INTELLECT.

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The scholastic analysis of sense data into " proper "

and " common " sensibles may possibly mislead by reason of its

incompleteness : especially in view of the fact that the " primary

qualities" or common sensibles" are claimed on the one hand

to be themselves percepts and on the other hand to be (as to what

they really are) less relative to, and more independent of, the

nature and conditions of the self as percipient subject, than the

" proper sensibles" are ; and to furnish to the abstractive faculty

of thought more distinctively " external " or " non-self" data than

the proper sensibles do for our intellectual knowledge of a real,

external, three-dimensional, spatial universe. 1

The fact that the sensible features of " externality," and

"extensity" or " voluminousness," are furnished simultaneously

in different qualities of conscious data (e.g. in visual and tactual

sensations), and not only as unified in a subjective unity of

consciousness, but also as unified in one spatial and external

continuum having colour, resistance, volume, shape, motion, etc.,

this fact undoubtedly presents to intellect, reflecting intro-

spectively on sense perception, the strongest evidence in justifica

tion of the spontaneously assumed objective and real validity of

our concepts of " extension" and "space". In other words the

"sense evidence," or "appearance to sense" of extensity and ex

ternality attaching to concrete data, apprehended by sense as

voluminous or space-filling (size\ as continuous or discontinuous

(unity, number\ as having definite limits (shape), as at rest or in

motion, is also " intellectual evidence," or "appearance to in

tellect" of these same data intellectually conceived as an external

1 " The perfect identity of ratios subsisting between parts of space, e.g. the re

lation of the side to the diagonal of the square, known through visual and tactual

sensations, the mathematical power of the blind, the recognition of circular and

square figures by those just receiving sight for the first time, present an irresistible

testimony to the reality of what is affirmed by such diverse witnesses. In addition

to this the manifestation of extension in the two different experiences of colour and

pressure enables us to detach in a singularly perfect manner the common element,

and so to form an abstract idea of extension, far surpassing in clearness those derived

from any single sensuous channel." MAHER, op. cit., p. 157; cf. ibid., pp. 101,

159-62.

76 THEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

universe of spatially extended real bodies. That is a fact which

we have already emphasized (105). But here we want to

scrutinize the "perceptual" character of those primary qualities

or common sensibles in relation to the various " concepts" which

thought abstracts from sense data.

Whatever can be perceived in the concrete by sense can be

conceived in the abstract by intellect. Whatever is " sensible "

is likewise " intelligible "- 1 Of every single concrete sense datum

and of every concrete complex of such data, of every " sensibile

proprium " and of every unified or composite datum (or " sensibile

commune") presented by the joint action of different external

senses, and of the inner or " common " sense or faculty of associa

tion (the " sensus communis" of the scholastics), we have or

can have an abstract intellectual concept. But the functions of

these various external and internal senses, whether in isolation

or in conjunction with one another, are confined merely to report

ing or registering Q* presenting some concrete (simple or complex)

datum in consciousness. So far as the senses go, these data are

all, so to speak, inarticulate^ uninterpreted, without meaning:"

each is simply a "something there," a " something present". It

is intellect that must give each a meaning by conceiving it as some

mode or other of reality, as a colour, taste, sound, etc. ; as si/e,

shape, motion, rest, etc. ; as a quality, relation, action, cause, sub

stance, etc. 3

1 Is whatever is intelligible (or an object of thought) also sensible (or an object

of sense) ? To say that whatever is intelligible must be also itself an object of sense

(a " sensibile per se ") would be sensism. And Kant s position, that although we

can think or conceive the suprasensible we cannot know it to be real,- is near to

this. The truth is that whatever is intelligible (to the human mind), although it

need not be itself an object of sense (a " sensibile /r se "), must nevertheless be

cognitively conjoined with something that is itself an object of sense. That is, it

must be either a " sensibile per accideiis," like the essences, substances, causes, rela

tions, etc., apprehended in our direct (sensuous and intellectual) experience, or some

thing the reality of which we can prove to be necessarily implied by this experience,

and which we can conceive only analogically, or by concepts which have their

proper application to realities that are themselves directly sensible. Cf. vol. i., 65,

66, 74, 77.

-"Meaning" is something essentially rational, intellectual, conceptual.

3 Cf. art. Appearance and Reality, by the present writer, in the Irish Ecclesi

astical Record, vol. xxiv. (September, 1908), pp. 275-80. The article is the second

of a series of three in the same volume; and these are a continuation of an earlier

series under the title, Subject and Object in Knowledge and Conscioiisness, in the pre

ceding volume (xxiii., April, May, and June, 1908) of the same periodical. As the

articles discuss in some detail many points in connexion with consciousness, know

ledge, perception, conception, phenomenism, Kantism, etc., it may not be amiss to

give this reference to them.

PERCEPTION OF SENSE QUALITIES 77

When we think and speak even of a " proper sensible," such

as red, redness, and say that " redness is a proper object of the

sense of vision" we must remember that this sense does not ap

prehend " redness " in the abstract, but merely that it apprehends

an individual, concrete datum which intellect simultaneously con

ceives in the abstract, and to which intellect gives the name red,

redness : conceiving it also at the same time as a thing or reality,

an accident or quality, a colour, of some substance. And so of the

other proper sensibles.

But by the simultaneous functioning of the separate external

senses, and of the unifying and associating faculty of the internal

sense or sensus communis, we have also presented in sense con

sciousness complex or composite concrete data in which intellect

apprehends or conceives such thought-objects as unity or con

tinuity ; plurality or multitude ; volume, magnitude, or three-

dimensional extension ; form, -igure, or shape ; rest or motion.

