CONCEPTION. (continued). CHAPTER XV. ORIGIN OF INTELLECTUAL IDEAS THE object of the Aristotelian theory of Intellectual Abstraction is, as we have observed, to explain the mutual relations of the sensitive and intellectual functions of the human mind in the elaboration of knowledge. It is thus a hypothesis put forward to account for certain well established facts, and its value is to be estimated, like that of other hypotheses, by its success in the interpretation of the phenomena. Whatever be its worth-and we believe it to be vastly superior to every other attempt to solve the difficulty-it of course stands on quite a different level from that of the tenet, that intellect is essentially different from sense. This latter we believe to be a demonstrated truth, while the former can only be fairly described as a probable or plausible theory. We say this in order that the reader may understand the relative importance of the two doctrines. There might be a danger lest certain minds feeling dissatisfied with the scholastic treatment of the secondary question, should, through want of clearly recognizing its subordinate character, suppose that the validity of the primary article of the system was thereby vitiated. This would be a lamentable evil, and we deem it a matter of considerable moment, that the relative importance of different tenets forming part of the teaching of the great doctors of the middle ages should be rightly apprehended. Modern writers, with most superficial information regarding mediaval thought, are in the habit of profoundly mistaking the weight assigned to different questions. Consequently, they would make the grand fabric of the whole scholastic system stand or fall with a few ingenious and very speculative solutions of subtle metaphysical problems of comparatively inferior significance. Having premised these remarks, we will briefly sketch the theory of the abstractive activity 1 of the intellect, adopted from Aristotle by the schoolmen. PERIPATETIC THEORY OF INTELLECTUAL ABSTRACTION. This system starts from the truth already established, that the cognitive powers of the mind are of two orders essentially distinct. Sense (alo Onois) is the lower; Intellect (voûs) is the higher. The formal object of sense is some concrete pheno 1 It should be noted that the schoolmen employed the words, abstraction, and, to abstract, in the converse signification of that which has prevailed since Kant. With modern writers intellectual abstraction primarily signifies the ignoring or omission of the attributes not attended to; with the schoolmen it was understood to primarily mean the positive side of the operation-the assumption, by the mind of the part selected, of the attributes which are attended to. A process of abstraction, therefore, formerly signified the taking up of something. Now it would signify the neglect of something. (Cf. Logic, present series, pp. 102-104.) The old usage was etymologically the more accurate, but as the modern practice has become now virtually universal we have followed it ourselves outside of the present chapter. Cf. c. xiii. menon, or some quality of a material thing; that of the intellect is the being or essence 2 of things. In other words, sense is directly percipient of some individual accident, whilst intellect apprehends the being of the object. Sense is a passive capacity requiring to be determined from without. Intellect is partly passive (voûs TalηTIKós, intellectus patiens vel possibilis), and partly active (vous TOINTIKÓS, intellectus agens). However, these diverse names denote merely different aspects of the same mental power. The former designates intellect as susceptible of modifications, the latter indicates the intellect as the agency which effects this self-modification. At the beginning of life the mind possesses no knowledge; there are no innate cognitions. It is described as a tabula rasa, or clean tablet; but this term is not completely appropriate, since a tablet is purely passive, endowed with no inherent activities. The first intellectual ideas or concepts which we form are of material sensible things. This is shown by several observed facts: (1) It is about sensible material things that our first judgments are elicited. (2) It is to images of sensible objects that we recur for illustration and assistance in abstract reasoning. (3) The words employed to express supra-sensuous realities primarily signify material phenomena. (4) Those deficient in any sense from birth are deprived of a corresponding class of ideas. These facts also 2 The word essence is here taken in its widest sense, as including being in general-not as designating solely the specific nature of a particular object. Every answer-no matter how vague-to the question, What? reveals essence, or quiddity, in this wide sense. For a detailed account of essence, cf. General Metaphysics, c. iii. prove that it is in sensible things the human intellect, in its present condition, finds its proper object. To apprehend any of these material things the intellect must undergo a modification or change. This modification by which it is determined to know a given object is called the species intelligibilis. By this species the spiritual faculty is assimilated to its object, just as the lower faculty in sense perception by the species sensibilis. In order that such a species intelligibilis or modification of the intellectual power of the soul be generated, there is needed, as a previous requisite, the excitation of the senses by the object, and the formation of an image of it in the imagination. For this reason the latter faculty is said to contribute to the elaboration of the concept by supplying the material elements or conditions. These are then said to be "spiritualized" or "dematerialized" by the intellect in such a way that a mental representation of the object of a purely spiritual character is generated. By this is meant that when the concrete phantasm of the material object is pictured in the imagination, the intellect is awakened to elicit an act of a higher order in which the essence or being of the • object revealed in the image is represented without individualizing conditions. On this account the intellect is said to abstract the essence of the object. It is for the explanation of this abstractive process that there has to be attributed to the intellect, besides the capacity of being modified so as to represent the various objects, an active energy or force which is chief agent in the production of this modification. This activity of intellect, which, reacting on the occasion of sensory stimuli, effects the modification by which the object is apprehended under a universal aspect, is the Intellectus Agens. It is defined to be a certain spiritual force or energy of the mind, which acts instinctively on the presentation of objects in the imagination, and generates "species intelligibiles" of them, or, an active faculty whereby the intellect modifies itself so as to represent in a spiritual or abstract manner what is concretely depicted in the phantasm. The steps by which the existence of this special Intellectual activity is established are these: (1) All knowledge starts from sensation; we have no innate ideas. (2) We are de facto in later life possessed of intellectual ideas or concepts. (3) These are of a supra-sensuous character; they express material things in an immaterial manner. They are, in fact, spiritual modifications or accidents of the soul. (4) Now the production of these modifications by which the mind becomes cognizant of the corresponding objects, must be due either: (a) to a material agent such as the object itself, or to an organic faculty such as sense or imagination, or (b) to an external spirit, angelic or Divine, or (c) to a spiritual activity rooted in the soul itself. As regards (a), neither the object, sensuous impression, nor phantasm, can generate the species intelligibiles; for this modification is a spiritual accident, and none such can be effected by corporeal agencies. The proof of this is based on the general axiom, that, no |