ARTICLE IX

In the Ninth Article We Ask: IS IT THROUGH THEIR ESSENCE OR THROUGH SOME LIKENESS THAT OUR MIND KNOWS HABITS WHICH EXIST IN THE SOUL?

Difficulties:

It seems that it knows them through their essence, for

1. The Gloss on this passage, "I know a man. . . ." in the second Epistle to the Corinthians (12:2) reads: "We do not see love in one way in the species through which it exists when it is present, and in another way in some image similar to it when it is not present. But it is perceived in so far as it can be discerned by the mind, more by one, less by another." Therefore, love is perceived by the mind through its essence and not through some likeness of it. This is true of every other habit for the same reason.

2. Augustine says: "What is as present to knowledge as that which is present to the mind?" But habits of the soul are present to the mind through their essence. Therefore, they are known by the mind through their essence.

3. The cause of the perfection of a thing has that perfection in an even higher degree. But habits of the mind are the cause whereby other things which fall under the habits are known. Therefore, habits are known by the mind especially through their essence.

4. Everything which the mind knows through its likeness arises in sense before it arises in the mind. But a habit of the mind never arises in sense. Therefore, these habits are not known by the mind through a likeness.

5. The closer a thing is to the mind, the more it is known by the mind. But habit is closer to the intellective power of the mind than act, and act is closer than object. Therefore, the mind knows habit more than act or object. So, it knows habit through its essence and not through acts or objects.

6. Augustine says that the mind and art are known by the same kind of sight. But the mind is known through its essence by the mind. Therefore, art, also, is known through its essence, and so are the other habits of the mind.

7. The true is related to understanding as the good is related to affection. But the good is not in affection through some likeness of itself. Therefore, neither is the true known by understanding through some likeness. Therefore, whatever understanding knows it knows through essence and not through a likeness.

8. Augustine says: "Faith is not seen by its possessor in the heart in which it is," as the soul of another man is seen from movements of the body; "rather, certain knowledge clings to it, and consciousness proclaims it." Therefore, according to this, knowledge of the mind clings to faith in so far as consciousness proclaims it. But consciousness proclaims faith in so far as it is present in it. Therefore, faith is known by the mind in so far as it is present in the mind through its essence.

9. Form is most exactly proportionate to that of which it is the form. But habits exist in the mind as forms of the mind. Therefore, they are most exactly proportionate to the mind. Consequently, our mind knows them immediately through their essence.

10. Understanding knows the intelligible species which is in it, not through another species, but through its essence. Otherwise, there would be an infinite series. But this is so only because these species inform the understanding. Since understanding is informed in a similar way through habits, it seems that the mind knows them through their essence.

11. The mind knows habits only by intellectual vision. But intellectual vision concerns those things which are seen through their essence. Therefore, habits are seen by the mind through their essence.

To the Contrary:

1'. Augustine says: "Behold in the fields and caves and numberless caverns of my memory, full beyond reckoning, there are innumerable sorts of things, [present] either through images, as those of all bodies, or through actual presence, as that of the arts, or through I know not what notions, as those of affections of the mind which memory retains even when the mind is not acted upon." From this it seems that affections of the mind are not known through their essence, but through some notions of them; and for the same reason neither are habits of the virtues, which group themselves around affections of this kind.

2'. Augustine says: "We have another sense of the interior man which surpasses that sense," the bodily, "and through which we perceive just and unjust things, the former through an intelligible species, the latter through its privation." But he calls just and unjust things the habits of virtues and vices. Therefore, habits of virtues are known through a species and not through their essence.

3'. Understanding knows through its essence only that which is present in the understanding. But habits of virtues are not present in the understanding, but in the affective part. Therefore, they are not known through their essence by the understanding.

4'. Intellectual vision is superior to bodily sight. Therefore, it entails greater distinction. But in bodily sight the species through which something is seen is always different from the thing seen through it. Therefore, habits, which are seen through intellectual vision, are not seen by the mind through their essence, but through some other species.

5'. We desire only what we know, as Augustine proves. But some people who do not have habits of the soul desire them. Therefore, they know those habits, but not through their essence since they do not have them. Therefore, they know them through a species of them.

6'. Hugh of St. Victor says that eye can have three meanings in man. There can be the eye of reason, the eye of intelligence, and the eye of flesh. We see God with the eye of intelligence which, Hugh says, was plucked out after the fall. We see physical things with the eye of flesh, which has remained intact after the fall. We know intelligible created things with the eye of reason, which has become blear since the fall, for we know intelligible things only partially and not entirely. But everything that is seen only partially is not known through its essence. Therefore, since habits of the mind are intelligible, it seems that the mind does not see them through their essence.

7'. God is much more present to the mind through His essence than habits are, for He is innermost in everything. But God's presence in the mind does not make our mind see God through His essence. Therefore, habits, too, are not seen by the mind through their essence, although they are present in it.

