Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus II

DISSERTATION III

ON HUMAN ACTS SPECIALLY TAKEN

St. Thomas, Iª 2ae, from q. 8 to q. 17.

The general condition of human acts having been explained, namely by reason of voluntary and free, we must now treat of the acts themselves specially : first of elicited acts, then of imperated ones. Now six acts are elicited by will : three concerning end, namely simple volition, intention, and fruition; and three concerning means, namely consent, election, and active use. To these six acts of will there correspond on the part of intellect five directing acts, and one on part of executive powers. On part of intellect, two concerning end, namely simple apprehension and judgment; three concerning means, namely counsel or consultation, practical or discriminative judgment of means, and command. On part of other powers, passive use.

Of these Author treats quite fully through ten questions. Several things also concerning volitional power itself he intermingles in first questions, unto more accurate knowledge of acts. We shall select what are more useful.

I say: The will cannot will evil under the character of evil. ¹

It is proved. The will is a certain rational appetite. Yet every appetite is of good only. Ergo. — Prob. min. Appetite is nothing else than a certain inclination of the one appetiting toward something. Yet nothing is inclined except toward something fitting itself; what is fitting to a thing allures and draws inclination, as what is unfitting repugns to it. Ergo every appetite is of the fitting only, consequently of good; for good and fitting are one, as evil and unfitting.

You will say: Those who appetite non-being, as demons and men despairing, appetite evil under the character of evil, for in non-being no character of good can be apprehended. Ergo.

I answer. I deny the antecedent and its proof. For to lack evil is a good, says the Author ², here, ad 3; but demons and despairing men apprehend in non-being the lacking of evil, inasmuch as they apprehend non-being as a means conducing to liberation from their miseries; and thus they appetite non-being materially, formally non-misery, so that the formal character of appetiting non-being be a certain character of good, namely to lack evil and misery.

You will ask whether out of two goods the will can choose the lesser or the equal.

I answer. Although simply and absolutely the will, for its liberty, can out of two goods equal or unequal choose the equal or lesser, yet it cannot do that unless the practical judgment be changed and a new motive proposed, whereby one more eminently stand forth, and be judged here and now better and more fitting. And in this sense it is true that election is always of the better.

Prob. The will is not borne toward any good unless drawn and allured by it; for good is compared to the will as mover to movable, and the motion of good into will is metaphorical, namely by drawing and alluring. Ergo it cannot be borne toward one before another unless by that one it be allured and attracted before the other. — I subjoin. Yet that one draw and allure before another cannot be except because it is judged fitting and good before the other; for fitness alone or goodness proposed through intellect is the motive of the will. Ergo the will cannot choose the lesser or equal out of two, unless it be judged practically better and more fitting.

It is confirmed. The will cannot choose one of two proposed goods before another unless the intellect judge it to be preferred; for the will, as we have said so many times already, is a blind potency following the dictate of reason and tending toward the object as it is proposed to it by intellect. Yet the intellect cannot judge one of two to be preferred except inasmuch as it judges it better and more fitting, because the whole character of eligibility is goodness and fitness; and as it could not judge it to be chosen absolutely unless it judged it absolutely good and fitting, so it cannot judge it preferred unless it judge it better and more fitting. Ergo the will cannot choose one of two before another unless the intellect judge it better and more fitting.

I say 1°: The intellect moves the will as to specification; but the will moves the intellect and the other powers subject to it as to exercise.

Prob. the first part ¹ . To move as to specification is to determine to an act of a certain species. Yet the intellect, proposing the object to the will, determines it to an act of a certain species. Therefore. — Prob. min. The will elicits not an act of such species, e.g., of love, except because it tends toward the object proposed to it by the intellect as amiable. Therefore.

