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Novogrodzka, Bernice Josphine, "The Problem of Intuition in Saint Thomas Aquinas" (1948). Master's Theses. Paper 788.
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Copyright 1948 Bernice Josphine Novogrodzka
Bernice Josephine Novogrodzka was born at Wies
Kleszniaki in
June 1942.
'!he Bachelor of Arts degree with a maj or in
English and minor in Philosophy, Sociology, and
Education was conferred by the College of Saint Benedict,
Saint Joseph, Minnesota, in June 1946.
TABLE OF CONTEhTS
Herein the problem will be stated, its history exposed,
the difficulties presented in Ancient, Ndddle Ages, and
later times up to our 01m times.
A metaphysical leap from sense intuition into intellective intuition. From tabula ~ man becomes,
through intellective intuition, endowed with the first
principles, those of identity, contradiction, excluded
middle term, sufficient reason. Then on this ground of
firm principles, on this intellective intuition,
philosophy, theology, or any other sciences arise.
We hear so often at the present time about intuitionism and existentialism in philosophy in condemnation of Scholasticism, as though the
latter were but a remnant of the ossified metaphysics of the Middle Ages,
of no value to humanity of our time.
not only against St. Thomas and his teachings, but also against Christ t s
Church and humanity in general, since thereby they alienated from Christ
and His Church the best scientific and philosophic minds who, thereafter,
viewed the Church, Scholasticism and its authors and representatives as the
enemies of science and every human progress, and, consequently, labored with
might and main for the alienation of the rest of humanity from those
sources of truth - the Church, Scholasticism, Catholic teachings.
TOday, the schoolrnen should try to show men that true intuitionism and
existentialism is found only in the philosophy of st. Thomas, who views man
in his true nature, in the substantial union between his body and spir.it
and consequently, in the light of the principle that nothing passes into
his soul except from the outside world and through his senses in the light
of the principle of contradiction, whereby the intellect apprehends being
and rejects non-beipg.
good in every field of human endeavor, in every walk of human life, from
birth to death and, therefore, should be explored to the utmost.
Our own endeavors in this direction will be less than a tiniest drop
Nevertheless, we have
the good will and we hope and pray that it will be counted as an incentive
to someone else to do more and better.
Man hungers and thirsts for truth.
tells us so.
From the time of Thaies until now, there has been the philoso-
man's quest of truth and knowledge in all the fields of his endeavors.
Truth is the proper object of man's mind.
goodness, love, and everything else for the will since the same
Man can and should come to the possession of truth and then
live and become perfect by it and impart it to others for the glory of God
and the good and perfection of mankind.
misses the path leading to truth and consequently the road leading to goodness, love, unity, hannony and progress.
How great and important this problem is, anyone can easily under1
stand if he bears in mind that on the theory of knowledge depend different
systems of philosophy.
rest of
And if another
From this one can easily perceive the importance and the
systems of philosophy may be built on it, either for the good or the downfall of mankind.
systems" that of Parmenides (born about 540 B.C.), who upheld only being
and rejected all becoming, and that of Heraclitus (born about 530 B.C.) for
whom, on the contrar.y, there was only change in the world, Plato did much
pioneering thinking for himself.
Plato did not reject entirely the teaching of Par.menides
or that of
If one follows
the other
band, if one fully agrees with Heraclitus, then he is obliged, Plato
thought again, to admit that things in the world are only so manrrelations
or relative phenomena.
its very nature implies a thing absolute from which it takes its rise.
there must be in the universe both things absolute and things relative.
This means
that our scientific knowledge must be absolute and, consequently, have for
its object an absolute truth.
warm water, I will pronounce the water hot, but if coming from a hot bath I
put my hand into the same ki.nd of water, I will find it cold.
Hence, the
Joad, E.
To undestand what Plato meant by a Form (it is better to use the word
Form since the word Idea (Greek i J(;S) may be misleading since it is
commonly used to signify an event in the mind, whereas Plato meant by his
world of Ideas something outside the mind)3 let us consider the concept of
such as snovr, milk, sugar, and the like. , Supposing we add all these things
together, will the result thereof give us whiteness?
This is clear.
Hence, white
The result cannot
solute reality outside of the mind and "somewhere" in the world of Ideas or
realities beyond this visible world of ours.
then there would be no ideas in our connotation for Plato, but his Ideas or
Forms are independent of any mind and are eternal, immutable, perfect and
existing apart from the phenomena which we behold in the world.
2 Cf. T.imaeus for the full exposition of Plato's physics and of knovrledge
regarding the phySical world.
3 ~e Works of Plato,) "Phaedrus lf salec. and ed. by Irvin Edman.
(/L1/&461s ),
way of the concrete order of things. Whence then can this knowledge come?
7 Ibid.)
Since Plato claims to possess the knowledge of the world of Forms or Ideas
and since this knowledge cannot, according to him, come to us
world of phenomena, the only way which we can have the knowledge of the
!!-versals, !. parte rei, is by means of the innate ideas.
that the human soul existed long before the human body.
Plato believed
In the Phaedrus
he sets forth this doctrine under the form. of an allegory. S The souls
before their imprisonment in the body lived an incorporeal and blessed life
among the gods in the world of Ideas.
vision of truth.
ever lower regions until they finally reached the earth, the region of
material substances 'Where they were united with the corporeal beings human bodies.
incorporeal state had committed some grevious offense for which it was
punished by imprisonment in the body.
He calls
He calls it
He calls it a heavy
chain which binds the soul and hinders its free expansion of energy and its
Hence the sooner the soul is released from the body, the better
it is for it . The body is its unnatural abode.
describes the soul as pre-existing before the terrestrial life of Jan and in
the Timaeus as tied to the body with all the results consequent on this
nunfortunate" union. 9
Plato is an extreme realist.
'WOrld with the iriiorm ideas derived from the stable world of Forms.
relation between the neeting world and the forgotten data about the stable
world in man's mind is this.
become so many occasions for the mind of reawakening the dormant cognition
in it of the Forms or Ideas somewhere beyond the heavenly spheres.
edge for Plato is nothing else than the revival of the dormant and the forgotten in the mind.
predicate, nor comparing them, nor finally joining them with the copula,
est, nor separating them by the B:2!!
is simply the mind's seeing things YB2. intuitu, at once and immediately, on
the occasion of the sentient perception and cognition.
of lmowing things has been portrayed by the passage already quoted from the
Phaedrus, "Now of the heaven which is above the heavens no earthly poet has
ever sung or ever will sing in a wort~ manner, etc." 10
The colorless and formless and intangible essences become visible to
the mind as soon as its dormant cognition is reawakened by that of the
9 Phaadrus,
sentient objects.
The world of Forms or Ideas we reach not by sense knowl-
edge but by means of intuitive contemplation. Again, all knowledge is recollection. Plato hardly ever speaks of the Idea in the singular but
almOst always of the Ideas or Forms in the plural.
three worlds - the world of concrete phenomena, that of our concepts, and
that of Ideas.
the fact that the formar, that is, the world of concepts, is the faint reflection of the latter - that is, of the world of Ideas. To ever,y concept
in the mind there corresponds an Idea among the hypostatized Universals or
Ideas belonging to the realm of true being and unchanging reality. 11 Now,
the world of phenomena is the world of sense perception, the realm of
change, IJDJl.tiplicity, imperfection and, consequently, the world of partial
world of Forms or Ideas in the realm of hypostatized and viewless perfections above it.
its ver,y position the world of phenomena performs for us the function of
recalling in our mind what our soul has forgotten about the world of Ideas.
The world of phenomena reawakens the dormant wisdom. Such is Plato's intuition.
intuition is to furnish the universal principles for science and wisdom.
After Plato comes Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) to study and investigate the
problems of epistemology.
entirely differs from that of Plato. He did not consider it as pre-existent sonswhere beyond the sides and then coming to be imprisoned in the body
in punishloont for some transgression.lbut as a natural principle of specification, of being and of operation. So he defined it as the first
entelec~ ~ ~
!!!!. potentially. 12
this conception
of the soul and, consequently, of the body and then of the whole of man,
Aristotle relegated Plato's theory of knowledge to the domain of poetry and
fairy tales. Man's body is not a prison for his soul but the material
element with which the rational. soul substantially uni tea to form with it
one human compound, the person, and to be therein the principle of operation.
However, in this human compound it is not the soul alone but the whole
compound that acts and suffers the activity from the outside world. Man's
soul as the first entelechy of his body haa no pre-existent and innate ideas,
but must receive all its ideas from the outside through the senses.
