Part I (Prima Pars) Part 134 (1/2)
_I answer that,_ We must apply the same distinction to future things, as we applied above (A. 3) to contingent things. For future things considered as subject to time are singular, and the human intellect knows them by reflection only, as stated above (A. 1). But the principles of future things may be universal; and thus they may enter the domain of the intellect and become the objects of science.
Speaking, however, of the knowledge of the future in a general way, we must observe that the future may be known in two ways: either in itself, or in its cause. The future cannot be known in itself save by G.o.d alone; to Whom even that is present which in the course of events is future, forasmuch as from eternity His glance embraces the whole course of time, as we have said above when treating of G.o.d's knowledge (Q. 14, A. 13). But forasmuch as it exists in its cause, the future can be known by us also. And if, indeed, the cause be such as to have a necessary connection with its future result, then the future is known with scientific cert.i.tude, just as the astronomer foresees the future eclipse. If, however, the cause be such as to produce a certain result more frequently than not, then can the future be known more or less conjecturally, according as its cause is more or less inclined to produce the effect.
Reply Obj. 1: This argument considers that knowledge which is drawn from universal causal principles; from these the future may be known, according to the order of the effects to the cause.
Reply Obj. 2: As Augustine says (Confess. xii [*Gen. ad lit. xii.
13]), the soul has a certain power of forecasting, so that by its very nature it can know the future; hence when withdrawn from corporeal sense, and, as it were, concentrated on itself, it shares in the knowledge of the future. Such an opinion would be reasonable if we were to admit that the soul receives knowledge by partic.i.p.ating the ideas as the Platonists maintained, because in that case the soul by its nature would know the universal causes of all effects, and would only be impeded in its knowledge by the body, and hence when withdrawn from the corporeal senses it would know the future.
But since it is connatural to our intellect to know things, not thus, but by receiving its knowledge from the senses; it is not natural for the soul to know the future when withdrawn from the senses: rather does it know the future by the impression of superior spiritual and corporeal causes; of spiritual causes, when by Divine power the human intellect is enlightened through the ministry of angels, and the phantasms are directed to the knowledge of future events; or, by the influence of demons, when the imagination is moved regarding the future known to the demons, as explained above (Q. 57, A. 3). The soul is naturally more inclined to receive these impressions of spiritual causes when it is withdrawn from the senses, as it is then nearer to the spiritual world, and freer from external distractions.
The same may also come from superior corporeal causes. For it is clear that superior bodies influence inferior bodies. Hence, in consequence of the sensitive faculties being acts of corporeal organs, the influence of the heavenly bodies causes the imagination to be affected, and so, as the heavenly bodies cause many future events, the imagination receives certain images of some such events.
These images are perceived more at night and while we sleep than in the daytime and while we are awake, because, as stated in _De Somn.
et Vigil._ ii [*De Divinat. per somn. ii], ”impressions made by day are evanescent. The night air is calmer, when silence reigns, hence bodily impressions are made in sleep, when slight internal movements are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce in the imagination images from which the future may be foreseen.”
Reply Obj. 3: Brute animals have no power above the imagination wherewith to regulate it, as man has his reason, and therefore their imagination follows entirely the influence of the heavenly bodies.
Thus from such animals' movements some future things, such as rain and the like, may be known rather than from human movements directed by reason. Hence the Philosopher says (De Somn. et Vig.), that ”some who are most imprudent are most far-seeing; for their intelligence is not burdened with cares, but is as it were barren and bare of all anxiety moving at the caprice of whatever is brought to bear on it.”
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QUESTION 87
HOW THE INTELLECTUAL SOUL KNOWS ITSELF AND ALL WITHIN ITSELF (In Four Articles)
We have now to consider how the intellectual soul knows itself and all within itself. Under this head there are four points of inquiry:
(1) Whether the soul knows itself by its own essence?
(2) Whether it knows its own habits?
(3) How does the intellect know its own act?
(4) How does it know the act of the will?
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FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 87, Art. 1]
Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Itself by Its Essence?
Objection 1: It would seem that the intellectual soul knows itself by its own essence. For Augustine says (De Trin. ix, 3), that ”the mind knows itself, because it is incorporeal.”
Obj. 2: Further, both angels and human souls belong to the genus of intellectual substance. But an angel understands itself by its own essence. Therefore likewise does the human soul.
Obj. 3: Further, ”in things void of matter, the intellect and that which is understood are the same” (De Anima iii, 4). But the human mind is void of matter, not being the act of a body as stated above (Q. 76, A. 1). Therefore the intellect and its object are the same in the human mind; and therefore the human mind understands itself by its own essence.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (De Anima iii, 4) that ”the intellect understands itself in the same way as it understands other things.”
But it understands other things, not by their essence, but by their similitudes. Therefore it does not understand itself by its own essence.
_I answer that,_ Everything is knowable so far as it is in act, and not, so far as it is in potentiality (Metaph. ix, Did. viii, 9): for a thing is a being, and is true, and therefore knowable, according as it is actual. This is quite clear as regards sensible things, for the eye does not see what is potentially, but what is actually colored.
In like manner it is clear that the intellect, so far as it knows material things, does not know save what is in act: and hence it does not know primary matter except as proportionate to form, as is stated Phys. i, 7. Consequently immaterial substances are intelligible by their own essence according as each one is actual by its own essence.
Therefore it is that the Essence of G.o.d, the pure and perfect act, is simply and perfectly in itself intelligible; and hence G.o.d by His own Essence knows Himself, and all other things also. The angelic essence belongs, indeed, to the genus of intelligible things as _act,_ but not as a _pure act,_ nor as a _complete act,_ and hence the angel's act of intelligence is not completed by his essence. For although an angel understands himself by his own essence, still he cannot understand all other things by his own essence; for he knows things other than himself by their likenesses. Now the human intellect is only a potentiality in the genus of intelligible beings, just as primary matter is a potentiality as regards sensible beings; and hence it is called ”possible” [*Possibilis--elsewhere in this translation rendered ”pa.s.sive”--Ed.]. Therefore in its essence the human mind is potentially understanding. Hence it has in itself the power to understand, but not to be understood, except as it is made actual. For even the Platonists a.s.serted that an order of intelligible beings existed above the order of intellects, forasmuch as the intellect understands only by partic.i.p.ation of the intelligible; for they said that the partic.i.p.ator is below what it partic.i.p.ates. If, therefore, the human intellect, as the Platonists held, became actual by partic.i.p.ating separate intelligible forms, it would understand itself by such partic.i.p.ation of incorporeal beings.