Prob. the second part ² . In all active powers ordered among themselves, that power which regards the universal end moves to exercise the powers which regard particular ends. And this appears both in natural things and in political. For heaven, which acts toward the universal conservation of generable things, moves all inferior things, each of which acts toward the conservation of its own species or even individual. Also the king, because he intends the common good of the whole kingdom, moves by his command the individual prefects of cities, who devote care of government to the several cities. Yet the object of the will is good and end in common; but each power is compared to some proper good suiting itself, as sight to perception of color, intellect to cognition of truth. Therefore the will, in the manner of an agent, moves to exercise all the powers of the soul toward their acts, besides the natural forces of the vegetative part, which are not subject to our arbitrium. This second part of the conclusion will be explained more specially in question 17, where commanded acts are treated of.

I say 2°: The will is not moved directly as to specification by the sensitive appetite, nor by the heavenly body, yet well indirectly and mediately ³ .

Prob. the first part ⁴ . Nothing material or corporeal, such are the sensitive appetite and the heavenly body, can naturally act directly upon an immaterial thing, such is the will. Therefore.

Prob. the second part ⁵ . Passion raised up in the sensitive appetite, man is affected in a certain way and changed into a certain disposition, whereby it happens that his intellect apprehends something as convenient and good which he would not thus have apprehended and judged with the passion absent. « For such as anyone is, such does the end seem to him, » as says the Philosopher, III Ethic., c. 4. Thus the angry man judges vengeance convenient and good for him, which pacified he would not judge such. Yet, as we said, the object apprehended through intellect moves the will as to specification. Therefore the sensitive appetite, from the fact that the object is represented under the notion of convenient to the intellect, moves the will as to specification indirectly and mediately, namely through the mediation of the judgment of the intellect.

Prob. the same second part concerning the heavenly body ⁶ . Heavenly bodies can alter human bodies, from which alteration follow passions in the sensitive appetite, which is the act of a bodily organ. Yet from the sensitive appetite the will is moved indirectly and mediately, as I just now said. Therefore.

Note that it is one thing for the will to act or to will, another for the will to move itself. The will is said to act simply, when it elicits a volition. It is said properly to move itself, when it passes from one act into another, as while from volition of the end it applies itself to acting for its attainment; for each thing moves insofar as it is in act. These things noted,

I say 1°: The will moves itself as to exercise in certain acts¹.

Proof. The end holds itself in desirable things as the principle in intelligibles. But the intellect, by the fact that it knows the principle, reduces itself from potency into act, as to the knowledge of conclusions, and in this mode moves itself. Therefore similarly the will, by the fact that it wills the end, moves itself to willing those things which are unto the end.

You will say, according to the common axiom: « Whatever is moved is moved by another. » Therefore the will is not moved by itself.

I answer. I deny the consequence. Because self-moving and being moved by another stand together. « When something moves itself, says the Author, q. 3 de Malo, a. 2, ad 4, it is not excluded that it be moved by another, from which it has this very thing that it move itself, namely from God. »

I say 2°: The will, in the first volition of the end simply and with respect to the whole of life, does not move itself as to exercise, but is moved by God².

Proof 1°. What is in potency needs to be moved by what is in act; because, as I already said, a thing moves insofar as it is in act, and is moved insofar as it is in potency. But the will with respect to the first volition simply is not in act, otherwise it would not be first volition. Therefore.

2°. In every life, the first motion of that life is from the generator, as appears in the motion of the heart. But God is author and begetter of intellectual life. Therefore the first motion of that life, namely the first cognition of the intellect and the first volition of the will, is specially from God.

Beware however lest thence you infer that God moves the will only unto the first volition, and not unto its other volitions. Indeed he moves unto the first volition with a special motion which supplies the prior act from which the will would move itself and apply itself to the subsequent act; but moreover, as first mover and first universal cause, he moves the will unto all its volitions, inasmuch as it is a second cause subordinate to the first, of itself indifferent and active only in first act, as is broadly proved in philosophy concerning physical premotion.