Aristotle does not, like Plato, begin with the Idea but with the data of
experience, the empirical, the actual, and thence rises by means of
abstraction to universal ideas, ultimate reasons of things. He does not
proceed synthetically and progressively like Plato, but for the most part
analytically and regressively. Wherefore Aristotle's method is not of the
! priori or deductive kind, but it is mostly a posteriori or inductive.
Anima, 11, c. 1.
Our intellective
the first principles - those of Contradiction and of Excluded Third or
"Of the affirmation and the negation of the same thing the one is
false, the other true." 17 "Between the two terms of a contradiction there
is no mean; it is necessary either to affirm or deny every predicate of
every subject .I~ 18
same thing cannot at the same time and in the same respect belong and not
belong to the same thing." 19 On the metaphysical or ontological form of
the principle of contradiction depends the validity of the logical form of
the same principle. Again of the principle in this form Aristotle asserts,
no proof is possible but only a subjective conviction that no one can deny
it in thought.
simple, but with its foundation in the concrete order of things and in the
sentient intuitions.
existence ( "tJ V- I
"'" ),
However, with the advent of Christianity it was not Aristotle's
philosophy but the philosophy of Plato that was studied b.Y Christian
(100-160), Athe nagoras (died about 180), Ta tian and Theophilus (both
belonging to the end of the second century), Irenaeus (140-202), Hippolitus
(first half of the third century), Clement of Alexandria (died about 120
A.D.), Origen (185-254), and then the so-called Post Nicene Fathers, like
Athanasius of Alexandria (died 373), Gregory of N,yssa (331-394), Basil
(died 379), and Gregory Nazianzen (born 330), Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagi te, Maxinru.s Confessor (580-662) were all in one way or another
in the works of the Greek philosophers and poets, and elsewhere nru.st be
ascribed to the workings of the divine Logos present among all men in the
germ (logos spermaticos) while in Christ truth appeared in its complete
(1. Apol. V,
Philosopher, just as Aristotle became the philosopher for st. Thomas Aquinas
eight centuries later.
The spiritual Creature which is the intellectual or rational soul is
By the influence
of Divine Light man's soul is not only enabled to know truly but it is
brought b,y this action of spiritual conformation to a more perfect
e.xistence. Z3
middle plane may look down to the things on the lowest level b,y means of
external senses and may consider these things rationally b,y means of the
function called inferior reason.
level in the Wisdom of God there are the immutable, eternal reasons or
24 On
obscure manner but then face to face" (St. Paul, I Cor. 13, 12), and
explains, "Seeing God in an obscure manner is a speculation but seeing Him
formarum genera: unum quidem ante rem existens, quod est causa formativa;
aliud autem est ipsum genus formarum, quae fluctuant in materia; tertium
autem est genus formarum quod abstrahente intellectu separatur a rebus." 26
Hence he solved the problem of universals correctly.
the first
teachings and clarified tpem and made them firm and certain by the acumen of
his own genius.
It was St.
with the
simply wonders harr such a genius could venture to build his whole system of
philosophy on the intuitions that stood on the ground of universal methodic
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a pantheist, transformed the cartesian
dualism into a pantheism wherein the means wherewith one can attain the
knowledge of God, and consequently one's happiness and blessedness, is
intuition. At the close of the EthiCS, Spinoza writes, "Blessedness
consists of love toward God
restrains lusts, but on the contrary, the" power of restraining lust comes
from blessedness itself." And earlier in the Ethics he states,"Blessedness
is nothing less than satisfaction of mind which arises from intuitive
knowledge of God." 28
Leibnitz (1646-1716), the founder of the German philosophy of the
eighteenth century, was an intuitionist. According to him all our ideas
are innate.
Ideas exist potentially in the' mind. Wherefore to the
scholastic principle, "Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in
sensu", Leibnitz adds, except the intellect itself, "nisiipse intellectus. iO
This is an innatism. Again he writes, Itlmowledge is adequate when everything which enters into a distinct conception is again distinctly known or
when the analysis is carried to the very end. When a notion has been
rightly formed, we are not able to think all the elementary notions which
enter into it at once but when this is possible, or insofar as it is
Ethics, Conclusion.
Nouveaux essaia. Preface
Nouveaux essaia. II, i.
Nouveaux essaia, II, i.
Kant'S categories are nothing but so many intuitions of that ld.nd.
substances or noumena of things are not known at all.
He writes:
Evidently he allows
other things like diverse images, their activity, the consciousness of the
human ego "conv<irge to the precise point where there is an intuition to be
32 Wild, K. W., M.A., Intuition, Cambridge at the University Press, p. 51.
33 The Critique of Practical Reason
34 An Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 14.
intuition is meant
n but
pierces the darkness of the night in which the intellect leaves us. 1t
this intuition somthing different from the intellect? Does this intuitive
cognition proceed from a special faculty?
Ammophila no doubt discerns very little of that force, just what concerns
itself} but" at least, it discerns it from lfithin quite otherwise than by a
process of the knowledge, by an intuition (Lived rather than Represented)- 37
But a little further he wri tea" "By intuition I mean instinct that has
become disinterested, self-consCiOUS, capable of reflecting upon its object
and of enlarging it indefinitely."
reason since reason alone, as we know, can reflect and. become disinterested.
And what does Bergson mean by "the kind of intellectual intuition"?
Is it
35 An Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 6.
artist's insofar as he understands his subject matter - the philosopher's
insofar as he penetrates to the bottom of things?
that Bergson does not mean here, nor anywhere else, a penetration to the
bottom of things in the Scholastic sense.
He describes it thusr
In the first instance Bergson distinguishes between intuition and perception, "at once perception is seen radically distinct from recollecting"
(one image evoking another b,y a kind of intuition) 41 and in the second he
seems to identify "pure perception" with "intuition" - Irwe are actually
placed outside ourselves, we touch the reality of the object in an immediate
Again Bergson writes, "Thus intuition may bring the intellect to recog-
nize that life does not quite go into the category of the many, nor yet into
that of the one; that neither mechanical causality nor finality can give a
sufficient interpretation of the whole process.
Then, by a sympathetic
But is it
fore, to save the principle of the universality of scientific and philosophic knowledge, he was obliged to
world of Ideas or Forms abiding
the universals
reality abiding nowhere for there can be no such being as the hypostatized
universal man, horse, cow, or anything else.
Species exist as things in the world of reality or are they mere products of
the mind (sive subsistant, sive in nudis intellectibus posita sint)?
unable yet to solve the problem.
He was
platonic extrema realism, on the one hand, and the teachings of the nominalists, on the other, solved once for all the problem in favor of moderate
realism, of the common sense.
"There are two ways of speaking of the universal: first, as
considered under the aspect of universality; secondly, as
considered in nature of which it is ascribed for it is one
thing to consider the universal man and another to consider a
man as man. If therefore we take the universal in the first
way, no sensitive power, whether of apprehension or of appetite,
can attain the universal because the universal is obtained by
abstraction from individual matter on which every sensitive
power is based." 2
st. Thomas rose to the domain of the universals from the concrete order of
Therefore he says,
In this con-
ception of man where the body did not enter as a constituent element into
his being, there could be no question of substantial union between the
spirit and the matter and consequently no question of obtaining the universals from the singulars by means of abstraction. Plato, therefore, was
obliged to seek the universals elsewhere - in the world of Fbrms or Ideas.
The fundamental question in Plato's theory of knowledge was that of
then the problem of epistemology would have been solved by him quite
2 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 29, Art. 6.
3 QQ. De Potentia, Q. 6, Art. 1, ad 1.
qy the light of faith and the power of divine grace, though his
Rationes Seminales and Rationes Aeternae (seminal and eternal reasons) still
retained some germs of psychologic errors.
Duns Scotus' fundamental propos! tion in psychology was this:
The will
is the moving agent and absolute master in the whole realm of the soul and
everything must obey it.
and master. Duns Scotus relying on the superiority of the will came to such
perilous conclusions as these,
rather than knowing; freedom is the essence of the voluntary act; the
immortality of the soul cannot be proven by metaphysical arguments nor can.
God's omnipotence be proven by the light of reason; the good is good because
God commands. Moreover Duns Scotus took special delight in' dwelling on the
opposi tion existing between philosophy and theology of the Pagans and Arabs
and he, himself, came dangerously near to the Averroistic principle that
what is true in theology may be false in philosophy and vice versa. 4
Therefore in Duns Scotus, the voluntarist, one should not look for the
solution of the great epistemological problem.
Neither can one find the solution of the same problem in Descartes.
4 De Wulf, M., History of Medieval Philosophy, Longman,Green
New York, Vol. II, pp. 81-85.
Thi' philosopher
by eing
the e
For in
failed to solve his problems, in the first place that of his cognition - the
problem of light wherewith to see things properly.
mistic voluntarist, could not solve this problem for the same reason.
