
this
God in prayer, of all rewhat it sets itself to do,

is
tions
above phantasms, in beginning to underfill it
presentations
its
of God or of spiritual things:

created thing,
is
stand and to
comprehend
that the Divine will
just in so far as
particular action, the refusal of everything which
dissimilar to the
*It is important to comprehend that the active nights treated of in Tlie Ascent of Mount Carmel and the passive nights treated in The Obscure Night (just as the two boob
divine.
For no
no
graspable thought,
is
no
distinct idea,
this life,
nothing
by which
the understanding
able to
comprehend in
comment on the same

gress. 'In the
verses) are
measure to of forms, God puts it in possession of union, and this he works passively in the soul, as we shall tell, with the help of God, in the passive Night of the soul' (Ascent, book iii, chap. 2). The Ascent explains what the soul (which has already passed through meditation and has been called in immediate fashion to contemplation) must do on its side in
this progress,
two concomitant aspects of one life and one prowhich on its side the soul advances in negation and the lack
an immediate means of divine union. The unique means which is proper and proportionate to union is pure faith, the faith which Spirit render is vivified by charity and which the gifts of the Holy
can serve as
penetrating
single
The Obscure Night, what God does on his. Everywhere St. John of the Cross demands 'courage and courageous obstinacy' (Spiritual Maxims, Andujar Ms.) of
the souL in the one case, courage to undertake, in the other, courage to endure. did St. John of the Cross not treat at the same time these two aspects of spiritual
pure and general act: 'Be
and savourous. Let the soul then concentrate itself in a God.' 2 The still and know that I am
of memory by hope, expropriates God becomes its whole support. It
it
soul purifies itself alike

leaves
will
itself
of all,
Why
everything; but
purifies the
progress,
my mind is that the correspondence between the various successive moments of these
two co-related series is not fixed, the
pate or retard those of the
first
and choose to study separately the active and the passive series? The reason to
various
by
charity, risking for love everything that

all
loves, detaching
spiritual
itself
from
good
things
which
are not
God, even
all
good,
it
according to the
moments of the second series can anticigood pleasure of the free initiative of
lifting
the sacrificial knife over die very pledge of
the promises
God.
has received.
On the other hand it is my belief that if one wishes to co-relate the two series in a
in the line
But
which
God also
is
general fashion (ut in phribus), the passive nights need to be placed rather further off of time than the active nights (which prepare and dispose for the passive). (With regard to the third nigh of which, he speaks in Tlie Ascent, book i, chap. 2, it is described in The Spiritual GwfWe-betrothal and spiritual marriage and in The Living Flame.)
the passive
on Ids side, night of the spirit,

acts
initiative. This in the plenitude of his
is
contemplation die 'horrible night of

itself; like
infused contemplation
once of supreme torments and

f 1
"onger that
of accommodating
Ôbscure Night, bk.
place at the cross ofJesus, the is no question The peace. the beatitudes of created the but spirit, the senses to the
chap.
i.
ii,
Sps *** 2*
444

Uncreated. In
this
TODO Y NADA
pages,
445
spirit to the
agony of its very substance
is
the con-
summation of the encounter of those extremes of which the Mystical Doctor had so terrible an intuition. The measures of men cease to aoply; in this
of distorting and betraying, teaching of an incomparable plenitude and which transcends all philosophy. But
risk
essential to indicate the principal
and run moreover the
it is
superhuman atmosphere
all
perceptions are disconcerted
described
the
by
and
St.
John of the
Cross.
It
moments of the spiritual trajectory At this point the soul is free; it has
it
take
on incomprehensible proportions.
it feels
A light divinely pure pierces the

God as though by a morit
freedom of the country.

it
has passed through die Door. 'And
obscure and impure soul,

tal
persecuted by
goeth in
to say
goeth out and
it
hath found rich pastures.'
It is
inexact
enemy,
is
it
no longer knows the slightest foothold,
any longer that the
way
longs for death
has broadened out: the narrow

there is
way
no one left who has for it an instant of pity, 'it feels so and so it 1 is.' The divine pulverises it, dissolves its spiritual substance, and absorbs it in a profound and absolute obscurity, as though some animal
diere
ends in the infinite amplitude

path. Because for the just there is
of spiritual liberty: Here
no more a
no law.
had swallowed
it alive,
devoured
human rust which is

in the fire like an
the centre of the soul,
empty kettle,
belly. To remove the must not die soul be burned be destroyed and in some manner anniit
in
its
sombre
just
is no longer law for the man, because he has become more than the law, a king. He is like great criminals, who have nothing more to lose; he has lost his very
This
is
the exact doctrine of St. Paul. 1 There
soul,
hidden in the light of the Trinity. Love has destroyed and borne
and imperfections have become connatural to it'? souls one could truly say that they go down to hell alive.' 2 So do the passive purifications of the spirit erase the profound, inveterate
hilated, 'since passions
'Of such
stains,
old as
Adam, which
that natural rudeness
are confounded with our very selves, and which every man contracts by sin', and the actual
raised him to life with the great Phoenix of the Wounds. Moved by the Spirit of God and become the son of God, because in him grace has borne its fruit, because he has renounced his own human personality for God he takes on in a manner the personal-
him anew, buried and

Five
ity
of God, 'he goes whither the impulse of the
Spirit is to go, thither he
imperfections
which constitute the flaws of the advanced. Like love and

is
goes,
and he returns not when he
goes.' 2
He announces peace upon the

moved
but
treat
by
it
they liquefy the heart. For love
there, it is all the
work of love.
mountain-tops, he is disconcerting and unseizable, a bright cloud
Stripped, transformed, transparent, enflamed

filled
with love in the darkness;
by a breath; he judges
all
things,
and men may
him
as refuse
light, pure, general, detached from every intelligible particular the soul has become apt to penetrate all things, even the deep things of God.'" 'In this is found the proper character of the purified soul, which has annihilated all particular affections and forms of knowledge. Tasting nothing, comprehending nodiing in particular, holding itself in emptiness, in the
with a supernaturally simple
Mm they cannot judge. 3 He magnifies God because God has become in

him and by him what God alone can
us, a
be,
and what
He wishes
man
wills
to be in
supreme liberty moving without

it entirely,
obstacle another liberty, occu-
pying
willing in the
man
all
(in effect the
only the
wills
good) everything that

are
He
wishes,
that they wish, for the
two
obscurity
of the
no longer
darkness,
practically discernible apart:
God and
it
the saint have exit
it
finds itself framed to penetrate
all,
in such a
way that it verifies in itself

such beatitude
is
changed hearts. 'Thou knowest not whence

goes: so
*Cp.
is
comes nor whither
the
words of St. Paul:

to such
as having nothing yet having all;
every man that is born of the

x, 4: 'Finis
Spirit.' 4
due
poverty of spirit.' 4
Rom.,
I realise
only too well
how rash it is to
5.
attempt to synthesize in a few
noster fuit in Christo ;' v, 1 8 :

sus
enim legis, Chrisms'; Gal., iii, 24: 'Itaquc lex pedagogus 'Quod si Spiritu ducimini, non estis sub lege'; 23 'Adver:
Ôbscure Night, book ii, chap.

*Et descendant
in
bookii, chap.
a
6.
internum viventes Ps lv r< r\, ti 5 " P ' J b> '
xm
hujusmodi non est lex;* II Cor., iii, 17: 'Ubi Spiritus Domini, viii, 14: 'Qui Spiritus Domini aguntur, ii sunt filii Dei.'
*
'
ibi libertas;'
Rom.
I(5;
7aa '
J 3-
kt-i. Obscure Night,
EzechieI,
i,
12.
St.Paul,ICor.ii,io.
"'Spiritualis
8.
autem judical omnia; et ipse a neminejudicatur*
(St.
Paid,
Cor. ii, 15).
Ôbscure Night,
book ii, chap.
'John,
iii,
8.
446

two
strictly correlative terms. Liberty,
TODO Y NADA
and
all
t
U7
my
soul,
Liberty and spirituality are
f r
me
Truly then what
seekest thou for,
and
gratuitousness, detachment, the evasion
from
the
dominion of
the
"'f QCSt
crowd and of opinion, no more ruled

laws!
lines,
The only
It
error
is
to seek
all
these things in the flesh.
no more bonds, no more The law is

that love passes
is
the only
way of surpassing
it.
the law,
on the condition
1 hou ask for? All that is is thine and is all for thee." The unity Wisdom. of life, the endless comDivine Divine Silence. of love: perpetual festival where the recovered on f the sweets wisdom, where in the Kingdom of the Father, with is drunken
Jieal
through
there
was by
his
obedience that Christ achieved. Liberty
not
the
where
is
the spirit of poetry, or of mathematics, or the spirit of

is,
.U new
inward heaven of the deiform soul, the Son drinks with the sons wine of eternal beatitude. Secura mens quasijuge eonvivium?
nourishment and the earth, but where the Holy Spirit
who sanctifies
When the night of the spirit has been suffidendy profound, when the
substance
tecum,
and who
sacrifices.
'The things that are of God no

It is
man knoweth but the Spirit of God.'1
of the soul has been sufHciendy dissolved, cupio dissohi et esse with Thee, becomes sensible and that that made its desire, to he
the invasion
the Spirit of God
perfection.
which illuminates and vivifies on the mountain of The spirit of filial fear, the spirit of piety, the spirit of knowof counsel, the
spirit
felf it is
calls
of peace. In the
state
spiritual betrothal, contemplation
which St. John of the Cross becomes luminous. It is the twiessence, the soul neverthe-
ledge, the spirit

ing, the spirit
of power, the
gifts
spirit
of understandit
light
less
of morning.
Without seeing God in his
of wisdom, by the seven

it is this spirit
with which
touches and
experiences that
He
is all,
in transpiercing glances, in a knowledge

penetrates to
animates the soul,
which bears the soul
to mystical union
stripped
of
all
accidentals
and images, whose sweetness
and which loosens in it the sweetness of God:
the peace is not yet complete, for the the very marrow of its bones. But
visitations
Blow across my garden