You will say: Man can sin in the first instant of reason. Therefore he moves himself in it; otherwise sin would be refunded into God.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent. Man can sin in the first instant initiating the use of reason; I deny; terminating, I concede. The instant of acquired use of reason through discourse is moral, consisting of several physical instants. In the first, man specially moved by God does not move himself, nor can he sin; in the following, now posited in act, moving himself, he can sin.

I say 3°: The use of reason supposed, when new affairs begin and a new end is intended, unto its first volition thereof the will sometimes moves not itself, but is moved by God, namely when in the will no act preceded having connection with this new end, but there are rather contrary dispositions; as when God specially and suddenly moves an infidel to faith, a sinner to penance³. Sometimes indeed it moves itself, namely when some act or effect preceded having connection with that new affair.

Exposition of a difficult text of St. Thomas.

To many it gives trouble the reply which St. Thomas has here, a. 6, ad 3, wherein he says: « God moves the will of man, as universal mover, to the universal object of the will which is good, and without this universal motion man cannot will anything; but man determines himself by reason to will this or that which is true good or apparent good. Yet sometimes God specially moves some to will something determinately, which is good, as in those whom he moves by grace, as will be said below. » From which reply not a few infer that St. Thomas admits not physical premotion unto all acts, but only unto good ones.

But this understanding diametrically repugns the constant doctrine of St. Thomas in almost innumerable places, nor is it the legitimate [understanding] of the present text. And so by the first motion, in that reply, the holy Doctor understands not that common motion whereby God, as first mover, moves all secondary causes subordinated to himself, and whereby thus secondary causes are moved so as to move themselves; but he understands that singular motion whereby God so moves the will to the first volition of the end that it moves not itself, whereof he had spoken at a. 4, and we said a little above. Indeed St. Thomas calls this motion universal, both because it is of the universal mover, both because it is unto the universal object of the will which is good, both because it is universally necessary to every first agent cause. We however called it above special or singular, not that we might exclude those universals, but that we might signify that it adds something above the common, namely that it supplies the prior act from which the will itself could move itself, which the general or common motion required unto all other actions of secondary causes does not do.

But when the holy Doctor subjoins: « But man determines himself by reason to will this or that which is true good or apparent good, » he excludes not the common motion whereby God, as first mover, so moves secondary causes that they also move themselves, but that singular motion whereby he so moves the will that it move not itself. And thus he satisfies the argument which he objects to himself, namely that « if the will were moved by God alone, it would never be moved to evil. » A distinction must be made. If the will were moved by God alone, so that it would not move itself, it would never be moved to evil; I concede; if it is so moved by God that it also moves itself, I deny. For from the fact that under the common motion of God the will also moves itself, it can move itself to evil or apparent good; and this is refunded into the defectible cause itself, not into the first indefectible, as will be expounded elsewhere.

Finally, when St. Thomas adds: « Yet sometimes God specially moves some to will something determinately, which is good, as in those whom he moves by grace, » the sense is that, as God moves us to good as such without our moving ourselves to it, so sometimes he specially moves us to a determinate particular good, without our moving ourselves to it: as in those whom he moves by operative grace, e.g., infidels to faith, sinners to penance, thinking nothing at all of faith or penance. But this singular motion, as appears from what has been said, excludes neither cooperating graces unto other supernatural acts, nor common motions unto other natural acts, whereby man is so moved that he also moves himself.

D. Thomas, q. 10.

I say 1°: The will is moved naturally and necessarily, by a necessity of specification, to the good in common, because it is its object¹. But the power naturally tends to its object, so that it cannot tend to the opposite; likewise to the ultimate end, or beatitude, as apprehended under its common notion; because the ultimate end stands to things desirable just as first principles stand to things speculative. But the intellect knows first principles naturally. Therefore the will wills the ultimate end naturally. Add that on the part of the opposite of the good in common and of beatitude in common no reason of good can be apprehended.

I say 2°: The will can be moved by necessity with respect to specification by no particular good; because there is none which under any consideration, whether by reason of itself or by reason of something annexed to it, cannot be apprehended as not good, or as deficient from some good, since none is so perfect that nothing is wanting to it². Nor with respect to exercise; because anyone, whatever particular good it be, can not think of it, and consequently not will it³.