The late Bergson, a professed intuitionist, could not solve the problem
because of his own erroneous conceptions about man's reason (intellect).
He unduly depreciated and mistrusted mants reason.
Moreover, he claimed
that man is part and parcel of the total cosmic movement and that all
reality is but a manifestation of the same elan vital, vital impulse, as
he termed it.
5 Discourse on Method, VI, Meditation, p. 126.
EVer since Descartes proposed his doctrine of two substances which
IIlSant the antithesis between body and soul the philosophers who cam after
soul in man and that of the theory of knowledge, in other words, they tried
to span the chasm between the soul and the body created by Descartes'
mechanico -
system of cognition.
expense of the mind as was the case with all materialists; others at the
expense of the body as was the case with Berkeley and all such similar
idealists; still others solved it at the expense of human individuality as
was the case with 5pinoza.
problem of human
st. Thomas.
Now how does St. Thomas consider man?
is, a "rational animal."
but this only means that the great philosopher was correct in his definition
of man.
nature and reality, especially of man, studying and investigating him in his
own personality not only by the light of reason but also by that of Divine
Revelation; for which reason he gained a much deeper insight into human
nature than
of reason alone.
Both nature and grace tell him that man's actions are
coms must be material and spiritual or rational, for what is in the effect
But, then, what union does St. Thomas see between man's body and soul?
It is like the one which Plato beheld when he claimed that the body is the
tomb and mortal prison of the soul
)1 6
the one which Descartes saw when he asserted that the mind is
Or is it like
and the body !:!!. enensa, the latter carrying on its own operations like a
machine by virtue of the impulse received from the soul, which is located
by him in the pineal gland? 7
perceived when he taught that the soul is a monad self-active, self-sufficient, simply enveloped in an organic boqy? 8
between the body and the soul a merely accidental and mechanical one?
st. Thomas sees, even as Aristotle did before him, the substantial union
between them.
about man.
substantial nature belongs neither to the soul alone nor to the body alone
but to the compound of both.
It is by
But just as the
body requires the soul in order to be what it is and to move and to live,
the soul requires the body for its natural being and operation.
rational soul is superior to matter.
b Phaedo, 82 83.
Cratyl., 400 C.
Phaedrus J 2~ C
Gorg. 493 A.
7 Principia Philosophiae, I, 48-50.
8 Ibid.)
It is the
lila tter
in an unnatural state until i t is reunited with the body after the latter's
In the soul is the substQntial form and the body "the material element"
of man's being.
The soul is the active principle and the body the passive
being, man.
only the outcome of the substQ.nt).al union between the soul and the body in
ing the soul as a substance comp:J.etely divorced from the body, located it
ei ther in the brain as the Greek sage did whence it might control the
ments and operations of the
regulate the animal mechanism (for such is man's body in the Cartesian
!!i tota
in all the body and in all its partS? St. Thomas answers that it is
present in all of them not by the totality of its virtue, but by the totality of its essence,
This is a
The best
Nevertheless it has its roots in Descartes' doctrine of two substances.
But St. Thomas lays the axe at the root of the tree.
destroys all such theories by his doctrine of the substantial unity between
body and rational soul.
What is
that subject? They do not name it but it may be well identified with the
one subject of Spinoza according to whom all the objects of the universe are
onlY different manifestations of a single substance that enjoys the two
irreducible attributes of thought and extension.
stands St. Thomas I dualism - the human compound of the rational soul and
the corporeal element substantially united between themselves. 1.3
This sub-
It is the complete
with its own form and through the latter has already its awn existence.
Thereafter no other form can come in aa the substantial form of the body.
Thereafter every other form would be only its accidental form.
This is
Platonism and Neo-Platonism in Duns Scotus. St. Thomas teaches that the
rational soul, being the substantial form of the body, informs the body in
question and serves the functions of. life in all degrees since it Is natural
for a higher form, like the soul, at once to contain and surpass the perfectiona and vi tal energies of the inferior forms or souls those of the
13 Summa Theologica, Q. 76, Art. 1
14 In Primo Libro Sent. D. 5, Q. 1, Art. 1.
In emphasizing the unity of human nature St. Thomas states that in the
absence of such unity in man one could not account for the fact that the
intensive exercise of one activity may interfere with that of others.
operatio cum fuerit intensa impedit alima.)
get about being hungry at dinner time; on the contrary, we become averse to
studies if we preoccupy ourselves too much with other things.
In general,
of human nature and personality, whereas the other dualism inevitably results in the destruction of the unity in question.
There is a monism in
St. Thomas but it is not the monism of Plotinus nor that of Spinoza, nor
that of the idealistis, nor that of the materialists.
Ihomas is the oneness resulting from the substantial union between the soul
and the boqy comprising therefore the spiritual and the material elements
and neither proceeding from nor modifying the Divine Substance as Plotinus
and Spinoza imagined, respectively, but existing in the created and
15 SUlIllIla Theologica, I, Q, 78, Art. 1; W. 77, A. 5-7
16 Summa Theologica, III, Q. 2, Art. 9, ad 3.
ontological order of things. With these notions in our mind let us approach
the subject matter of intuition.
What does the eye perceive.
The Sound.
own proper object which it primarily and directly (primo at per se)
first, by
the presence of its essence in the knower as light can be seen in the eye;
secondly, by the presence of its similitude in the power which knows it as
stone is seen by the eye !rom its image being in the eye; thirdly, when the
image of the object known is not drawn directly from the object itself but
from something else in whioh it is made to appear as when we behold a man
by the presenoe of its essence in the knolrer as light can be seen in the
hear the bell or music; the Sll'setness when I taste sugar; the fragrance
when I smell a rose; the warmth when I put my hand into a basin of warm
I possess all such qualities right within me, within m;y very being.
To be sure, they are not known by me in the same way as the light is known
when I see it in the eyes of my fellow creatures; nevertheless they an
just as certa1nly known and experienced by me with my different senses as
All my senses are given me for conveying
impressions with certainty and without fail but, of course, each one in its
own way.
Again it is impossible for me to see and to mow the light in my own
eye (unless, of course, I see it in the reflection of it in a mirror).
ever, I can see the light wi thin me by maans of my intellectual eye.
instance, I can at once see the truth in my mind that a whole is greater
than any of its parts.
relation to the outside world, then we must say that our mind cannot see the
presence of the essences of things except through the senses and byway of
knowledge such as this cannot accrue to any creature from its natural
principles." 19
Again, "A thing is mown, secondly, by the presence of its similitude
in the power which knows it as a stone is seen by the eye from its image
being in the eye."
It is
nothing else than what st. Thomas calls the expressed species, species
expressa. 20
18 I Cor. 13, 12.
20 Summa Theologica, I, Q. 85, A. 2.
We know the eye receives the impressions from the outside world.
enter into it. We, too, say that one must penetrate things, go into the
bottom of things, in order to gain knowledge of their natures, essences.
But the mind alone can do this.
ceiva things.
They re-
Hence the eye cannot enter into a thing, identify itself with,
In this initial
intuition we remain as passive agents on whose senses and organs the things
register or impress themselves. We simply look or gaze or marvel at what
is happening.
And this is what the Latin verb intueri, whence the word
As soon
as we open our eyes on God's world, this marvelous and mysterious phenomenon
of intuition in its initial stage takes place in us.
Hence it is not we
who seek things but the things seek us by impressing themselves on our eyes
or other organs.
things but it is the things that identify themselves with us through the
species impressa.
become in a psychological and immaterial way things, the world, the universe I
vr.ith Aristotle that the soul, in a certain way, becomes all things- by
gaining lmowledge of them. (Cognoscendo anima quodam modo fit omnia.)22
This is realized by the e:xpressed species.
but the "expressions", that is, the
them remain in the soul.
not see.
The things
impress themeel ves on the surface of the eye but they do not register on
the retina, a sensitive surface at the back of the eyeball)because the
communication between it and the optic nerve does not function.
outcome is that things leave in the eye no expressed species and the parson
does not see anything, in other words, that person is blind even though he
has apparently good eyes.
pressed species then the intuition has been completed; in it and with it
and through it we possess the things themselves.
fit quodam modo omnia.
Wherefore it is said in
Anima III that the soul is in !Qm!. manner all things through the senses
and the intellect.
is the true.
(Cognitum est in
conclude that the species expressa in the intuitive cognition is more than
a mare resemblance, that it is an image or likeness or resemblance which
is an imitation, a reproduction of the thing outside of us according to the
natura of the
object known is not drawn directly from the object itself but from something
else in which it is made to appear as when we behold a man in a mirror."
What do we see in something else as in a mirror? Many things.
the light of day we see everything that presents itself to our view; in
the darkness of night we behold the moon and the stars.
we see fishes in the water.