8'. Intellect, which potentially understands, needs something to reduce it to act, if it is actually to understand. And it is by reason of this that intellect does actually understand. But the essence of a habit, in so far as it is present to the mind, does not reduce intellect from potency to act, for, if it did, things would necessarily be understood as long as they were present in the soul. Therefore, that by which habits are understood is not their essence.

REPLY:

Knowledge of habits, as that of the soul, is twofold. One knowledge is that by which one knows whether he has a habit. The other is that by which one knows what a habit is. Nevertheless, these two types of knowledge relate to habits in a way different from that in which they relate to the soul. For the knowledge by which one knows he has a habit presupposes the knowledge by which he knows what that habit is. For I cannot know that I have chastity unless I know what chastity is. This is not the case with the soul. For many know that they have a soul without knowing what the soul is.

The reason for such diversity is this, that we perceive that habits as well as the soul exist in us only by perceiving acts of which the soul and habits are the principles. And by its essence a habit is the principle of a certain kind of act. Thus, if we know a habit as the principle of such an act, we know what it is. Accordingly, I know what chastity is if I know it is that through which one refrains from illicit thoughts in matters of sex. But the soul is a principle of acts not through its essence, but through its powers. Thus, from a perception of the acts of the soul we perceive that the principle of such acts, for example, of movement and of sense, is in the soul. Nevertheless, we do not know the nature of the soul from this.

Accordingly, in so far as we know that habits exist, there are, then, two things which we have to keep in mind when we speak of them: the apprehension of the habit and the judgment we form about it. For apprehension we must get knowledge of the habits from objects and acts. The habits themselves cannot be grasped through their essence, because the power of any faculty of the soul is limited to its object. For this reason its activity is directed first of all and principally to its object. It extends only through a kind of return to those things by which it is directed to its object. Thus, we see that sight is first directed to color, but is directed to the act of seeing only through a kind of return, when, in seeing color, it sees that it sees. But this return is incomplete in sense and complete in understanding which goes back to know its essence by a complete return.

As is said in The Soul, in this life our understanding is related to phantasms as sight is related to colors, not, however, so that it knows phantasms as sight knows colors, but that it knows the things which the phantasms represent. Thus, the activity of our understanding is directed, first, to the things which are grasped through phantasms, then returns to know its act, and then goes further to the species, habits, powers, and the essence of the mind itself. For these are not related to understanding as primary objects, but as those things by which understanding attains its object.

Moreover, we have judgment about each one of these according to that which is its measure. And the measure of any habit is that to which the habit is ordained. This object has a triple relation to our knowledge. For, sometimes, it is obtained from sense, either from sight or hearing, as when we see the usefulness of grammar or medicine, or we hear it from others, and from this usefulness we know what grammar or medicine is. Sometimes it is inherent in natural knowledge, as is abundantly clear in the habits of virtues, whose ends natural reason proposes. Sometimes it is divinely infused, as appears in faith, hope, and other infused habits of this kind. In both of these latter, uncreated truth is taken into account, because even natural knowledge arises in us from divine enlightenment. Hence, the judgment in which knowledge about the nature of a habit is brought to completion takes place either according to that which we receive by sense or according to a comparison with uncreated truth.

There are two things to be considered in the knowledge by which we know whether habits are present in us: habitual knowledge and actual knowledge. From the acts of the habits which we experience within us we actually perceive that we have the habits. For this reason, the Philosopher says that we should take pleasure attendant on a work as a sign of habits.

But, with reference to habitual knowledge, habits of the mind are said to be known through themselves. For the cause of habitual knowledge is that by which someone is rendered capable of entering into the act of knowing the thing which is said to be known habitually. From the very fact that habits are in the mind through their essence, the mind can enter upon actual perception of the existence of the habits within it, in so far as through the habits which it has it can enter upon acts in which the habits are actually perceived.

But, in this, habits of the cognitive and affective parts differ. For a habit of the cognitive part is the source both of the very act by which the habit is received and also of the knowledge by which it is perceived. For the actual knowledge proceeds from the cognitive habit, whereas a habit of the affective part is the source of that act from which the habit can be perceived but not of the knowledge by which it is perceived.

Thus, it is clear that a habit of the cognitive part is the proximate source of knowledge of it because it is present in the mind through its essence. However, a habit of the affective part is, as it were, a remote source, for such a habit does not have within it the cause of knowledge but of that from which knowledge is received. Therefore, Augustine says that arts are known through their presence, but affections of the soul are known through certain conceptions.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. What is said in the Gloss should be taken as referring to the object of knowledge and not to the means of knowing. For, when we know love, we consider the very essence of love and not some likeness of it, as happens in imagination.

2. The mind knows nothing better than that which is within it, for this reason, that it does not have within itself something of the things outside of it in order to proceed from this to knowledge of those things. But the mind can issue into actual cognition of those things which are within it from the things which are present to it internally, even though these are known through some other things.