I say 3°: The will is not moved by God of necessity, neither with respect to exercise nor with respect to specification, except in those things to which it is moved naturally⁴

It is proved.⁵ It does not belong to the divine providence, as Dionysius says, c. 4 of the De Divin. nomin., to corrupt the nature of things, but to preserve it. Hence he moves all things according to their condition, so that from necessary causes necessary effects follow through the divine motion, but from contingent causes contingent effects follow. Since therefore the will is an active principle not determined to one thing, but standing indifferently toward many things, God moves it in such a way that he does not determine it of necessity to one thing, but its motion remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is moved naturally.

You will object 1°: Every agent that cannot be resisted moves of necessity. And who resists God's motion upon his will? Therefore.

I answer.⁶ The divine will extends not only that something be done through the thing it moves, but also that it be done in that manner which suits its nature. And therefore it would repugn the divine motion more if the will were moved of necessity, which does not suit its nature, than if it were moved freely, as suits its nature.

[ The action elicited by some power is called that of which the power itself is at once the immediate principle and subject. Thus vision is from the sense of sight and is in the sight; to imagine is the action of the imagination and existing in imagination, etc. Vision is said to be an action elicited by sight, and imagining an action elicited by the imagination or phantasy.

To will is generically an act elicited by the will. However, according to the various mode in which it is borne toward objects, it acquires various names, not vain, but most useful to know. There are therefore five acts especially elicited by the will, namely intention, election, consent, use, and fruition: of which the first and last are about the end, the rest about those things which are toward the end, or means.

1° Intention¹ etymologically taken signifies to tend into another. But both that which moves and that which is moved tend toward something which is an end. Yet the motion of that which is moved toward the end proceeds from the motion of that which moves it. Therefore to tend toward the end, or intention of the end, is first and principally the action of one moving another toward the end. Yet the will moves all the other powers of the soul toward the end as to exercise. Therefore intention is an action of the will, namely that action whereby the will looks to the end as a term to be attained.

Since however the end is twofold, relative or intermediate, which is referred and conduces to another, and ultimate, in which one stops, intention must be considered in two ways, as the Angelic Doctor teaches and explains² : « The motion of the will toward the end and toward what is toward the end can be considered in two ways. In one way, according as the will is borne toward each absolutely and in itself; and thus they are simply two motions of the will toward each. In another way it can be considered according as the will is borne toward what is toward the end on account of the end; and thus one and the same in subject is the motion of the will tending to the end and toward what is toward the end. For when I say: 'I will medicine on account of health,' I designate but one motion of the will, whose reason is that the end is the reason of willing the things which are toward the end... And it is similar with the intellect; because if it consider principle and conclusion absolutely, there is diverse consideration of each; but in this, that it assents to the conclusion on account of the principles, there is but one act of the intellect. »

2° The second act of the will is election³ , which is the essential endowment of liberty. Election however is « the preacception of one with respect to another, » and consequently supposes many things that can be chosen, at least willing and not willing. Whence in things determined to one, such as brutes, election has no place; for although brute animals take one thing before another, yet they do not determine themselves to it from themselves, as happens in election, but are determined by nature.

I said that election is an act of the will. For although the election of the will be only in a good foreknown by reason, and therefore reason be said to concur formally to election, nevertheless the substance of the act, or the act materially taken, belongs to the will, not the intellect: for election is perfected in a certain motion of the soul toward the good chosen; but good is the object of the will. « It is manifest, says St. Thomas⁴ , that reason in a manner precedes the will and orders its act, namely insofar as the will tends toward its object according to the order of reason, because the apprehensive power represents its object to the appetitive. Thus therefore that act whereby the will tends toward something proposed as good, from this that it is ordered through reason to an end, is materially of the will, formally indeed of reason. »

Election however does not fall upon the end as end, but is concerned about means; for about the end is intention, not election. I said, « about the end as end; » for if the end itself be assumed as medium, as happens in intermediate and subordinate ends, nothing prohibits the end, because it becomes a medium, from being the object of election.