In a fish pond
For they are direct and immediate perceptions of things in something else.
However, when we say with St. Paul that "the invisible things of God are
e. 1,
we are no
there would be no atheists for everyone would see God and be happy in seeing
st. Thomas referring to the third way of knowing things says again, "The
third class comprises the knowledge whereby we know God while we are on
earth by His likeness reflected in creatures.
20, 'The invisible things of God are clearly sean being understood by the
things that are made.'
I see this
This is an instance
We are living in
gories and view them one by one, substance, quantity, relation, quality,
action, passion, place, time, and the rest.
or that way.
quality, action, passion, and the like. When we see it we are invariably
affected by it, differently in winter and differently in spring.
animal is a substance with its own attributes.
A brute
when we see it in a barn and in another way when we see it as meat on our
table and eat it.
her own attributes.
which the outside world exercises its influence on us are, as we know, our
different senses, the eye, the ear, and the rest of them.
vey belongs to the general domain of our intuitions.
easily see how rich and varied our sense intuitions may be.
in the world may act upon us and impress us after
leave in us
Q!!!:. QY!n.
Whatever is
brute animal, the man may act on the sentient part of us and impress us
In fact such things and beings daily act upon us and enrich
instead of using them for the benefit of ourselves and of our fellow
'Ihrough them
he went to the very source whence they came; that is, the external world.
In this he discovered the foundation for his universal ideas in things
themselves. Through them he also diacovered their prototypes in Godls
mind - the universalia ~ t!!!!..
could not do this because they divorced the matter from the spirit, the
body from the rational soul.
this for the simple fact that they reasoned away the matter.
matter, as such, did not exist.
From them
For them the whole of man was but sense and matter.
sense intuitions in the light of the substantial union between man's boqy
and soul.
On this ground he could clearly see that what enters the sense
region cannot but go into the domain of the intellect and reason.
From the soul and the body there is in each one of us the'
76, Art.
From the fact of the substantial unity of body and soul st. Thomas
draws the conclusion that it is one and the same subject that understands
and feels.
sentire." 28 In other words" we predicate all our actions of one and the
same subject which we call ego or self.
reflect" study" who feel the fatigue thereof" suffer" live" eat" drink" and
the like.
and the body" on this ego or self, St. Thomas bas'es the fundamental principle for the whole range of human cognition, epistemology, theor,y of
knowledge which principle he took from the great Aristotle and which reads
as follows:
But what is the proof of this? st. Thomas gives it in the ver,y sam
article when he writes.
opinion) is clearly proved from the fact that if a sense is wanting the
knowledge of what is apprehended through that sense is wanting also, for
28 Summa Theologica. I, Q. 7S', Art. 1.
29 Summa Theologica, I. Q. 84, Art. 3.
no Imowledge ot colors
'WOuld not be the case if the soul had innate images of all intelligible
things." 30 Thence arose the scholastic adage that there is nothing in
man's intellect unless it passes first through his senses.
(Nihil est in
intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensibus). And since, as we know, there are
external senses those of sight, of hearing, of touch, of taste, of smell, as
mentioned previously, and the internal senses such as the common sense
(sensus communis), phantasy, aestimative or cogitative faculty, memory, the
principle here enunciated holds true of all those senses in general and of
each one in particular. This means that all our senses are so many
channels of sense cognition.
Therefore each of those senses, either external or internal, is a
source of an intuitive knowledge for us. St. Thomas expresses this truth
by saying that it is not in the nature of the sense faculty to know things
by composition and division, in other words, to come to the knowledge of
things by joining predicate to subject by the copula, est, or by denying
predicates of subjects by the negative form of the same copula; that is,
!!2a est.
Our intellect alone can do this and therefore it alone can possess
nature are not drawn from principles and causes but they are begotten by the
very fact that the sentient object stands out before this or that sense and
impresses itself upon it~ To proceed from causes to their effects or vice
versa is not in the nature of the senses and sentient faculties - the
30 .SUmma. Theologica,
Q. 84, Art. 3.
intellect a1 one can do this.
the cOg1tative faculty whereby one at once and immediately sees and
apprehends what is useful and good for him, on the one hand, or what is
evil and harmful to him, on the other.
the smell - they all, each in its own way, contribute their intuitions to
it for the good of man that he may live and prosper.
similar vein one could speak of 'the intuitions of every sense and
faculty but what we have mentioned concerning the intuitions of the Sensus
communis and of the cogitative faculty suffices for us here to see the
importance of sense intuitions in the life of the individual. and in that of
For so many philosophers, from the dawn of human thought until our own
days, sense intuitions were often occasions and fertile sources of mistakes,
errors, with the resultant misfortunes and calamities for mankind since men
are always powerfully influenced by systems of philosophy even despite
31 Metaphysics, 6, L. 1.
especially nowadays when human thoughts quickly travel around
This is especially
The idealist
type of sagas of different shade and hue like Plato in the ancient world,
Plotinus in the early Christian centuries, then Berkeley and others in
modern times" unable to reconcile the sense intuitions with the higher
order of human cognitions, rejected them as though something unworthy of
human nature.
For philos-
ophy which is not grounded on sense cogni tiona and intui tiona cannot stand
on its own principles; it has to be supported by Plato.s world of Ideas or
Forms, by Plotinus' emanations, by Berkeley's "dependence on mind."
and inevitably embodies flagrant errors and propagates still more flagrant
standing (for this e~tying of our faculties is true sight and
knOwledge), and that we may offer Him that transcends all things
the praises of a transcendant hymnody which we shall do by 4
denying or removing all things that are
"It is not soul or mind or endowed with the faculty of imagination,
conjecture, reason, or understanding... It is not number or order
or greatness or littleness or equality or inequality... It is not
immovable nor in motion or at rest and has no power and is not
power or light and does not live and is not life; nor is It
personal essence or eternity or time... nor is It one nor is
It unity nor is It Godhead or Goodness; nor is It a Spirit as we
understand the term since It is not Sonship or Fatherhood; nor
is It any other thing such as we or any other being can have
knowledge of; nor does It belong to the category of non-esistence
or to that of existence... It transcends all affirmation by
being the perfect and unique Cause of all things and transcends
all negation by the pre-eminence of Its simple and absoly~e
nature- free from every limitation and beyond them all. j
This is a description of the Absolute and of one's union with the Absolute
and Transcendent Being. What does it mean?
not the correct description of the Absolute nor of the rational creature's
union with Him.
ultimate expression.
carried to its
The ecstatic
idealist philosophers who discard sense intuitions and refuse to admit the
Preoccupied only
the Cyrenaic philosophy headed by Aristippus (born about the year 435 B.C.)
the only criterion of knowledge we possess lies in the sensations or
immediate affections, and so to use the technical term of modern
in the intuitions.
transcend the realm. of sense intuitions, that God Ilnd eternal truths have
no objective reality. and they are only so DBny subjective indicators of
Such is the philosophy divorced .trom the rational and ideal element
St. Thomas avoided the fatal and disastrous mistakes of the idealists,
as 11'1911 as the still more fatal and disastrous mistakes and errors of
materialists because he knew man's true nature and psychology.
he did not reject the sense intuitions as the idealist always did as some
unworthy accretion but accepted them ,as indispensably belonging to human
nature and as immediate evidences of the external world outside of us and
of the internal world within us.
Mindful of the
belonging to the body, that is, the sentient world and sense intuitions,
as so many means of reaching the world belongil1g to' the soul, that is, the
immaterial world, and of gaining intellective intuitions.
In this way he
built the domain of moderate realism against idealism, on the one hand, and'
materialism, on the other.
OF ST. THOllJ.S
William James in his preface to his two huge volumes on IJThe PrincipIes of Psychology, II writes:
associationist and the spiritualist theories and in its strictly positivistic point of view consists the only feature of it for which I feel
tempted to claim originality.1t 1
As we lmow, William Jams was the chief advocate and promoter of
Pragmatism in America, a philosophy which claims that a test of truth lies
in utility and practical consequences of a man's actions for his life, so
that he (each man in particular), with his needs and demands and his cravings for the enjoyment of life to be satisfied, becomes in the words of that
ancient sage, Protagoras, IJthe measure of all tbings. 1J On pragmatism,
positivism and sensism the whole of philosophy of William James is based.
1 James, William, The Principles of Psychology, Henry and Company, New York,
Vol. 1.
However, in this he is not original at all as he "feels tempted to claim."
St. Thomas, treading in the footsteps of Aristotle and using the sense
data as the foundation for MODERATE REALISM, may be called, in a certain
sense, a pragmatist, an empirist, a positivist par excellence.
lias the true originality of St. Thomas.
the objects of our senses. What is the object of the eye, for instance?