3. Habit is not the cause of knowing other things as something which is the source of knowledge of other things, once it is known itself, as principles are the cause of knowing conclusions. Rather, from a habit the soul acquires a perfection ordered to knowledge of something. Thus, it is not a univocal cause of the things known, as when one thing which is known is the cause of the knowledge of something else which is known, but an equivocal cause, which does not receive the same name. For example, it is like whiteness which makes a thing white although it itself is not white, but that by which something is white. In like manner, a habit, as such, is not the cause of knowledge, as that which is known, but as that by which something is known. Therefore, it is not necessary that it be better known than those things which are known through the habit.

4. A habit is not known by the soul through a species of it abstracted from sense, but through the species of those things which are known through the habit. And habits are known as the source of knowledge in the cognition of these other things.

5. Although habit is closer to power than act is, act is closer to the object which constitutes that which is known. Power, however, constitutes the source of knowing. Therefore, act is known before habit, but habit is more a source of knowing.

6. Art is a habit of the intellective part and, as far as habitual knowledge goes, it is perceived by one who has it just as the mind is perceived, that is, through its presence.

7. Movement or activity of the cognitive part realizes its perfection within the mind itself, and, therefore, for a thing to be known, there must be some likeness in the mind. This is especially true if, as an object of knowledge, it is not joined to the mind through its essence. But movement or activity of the affective part begins from the soul and terminates at things. Therefore, a likeness of the thing by which it is informed is not required in the affection as it is in the understanding.

8. Faith is a habit of the intellective part; hence, from the very fact that it is in the mind, it bends the mind to an act of understanding, in which faith itself is seen. However, this is not the case with other habits, which are in the affective part.

9. Habits of the mind have the greatest proportion to it, as form has a proportion to subject, and perfection to perfectible. However, the proportion is not that of object to power.

10. Understanding does not know the intelligible species through its essence or through any species of the species, but, in knowing the object of which it is the species, it knows the species through a kind of reflection, as has been said.*

11. The answer to this can be found above.

Answers to Contrary Difficulties:

1'. In the passage cited, Augustine distinguishes three ways of knowing. One of these concerns things which are outside the soul, and about which we cannot have knowledge from the things which are within us. To know these things outside, images or likenesses of them must be formed within us.

A second way deals with those things which are in the intellective part. He says that these are known by reason of their presence, because it is from them that we enter upon the act of knowing. And in this act those things which are the principles of understanding are known. Therefore, he says that arts are known by reason of their presence.

The third way refers to those things which belong to the affective part, and the reason for knowing these is not in the understanding, but in the affections. Therefore, they are known as through an immediate principle, not by their presence, which is in the affections, but through the knowledge or definition of it which is in the understanding. Yet, by their presence, habits of the affective part are also a remote principle of knowledge in so far as they elicit acts in which understanding knows them. As a result, we can in a sense also say that they are known by reason of their presence.

2'. That species through which justice is known is not something other than the very notion of justice through the privation of which injustice is known. Moreover, this species or notion is not something abstracted from justice, but it is that which, as a specific difference, is the ultimate perfection of its being.

3'. Understanding, properly speaking, is not an activity of the intellect, but of the soul through the intellect, just as to make warm is not an activity of heat, but of fire through heat. Nor again are those two parts, understanding and affection, to be thought of as distinguished according to position, as sight and hearing, which are acts of organs. Therefore, that which is in affection is also present to the understanding soul. For this reason, through understanding, the soul returns to know not only the act of the understanding but also the act of the affections. In a similar way, through the affections it returns to seek and desire not only the act of the affections but also the act of the understanding.

4'. The distinctness (discretio) which has a bearing on the perfection of knowledge is not the state of being distinct (discretio) by which that which is understood is distinct from that by which it is understood, for, thus, the divine cognition by which God knows Himself would be most imperfect. Rather, it is the discernment (discretio) by which that which is known is [seen as] distinct from everything else.

5'. Those who do not have habits of the mind do not know these habits by that knowledge in which one perceives that they exist in himself, but by that in which one knows what they are, or perceives that they exist in others. This is not through presence, but in another way, as has been said.*

6'. The eye of reason is said to be blear in relation to created intelligible things in so far as it actually understands nothing without getting something from sensible things, to which intelligible things are superior. Therefore, it does not have all that is needed to know intelligible things. Nevertheless, nothing prevents those things which are in reason from immediately tending through their essence toward acts in which they are understood, as has been said.*

7'. Although God is more present to our mind than habits are, still, from objects which we naturally know, we cannot see the divine essence as perfectly as we see the essence of habits, for habits have a proportion to the objects and acts and are their proximate principles. We cannot say this about God.

8'. Although the presence of a habit in the mind does not make the mind actually know that habit, it does cause the mind to be actually perfected through the habit by which the act is elicited. And the habit is known from this.