That its perfumes may breatheforth!
of God remain intermittent and the soul remains exposed to
The fruits of the Holy Ghost,

ness
chastity, continence,
modesty, the firm-
of
faith,
meekness, benignity, kindness, patience, longsuffering,
ofcharity, these are the final and delectable fruits which abound on the heights. The four cardinal virtues, inferior to the gifts, and which stand before wisdom like his servants before a king, are
peace, joy, the tenderness
of the Devil. The perfect peace promised by Jesus is given in the transforming ii, 24), union or spiritual marriage. 'According to Holy Scripture (Gen. two in one flesh; in the consummation of marriage the partners become
the terrors
in the
same way, in the consummation of the

soul, these
spiritual
union between
3
God and the
inscribed
faith,
on
the
mountain
charity,
slopes.
On
the crest, higher than the
The soul then possesses

gifts,
all
two are two natures in one spirit and one love.' it the unlimited rights of a bride, God reveals to
It
hope and
which
attain to
God, reunite
man
his secrets.
with
which Terrible and tremendous are the powers of this soul

participates in
his
is
centre.
And that security, which the soul has now found at one with libhe had said to both: nor this, nor that. Since I nothing I find that nothing is lacking to me. He who is
life
entirely
submissive to the will of God!
some manner
it,
erty, because before
in
shake the impassibility of the angels, the waters of grief cannot

its
rooted myself in
even
ing,
contrition for
its faults,
which is
attack
it is
perfect, has ceased to be
afflict-
united in the depth of his being with the
of all
life,
dwelling within
the
demons dare no longer

of innocence
of innocence,
it
it, it
seems identified with peace
him by
grace, thereby possesses

is given
all
things.
When
itself.
I wishedfor nothing for

itself
'In this state
in a certain
manner
like
Adam in
myself, all
me without my seeking.
the state
when he knew
evil
'Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth, mine are mankind and the just and the sinners; the angels are mine and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God Himself is mine and for me: for Christ is
^t. Paul,
I
diat
comprehends not
and deems
was: so innocent in not what nothing evil; it will hear

evil
Spiritual Maxims and" Sentences
(AndujarMS.).
Proverbs, xv, 15.

"
.
Cor.
ii,
ii.
son dos naturalezas en
un espfricu y amor,
redaction,
srr.
segiin dice
San Pablo.
."
(mtkk,
second redaction, str. 22.
Cp.
first
27.)
448

tilings, it will
TODO Y NADA
clear sight
449
fact
speech of very evil
see
them with its own

because
it
eyes,
and it will
that all
is
accomplished and decided by the very
of this
not understand the
evil that is there;
has no longer in itself that

evil in others.' 1
prayer.
inclination towards evil
by which
become,
it
would recognise
'So
when more
than one soul has entered into the possession

inspires in
Confirmed
in grace,
it 'is
as
much
as earthly life
may
permit,
of
this
prayer,
and the Holy Ghost
them an admirable
goal, the force
is
God by participation'. 2 And all the time it is annihilated, perfecdy emptyof all that is not the truth of God and love. 'Because my heart
has been set
course
of unanimous ideas converging on the same

...
It is
irresistible.
a great misfortune
when among
is
a great
number
on
fire,
my nothing has been changed;

I
duced to nothingness, and

lum redactus stim,
et nescivi.'
have
and I have been reknown nothing more. Et ego ad nihi-
of souls at the
head of the apostolate there
not one possessed of this
prayer; then, the Saints teach us, a country declines and Providence appears to dispose all things against the good and for the advantage of
the evil.
. .
These things are
set forth in Tlte Spiritual Canticle
Flame; in recounting
At no time has die things by experience, and without whom all the goodness of this lower world would long ago have been dissipated. Their experience echoes that of St. John of the Cross. I quote (for such documents do not abound)
a
particularly instructive passage from
and The Living them I have made use of the Saint's own words. world lacked holy souls who have known these
'But
how can it
marriage
spiritual
when
be that such a domination belongs to the prayer of so many millions of saints and angels who are
confirmed in grace cannot prevent the devil triumphing over sinners?

Let us
the
remember
enough
that
God does all things in order, and that heaven and

different things. In the
all
Church on earth are

fire to
same way a and yet
single star
some precious notes on the spiritual

ago by a member of the Society of
this blessed state', writes
it
holds
melt
the ice
upon
earth
we endure
the
marriage, written
Jesus
some
fifty years
winter; just as
so
we require a point of contact to move the bar of a lever,

of Heaven on earth should have a point
point of contact
.'
. .
and recendy published. 'The soul in
Pere
God wills
diat all the action
Rabussier, 3 'comes to the habitude
of total possession of what

itself,
may
of contact here
still
on
earth;
and
this
is
the saints
who
are
wish in the sight of God, not only for

souls
but for the greater good of
pursuing their pilgrimage in
this life.
In du's conformity
of the
will, the
being in a
state
of spiritual
This contemplative later explains that in the state of spiritual marriage

suffering (die suffering
marriage experiments in this way:

his
when the thought ofa desire traverses

a clear
mind, he need only prove it by entering into the heart of this prayer:
of prayer, due to divine action, and which hence-
forward can only exist in

co-exist
'the
communion with
the redeeming Passion) can
if the desire springs
from
into execution; if not,
proof that God wishes it put the desire vanishes of itself. The habitude of total
it is
there
with the purest and most unshakable peace. 1 Such a soul has
the very core of the soul, where the prayer of
possession so engenders litde

that
is
sovereign beatitude of suffering only at the hands of God'. 'Then
by little a certitude,
it
greater than
any other,
what God makes
suffering penetrates to
spiritual
desired
this
will accomplish.
Even
this
future tense
not wholly exact, for

l
marriage
felt
resides, to that central point
where the pain of damdo not in

profound
always an essential
infinitely
habitude even leads to the experience and

str.
nation
is
by one who is damned. But
these great sufferings

is
Cmnicle second redaction, str. 26. Cp. Living Flame,
2, v. 6: 'Finally all the
ments,
ciple
move-
any
Cp. supra, chap, vn, p. 407, note.

%
all the operations and inclinations which the soul previously held from the prinand the force of its natural life, are changed in this union into a divine movement.'
way negative
the peace. Yes, even then there
basis
of gladness, for the springing up anew of the
source
of spiritual marriage
is
always there at
will.'
Cant.,
str.
27.
J
Pere Rabussier died in 1897. These notes had been wntten out for Mde. Cecile Bruyere, Abbess of Ste. Cecile de Solcsmes, at
son d apres la Samte Ecnture et la tradition mystique.
*B*ve
d'ascitique etde mystique, July, 1927.
Cp.
St.
Theresa, The Interior Castle, Seventh House, chap.
3.
'The second
effect (of
the spiritual
marriage)
is
an immense
desire to suffer
.
They find
their beatitude in
coming to the help of the Crucified. . .'; and also ibid. chap. 4. la the book by Mde. Cecile Bruyere already cited there are some very remarkable pages on the suffering
lative to the state
2F
of perfect union.
M.D.K.
450

if
it
TODO Y NADA
did not experience there that
1 by him.' it
451
as
loves
God
much even
as it
is
GO WE TOGETHER FURTHER INTO THESE DEPTHS,

says St.
loved
It is
able to die of this desire. 2
It is totally
changed into
wisdom and
John of the Cross. Let us enter into that 'concrete density' of mysteries and miracles without number, into the immense
love, it
can do notliing more, only love:
Now I no longer have an office,
1 'profundity of wisdom and heavenly science'
which is the mountain of

This equality
My single occupation
is
to love.
God of which David spoke: Mom Dei, mom pinguis; mons coagulatus. 'This may also be understood of the many sufferings into which the soul desires to penetrate, for suffering is the way into the depths of the delectable
of love, which can only be made definite and consummate in the future life, has begun already at the time of the 'spiritual betrothal': 'in
wisdom of God. For the most pure suffering

it is
calling
leads to the
most inti-
him
brother the soul
makes known
'
that equality
of
mate and purest knowledge, and in consequence to the purest and highest
love
which
in
creates a betrothal
between them
Then
the soul, not

say,
joy, because
the
most inward. This
is
why
the soul cannot be
letting,
its
exchange of love with God, one drop, so to

others,
of the
content widi a certain measure of suffering,
when it says:
Let us go to-
gether further into the depths. Job, desiring this suffering, said:
will grant that
'Who
my request may come and that God will give me what I
when a flood is offered to us, utilise only a drop), then the bridal soul gives to God measure for measure, as much of love, at each moment of its progress, as it has regrace
which has been offered be lost (we
may destroy me, that he may loose his hand and cut me off? And that this may be my comfort, that afflicting me with sorrow, he spare me not. Oh, if men would come
look for? That he that hath begun
.
.
ceived in
advance and premonition from the eternal Will which wishes
the salvation
of all.
And now,
to that kind
of equality which
is
is
like a
.'
condition or prerequisite disposition, another
added, the privilege of
to
comprehend
that
it is
impossible to enter into the profoundness and
consummated union.
the wisdom of the riches of God without entering into the profundity of
suffering,
The
degree
act
of love produced by the soul

and measured in regard to and in
it is
its
is
finite
and measured,
like
its
of manifold suffering, and how the soul setteth in

desire!
this
her con-
of charity;
nevertheless, if the love with

its
which God loves
it is
solation
and her
How the soul which desires all the goodness of
equally finite
all
end
(for
God does not love

subsistent
wisdom desires first of all to sink all its good in the depth of the wood of
the Cross!' 2
things equally4 ), in itself
substance, ex parte ipsius actus
voluntatis, it is infinite,
is
in effect
with the same eternal and
The
desire,
blessed rest of the transformed soul
not the repose of immo-
love
with wliich
God loves himself that his creatures are loved by him,

str.
bility, for that is
not its aim;
it is
the balance of speed and
of triumphant
to love
Cant, second redaction,
whose force
38. Sec supra, chap, vii, p. 396.
accelerates incessantly.
to
The soul wishes

is its
God
as it
is
loved by him:
it
'Living Flame, str. 1, v. 6.