The colored object. Why must the eye see the colored object?
Is it to
enjoy the beauty of things seen? But the eye, a sentient organ, cannot see
and appreciate the unity in variety, that is, the chief element of beautyl
This can be done only by the ,ye of the higher order, that is, by our
intellect. So the eye, this purely sentient organ, must have been given to
the animal for the purpose of seeing what is necessary for the preservation
of the sentient individual life and the multiplication of the species
through mating and division of labor. Similarly, one can speak of the rest
of the senses. What is the object of the ear, to take another example?
sound. But why must the ear hear the sound? Is it to enjoy the music
conveyed by the sound?
perceive and appreciate the harmony and melodies conveyed by the sound.
intellect alone can do so.
given the animal for some entirely different purpose, for that of enabling
the animal to hear the sounds and noises connected with the preservation of
its life and that of the species.
once to discern what is useful and good, on the one hand, or what is harmful
and evil, on the other. What is it for?
and the ear, that is, to preserve oneself and one's species, availing
oneself in this of the perceptions of the eye and those of the ear, of those
of the touch, and the rest of the sentient perceptions and cognitions.
rise above the sense intuitions, and entirely confined their system of
philosoPhy within their limits, whereas st. Thomas rose above the sense
intui tiona and used them as the groundwork for his system of philosophy.
HoW he did this we will show later.
2 Phys. I, 1
However, he is not
body, he is related and bound up with them and cannot do without them.
Hence, wherever he happens to be or live they inevitably act on his body
and his bodily senses and organs and, through these, on his whole being.
\Vhen St. Thomas says that the singular stands for the individual he
thereby means any individual substance in the world of reality outside of
us, including, of course, our own fellow creatures.
Further he thereby
means that this world of reality acts in one way or another upon our senses,
the eye, the ear, the touch, and the rest.
St. Thomas admits with Aristotle five external and four internal
guished he quotes first of all what Aristotle said on this particular point,
that there is ~ other besides the five senses,3 and then in the body of
the article says, "The reason of the number and distinction of the exterior
senses must therefore be ascribed to that which belongs to the senses
properly and
that exterior ca'Q.se are the sensitive powers diversified. t 4 And in the
following article of the same question inquiring whether the interior senses
are suitably distinguished, St. Thomas quotes Avicenna who assigned five
interior senses or powe rs, namely, common sense, phantasy, imagination,
3 De Anima, III, L, 1.
4 Summa Theologica, I,
5 De Anima, IV, 1.
78, Art. 4.
there is no need of the middle power between the estimative and imaginative.
He writes, "Avicenna, however, assigns between the estimative and the
imaginative a fifth power which combines and divides imaginary forms, as
when the imaginary form of gold and the imaginary form of a mountain, we
compose the one form. of a golden mountain which we have never seen.
operation is not to be found in animals other than man in whom the imaginative power suffices thereto.
So there is no need
to assign more than four interior powers of the estimative and memorative
All the senses, organs and sentient powers are evidently in the body,
but the source from which they all arise is the same as that whence the
body itself has its own life, that is, the rational soul or the substantial form of the human compound, man.
world of concrete reality and through the body extended in space and subject
to time and through the bodily senses, organs, and faculties.
St. Thomas
if anyone says that the intellectual soul is not the form of the body he
must first explain how is it that this action of understanding is the
action of this particular man for each one is conscious that it is himself
who understands." S
From the above doctrine concerning the substantial union between the
rational soul and the body it necessarily follows that the body shares in
the life and activity of the soul concerned and that the soul participates
in the life and activity of the body in question.
in mind 'When we
takes in, however, everything that is presented to its view - mineral
matter, plants, brute animals, men, villages, towns, Cities, fields, forests,
rivers, lakes, oceans, the sun, the moon, the stars, in short, the whole
The eye of the brute animal sees also such things, nevertheless
them only what its animal instinct impels it to behold therein, namely,
only the preservation of the individual and of the species.
The light
wnerewith they behold things reveals to them in them only food and what
pertains to the preservation of their species.
In its intuitions it beholds the order and harmony among things in the
uni verse,
the beauty of the skies, revealed by the sun during the day and
vital connection with man's spiritual eye which is his intellect, his
reason: the human eye is animated and exists by man's rational soul, the
substantial form of his body.
In the eye St. Thomas distinguishes two elementas
and the species expressa. 9 The proper object of the eye is the colored
This is the formal object quod of the eye or that which the eye
the sun or that of a candle or that of electricity, the eye would not be
able to see the colored subject matter; hence, the light is needed for that
formal object quod is called the formal object quo. When all these eondi-
tions are present, the seeing eye is impressed by the colored object con
fronting it. The result of this impression is the species expressa or the
actual seeing of the object by the eye. This is the real sense intuition.
The object confronting us is perceived at once and immediately, as though
a seal had been taken and impressed on the wax, leaving its evident traces
on the latter.
upon the eye and leave in it their likenesses or images, not like the
mechanical photographs but, as every Scholastic knows, certain vital and
psychological likenesses and images that are taken up by the active intellect and stored away in the passive intellect wherein they become part and
parcel of our very being, vitally affecting us in one way or another with
the resultant influence on our life and conduct.
The question which arises in connection with the Thomistic species !!-
one has to stop and think whether or not he is seeing only images or
realities through them.
sentient faculties as such are unable to reflect and reason; they just see
and comprehend things sentiently.
cognition and perception is to open up a wide avenue into subjectivism and
idealism. And that is what the subjectivists and idealists always did.
st. Thomas advocates the presentative or immediate, cognition and percep10
Hence for him it is the thing outside of us that is really the
immediate ?bject of our cognition and perception.
quired both' for sensible and intellectual vision, viz., power of sight and
union of the thing seen is in a certain way in seer." 11 He similarly
speaks in his Summa Contra Gentiles when he says that ! !
~ ~
~ fit. 12 And in the Summa Theologica he once more writes, "The sense is
simply a passive potena,r which is disposed by nature to be changed by an
external sensible object.
is what is apprehended by the sense." 13 St. Thomas is a perfect intuitionist in the domain of sense perceptions and cognitions and, consequently,
is as great a realist as the greatest of the materialists, Moleschott,
Buechner, Haeckel, Diderot, d'Alembert, Holbach, La Mettrie, Cabanis, and
all the rest.
The eye is the noblest of senses. St. Thomas speaks of two ld.nds of
changes in the senses, one that is natural and the other that is tmmaterial.
change is received in its natural state b,y that which is changed, as tor
He writes,
j.mmLltation takes place by the torm ot the immuter being received according to
its natural existence into the thing 1mmuted, as the torm ot color is
received into the pupil which does not thereby become colored." 14 An
immaterial change is required tor the activity ot the senses because if a
natural change alone were sutticient, then every body that suttered change
would perceive something, a tree would see the sun or truit hanging on its
sufficed tor the sensets action, all natural bodies would teel when they
undergo alteration." 15 The ditterent senses arise from the tact that some
of them experience
either on the part of the object only or likewise on the part of the
and taste for the hand that touches something hot becomes hot while the
For this reason the human eye is the noblest of the human senses.
which reason st. 'Ihomas says, "Now the sight which is without natural
immutation either in its organ or in its object is the most spiritual, the
most perfect, and the most universal of all senses." 17
The next source of Thomistic sentient intuitive cognition is in the
they must be quite unlike the species impressa and the species expressa
which are found in the eye since the organ of hearing is quite different
from the organ of sight and the object of hearing, which is sound and quite
different from the object of sight which is color or colored matter. What
is the species impressa as regards the hearing?
st. Thomas says, by percussion and commotion of the air and striking the
ear drum.
Does a bear really appreciate music? Does a dog know the real
simply because it soothes his ear drum and the dog cannot stand the thunder
16 Summa Theologica, I. Q. 78, Art. 3.
17 Ibid.
beauty in music and can hear the mighty forces of nature in a thunderstorm"
revealing the might and power of nature's Author" those of God Himself.
The rustling of leaves under the breath of gentle zephyrs" the how1ings of
the mighty winds" the roarings of the angry sea" the music of Beethoven"
the symphonies of Tschaikovsky" the sermon of the preacher" a conversation
with one's fellow creatures" a mother's words on the ear of a child - all
these are so many direct impressions on the human ear and then so many
direct expressions conveyed to the sensus connnunis and then to the mind" to
the heart" and to
These marvels
given the animal for the sake of its individual good and that of its
species. An animal smells food at a distance; so do we at times.
animals smell their enemies at a distance and therefore make their escape in
due time.
For us there is the good odor of virtue and the awful odor of
vice 1 The fragrance of a rose may convey to us the odor of sancti ty in the
Little Flower.
duce many other intuitions of another kind for our own spiritual good and
received according to its natural existence into the thing immuted, as heat
is received into the thing heated.
wise if a natural immutation alone sufficed for the sense's action, all
natural bodies would feel when they undergo alteration.