Hence it is understood that several other acts precede election, partly on the side of the intellect, such as counsel, which is the intellectual inquiry concerning the means to be chosen; the discretive judgment concerning the apter means for attaining the end, etc.; partly on the side of the will, such as intention of the end, consent, and others.

3° To consent, if you regard the etymon, is at once to sense, and imports the application of sense to something. Consensus is defined generically as « an act of the appetitive virtue adhering to some thing, » quasi namely taking a certain experience of appetite from the thing to which it adheres, insofar as it pleases itself in it. With respect however to the will, to which in man it pertains to consent or not consent, it is « the adherence of the will to those things which are judged by the intellect useful for attaining the end. »

Hence it is manifest that consensus is not of the end but of the means toward the end. But consensus differs from election in this, that election adds above consensus a certain relation with respect to that toward which something is pre-elected; and therefore after consensus election still remains. For it can happen that through counsel many things are found leading to the end, and while each pleases, one consents to each; but from the many that please we pre-elect one, by electing.

This consensus, as appears of itself, supposes dominion over one's own act. It belongs therefore not to brutes ⁵ , which have not the appetitive motion in their own power, because such motion in them is from the instinct of nature; for they are rather acted upon than acting themselves toward the end. Consequently even in man himself the motion of the sensitive appetite, regarded in itself, is not properly consensus, because it lacks liberty. So long therefore as the will does not in any way consent to those sensitive motions, although sometimes they be so vehement that they seem voluntary, they are neither acts of vice nor of virtue, because they are not human acts, as Augustine observed, saying lib. XII de Trinit., c. 12, n. 17 : « The sensual motion of the soul which is common to us and to beasts is shut off from the wisdom of reason. »

⁶

4° The election of the will is followed by use, which, as Augustine says in lib. X de Trinit., c. 11, n. 17, « is the assumption of some thing into the faculty of the will; » whence the same Doctor says, ibid., that « use is in the will. » For as to consent is to apply appetite to something to be desired, so to use is to apply some principle of action to action. « Use of some thing, says the Angelic Doctor⁷ , imports the application of that thing to some operation: whence also the operation to which we apply some thing is called its use, just as riding is the use of a horse and striking the use of a staff. But we apply to operation both the interior principles of acting, namely the very powers of the soul, or the members of the body, as the intellect to understanding and the eye to seeing; and exterior things, as the staff to striking. But it is manifest that we do not apply exterior things to any operation except through the intrinsic principles, which are the powers of the soul, as habits of the powers, or organs, which are the members of the body... Whence it is manifest that to use belongs first and principally to the will as first mover, to reason as director, but to other powers as executors, which are compared to the will, by which they are applied to acting, as instruments to the principal agent. »

Hence it follows that use is of means, not of the end as end, which is not ordered to anything else, as I said of election.

Likewise use belongs not to the animal part ⁸ , but only to the rational. For to apply something to another is only of him who has dominion over that which is applied. Dominion however, or arbitrium, necessarily supposes reason, whereby one can be referred to another, as is known from the notion of free will.

5° Fruition is « the love or delight wherewith the will adheres to some thing on account of the thing itself. » This Augustine teaches lib. X de Trinit., c. 10, n. 13 : « We enjoy, he says, things known, in which the will, delighted by them for their own sake, rests; but we use those things which we refer to something else whereby we are to enjoy. » Here you have the difference between fruition and use.

« From sensible fruits, says the Angelic Doctor⁹ , the name of fruition seems derived. But sensible fruit is that which is expected last from the tree and received with a certain relish. Whence fruition seems to pertain to the love or delight which anyone has concerning the last expected thing, which is the end. But the end and good is the object of the appetitive power. Whence it is manifest that fruition is an act of the appetitive power. » That however fruition pertains to love, Augustine teaches lib. I de Doctrina christ., c. 4, n. 4, saying: « To enjoy is to adhere to something by love for its own sake. » Yet love pertains to the appetitive power. Therefore also to enjoy is an act of the appetitive power ¹⁰ .