s
equal the divine love
unique preoccupation.
'So long as
life also it
1 2
has not
come
Cant.
str.
to this, the soul
is
unsatisfied;
and in the next
27.
Cp.
str.
15: 'This kiss
is
the union
of which I spoke, in which the soul
would not be
{as St.
Thomas affirms in opmculo de Beatitudine)
God by love. It is this that is meant when the soul says: Who will give me the Belovedfor my brother? Which signifies and implies equality.'
equals itself with
Cant.
Cant. ,
str. 35.
str. 3
5.
Cp. The Living Flame,
str.
2, v. j .
'O souls who dream of a tranquil path
and consolations on the spiritual way, if you but knew your need of being proved, to win by suffering this security and this consolation! If you knew how impossible it is,
without tribulations, to attain the end to which the soul aspires, and how falls back it without them, you would never seek for consolations, neither from God nor from creatures You would prefer to carry the Cross, to nail yourselves there, other drink than gall and purest vinegar.'
!
you would ask no
*'Cum amare sit velle bonum aliqui, duplici rations potest aliquid magis, vel minus Uno modo ex parte ipsius actus voluntatis, qui est magis, vel minus intensus. Et sic Deus non magis quacdam aliis amat, quia omnia amat uno et simplici actu voluntatis, et semper codem modo se habente. Alio modo ex parte ipsius boni, quod aliquis vult araato. Et sic dicimnr aliqucm magis alio amarc, cui volumus majus bonum, quamvis non magis intensa voluntate. Et hoc modo necesse est dicere, quod Deus quaedam aliis magis amat. Cum cnim amor Dei sit causa bonitatis rerum, ut dictum est, non esset
amari.
a&quid alio melius,

2(
si
Deus not
vcllet uni
majus bonum,
quam alteri.'(5Hi.
theol,
1,
5.3.)
452

and contingent ends (and when they arc beatified it is in his
sharers, intra in
TODO Y NADA
own
amicitiae affectus alicujus simpliciter exit
extra se 1
as finite
and why
453
it
liquefies the
joy in himself in which they will be
gaudium Domini tui).
heart, ut
that the
amatum
in ipso
subintrefisnd
why it is the cause of everything
How then
no
less
3 lover does.
is it
possible to equal this infinity
of divine love? 'The soul sees

she wishes to love
in truth the
immensity with which

,' 1
.
.
God loves it,

is
him
to
it is
The mystery of the cognitive union, of the

being or that of nature.
conceive of an
is
perfecdy nor highly.

it
This
the particular mystery of the
truth, obliges philosophy conceive of a 'being of knowledge', and an intentional esse which is not
betrothal; difficult as
may be
to understand
and to righdy repeat,
the entitative
The mystery of the union of love

intentional being of love4 which,
based on the formal doctrine of St. John of the Cross. Let
me try to dis-
equally obliges us to
no
engage the principles.
more than the other,

'is
the entitative being.s
m the beatific vision' the

supernatural activity of
'He
who adheres
to God', says St. Paul,

2
one
spirit
with him'. Qui
created intelligence
finitely distant,
and the uncreated

all
essence remain entitatively inits
adhaeret Domino, unus spiritus est.

is
From the point of view of entity there
and for
that the soul, in
always a duality, more, an infinite distance between the soul and the uncreated Love. But there is another order than that of entity, that to
knowledge, becomes
ledge. In the spiritual
J'Quia vult
God according
to the intentional being of knowre-
marriage the created will and uncreated Love

et
which
St.
Paul makes allusion in his words: 'one

is
spirit,'
he says, not 'one

not consiJ
single being.' It
the order of love in so
much
as it is love,
amico bonum, et operatur bonum, quasi gerens curam ipsius propter amicum' (Sum. theol, i-ii, 28, 3.)
l
providentiam
dered in
it is
its
ontological constituents of essence
and existence
(in that case
Sum.
tlssol, i-ii,
28, 5, ad contr.
Hbid.
a. 6.
considered as being), but in the absolute and particular reality proper to that inter-susceptibility by which the other in me becomes more
By analogy with the intentional being which proceeds from the mental word I here
describe as 'intentional'
it is
me than myself. We say that the formal effect of love is that the beloved may be to me as myself, or as another I. 3 If the immaterial activity of
knowledge
is
the immaterial esse which proceeds from the spirit oflove. But important to understand that because of the proper function of the will, and its im-
materiality
entirely
to
become another
is
in as
much
which is certainly not less pure in itself, but less 'separated* from things, and turned towards their concrete state (cp. Sum. theol, i, 82, 3), intentionality
an entirely different part. The intentional being of love is not, like the inbeing of knowledge, an esse in virtue of which one (the knower) becomes
as
it is
an other, the im-
here plays
tentional
material activity of love

other, to alienate
to lose itself in another, in the self
of that
myself in the reality of another,* so that that other bethan myself.

5
comes more
^Cant.,
str.
me
This
is
why
love
is
'ecstatic' in amore
known), it is an esse in virtue of whichan immaterial but wholly difprocess the other (the beloved), spiritually present in the one (the lover) by right of weight or impulsion, becomes for him another self.
ferent
another (the
37.
*St.Paul,ICor.,vi,i7.
(it is only this love which is in question bonum; unde apprehendit eum alteram se, inquantum scilicet vult ei bonum, sicut et sibi ipsi, et inde est, quod amicus dicitur esse alter ipse; et Augustus dicit in IV Confess.: Bene qmdam dixit Ae amico suo, dimidium emmae meat. {Sum. theol, i-ii, 28, 1. Cp. Ibid. ad. 2: 'Amans se habet ad amatum, in
Cum aliquis amat aliquem amore amicitiae

bonum,
sicut et sibi vult
here) vult ci
This is what St. Thomas indicates when he says: 'Processio verbi attenditur secundum actionem intelligibilem. Secundum autem operationem voluntatis invenitur in nobis quacdam alia processio, scilicet processio amoris, secundum quam amatum est
m amante:
There
is
sicut
per conceptionem verbi
res dicta vel intellecta est in intelligente.'
[Sunt, theol, i,
27, 3.)
therefore a certain immaterial being proper to the union oflove by which

is
amore
.
the beloved
nitive
amicitiae, ut
3
ad seipsum.')
in the loving will, as there is a certain immaterial being proper to the cog-
P erf dtur P er h oc. quod cognitum unitur cognoscenti secundum suam j amor fecit, quod ipsa res, quae amatur, amanti aliquo modo uniatur, ut dictum est: unde amor est magis unitivus, quam cognirio.' (Ibid,
''P
similituainem; sed
^
is
i-ii,
Cp. J. Maritain, Inflexions

'This
28, 1, ad. 3.
by which the known is in the knowing intellect: here a presence by the wotte of similitude, and where the knower becomes the known; there a presence by *e mode of impulsion and morion, and where the beloved becomes the principle of action, the 'weight' of the lover (ibid. a. 4). The great thomists have magnificently
principles
union,
sur
V intelligence, pp. 125-7.)

'complacentia amati interius radicata* (ibid,
a. 2).
what
St.
Thomas
calls
deepened and developed the questions concerned with the being of knowledge; fecund can also be found in them (cp. John of St. Thomas, Curs. Phil, Phil Not., i,
-
And
again:
Amatum
continetur in amante
inquantum
1).
est
perquamdamcompkeentiam' (iW., a. 2. ad.
impressum in aflkru
ejus
P 1- 13 De Fine: Curs, theol, i, P. q. 27, disp. 12, ad. 7, and qq. 3<*-8, disp. *5. 3. 4 ^d S) for a similar elaboration concerning the intentional being oflove and the spira"on oflove. But this elaboration awaits performance.
454

entitatively infinitely distant,
TODO Y NADA
God by the union of love.'1 Thus, following the session of
the witness
455
teaching and
main
and yet the
soul, in its supernatural
activity of love, loses or alienates itself in
God become in the being or acand agent of all its operaand love of God.'1
of the
life,
Saint, it
is
necessary to recognise, before the ultimate
tuality of love more it than it itself, the principle

tions. All has
I
end of human
cipation
fixed for eternity
by
the beatific vision, a sort of anti-
been said by the Saint himselfin that golden sentence which

'they are
of that glory in time
itself,
a possession of
God
here below
have already quoted:

'In this state the soul
two natures
in one spirit
which takes place

cltius.
.
by
love.
Love
outstrips the intellect; aicurrit Petro
cannot make acts unless the Holy Spirit move it 2 And because of this all its acts are divine and the more they proceed from God the more they are its own, for God performs them in
thereto.
. .
.
And is it not already here in time as in eternity? 3 The payment

only receive in the future life, because it can only
which die intellect will

transform the soul into
soul
it
and by
the
But it is not only moving and efficient action of God on the soul which must be conit,
the soul giving
its
will
and
its
consent.' 3
and the body

into
love can receive here and now, because

from itself.
God when it sees him, after the separation of the
the soul
God it
to change only needs to love him, but to love him to the de-
sidered here. If the divine action so flowers in the soul

arising
with no obstacle from the nothingness of the creature, it is in the same time and by
action, in the order
gree that divides
the soul
This transformation then, according to St.

place
the
same
of formal
causality, that the soul is trans-
John of the Cross, takes by love and in line with what I have called the intentional being of
love alone
formed
into
God:
not as we have
already seen apropos of sanctifying
love. 'It is
which joins and unites
grace and the inhabitation of God in the soul4
by any
the soul with God.
3
. . .
It is
entitative
change
love
steps
which unites the soul to God; and the more the

