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FEW people reflect deeply on the superiority of the
intellect over the imagination, of the concept over the
accompanying sense image.
The mind, intellect, differs from all sense powers,
external and internal, because it has as primary object
not mere accidental facts, external or internal, color,
for example, or sound, or tactile resistance, but
rather intelligible and universal reality. By reason of
this object the mind knows the raison d'etre of things,
the causes of events, and their purpose or goal.
The concept of being, of reality, underlies all other
concepts. The verb "to be" underlies every sentence.
"Peter runs" means "Peter is running." In a priori
judgments this "is" expresses essence. In a posteriori
judgments the "is" expresses existence. Thus the
infant's mind grows on a series of whys: Why does the
bird fly? Because it is looking for food (its goal and
purpose). To fly it needs wings (instrumental cause).
Its nature requires wings (formal cause). It dies
because it is composed of matter and hence is
corruptible.
NOW these raisons d'etre, these sources and causes
(final, efficient, formal, material) are accessible to
reason only, not to sense and imagination. Reason alone
knows purpose as purpose. Imagination grasps the thing
which is purpose, but it does not grasp the principle
of finality.
Here we see the immeasurable distance between image and
concept. The image, say, of a clock is a composite of
sense qualities, color, sound, and so forth. A concept
of the clock makes this sense-composite intelligible: a
clock is a machine which by maintaining uniform
movements indicates solar time. This concept, this
raison d'etre, inaccessible to the animal, is easily
grasped by the child.
Whereas sense and imagination are restricted to sense
objects as individual, as limited in space and time,
the intellect grasps these same objects as universal,
as realizable in whatever part of space and time. Thus
it grasps what the clock must necessarily be,
everywhere and always, in order to indicate solar time.
In like fashion the intellect rises from the limited
and particular sense good to the good that is universal
and unlimited.
Thus we conceive also what we need in order to become
what we should be. We need an object that is always and
everywhere good. Further we see that this object must
be unlimited reality, a supreme being wherein unlimited
good is completely realized.
The intellect conceiving supreme being, unlimited good,
sees likewise, at least confusedly, that this being
must exist. The mind sees things which begin and end,
corruptible things. Hence they must derive existence
from something that is self-existent and able to give
existence to other things. Otherwise the more would
arise from the less: effect without cause. Similarly
this truth holds universally: no motion without a first
mover, no living thing without a first life, no mundane
order without a supreme ruler, no intelligent being
without a first mind. Shall we trace St. Augustine's
genius back to a blind, material fatality?
Now in the world of the will, in the moral world, we
meet this same truth: no morality, no law, without a
supreme legislator, no holiness without a supreme
holiness. Reason more or less confusedly grasps these
necessary truths.
How unmeasured, then, must be the immensity of man's
will, which is illumined, not by sense and imagination,
but by reason and intelligence! Imagination, sense
perception, leads animals, herbivorous or carnivorous,
each to the food it needs. Intelligence leads man to an
unlimited good, a good which is to be found only in
that unlimited reality which is God, because He alone
is unlimited and essential good. Hence if sense has
such an inexhaustible reach in the daily life of the
animal world, how boundless must be the reach of man's
will in the pursuit of an unmeasured world of good!
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