"But is some
and then comes the smell which requires a natural immutation on the part of
the object, while local motion is more perfect than, and naturally prior to,
the motion of alteration as the Philosopher proves (Phys. VIII, 7.).0 21
The next source of sentient intuitions is found in the sense of taste.
Of the sense of taste St. Thomas writes, "The sense of taste according to
a saying of the Philosopher is a kind of touch existing in the tongue only.
It is not distinct from touch in general, but only from the species of
touch distributed in the body.
of the common formality of its object, we must say that taste is distinguished from touch by reason of a different formality of immutation.
it thereby Imows what food to eat or what not to eat.
love or hatred. WitH love if we remember the poor and leave something for
pour forth our thanks to God for His bountiful 'gifts thus sanctifying ourselves even by these lowly necessary acts or we may enjoy the gifts quite
unmindful of their Giver thereby bringing ourselves to the level of irrational beings and even placing ourselves below their level, since they do
not possess the intellect to lmow such things; whereas we do possess it and
should use it for the guidance of ourselves in all things.
The next source of intuition is in the sense of touch.
Of the sence
of touch St. ,Thomas writes, "The sense of touch is generally one, but is
divided into several specific senses and for this reason it extends to
various contratieties, which senses, however, are not separate from one
another in their organ but are spread through the whole body so that their
distinction is not evident.
bitter, accompanies touch in the tongue but not in the whole body, so it is
easily distinguished from touch." 23 Elsewhere of the sense of touch he
writes, -rhe sense of touch which is the foundation of the other senses is
more perfect in man than in any other animal, .3.nd for this reason man must
have the most equable temperament of all animals. Moreover man excels all
other animals in the interior sensitive powers as is clear from what we
But by a kind of necessity, man falls
sbort of the other animals in some of the exterior senses, thus of all
animals he has the least sense of smell.
largest brain as compared to the body, both for his greater freedom of
action in the interior powers required for the intellectual operation, as
we have seen above (Q. 84, Art. 7), and in order that the low temperature
of the brain may modify the heat of the heart, which has to be considerable
in man for him to be able to stand up erect. So that the size of the brain,
by reason of its humidity, is an impediment to the smell which requires
In the same way we may suggest a reason why some animals have a
keener sight and a more acute hearing than man, namely, on account of a
hindrance to his senses arising necessarily from the perfect equality of
his temperament.
more rapid in movement than man since this excellence of speed is inconsistent with the equality of the human temperament." 24
Particularly the sense of touch in the human hand does St. Thomas
extol I With Aristotle he calls it tithe tool of tools." He writes, "Horns
and claws, which are the weapons of some animals, and toughness of hide
and quantity of hair or feathers, which are the clothing of animals, are
the signs of an abundance of earthly element, which does not agree with the
equability and softness of the human temperament.
not suit the nature of man.
by he can make himself arms and clothes and other necessaries of life, of
24 Summa Theologica J I.
91, Art. 3, ad 1.
infinite variety.
,Q.!'gans. n
effected by contact.
Its species
immediate contact with the texture of the outside world keeps the animal
informed about it and enables it to ward off any perniciOUS and destructive influence.
25 Summa Theologiea,
26 Textbook of Human
'Z7 Summa Theologics,
28 Summa Theologica,
29 Summa Theologica,
I. Q. 91, Art. 3, ad 2.
PhysiolOgy, op, cit.
I. Q. 78, Art. 3.
I. Q. 91, Art. 3, ad 1.
III, Q. 34, Art. 2, ad 3.
lose the sense of smell, and even taste, and still live but if numbness
comes over a body, that is a sign that death is near at handl
requires to be a medium between contraties, such as hot and cold, wet and
dry, and the like of which the sense of touch has the perception; thus it
is in potentiality with regard to contraries and is able to perceive them.
Therefore the more the organ of touch is reduced to an equitable complexion,
the more sensitive will be the touch.
power of sense in all its completeness because what belongs to the inferior
nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior, as Dionysius says: 30
Therefore the body to which intellectual soul is united should be a mixed
body, above others reduced to the most equable complexion.
among animals man has the best sense of touch. And among men, those who
have the best sense of touch have the best intelligence. J. sign of which
is that we observe those who !!:!. refined in body!!!! '!!.Y. endowed in mind,
as stated in De ~, n, 9.
In animals the sense of touch is ordained
solely to the preservation of the individual life and to that of the
30 Div. Nom. v.
31 Summa Theologica, I. Q. 76, Art. 5.
intellect in this life
is not &IV' being or an.y truth but it is being and
truth in material things from which the human mind goes torward to the
knoWledge of other things." 32 Again, "It is n.atural to man to attain to
intellectual truths through sensible objects because all our knowledge
originates trom sanse.
Hence in
cannot but be a mighty source of intuitions from which the mind can lift
out higher spiritual contents.
apprehend spiritual values and thence arise to the higher place of life.
Particularly in DIlsic the sense of touch plays a tremendous role.
the organ, the violin, would be useless instruments without the sense of
human touch.
architecture be realized without it. Our very speech could not .function
without this sense.
the sense of touch are many and most important for us in our every day lite",
as well as for our civilization and the uplift of our souls.
As for the internal senses, there is the common sense (sensus
perceives at once and immediately 'What all the rest of the senses perceive
For instance, when one plays the piano, he sees this instrument,
33 Summa Theologica,
I. Q. 1, Art. 9
different intuitions at once.
as the rest of his senses can revive by confronting their proper or common
objects respectively.
lect with its own eye may see in them a 'World all of its own or a world
belonging to God with all its beauty, goodness, righteousness, mercy.
were, intuitions;
which is not present and it makes dreaming possible. St. Thomas writes,
"For the retention and preservation of these forms (he naans sensible forms),
the phantesy or imagination is appointed, which are the sam, for phantasy
or imagination is, as it were, a storehouse of forms received through the
senses." 34 Phantasy or imagination in man can be a perennial source of
intuitions. Out of it the intellect and reason can produce poetry, music
and other liberal arts; out of it one can draw inspiration for great and
34 Summa Theologica, I.
78, Art. 4.
noble deeds.
expressae in the external senses and even, perhaps, like those of the
sensus oommunis, the direot presentations of the world outside of us but the
indirect representations of it.
here, as already mentioned, but they are also formed and renewed.
So here
a new element enters into the sense intuitions, namely, the subjective
element founded on representation.
Is it a subjectivism?
This is
which act not from any previous judgment but, as it were, moved and made to
act by others, just as the arrow is directed to the target by the archer.
Others act from some kind of judgment, but not from free will, for sheep
flies from the wolf by a kind of judgment whereby it esteems it to be hurtful to itself.
Again, "The estimative acts womswhat after the manner of reason." 36 And
again, nThe young ravens are said to call upon God on account of the
natural desire whereby all things, each in its own way, desire to attain
the Divine Goodness.
mother, for instance, at once apprehends the needs of her child and at once
attends to them.
"As to the memorative power, man has not only memory as
other animals have in the sudden recollection of the past,
but also reminiscense by syllogistically, as it were,
seeking for a recollection of the past by the application
of individual intentions." 39
By analyzing the senses and their intuitive contents we have laid the
ground for the intellective intuitions in man.
this ground and find himself in the midst of the lofty intellective intuitions will be our next problem to consider.
with us William James and the rest of the Sensists, Materialists, Positivists and show them how St. 1homas "flies," but will they profit by his
common between us and brute animals than in that of what is common between
us and the angels, nay, God Himself.
real intuitions, even of the sentient order, since they are incapable of
looking into or looking at things (which is the connotation of tm word
intuition and wherein a certain ldnd of participation in the higher faculty,
that is, the intellect is implied) but are impelled and driven thereto, so'
to speak, by their instinct, and so St. 1homas says that the animals a.re
more acted upon than acting themselves.
man, because of the substantial union between his rational soul and material
body, the latter, with all its senses, organs and sense faculties shares in
the spirituality of the former.
to speak, spirituality, man's sense impressions and expressions are intuitions, whereas those of brute animals are not.
positivists, empiricists by denying the immateriality and spirituality of
the human soul destroy the real character of sense intuitions and thereby
identif.1 them with the sense impressions
animal nature.
An upright stature was becoming to man for four reasons.