Therefore do
soul leaps
up the
of its being into the being and substance of deity, and no more in a this is produced in a physical' or ontological manner, but in the order of the soul's relation to God as object, in so much as
simply moral sense:
grace renders the soul capable of God and turned towards God,
to see
of love, the more deeply it enters into God and concentrates itself in
.
him.
.*
entreat that
which thou
desirest
me to entreat,
what thou desirest not that I desire not, nor can I desire it, nor can the very
desire
of desiring
it
pass through
and
my mind
. . .
and
my judgment comes
.'
. .
to love as it is
is
seen and loved. 6

its
forth
from thy countenance.' 5

spiritual
De vulto tuojudicium meum prodeat.

states
This
the accomplishment in
is
plenitude of that of
which
sanctiis
Between the
a
fying grace
marriage and the

St.
which precede
it
there
the principle and the root. This plenary transformation
takes place in
two different ways, either in that 'blessedlife which consists

and which presupposes the passage through bodily
'the perfect spiritual life,
form of heterogeneity;
marks
tliis
strongly
thal 'the
in the vision of God,
difference
John of the Cross, like St. Theresa, of nature. In the state of spiritual betroTightness
death'or again in
soul has
come to have God in it by grace and by the conformity

of the
and conformity of the
will
which
consists in the pos-
of the will' 7
in itself.
l
to the degree
^Consumado estc cspiritual matrimonio entre Dios cl alma, son dos y naturalezas en un espintu y amor de Dios,' Cant., str. 27. (Cp. supra, p. 447, and chap vii,
is that the souL or rather the spirit of the soul, becomes, as far as one thing with God.... Here the little butterfly dies, but in indescribable joy, for Jesus Christ has become its life.' St. Theresa, Interior
But
'such are not the dispositions for the union of marriage',

str. 2,
that
one can say
p. 398). 'All
Lwing Flame,
v. 6.
Thus,
as has
been explained
earlier (cp. chap, v), this
may judge, one
onion of love*
transformation
inspiration
is possessive
by
because, thanks to the gifts of intelligence and wisdom, the love of the soul into God is itself, under a special illumination and
Castle,
chap. 2.
'Living Flame,
str. 1,
Seventh House,
of the Holy Ghost, the formal means of an experimental knowledge of God, of a passion for the things which are divine.
2
v. 1.
Wil
v. 3.
*SeejH/i/v;,chap.v.
5
Sce supra, chap, v, p. 3 15.
The soul lives divinely because God according to his proper

its
OWe Night, book
ii,
chap. 18. Cp. supra, p. 437. and chap,

;it is
vii,
pp. 395 and 419(mediante el amor)
essence
is
operations
the object
Everyone living
life. ...'
of
its
lives
by
acao^mGod bymeumonwlikhithasv^^
death is changed into
Living Flame,
str. 3,
his acts, as the philosophers say: in
having
'Living Flame, str. 1, v. : second redaction: 3 4at the soul unites itself with God. . . .'
l
by means of love
v. 3.
V>id., str. r, v. 6.
Ps. xvi, 2.
7<
He Uegado a tener a Dios por gracia de voluntad'
[Living Flame,
str. 3. v. 3)-
456
THE DEGREES OF SUPER-RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE"

'that has
TODO Y NADA
457
and
nothing to do with these favours and delights': then the
soul 'not only has
God within it by grace, it has him also by union*

of persons,'1
as is the
in the
from the sky. Or better, of a tiny brook which throws sea, and which it is impossible to separate the itself into
which the drop
degree of all die force and die sweetness of his will, and
cation and union
by 'communicase in marriage. At each stage of
Whatever
love has
its
may be
from thence
the comparison,
it is
understood that so
the progress of die

2 sent into the soul.
life of grace, the Divine Persons, says St, Thomas, are Then they are sent and given definitively, and in full-
ness, to the
very core and centre, and, until die ultimate transformation
which
is
produced by death, no
as
new
or further mission can take place.
nevertheless always enclosed in its created limits, always finite (not only in its entitative structure, as it will be always, but also in the union of the love itself which causes its operations, and which is like the breath
not achieved the transformation of the soul, the latter lives with own life, without doubt progressively made divine, but
Was
of its liberty).
It
But it is more than ever,

tual Canticle,
witness The Living Flame and The Spiri-
is
a whole
which makes exchanges with

is
the
Whole. But when the transthen in a way it is the

if
by love,
in the
life
of love and according to the

Spiritual betrothal
esse amoris,
formation of love
that it
accomplished, and the whole soul is evaporated, so
that the
whole of this is accomplished.
was
this transthis trans-
does not even

it is
draw the breath of love itself,

river, into the
formation of love about-to-be, or the final dispositions for
Whole,
the infinity
of the life of God which explodes within it, as

amorous
formation; spiritual marriage is the consummation of this transforming;

'total
the sea itself
should flow into the
river, spring-
transformation into the Beloved:' 3 an opposition olfieri and fac-
ing
out in vital fountains,
which may become,

itself.
because of the well-head

universe, says St.
particles, if it is
tum
esse
which we only know in a parallel degree of sensible example in

it is
of its waters,
one
spirit
with the sea
The whole
least
the order of substantial changes; but
essential to
is
understand that
Thomas Aquinas, can be contained in the

knowledgeable. 2
his
of its
what
is
there true of nature or entitative nature,
here verified by the
The
is
eternal
and
infinite life
of God can fill the least of

all
immaterial being of love, where the whole principle of gravitation of a whole spiritual universe is as though transessentiated into another spirit
(it
creatures if it
loving, and allows to go to

live,
lengths in
it
the
Love
which has first loved. '/
yet not
I
I,
hut Christ
who
liveth in me.'
its full
remains the same entitatively,

St. John
it
becomes another spiritually). This is

classic
These principles allow us,

J
believe, to understand in
force 3
why
of the Cross has recourse to the
image of the flame
St.
Theresa, Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap. 2. 'In the spiritual marriage',
and the wood. 4 The wood goes on fire, but while it keeps its own native humidity it crackles, it smokes, it sends out vapours and drops of wet, it transforms itself, it is not transformed. Only when it is incandescent
charcoal or pure flame, then
titative
is it
writes St.
Alphonsus Liguori,
'the soul
is
is
transformed into God, and makes one with

into the sea
is
him, as a jugful
of water which
thrown
also
one with
it*
[Homo apost.,
appendix I).
2
De
Veritate, q. 2, a. 2,
transformed (that it so loses its very enit is
being represents the defect of such a comparison, where

is
Sometimes', writes Pere Poulain, 'the mystics allow themselves to go to exaggerations
pre-
of language, in their inability to rightly describe
all
that
is
raised in this par-
cisely
only that being which
in question). St. John used another meta-
ticipation.
his
They
will say that

wills
one thinks with the
eternal thought
of God, loves with
no question remains of a substantial being, but which remains equally inadequate: 'Thus, when the light of a star or of a lamp is joined and united with that of the sun, what gives light is no longer the star or the lamp but the sun, which has drowned the other lights in his
own.'*
phor, where
by his will. They appear to confound the two natures of the diThey so describe what we believe we feel; like astronomers they in the language of appearances.' [Des Graces d'oraison, 9th edit., p. 2S2. The italics the author's.) I hope to have shown here that to exonerate St. John of the Cross
vine
infinite love,
and the human.
from any shadow

mit that at the
And
falls
of pantheism or of 'confusion of two natures', it is unnecessary to ad-
which
Theresa: 'One might speak of the water from the sky, into a river or a fountain, and is so lost in it that we cannot
St.
is
very
we With the First Truth he would allow himself to run to exaggerations of language,
jM that he
*e thmks
moment when he is teaching the highest mysteries of the union of
any longer divide or distinguish which mving Flame, str. 3, v. 3. *Sum. theol,
i,
the water of the river and
43> 3.
str. 1,
C p. supra, chap, v, pp. 317-8.

v. 5.
Cant.,
str.
27.
^Living Flame,
*Cant.
str.
27.
speaks the language of appearances, describing not what he feels but what he feels, in short, that he, 'like the astronomers' keeps to the order of what apwhich he has to be, not of what is, when he witnesses to the sovereign realities bv /neV known. It is a singular invention to set appearances at the end of mystical * sd a. as if it were a telescope!
P"
458

St. John
TODO Y NADA
jus
459
goods;
it it
what
of the Cross teaches of die spiritual marriage. His doctrine
given
it
a right over him, has
made it the proprietor of his
dius appears under three inseparable aspects.
them, may dispose of
may
give them to
whom it will.
Thus
gives
To love is to give; essentially and first of all, in the sealed abyss of immanent activity, to give all of oneself. What the wedded soul gives it
by its finite act of love, and inseparably and indiscernibly by the infinite Love himself, it loves God with the same love with which he loves it and with winch he loves himself. How can this be? It is the very
gives
effect
God to God; its act of love, which measured in itself is finite and limited, infinite Love of God, the Infinite itself, gives to God, by the a gift without measure.
being in any degree in the entitative order,

to exercise
donation which evidendy must not be understood as as though the soul were able
any influence on
God or add to his perfections, to enrich the
of the union of love,
as I
have endeavoured to explain. The unimmaterial being of love, the principle
being of God with that being itself, which would be absurd.
A most real
actuality
created
Love has become,
as the
donation,
but which takes place in

a totally
line
with the pure being or
and agent of all that the soul does.