Aptly Augustine says in the place cited above that « we enjoy things known. » For where there is no knowledge, no delight can be given; but where there is knowledge, there fruition is had.

Hence « to enjoy food and any bodily pleasure is not absurdly thought to belong also to beasts, » as the same Aug. says in lib. LXXXIII quaest., q. 30, since beasts too lack not some cognition. Yet imperfect is the cognition in beasts whereby the end and good is known particularly, because their appetitive powers are not freely commanding, but moved according to natural instinct toward those things they apprehend. But we know perfectly the end and good, who rise up to the universal notion of end and good through the intellect. Whence, as the Angelic Doctor concludes ¹¹ , « to rational nature belongs fruition according to perfect reason, but to brute animals according to imperfect reason, while to other creatures in no way. »

It follows from the foregoing that perfect fruition is of the ultimate end only ¹² . For fruition is the rest of the will.

But rest is found perfectly only in possession of the ultimate end, which is the complete good and term of the will. From which it must be concluded that, although some imperfect fruition can be had even of the ultimate end not yet really possessed but only intended, nevertheless perfect fruition cannot be in the soul except from real possession of the ultimate end itself.

You will ask 1° whether there is in man dominion with respect to himself and his operations.

I answer. affirmatively¹. Because, besides election, there is given in the will an active use. Therefore, besides the judgment directing election, there must be given another act in the intellect directing the use and execution, which is called dominion or command. The consequence is clear, because the will never operates without the direction of the intellect. The antecedent also holds, because election is concerned with the means in the order of intention, as it is future and the effect of the end. Active use is concerned with the same mean in the order of execution, as it is present and the efficient cause of the end had in reality. Therefore these two acts are concerned with formally distinct objects, although they are materially the same. — I subjoin. But acts are essentially distinguished according to formally distinct objects. Therefore. — Moreover, where there is a new and distinct difficulty, there is required a new and distinct act. But in execution a new, distinct, and far greater difficulty is found than in election, as is evident to all. For how many are there who choose easily and fail in execution!

You will ask 2° whether command is an act of reason or of will.

I answer. 1². Command is substantially an act of reason, presupposing an act of the will by whose power reason moves through command to the exercise of an act.

It is proved. To command says three things: first, to order him who is commanded to the doing of the work and to the means to be executed here and now for attaining the end; second, to intimate or declare the work to be done, not in the indicative mode, saying: « This is to be done, » as would be by a discriminative judgment, but in the imperative mode, saying: « Do this; » third, to move him or the power that is commanded to the execution of the work. But these three things belong to reason. 1° To order is to refer or compare one thing to another; which, since it is something intelligible, is proper to reason. 2° To intimate or declare is to make manifest and to speak; which also pertains to the intellect. 3° Although it belongs to the will per se primo to move, because it is the first mover to exercise, it nevertheless belongs secondarily and participatively to the intellect, from a preceding act of the will, because the virtue of the prior act remains in the following act: whence, as in election there remains something of the virtue of the preceding act of counsel, namely the order of the means, so in command there remains something of the virtue of election, namely the efficacy of moving.

Therefore command is an act of reason, presupposing an act of the will, by whose power reason moves through command to the exercise of an act.

You will ask 3° which acts are subject to the command of reason.

I answer.³ and let this be the general rule: Those acts which are in our power and arbitrement, and to which persuasive reason can move us, can be commanded; but those which are not in our power and arbitrement, and to which persuasive reason cannot move us, cannot be commanded. This rule is gathered from the very nature of command. For to command belongs to a superior governing and having the power to move and oblige so that he be obeyed; otherwise command would be vain.

From this general rule you will deduce which acts in particular are subject, or not subject, to the command of reason⁴.