First, be-
cause the senses are given to man, not only for the purpose of procuring
necessaries- of life for which they are bestowed on the animals, but also
for the purpose of knowledge.
in the objects of the senses only as ordered to food and sex, man alone
takes pleasure in the beauty of sensible objects for its own sake.
fore, as the senses are situated chiefly in the face, other animals have
the face turned to the ground, as it were, for the purpose of seeking food
and procuring a livelihood;
by the senses and chiefly by sight, which is more subtle and penetrates
further into the differences of things, he may freely survey the sensible
objects around him, both heavenly and earthly so as to gather intelligibletruth from all things.
the interior powers - the brain wherein these acts are, in a way performed,
not being low dawn but lifted up above other parts of the body.
because if man's stature were prone to the ground he would need to use his
hands as forefeet and thus their utility for other purposes would cease.
Fourthly, because if manrs stature were prone to the ground and he used his
hands as forefeet, he would be obliged to take hold of his food with his
mouth and thus be would have a
and also a hard tongue so as to keep it from being hurt by exterior things,
as we see in other animals. Moreover, such an attitude would qui\e hinder
speech which is reason's proper operation.
Nevertheless though of erect stature, man is far above plants.
man's superior part, his head, is turned towards the superior part of the
world and his inferior part is turned towards the inferior world, and therefore he is perfectly disposed as to the general situation of the body.
Plants have the superior part turned towards the lower world, since their
roots correspond to the mouth and their inferior part towards the upper
But brute animals have a middle disposition, for the superior part
of the animal is that by which it takes food and the inferior part that by
which it rids of the superior. 40 Hence man's erect position itself makes
him a commanding figure in the field of intuitions and enables him to gain
them with ease
40 SUlIll'lla Theolog,i. ca t I.
91, Art. 3, ad 3.
make four while she was doubting or completely rejecting those higher
truths, by no means less but much more certain than the mathematical truth
she took from the table of multiplication?
one can arrive only after a long course of profound reflective and
discursive studies.
the light of reason but one will not believe the truths and
But the mathematical truth that two and two make four is
~ ~
simply forces itself upon our mind as it did force itself on the mind of
the unbelieving lady mentioned above. We cannot but accept the truth,
else we are no longer in our sound mind, or we are simply relying on
our sense intuitions when there is no proper adaptation between out
senses and their objects, thus, if two parallel lines be
Of such
intui tions there are very many instances in PIa to's philosophy, wherein
he claims the universals in the world of Ideas or Forms; in Descartes'
philosophy in which he intuitively sees that he thinks and that
consequently he exists even while doubting the very power to think and
to exist;
philosophies wherein the modern sages after having erred about the real
nature of man, the substantial union between his rational soul and body,
could not but err in all their intuitions about him and everything else.
Berkeley beholds, only spirit in matter and Cabanis only a secretion of
the brain in thought. All such philosophers are no longer able to see
with certainty that two and two make four for in their cases the parallel
lines meet and they say with Ibsen, "Who knows that two and trro do not make
five in the fixed stars?" 2 Being off the tangent, those philosophers are
unable to coms back to the first principles, the principle of identity, the
principle of contradiction, and the principle of excluded middle in order to
verify, rectify, or readjust, or even renounce altogether their intuitions,
sentient or otherwise, in the light of irrefragable and eternally true
principles on which all certitude and truth must stand, else there can be
no falsehood, lie, while the wiseacres are striving to bestow on them the
intellect unless it goes first through the senses. Once this'process has
been realized, he bases the sense intuitions on the intellective intuitions on the intellective intuitions. What are these in the teachings of
Once more we must note what is meant by intuition.
Intuition is a
it is inherent in me, in
Intuition is an accident.
of union between us, the outside world and my own ego.
intuition from the Latin verb, intueri, means to look at a thing attentively because it seizes, as it were, our cognitive faculty and we comprehend it by the same faculty so that we become lost in this mutual embrace,
if one may speak so.
I see a friend and recognize him.
As we see, there
is in both instances the reflective knowledge and not a direct and immediate cognition as the intuition should be . Are we, then, to say that we
possess no intuitive knowledge of our friends, nor that of our brothers,
sisters, parents?
lective intuitions of this kind in our daily lives and intercourse with our
fellowman and especially with our own folks.
faculty or habit of knowing them in virtue of which we unmistakably recognize them at once in the midst of the individualizing notes and traits of
their personalities. We know in general what is meant by goodness, truth-
iulness, honesty, justice, mercy and the like.
versal concepts from the concrete persons - our awn folks, friends, acquaintances, whose goodness, honesty, righteousness we experienced before
and now we intuitively recognize them by these qualities.
There is what is called the post-rational intuition, a result of the
"habit of knowledge."
4 De Veritate. II,
6. Art. 2.
their entirety.
them part by part, and then we join the parts together which is the work of
synthesis in order to know them in their totality.
50 in acquiring
To the class of
individual is concomitant
~ ~
immediate knowledge of
And of
such similar intuitions there are countless instances in every man, woman,
and child, in every scientist, artist, and artisan, in every philosopher,
metaphysician, and theologian.
However, all such intuitions are possible and 2[ facto exist because
of the so-called fundamental intellective intuitions. What are we to understand thereby?
which is being.
and the rest of the senses, their own, so the intellect has its own proper
But how does the intellect come to the perception of its own object in
this fundamental intuition? Quite simply and naturally.
It comes thereto
by means of abstraction from the sense data or the sentient perceptions and
The eye brings in the colored objects, the ear the sounds, the
touch the extension, and the other senses something else, until their
contributions through the perceptions and functions of the internal senses
have accumulated in the imaginative faculty, from which the intellectus
agens abstracts the notion of being and the intellectus patiens understands
that whatever is, is and that whatever is not, is not and that there can be
no middle course between being and non-being.
leap is taken from the sense data into the domain of pure metaphysics, even
by the lowliest and most ignorant people for they all know what is to be
and what is not to be, or what is to live and what is not to live, that
to die.
The animals perceive this too but with them it is not abstraction
They are in no way able to rise above this animal instinct and
to die, let us say, a heroic death for the sake of one's own country and
... ~ frl:fl't~~
say with Horace, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is swee~ to die
st. Thomas states therein that God is the cause of our knowledge in the
most excellent way because He gives us the intellective light and'''impresses
on it knowledge: From these different statements of the Angelic Doctor, we
see how he based all cognitions on the first principles.
5 De Magistro, Art. 3.
and not simply unverified intuitions of the modern type to lImch one may
well apply the name of Bacon's different idols - idols of the tribe, idols
of the den, idols of the market place, idols of the theatre, and which lead
us but to errors, absurdities, contradictions, in all our endeavors and
spheres of life, material, spiritual, moral, scientific, philosophic, and
every other.
St. Thomas speaks of the intuitions furnished by the first principles
order of cognition, as
He writes:
Again the
first principles are the most certain and secure grounds of our knowledge
in the speculative order of things and of our actions in the practical
order of life.
tivis et in practicis ut sunt virtute in conclusionibus, per
cinationem, non autem secundum se). And the error about the first
principles, whether in the speculative or the practical order of things
is most serious and most shameful.
the first
the speculative order where the notion of being is the first of all notions,
the first indemonstrable principle is that of contradiction whereby we
affirm that a being is or is not.
the first notion is that of good (for every agent acts for an end and wills
a good), the first principle is that which affirms that good must be sought
and evil avoided.
Hence St.
Thomas writes s
"The precepts of the natural law are to the practical reason
what the first principles of demonstration are to the speculative reason because both are self-evident principles a
certain order to be found in those things that are apprehended
universally. For that which, before aught else, falls under
apprehenSion is being, the notion of which is included in all
things whatsoever a man apprehends. Wherefore the first indemonstrable prinCiple is that the ~ thing cannot be
affirmed and demied at the ~ time. which is based on the
notion of being and not being. and on this principle all
others are based... Now as being is the first thing that
falls under the apprehension of the practical reason which
is directed to action since every agent acts for an end
under the aspect of good. Consequently, the first principle
in the practical reason is one founded on the notion of good,
viz., that good !! ~ which all things seek after. Hence
this is the first precept of law, that good !!. ~ be done !!E.
evil ~ be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law
are bases upon this so that whatever the practical reason
naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) belongs to the
precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided." 11
From the above doctrine it necessarily follows that just as there is
the intuitive knowledge in connection with the habit of the first principIes in the speculative order, there must also be the intuitive knowledge
of the first principles in the order of practical reason, in that of ethics.
This is done by the intuitive knowledge called synderesis or synteresis.
This word comes from the Greek language meaning a close watching.
virtue of the synderesis, the mind does not employ the major and the minor,
and consequently, does not draw a conclusion from the premises;
it watches
and sees at once and immediately what must be done as something good and
avoided as something evil.
But is this natural habit, synderesis, "inciting to good and murmuring
at evil" which is contrary to the
toward my parents continously, my conscience will bother me also continuously, unless it be entirely deadened by
evil deeds.