'The will of the soul
tirely the will
is
of love, in
it is
immanent and immaterial activity, which, widiout

it is
changed into the will of God,
become en-
implying the slightest entitative mutation, for

and accomplishes the
closure
actus perfecti, fulfils
of God, not that the will of the soul is destroyed, but it has
most important thing in the world in the sealed enbeen made one thing with God, it is after a ceris
been
made
the will of
is
God, which
him, since
also its
it
loves
God. And so the soul loves God by the will of own will; and it can love as much as it is loved by by the will of God himself, in the same love with
is
of the universe which is the soul in itself.
'For since the soul has

tain
manner
God by
next
participation; for, although this
not so
as
per-
which he
loves,
which is the Holy Ghost, which

est nobis.
1
. .
given to the soul, in
fecdy as in the
in this
life,
the soul
is,
as it
were, the shadow of God.
And
is
the words of the Aposde: Gratia Dei diffusa
est in cordibus nostrisper Spiri-
way, since the soul by means of this

it
substantial transformation1
tum Sanctum qui datus
He shows
is
the soul the love with
the
shadow of God,
does in and through
God
that
which he does
it.
which
it
loves ...
He transforms it into himself and

it
he gives
it
by
this
through himself in the soul, in the

of these even as
same way as he does
For the will

one.
the love wherewith

love, as
loves him,
what
rightly his; he
shows
he
who
puts the instrument into another's hands

It is
how to saith how it

is
two
is
one and the operation of the soul and of God is
And
will,
God
is
giving himself to the soul with free and gracious
should be used.
in this
way
that the soul loves
God as it is loved by
not only
even so likewise the soul,
having a will that is freer and more generous in

is
him, since their two loves are one single love. Thus the soul
instructed in love,
it is
proportion as
to
it
has a greater union with God,
giving
is
God in God
and
that
it
also
capped
is
as
master in love, being united to the
God
himself,
and thus the
gift
of the soul
to
God
true and entire.

it,
Master himself, and therefore it

it
content,
which it cannot be so long as

loving
For in this state

possesses
rightful
the soul truly sees that
God
belongs to
has not
come
to this love
which
consists in
God
completely
him by hereditary possession,

he belongs
to
it, it
as
an adopted child of God, by
with the same love with which he loves himself. This however cannot be perfect in this life, but at least it is possible in a certain manner in die
state
ownership, dirough die grace that
ofperfection, which is
this that it acts in
and it sees that, since

to
that spiritual marriage
of which I spoke.'2
itself; it
The wedded soul

is
whomsoever
very
it desires;
and thus
it
it.
God gave to it of himself, may give and communicate him gives him to its beloved, who is
then loves and gives with the infinite love
the
it
regard to the intentional being of love, while all the while acting according to its entitative being in its own finite and in-
by
God who gave himself to

of its
owes; for,
own will, it
gives as
And herein the soul pays all that much as it has received with inHoly
Spirit that
Not only itself and its all, but what is more than its all, its core and its life, what is more than its life itself and its own intimacy. God, in fact, as though to a veritable wife,
is it it
dividual actions.
And what
estimable delight
so gives?
and joy, giving
to the
which
is
his in
voluntary surrender, that he
may be loved as he deserves.
'And herein
ing to
is
lRm-v,j.
God that which is
see that it is givthe inestimable delight of the soul: to becomes him according to his
own and which
Cant., str t 37.
^Substantial' in the sense
of an absolute and
basic transformation
oflove.
4 6o

although
it is
TODO Y NADA
God
all
4<Sl
his infinite being. For,
true that the soul cannot give
Finally there
e
is
that almost unspeakable 'breathing-forth', of which
himself to himself anew, since

far as the soul
is
he in himself is ever himself,

perfectly
yet, in so
cannot speak
teachings,
soul,
itself concerned, it gives

it,
and
truly, giving
Saint's
without diminution,1 the most mysterious of the which is like the luminous cloud about his Tabor
And this is to give as has been given to it, and God is repaid by that gift of the soul. And God
that
he had given to
to
pay the debt of love.
he wedded
of the
. . .
Trinity.
The Holy Ghost,

is it
he says, is associated in a certain manner with the action in producing in it 'a touch and most
that inspiration
'to
takes this
with gratitude,
as
something belonging to the soul
. .
and be-
delicate
sense
of love' (which
by which
it
'will love.
cause of this he loves the soul

is
and surrenders himself to
it.
And so there
perfection'), raises God in full

of love
Father,
this
breathe in
God that same suspiratdon
a reciprocal
union between
God and the soul, in the agreement of the

freely
with which the Father breathes with the Son and the Son in the
union and surrender of marriage, wherein the possessions of both, which

are the Divine Essence,
which
is
the
2
and possessed by each
and by both
to-
transformation'.
Holy Ghost himself, which they suspire in it in Once more it is clear that St. John of the Cross is
it is
gether in the voluntary surrender

says to the other that
of each
to the other, wherein each

said to the Father in St.
in eis.
.
.
not
employing here the language of speculative theology, that

in
not a
which the Son of God
question,
ture
any
possible
way, of any entitative participation by the crea-
John: Omnia mea tua

gift
sunt, et tua
mea sunt et darificatus sum

the soul, although
is
.*
This
its
in the act
can evidendy be
its
made by
This
it is
greater than
the
Father
of uncreated love by which the Holy Ghost proceeds from and the Son: it would be madness to suppose that any crea-
capacity and
being
the great satisfaction
and contentment
.
.
ture
could contribute in
and therefore
it is
any way to the procession of one of the Persons
of the soul to see that it is giving to

In the next life this
life
God more than it itself is worth.

2
comes to
pass
through the light of glory, and in
this
limits;
necessary that the soul should return an immense and eternal
through most enlightened faith.'
love to
the
be able to completely rest in
God. This can only be by the Holy Spirit, of which
ôhn.xvii, 10.
f
Living Flame,
str. 3
w. 5-6.
In an article in Vie Spirituelle (1st July, 1931), pointed out that in these pages of the Living Flame
{con extranosprimores.
. .
Dom Philippe Chevallier has rightly

where he explains with what values
"The love of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit which is given to us" (Rom. v, 5). And beThe gloss points out: the Love of God is at once God and a gift of God. love him, he has given us cause God has loved us in order that we on our side may for God in the the Holy Spirit. the virtue of charity is to be the measure of our love
Aposde speaks,
If
life
.)
the soul mates

is
its gift, St.
John of the Cross is referring to the

as
of the blessed,
it is
plainly in vain that
God in the fullness of his wisdom has given
opuscule it Bcatitudine (which
indeed expressly cited in Canticle B).

attributed to St.
the
should like to
Holy Spirit.
reproduce here, following
Dom Chevallier and his translation, the passage in question

Thomas, but which
'Heretofore the
think differently,
his
nowadays modem men Master of the Sentences was of this opinion,

have given us
that
from
this
opuscule,
which was for long
now
Mandonnet's researches have classified among the apocrypha. 'The glorified soul will love God by God, that is to say, by the Holy Spirit. Not only is everything that the
creature
Holy
Spirit
would choose which side you will; it remains that God an equal love and by in order that the blessed soul may give him
find
in him a
repose without any admixture.'
may do in as much as it is a creature imperfect, but the Lord Jesus asked this for his disciples when he said to the Father: I have taught them your name (by faith),
I
r Of
that breathing
of God, which
is foil
of glory and blessing and

desire
the delicate love

speak; tor
show it them (by the vision) so that the Love by which you have loved me may be found in them. Now the Love with which the Father loves the Son is eternal and immeasurable: He loves Him in the Holy Ghost, which is the Union between them. The gloss says: the same Love with which the Father loves the Son will dwell in all the just; by bin the glorified soul loves God and is loved by God; otherwise the soul which, according to St. Augustine, can only rest in God for whom it was created, would never know either a fill or complete
will
tor an equality
of God for die soul, I
* clearly that
should not wish to speak, neither do I if I were to cannot say ought concerning it, and that,
now to
would appear less than it is.' Living Flame, second redacaon, str. 4, ihere_isa seems wrong to hazard even the smallest comment on these dungs, to dc.here ma measure of reassurance in the knowledge that what I am attempting
pretension to lessen
****
4-0.
"Ton to
make
clear
such umon, any of the mystery surrounding xnu* be Saint's language the which the angle from
g^ ^*?
repose if it did not give back to die Crea-
oflove.
loves the soul, says St. Bernard,
it is an eternity which loves, it is an immensity which loves, one whose grandeur has no bounds and whose wisdom no
_
'When God
Mysdcal not ontological uuerances, which, as I have pointed has favour, before aU and at any price, to witness to what love
pcrience.
a
out above (chap. known by
Canf. |S tr.28.
462
in

.
:
TODO Y NADA
why
s
4^3
God.1 He
is
speaking of something entirely different, and
this is
he insists on the ineffable nature of the mystery on which he touches.
f an
uniquely in the order of the union of love, in the pure itnmanthe soul to the Trinity as object, and act which inwardly refers
When he recalls the highpriestly prayer of Christ: 'Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me: that
may see my glory which thou hast given me,' 2 that is to say, adds the Saint, I will 'that they may do by participation in us that which I do by nature, namely the suspiration of the Holy Ghost';3 when he exthey
plains that
Hcli is perfected
ft is
not in so
so that
much
and acliicvcd in itself without any outward overflow: as it is or it acts, but only in the degree to which it
its
loves,
another becomes
centre and
its
weight and
its all,
that
soul, the bridal

the life
crowned with the seven gifts, penetrates into the heart of

itself suffering
of the Trinity, without the Triune essence in
or
we are so
called, in association
with the divine nature, to be-
come 'gods by participation, equals with and companions of God', 4 to work in the measure of God, to 'partake in him, in concert with him, in die work of the Most Holy Trinity, in the way in which I have said', 5
he means that die Father, wishing that we should be one
the
as
the least entitative contact. God says eternally to his being able to suffer not', but equally ,'I will espouse thee to me for'Touch
creature,
ever.'
1
me
Thou hast wounded my heart,
my sister, my spouse,2 1 am thine
they are one,
Son
in us
and he in the Son, and loving us
as
he has loved the Son, 8

as in the
and I rejoice to be what I am that I may give myself to thee 3 kiss of his spirit, and to penetrate it and may be thine,' to raise it to the 4 in virtue of the union of love. entirely with those 'substantial touches',
and for thee,
So that,
the
will give us 'the
same love
said,
as
is
in the Son, not
by nature
Son,
but truly, as
have
by virtue of the unity and transformation of love.
objects of its love, turned towards the Father and the Son as the receiving absolutely soul loves themwithout the Third Person
We are not to suppose from this

die Father diat the saints should
(from
St.
John) that the Son asked of

essence
anything
the
become one in
and nature as the
forth from itwith the same love with which God breathes God to God 'gives Holy Spirit, and in the same sense in which it
Son and the Father

Father and the
1 The
are;
but they
may be
so in the union of love, as the
himself',
Spirit
one can say that
it
suspires
with the Father and the Son the
Son
are
one in the unity of love.' 7
of love, in a very real

rightful
way
in regard to
what the
soul
is
in itself
and
teaching of St. John of the Cross has nothing to do with the proposition by which Eckhart affirmed that 'everything which is proper to the divine nature is also proper to the just and holy man; he works all the works of God; with God he created
its
amorous
gard to I
the soul
know not what
real in retransformation, but not in the least it is that Thus effect. entitative
inconceivable
is
itself transformed
heaven and earth, he generates the eternal Word, and God without such a man could not act', a proposition which was condemned by the Church. Eckhart, as a theoretician
would be no veritable transformation

and transformed into the
Persons,
of love. There into the Spirit by the union united with not were soul the
if Spirit equally with the
and maker of systems, enunciates a theological enormity from which St. John of the Cross remains wholly alien, exacdy by reason of the strict fidelity by which he only
Holy
what is warranted by his own experience. As I have explained in the text, St. John of the Cross nowhere suggests that the soul is associated in any entitative way, even by participation, in the divine processions. The participation of which he speaks
holds to
is
base conditions
God breathes in God and to God the same divine

dwelling in
it,
although in a very obscure and veiled transformed m The soul united with and of this life. . suspiration which God,
.
two other Divine manner because ot the
in relation to the union of love, to the unity and" transformation of love.

2
breadies in
it
and
to
if,
this is
how I understand the words

sent the
John, xvii, 24.
Cant.,
of St. Paul: Because you are sons of God,
God hath
itself,
it
Spmt rftoSan
str. 3 8
alcza;
dcDws.
Hbid.
*'De dondc las almas esos mismos bienes poscen por participation, que el por narurpor lo cual verdadcramente son diosespor participacidn, wuales y companeros suyos
[Ibid.)
'The soul
J loves God, not dirough

'Oscc.ii, 19.
3 Lii>iitgflawe,!>tt.2,v.i. 6 Gal.iv,6.
but through
God
W-
which
is it
is
a wondrous illumination since
loves through the
Holy Spirit,
'O souls created for such greatness,' he adds, 'and forsuch a vocation, what that you do? With what are you preoccupied? Your
session misery,
s
tCatitickofCanticfo,iv,9-
O miserable blindness of your eyes!'

Gmf., 5 rr.38.
ambitions are base and your pos-
<Cp. chap,
vii,
pp- 403-4-
Jhn, xvii, 22-3.
oCflM'.jStr.jS-
4 64
Son, as the Son himself says in St. John: even as the Father loves the loved me may be in them and I in them> hast thou the love wherewith
that
'There thou wilt

is
show
on
as
me what my soul hath desired

earth of eternal
life,
2
465 Three Persons, the resplendent and tranquil society of Three in the same indivisible essence and light of love. So in these last pages
TODO Y NADA
'
This then
doctrine
we rejoin the
principle
how man attains to his penultimate

here
end, to that supreme point of the
of mystical experience set forth in an earlier chapter. Essentially

its
supra-philosopliic, since
faith
commencement
is
where he loves God
immediate and proportionate
as
he
tends
is
illuminated
by
the gifts of the
Holy Ghost,
loved by
out hiatus or suppression,

ultimate
God loves himself, already ready to pass withwhen his body shall be dissolved, to the transformation which will give him open possession of that
God and
loves.
mystical experience
from its origin towards the loving and fruitful knowledge of the
Three uncreated Persons. 'The knowledge of the Trinity in unity*,

says St.
Thomas Aquinas,
'is
which he
loves as
much as
'The lover cannot be content unless he feels that he he is loved.' 3 To love God as he loves us, that is to say,
the fruit and end of all our
life'.
And
St.
Augustine: 'The realities

the
which we have for our joy

visible at the
its
are the Father
and
with
his
own
love: in this equality
of love of the eternal marriage
in-
Son and the Holy Ghost.'2 Another conclusion becomes
same time.
augurated here on earth,
we see the plenary fulfilment in its highest deyour Father

in heaven
his
How can the

state
supreme perfection of mystical experience,

spiritual
flowering into the
gree of the evangelical precept: 'Be ye perfect as

is
of
perfect,' that
is,
be perfect in
own perfection or his
marriage, be possible to souls to
love: and
whom the mystery of the Trimore or less concealed

in itself a
it is
also
the supreme accomplishment of the third petition of the Lord's
nity
has not been explicitly revealed? Doubtless
Prayer: that the will of the Father

that is,
It is
that we
may be done on may live in his own will or his love.

life
earth as in heaven,
forms are possible, corresponding to diverse typical phases of normal

mystical progress.
state
The
fact remains that spiritual marriage

life
is
very remarkable and of the highest consequence, that, at the sum-
existing in explicit reference to the inward
of the Trinity. In
mit of spiritual
and mystical experience, the soul should expressly
distinction to all anterior states, it carries
with
it
an explicit and formal
of the 'transformed into that flame of love, in which the Father, that what communicate themselves to the Son and the Holy authenticallymystialready fromthebeginnings ofcontemplation makes has proceeded from living and the supernatural
enter into the depths
most sacred mystery of the whole

4
experience
christian
of the Trinity
dist. Z,
in unity. St. Theresa attests this on her part in
revelation
Hn I Sent.,
expos, textus. Cp.
ihid., dist. i, q. 2, a.
2:
'Una
fruitione fruimur
Spirit
it'
tribus Personis.'
ifitis
*De Doct.
trines (if
christ.,
book
iii,
chap.
5. It is
the fundamental error of theosophical doc-
cal
faith
gifts,
it
we understand by theosophy the deviation of a mysticism which, forgetting

necessary to knowledge, sapere, sed sapere ad sobrktatem, cedes
enter,
One of the philosophers, God known from without and by his effects, but God attained in bis own divine essence, to the very deity as such, who in his own and absolutely inward life is in Trinity of
not into the
J Li ving
die sobriety essentially

to
metaphysics the space of contemplation, and that in the very order of the sacred mys-
teries)an error already present in
Doehme and very visibly expressed by Valentine
Flame,
str. 3
w. 5-6.
str.
Weigelto regard the knowledge of the Trinity of Persons as an exoteric knowledge as a of God in relation to the creation, and the knowledge of the One, of the Ungrund, pseudo-metaphysics) is penetration into the inwardness of deity. Thus metaphysics {a
in reality set as
a 'Como el se ama', Cant.

sion, as a gloss
37; 'con el
is
on the SanhcarMS.
careful to note:
God
as much as he loves himself' evidently does not signify that the soul can love God, with its creaturely love, as much as he is lovable. It signifies, in the sense which
mismo amor que el se ami', ibid. This expres'I do not mean to say that it loves
exact opposite
has been pointed out, that
him 'by the will of God himself, in the same love with which he loves it, which is the Holy Spirit given to the
it
wisdom, which is the surpassing the divine revelation and supernatural order in writing same the of error an commits of the truth. Jean Baruzi del experience of St. John of the Cross himself. (Saint Jem de la Croix et le problime knowlove, mystique, 2nd edit., 1930.) When the contemplative knows God by
mi
can 'give
God to
God', and love
ledge
soul', for it is
us; amarle como il se
by the same eternal act of love by which he loves himself that God loves ama has exactly the same meaning as ie amard tanto comoes amada.
living Flame,
srr. 1,
in its mode, it is the dihigher than any distinct concepts and more highly one same art, the unity the in and vine Trinity which he so knows, and at the same time as which infinitely the divine f^ supernatural experience
essence, attained
by
^P
Kant.,
str.
37.
v. 1.
When Ruysbroeck insists on the unity in which the formulas are in any case versed, it is the unity so attained of which he is speaking. Ha
Philosophy.
not always irreproachable.
contemplauv k un-
p K
TODO Y NADA
4 66

But
as
467
is
giving an account of his personal experience, he

science
the strongest possible fashion.
she
is
speaking in conformity with
teaching the practical
her
own
personal experience, she witnesses at the
tinctly, to
manner in
dris
same time, if indisthe substance of this experimental union and to the special which she herself knew it: 'Once die soul is introduced into
Z1
quotations
of the mystical path. And his testimony is entirely clear; the which have been given from the Canticle leave no doubt
upon the subject. How then can Perc Poulain say that in the Canticle and Tlie Living Flame St. John of the Cross 'contents himself with describing a very elevated contemplation of the divine attributes'? 1
the soul
in
is
Mansion, the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity reveal themselves
to it in
an
intellectual vision.
Now,
To say that
according to
it is
St.
Thomas,
in-
tellectual vision
as such,
is
belongs to the gift of prophecy ;
a high grace winch,
charismatic and supererogatory to the essential nature of the
'work God, in concert with him, the work of the Holy Trinity', and to 'suspire in God the same suspiration of love with which the Father suspires
it is
associated with the life of the Trinity, that
called to
mystical state; 2
we need
not therefore be astonished that die vision of
in the
Son and the Son

it
in the Father,
which
is
the very
Holy
Spirit
which
St.
Theresa speaks should not always be accorded to souls

spiritual marriage. 3
who
which they suspire in

needs be united
the
in this transformation, to say that 'the soul must

'as
have attained to the

our regarding
But
that in
no way
authorises
and transformed
much
is
into the
Holy
Spirit as into
as accidental also die essential fact that die
consummated
die sovereign
two odier divine
Persons', 2 this
not to 'content oneself with de-
union
is
an experienced union with the very Persons of the Trinity.

life
scribing a very elevated contemplation

tellectual vision
of the divine
attributes'.
The
in-
To speak of mystical experience of the

degree of infused contemplation
is
of the Trinity
as
of the Trinity
is
not
essential to the spiritual marriage.