In other words,
=. ....-.-.. . . ', .,., ,.,. .".-,. . .'. .' ' '"'".,.' '." ,.".. ,. . . .
'''' .............;;:;.'::.":=:::::""':::
The ancient philosopher, Empedoclas, claimed that like is known by
like, " earth by earth, water by water, fire by fire," and so on.
is the principle on which the moderns base their intuition, even though,
perhaps, they are not aware of the fact that they are doing so.
example, the prince of modern intuitionists, Bergson.
Take for
is for St. Tnomas by the very fact that the things impress themselves upon
our senses, or the first principles on our mind; there is only active intuition since he maintains that we become aware of the nature of reality
through direct experience, only insofar as we enter into the reality in
question, from a part of it, and interpret it through a kind of sympathy by
becoming earth, water, fire, or anything else.
tion and creative evolution wherein the chief eiement is the elan vital the vi tal impulse.
that of Empedocles.
The ground
of all things is becoming since the creative vital process is at once the
reality and moving principle of individual life and of the cosmos as a
whole, whereof we ourselves are part and parcel in this total cosmic
opposition to other modern philosophic systems wherein not even the vetiges
of his freedom have been left. We are in the process of becoming more and
more one with the things about us, with the world/with the universe.
Bergson's sympathetic intuitions and that of other modern intuitionists
identify man with what he sees, hears, perceives, and so with the rest of
his senses and his intellect itself.
of modern intuition is one's becoming identified with the world and then
one's continuing to evolve with it.
Ex. becoming
Such is
In what sense?
In this
that he must identify himself with creatures lower than himself and by
sympathetic intuition become like unto them, forfeiting thus his freedom,
his moral dignity and making himself the slave of things material.
an inversion and perversion of the
This is
with him by means of the cognitive assimilation, first in his senses, then
in his intellect.
by the quality of his mind and he himself becomes enriched by the impressions and ideas he acquires from the outside world since they become a part
and parcel of ',him in the external 'World as in the case of modern intuition.
St. Thomas conveys the idea of the order of human cognition in the following 1'IOrds:
some species either in air or of fire or of something else; but the intel-
lect does not receive the fom in the same way, otherwise the opinion of
Empedocles (De Anima, 1, 5, Text 26) would
of an immaterial substance." 1
For the modern intuitionists, the sense
the inexorable law of logic for if one enters into the sense data and
identifies himself with creatures by the bond of sympathy for them (Whatever
sympathy this may be), one is bound to become like unto them and thereby to
lose himself in them.
For St. Thomas the sense data are the source whence
edge of the first principles. st. 1homas states that the intellect mows
nothing but being which, in general, deSignates everything that exists or
may exist, whether it be a substance,
accident, a material
or an
immaterial one, again, there are contingent beings, as all creatures are,
or the Necessary Being, that is, God.
of the human intellect, the ratio entis (the very notion of being), is
derived from sense but, of course, it is abstract and universal.
The very
substantial union between man's soul and body postulates such a course and
there is for us no other way of possessing intellective knowledge of things
in this life.
This is
done most easily and quite spontaneously from the ver,y comprehension of
terms or language conveying such notions.
brom this one can easily see that these intuitions are
The intellective intuitions are drawn by means of
abstraction from the sentient intuitions and the latter is verified and
we must bring them to unity by means of the principle of identity, contradiction and the rest; otherwise, we might take pure imagination, reverie,
intuitive cognition of the first principles that reduces the sense intuitions
to unity, SimpliCity, and objective truth.
the first principles in man, that is, his intuitive knowledge of the first
l'Although the human soul acquires knowledge by the process
of reasoning, still there is in ita participation in that
simple cognition which is found in the higher substances." 3
The bridge between the sentient intuitions and those of the intellect in
man, there is the discursiva knowledge.
sense perceptions and intuitions in the light of the first principles, reason
must be used.
must stand, else man himself will fall as he does in the modern world in the
midst of so many contradictozy systems of philosophy.
is acquired only through the medium of senses and sentient perceptions, images
the first source of truth, namely, the sentient intuitions to the last
criterion of intellective intuitions furnished us by the habit of the first
principles habitus primo rum principiorum the germ cells of all kJ?oWledge and
even of the preambles of faith since we must kn.ow that God exists, that He is
all truth, unable to be
talk about the divine Revelation and consequently must verify and rectifY and
support our rational knowledge of God by the first principles - those of
contradiction, identity, and sufficient reason. St. Thomas declares that
there can be no contradiction between reason and faith.
Then in the
4 De
I, Chap. 7.
the former and furnishes a Christian philosopher with the intuitions which
God alone can give us.
Summa Theologica
of St. Thomas are clear proofs thereof. Some of the schoolmen seem to insist
on the separation between philosophy and theology.
cif philosophy is the light of reason and that of the sacred theology the
light of Divine Revelation.
on the separation between the two, it means that they do not understand the
spirit of St. Thomas nor his intuitions in the domain of reason and in that
of faith.
The Lord deliver us from such schoolmen for in time they are bound to bring
misfortunes upon us, just as the sahoolmen called "ipsedixists", who, being
unable to meet the light and the spirit of the philosophy of St. Thomas, the
modern era of scientific discoveries, brought disgrace on Scholasticism and
the Catholic Church, which disgrace could not but result in untold harm not
only to the Catholic Church but to Christianity in general. William Turner in
his History of Philosophy writes:
"The representatives of Scholastic philosophy in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries seem for the most part to have completely
forgotten the principles of the classic Scholasticism of the
fifteenth and the thirteenth centuries, busying themselves with
subleties too refined to be grasped even by the learned, they
utterly neglected tl~ study of the scientific movement sanctioned
by the usage in the schools of the Golden Age of Scholasticism,
raised the argument from authority to a position of unde importance... The decay of philosophical speculation in the schools
and universities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
humanistic movement, the repid progress of the natural sciences
and the influence of the first reformers contributed to bring
about the transition from Scholastic to modern philosophy." 5
- -
Our ovm. times are no less, probably much more, cri ti cal than those of
Therein we shall find what the modern world precisely needs - realism
arising from the sense intuitions, verified, rectified and supported by the
intellective intuitions furnished us by the habit of the first principles in
the speculative order of things by synderesis and conscience in the moral
domain and finally by the sacred and tremendous intuitions given us by our
holy Faith.
be sure of ourselves and safe in the rest of our intuitions, those of the
senses and the imagination.
finally the mystical intuitions or the vision of God in this earthly life.
Then only will we be realists and progressivists in the true sense of the
pp. 143-168.
1, 1939,
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Opera Omnia, Vives Edition, Paris, 1875.( 7th entrees).
_ _ _ , Summa Theo1ogica Literally translated by Fathers of the English
Dominican Province; 2nd and rev. ed., London, 1914-1826.
Summa Contra Gentiles.
De Veritata.
De Anima.
De Virtutibus.
De Magistro.
Budy" M. W." The Theory of Imagination in Classical!ru!. Medieval Thought,
University of lllinois" Urbana, Illinois, 19Z7.
Chesterton, Gilbert K." Saint Thomas Aguinas" Sheed and Ward" New York" 1933.
Coady, Sister Mary Anastasia" Phantasm According to !. Thomas, Catholic
University" WaShington, D. C., 1939.
De Wulf" M., History 2i Medieval Philosophy, Lo~ns, Green and Co.,
New York, 1909.
Gilson" Etienne, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, Translated by
A. H. Dawnes, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1936.
_ _~, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Charles Scribner 1 s Sons"
New York" 1937.
Janet, Et. Seailles" History of the Problems of Philosophy" :Macmillan,
New York" 1902.
Kiszely" K., Origin of Idea According to St. Augustine and St. Thomas,
Loyola University Thesis, Chicago" 1937.
Ladd, T., Philosophy of Knowledge, Charles Scribner's and Sons,
New York, 19Gb.
What Q!!!. I Know, (On inquiry into truth, its nature, the :meanipg of
its attainment and its relation to the practical life.), ~gmans
and Green Co., New York
Brennan, Robert E., liThe Thomistic Concept of Immagination, If
Scholasticism, Vol. XV, pp. 144-162, (1941).
De lJunnynck,
"Notes on Intuition," T'ne Thomist. Vol. 1, (1939),
pp. 144-168.
J. F., S. J., "Questiones Desputate,"
\1939), pp. 3f:J3-374.
!!!! Scholasticism.
Sanvage, George M., "Intuition," Catholic -Encyclopedia, Vol. VII,
pp. 82-84, The Encyclopedia Press, New York
Wolf, Abraham, "Intuition,1f The Encyclopedia Britannica., Vol. XII,
pp. 543-544, The Encyclopedia Britannica. Company, Ltd., London.
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