Trinity, in so
But
not to speak of an
there
is
intellectual vision
the mystical experience of the
life
of the
much
as it
can only
i.e.
of the
Trinity.
Between
these
two notions
a very clear difference,
proceed from the essential principles of infused contemplation,

the faith
from
the one belongs to the order the gifts of the
of charisma, the other to diat of grace and

of St. Theresa, 4 since he
not only
which is supremely illuminated by the
gifts
of intelligence and
Holy Ghost. This is the testimony of St. John of the Cross

clarify that
is
whom we need here to

x t St.
wisdom, from that/e Hustradisma* as St. John of the Cross says, exacdy apropos of the spiritual marriage, which is one of the essential privileges
of this
state
Theresa, Tlie Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap. I.

theol., ii-ii,
of transformation. "While always implying and because

in an explicit and formal
it
Sum.
174, 2
and
3.
implies the highest possible earthly knowledge of the abyss of unity,

state applies
this
is
have a continual intellectual vision of the Holy TriTheresa even says that it is always so. Nevertheless it seems that this is frequently not the case with souls which have arrived at transformation in God, and alnity. St.
'In this degree, certain persons
manner
to the triune
life,
such
certainly the teaching
of
St.
John of the Cross. Denis the Carthusian

this is
ready possessed of that which makes the basis of the spiritual marriage.' A. Poulain, Des graces d'oraison, 5th edit.
Pere Poulain {op. cit.) points out that St. Theresa says it is always so for souls which have reached the Seventh Mansion; in another place she says that this is accorded 'in an
extraordinary way' {Interior Castle,
if we
also
Ice. cit.). Is
of the soul nor with those of the body, for

the
no
vision
Divine Persons communicate themselves,
all three,
to the soul, they speak to
of the imagination. Then it and
this
a contradiction? It is understandable
ary
tal
way,as a charisma ofintellectual vision. In any case it
which she herself has not drawn in this case, that it is so in regard to infused" contemplation, and that this was given, to her, in an extraordinis
make
where our Saviour announces it the meaning of that passage in the Gospel in the soul he will come, together with the Father and die Holy Ghost, and dwell which loves him and keeps his commandments.' {Op. cit.)
discover to
that
1 2
use of a distinction
pp. 7.,
See>
p. 283.
in reference to
an experimen-
knowledge of the divine Persons by the way of infused contemplation, subtracting the charismatic mode which may be joined thereto, that we should hold her testimony and accord it a universal value, when she writes: 'The duce divine Persons show themselves distmcdy and, by an admirable notion which is communicated to it by them, die soul knows with an absolute certitude that the three are one in die same substance, the same power, the same science and one God. Thus what we believe by faith, the soul, one may say, perceives by sight. And meanwhile one sees nothing, neither with the eyes
a glory, so profound and sublime a is for the soul so high as such have any joy that no mortal tongue can express it nor any human understanding in the other Me; tor idea of it.' Cant. itr. 3 8. This only has its perfect accomplishment
W,p. 46r. 'And that
all
that,
even here,
ginnings and into
when the soul is come to the perfect state it way of which we have spoken, the savour of such glory, in the
it,
enters into
its
great be-
al-
though there is none that can express

'Living Flame,
str. 3 ,
as I also
have said.
{Ibid.)
w. 5-6.
46S

is
TODO Y NADA
jtside the QUI
^
a
1 holds the same teacliing; and if it
necessary to cite
modern instances
are
as it
communion of the
visible
Church of the Incarnate Word,
also,
the witnesses
alike.
3
of Pere Rabusier2 and of Mere Cecile Bruyere

for this reason that
I
mystical experience issuing
from a supernatural faith that is only implicit
formally
It is
hold
that,
high
may attain,
of a
is
can never reach to this point.
1 'Thcn it
will be given thee to see in
all
suavity and truth, with the intelligence

secret reasons
purified soul penetrating the causes
and the
of the mysteries,
all
that
So come to the highest possible degree of divine union, the soul can do nothing which in itself is better, at least by positive obligation, nothing
given to us by our faith; then, inundated with deific light, thou wilt be able to enter into the serene and assiduous contemplation of the inaccessible glory of the august Trinity,
considering the procession and the relations
love and the joy
more
useful or fecund, than the contemplation and love of
God
in
solitude.
of the Divine Persons ah
intra, their
mutual
which each
tasteth in the other; the ineffable
regard
by which they
'As long as the soul has not attained to the state of union of which
speak, it
as
is
self-contemplate each the other, their eternal and immutable essence, sovereignly glorious and beatific. Then, in the presence of the infinity and immensity of God, every
creature will
good
that
it
should exercise itself in love, in the active as well
the contemplative
life:
but once
it is
established there,
it is
no longer
of
seem to thee petty and narrowed; and thou wilt find thy consolation
and all thy love in

in
God alone.' Dionys.

La
Carthus., Flam. div. anions (French translation

3 50).
suitable that it
should occupy
itself with
other works, or with exterior

its life
Mde.
Cecile Bruyere,
Vie spirituelle et Voraisort, p.
exercises
which might
I
raise the slightest possible obstacle to
Angelo of Foligno brings a

darkness,
it
similar witness: 'In this Trinity
which
I see
in such great
\
love in
God, and
do not except even those works most

little
relevant to
seems to me that I hold myself and that I lie in its centre.'
God's service. For a
of this pure love
is
more precious
before
him
it
immense perturbations and the hell and the complete desert of the prayer of ecstasy the soul has bought this earthly paradise; it has found the way into that promised land, where, in a state of incomprehensible beatitude, it can now say truly: 'It is not I that live, but the thrice-holy Trinity which lives in me, and I live in the holy
'In the
Trinity.*
and before the soul, and more profitable to the Church, although
seems to do nothing, than
plains the actions
all
the other works together. This
is
what exmore:
of Mary Magdalene. In preaching Christ she did much

this active life she
good and in continuing

.
.
would have done
still
'Indeed one can say that, in the prayer of spiritual marriage, the soul enters into the
as God enters into the soul of man. And in its depths, in of God, this soul is one and at one with the essential secret of the Three Divine Persons and participates in their perfectk>ns.* (Revue d'ascitique et
spirit
but in the great desire which she had to please her Bridegroom and to
and the life of God,
make herself useful to

desert, in
the Church, she hid herself for thirty years in the

all
that innermost sanctuary
order to give herself to

life
is
the truth of this love. She was con-
de mystique, July, 1927, p. 284.)
vinced that such a

fruits,
'Speaking of the spiritual marriage, she writes: 'The contemplative, in the act of contemplation, thus perceives eternal things, not in the ordinary
real experimentation.
for nothing
would produce in every way more abundant more to the good of the Church and nothing is
little
mode of vision, but by a
more
profitable than a
of such love
Indeed, indeed
we
have
he is, that is, one union with and a very high knowledge of the august and most holy Trinity. The words of our Saviour at the last supper are realised in their entirety and their full force: AJeum venimus, et mansionem
reveals himself as
God reveals himself and he
1 been created for nothing except this love.'
and
triune. In fact, the soul is introduced into the perfect
angels,
whom he saluted as if they were only one; and this example is not unique in the
and
apud eumfaciemus.
souL but in a
Not only do the Three Divine Persons manifest their presence in the certain way they dwell there, and although not always with clarity,
of time the soul feels that it is in this divine company. It is a most of this third degree of the imitative life that St. Dionysus begins his
Blessed Trinity
Old Testament, although the truth, and particularly the mystery of the august astonished: God had tranquil Trinity, were still enveloped in shadows. One cannot be
and, revealing already condescended to raise certain chosen souls to higher regions triune in is, one in essence and he him as know to them himself to such souls, taught
persons.' (La Vie spirituelle et I'oraison, pp. 34 1-$)
for the greater part

characteristic point
treatise
on mystical theology with an invocation of the

. . .
which must be
Kant, second redaction,
str.
28. This passage
is
not in the
least contradictory to the
read in the text itself.

Persons'
The soul lives
in
a close and conscious union with the Three Divine
witness of Pere Elisce des Martyrs,
when he reports that
St. John
of the Cross held
tiie
And
lation
she adds, apropos of die saints of the old law,
'Abraham the great
patriarch,
whom the Bible shows us as raised to such a close familiarity with God, had this reveof the august Trinity, when he received the Lord under the form of the three
good is bom of the spiritual and of one's neighbour and devotion to his mixed life, organised so as to the observe us makes contemplative life. ... The Rule
that the love
overflows into same opinion of the superiority of the mixed life, where contemplation He also said Aqumas. Thomas St. action (without itself suffering any diminution), as
TODO Y NADA
47o

spiritual, free
4?I
Purely and perfectly

vestige
from
(I
all
egotism, as
the
from every
a life
still
centred round
the interests
of the individual and the species), such a love,
of the
'animal' or 'biological'
mean by
word
which two natures are one spirit,
two persons one love, is inseparable
unite in itself the contemplative
and the
active. It is this life that
our Lord chose for
most perfect. And this kind of life and the state of the religious who adopt it is the most perfect.* (Silv., iv, p. 351.) 'With this reservation,* he adds, 'that at a certain period he found it better not to stress publicly among the religious this manner of thought which was his own; because the number of religious was too small
himself because
it is
savours of a wisdom which in itself is in some from the penetrating and from an experiencing knowledge of the Divine manner substantial,
persons.
the
Thus
is
it
carries a
human being
on
earth.
to the highest degree of
know-
ledge
which
accessible here
life until
and in order not to disquiet them; it was needful to only insist on the contemplative the number of brothers should be greater. When St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross after him so affirm the superiority of the mixed life, they are speaking from the point ofview of states of life, of manners and
POINTS IN THE POSSESSION OF ALL

In
this
nakedness the
spiritfinds
Quiet and rest; for indeed

It covets nothing, nothing urges
of existence; and in itself the state of the mixed life is evidently the best, since marked by that 'overplus' by which contemplation overflows, and so multiplies the species of goodness: it is the state which resembles Christ's own manner of life. (We may add that souls placed in this manner of life, which, by being the highest, sanctions and sanctifies, in as much as its works proceed per se from contemplation, the humble regime of mutual service and interaction naturally required by the economy of
orders
it is
Towards the height and nothing draws

Either downward, for
it is
centred
In the centre of humility.
And when it covets
human life
will generally
it is
fulfil it badly
enough, remaining themselves less inadequate
to it so long as they have not arrived at sanctity.

perfection,
The episcopal state is a state of acquired

cited, St.
Ought, in the very act Thereby it wearies.

the
tate
necessary to be a saint to fill it adequately.)
In the passage
on
St.
Mary Magdalene which I have

from another angle.
John of the Cross
is
works of God have

them. This
is
their greatest resplendence
and
it is
an immense glory to imi-
considering the problem
He is no longer considering the nature of
why
Christ
calls
of a soul presumed to have come to the plenitude of love where it is truly co-operative with Christ; its contemplative life has its total perfection in itself and in its pure immanence, like the life of God ad intra; it does not require to overflow into action, to spend itself in the duties of the state which it holds in the course of human life (duties of the episcopal state, of that of a doctor, of a
the kind or order of life taken in itself, but that
father, etc.); precisely because this activity is supererogatory in
Father's care.' {Ibid.)
But for a soul
them the' works of his Father, the objects of the come to the plenitude of union, the means which
of souls are, again, the contemplative activity of
are in themselves best for the salvation
view of the substance
of the mixed life, and wiU not deploy it love. It possesses already the virtual perfection an apparent is of obligation. Thus, by which in action unless a special motive intervenes withunless required to do so from paradox, the most perfect soul should not, at least the most perfect state of ate. implied by are which ad extra works out, enter into those
of perfection
perfection).
(rather as production
ad extra
is
supererogatory in regard to the divine
If then we are
the
no longer considering the various states of life, but purely and simply work which is best and most useful in itself which a soul come to this degree of diSt. John
vine union can do,

plation.
of the Cross will say:
to give all
its
time to love in contem-
The love of souls and their salvation remains always inseparable from the love of God. 'Explaining', continues Elisec des Martyrs, 'the words of Our Lord: Nesdehatis
quia in his quae Patris mei sunt, oportet
me esse, Father John of the Cross said that the works of the Eternal Father should be understood in no other way than as the redemption of the world and the good of souls, which Christ our Lord had procured in the
way preordained by the Father. And in confirmation of this

pagite has written this admirable sentence:
Deo
in
in salutem
animarum. That
is
truth St. Denis the Areoomnium divinorum divinissimum est cooperare to say that the supreme perfection of every creature,
degree,
its
hierarchical place
talent
and
is
its
resources, ia the imitation
divine
to be his
is to rise and to increase, according to its of God, and what is most admirable and most co-operator in the conversion and the salvation of souls. In that
its
and
A SUMMARY OF THE APPENDICES

I.
ON THE CONCEPT
'The theory of the concept expounded here {chap, ii, p. 144 et seq.), in which I have followed John of St. Thomas, has been already dealt with
in a
more concise form in Reflexions sur V intelligence (chap, i).' M. Maritain then proceeds to consider and reply to certain criticisms of this theory proffered by the R. P. M. D. Roland-Gosselin in the
Revue des
sciences
phihsophiques
et theologiques
is
(Apr. 1925) and in the

critical
Bulletin thomiste
(Nov. 1925). This
followed by a
and tabu-
lated analysis
of this theory, and a
tabulated series of citations
from
St.
Thomas, with lengthy comments.
n.
CONCERNING THE ANALOGY
'The pages of chap, iv devoted to the analogy of being and the transcendental are not an exposition
in forma
of the doctrine of this analogy.
They only endeavour

pects
to bring to light certain particularly important asis
of it from the point of view which

is
there under consideration,

is
which
that of the critique of metaphysical knowledge. This
why,
the various forms of analogy recognised by logicians (by virtue of a division which is itself analogical)analogy of attribution, metaphorical analogy, analogy of rightful proportionalityI have only dealt
among
with the last, which is the metaphysical analogy par excellence, and which
it is
It
advantageous to consider alone, in order to work on a pure alone, as Cajetan has said, constitutes the veritable analogy, the others
instance.
'
are
only improperly so called

'a
of analogy: brief characterisation' of the three kinds of rightful that of attribution, metaphorical analogy, and the analogy book of the with proportionality; and an argument on these points
Then follows
M. T.-L. Penido cited in the text.

473
474

m. WHAT GOD
IS
est,
A SUMMARY OF THE APPENDICES

vn. 'speculative'
475
and
A
by
'practical'
further discussion
of the
scire
de aliquo quid
with authorising
quotations
from Cajetan, In de Ente et Essentia and

with R. P.
St.
Thomas; followed
not so
An
enlarged and technical justification of the distinction drawn in
chapter vii.
a critical disagreement
Sertillanges, 'due
much
to
metaphysical disagreement, as to the terminology

has chosen to use',
i.e.
which
Sertillanges
vm.
'le
amara tanto como
es
amada'
raised in chaps, vii
in the rendering of St.
Thomas's Latin into French
A furdier
andviii.
discussion
and elucidation of the points
a point
still
more difficult to
elucidate in English! For, as

.'
. .
M.
Maritain
adds, 'ambiguity is not a philosophical instrument.
IX.
IV.
THE 'CAUTELAS' OF
ST.
JOHN OF THE CROSS
ON THE NOTION OF
is
SUBSISTENCE
difficult
A reproduction of M. Maritain's preface to R. P. Bruno's St. John of

and controverthe Cross.
'The notion of subsistence

sial
one of the most

'
of all Thomist philosophy

its
Followed by some highly technical
analytic suggestions for
elucidation, based primarily
on John of St.
Thomas.
V.
ON A BOOK BY
PERE GARDEIL
'An attempt
de
at a truly scientific analysis'
Ydme
et
Vexptrience mystique,
of Pere Garden's La Structure and a comparison between it and the
points put forward in chapter v. 'After the classical
works of a Joseph of Holy Ghost and, above all, John of St. Thomas, of whom it has been said that nothing can be added to his teaching on the Holy Ghost except our meditations upon it, the profound and penetrating book of Pere Gardeil, together with the two admirable books of Pere Garrigouthe
Lagrange
{Perfection chritienne et contemplation

as
and
VAmour de Dieu
to these
et la
Croix de Jesus), must be regarded
the most important
on this theme.
would here like to bear witness to the depth of my gratitude

masters.' In his
two
stance of this
book Pere Gardeil makes certain references to the subbook when it appeared as articles in La Revue thomiste, and
in detail,
M. Maritain proceeds to consider these comments

elucidations
with further
and
certain criticisms; a difference in the use
of the word
intentional, etc.
VI.
SOME PRECISIONS
offered
A critique of the criticisms

Intelligence,
and a rebutting criticism of an Le Probleme de la mystique' (Cahiers

de
la
by M. Blondel on Reflexions sur article by M. Blondel on

nouvellejournie, 3).

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THE DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE

THE CENTENARY PRESS

Latin. This involves considerable difficulties in trans-

lays great stress

FIRST PUBLISHED 1037

And yet scant weill exponit...

and ens reale; and

that, in general, it is in this sense that the

should primarily be understood.

here integrally translated,

highly technical character, have here been omitted.

have given a brief

summary of their content.

No new matter is introduced in them, and in

treated in the text,

Introduction. The Grandeur and Misery of Metaphysics

Philosophy and Experimental Science Critical Realism

Our Knowledge of the Sensible World

Concerning Augustinian Wisdom

John of the Cross, the Practician of the Con382 43i

A Summary of the Appendices

Tm title of this book sufficiently declares

And it is exactly towards such a discernment of the vari-

choose some particular

type of the universe of knowledge and construct in relation

duce the diversity of the

more sterile, if less pardonable, than the ontological monism of

philosophers. (For, after

the mind, they claim, does

many realists seem disposed to pay for their possession of

by an abandonment of the problems proper to the mind, and we

dogmatism identifying with

materialism the anti-idealism which

timate exploration of the universe of reflection, and the establishment,

may say so, of a metaphysical topology:

than the physical universe and corporeal organisms, the

Contemporary idealism, which

have endeavoured to indicate the reasons for

and the main phases through which they

on one single level

if in a two-dimensional universe, a world of infinite

have justification for thinking that the four

once the grandeur and the misery of metaphysics, the

concern not only the sphere or hypersphere

be dealt with are those which concern the experimental

but generally the whole organisation

the degrees of knowledge

becomes necessary to turn to knowledge as such, and to

the principles of a philosophy of the intelligence;

Taken from the noetic angle which

enter into the

that critical metaphysic,

which the formal light which on things and determines in them

foundation the whole body of the book

chapters have as their subject the philosophy of nature considered particularly in

notably with physics, and

metaphysical knowledge, particularly with regard to

with negative theology. With knowledge by faith

the various forms of knowledge

telligibility and immateriality in the object,

by the degrees of infrom which follow, for

and the 'super-analogy' which is proper to

we pass on to the degrees