Now when these are called " common sensibles" it is not meant

that each of them is apprehended in the abstract (and known and

named as such) by any joint action of the senses. It is only meant

that the individual, concrete data, from which intellect abstracts

these thought-objects, are complex or composite data for the

presence of which in sense-consciousness the functioning of more

than one external sense is needed. Nor is it implied that any

such composite sense-datum has in it any sense element beyond

the sensibilia propria contributed by the separate senses (external

and internal) which co-operated in presenting it to consciousness.

Of course the perception of such a composite datum as a

"sensibile commune" involves the conscious discrimination, as

sociation, and co-ordination or unification of the proper objects

of sight, passive contact, active touch or muscular and motor

sensations : their unification not only in a subjective unity of

consciousness but in an objective unity of composite datum or

content. Now, there are of course intellectual functions of dis

criminating, associating, co-ordinating, unifying, etc. functions

which enter into the process of comparing, judging, interpreting.

But, subserving these, there are analogous sense functions which

belong to the internal sense or " sensus communis" the faculty

of sensuous association : * an organic or sense faculty of the

sentient conscious being, having in the brain and nervous system

partly the same physiological basis as the external senses, and

1 Cf. MAHER, op. cit., pp. 92-6, 197-9.

78 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

possessed not only by man but by animals generally. By means

of this internal sense the sentient-conscious being can apprehend

in the concrete relations l of co-existence and sequence, perman

ence and change, similarity and diversity, among its sense data ;

and can have feelings of " recalled " or " remembered " or " past "

data, and " anticipations " of future similar data. But these are

all concrete percepts, not abstract concepts. They do not involve

the essentially rational or intellectual process whereby we ap

prehend "relation," "difference," "similarity," "duration,"

"sequence," etc., as such or in the abstract: i.e. by which we

apprehend the essence (or " quidditas ") of the presented datum,

or what the concrete datum is.

When, therefore, we speak of three-dimensional extension

or size or volume, of shape or form, of multitude or number, of

rest or motion, as " primary (sense] qualities " or as " common

sensible*" we must distinguish between the concrete condition in

which alone they can be percepts or sense data, and the abstract

condition in which they are conceived by intellect as objects of

thought. If in the former condition we claim them to be percepts,

"common" percepts, but nevertheless real percepts or objects

of sense awareness, " sensibilia per se," we must remember that

we have called in the aid of the internal or " common " sense,

or faculty of sensuous association, unification, etc., to make

them so.

But intellect conceives in the abstract not only those "com

mon " sense data, but also each of the " sensibilia propria " or

proper sense data : the function of abstract thought is closely

allied with every conscious sense cognition. Hence in their ab

stract condition the proper sensibles are objects of intellect, of

thought or conception ; and conversely it is only in their concrete

condition that the so-called common sensibles are indeed really

objects of sense.

But intellect furthermore apprehends in the abstract, in and

through the (proper and common) data of sense, i.e. by reflecting

1 Sense can apprehend a concrete individual relation between two or more con

crete individual sense terms, though it cannot apprehend relation in the abstract, or

what a relation is. Cf. vol. i., 91, iii. ; PRICHARD, op. cit., pp. 228-9. The scholastics

sometimes spoke of this sensuous apprehension of relations between associated sense

terms as sensuous" judgment " after the analogy of intellectual comparison or judg

ment proper. Apart from instinct, these sensuous apprehensions of concrete rel?-

tions explain animal " memories," " anticipations," " inferences," etc., and constitute

portion of the domain of what is commonly called "animal intelligence".

PERCEPTION OF SENSE QUALITIES 79

on, and interpreting, and reasoning from, these latter, 1 certain

thought-objects, of which it is assumed that the senses alone

could not make us cognizant even in the concrete : and these

are described as being objects of sense only "per accidens," i.e. by

being really conjoined with data which are themselves (proper or

common) objects of sense. The "common sensibles " no less

than the " proper sensibles " are claimed by scholastics to be

direct data of sense perception, to be percepts, not concepts. This

they express by saying that both the " proper " and the

"common" sensibles are " sensibilia/^r se," i.e. that they are

themselves objects of the senses, as distinct from certain other

data or objects of knowledge which cannot be designated " ob

jects of sense" except " per accidens" . These other objects of

knowledge are themselves data of intellect, and can be only de

scribed as being " accidentally or concomitantly sensible " (" sensi-

bilia per accidens ") : because they are objectively conjoined with

the data that are " sensibilia per se" or objects of sense percep

tion proper, and are apprehended by the intellectual faculty

which is subjectively a faculty of the same conscious self that

possesses the sense faculties. Thus, substance is not itself a

datum of any sense. Substance, and the various kinds of sub

stances, simple and composite, spiritual and material, and cause,

and relation, and their various kinds, are themselves objects of

intellect, conceived objects, " intelligibila " per se? Yet, although

we see only coloured surface, and taste only such a sense quality

as sweet, and touch only a hard, cold, resisting surface, we never

theless say, " I see a man, 1 " I taste honey," " I feel ice" etc. 3

But "man," "honey," "ice," etc., are substances, and, as such,

are objects only of thought or conception, not of perception.

Hence, as such, they can be said to be perceptible or sensible

only per accidens, inasmuch as the concrete data which are directly

1 Has intellect any concrete intuitions of its own, independently of sense

activity, from which also to derive abstract thought-objects ? " Nihil est in intellectu

quod prius non fuerit \aliquo modo saltern per accidens] in sensu ? " Cf. vol. i.,

74. 77 ; supra, 100, 105.

2 Cf. Ontology ,62, p. 218.

3 Similarly I may say " I see the sweet honey ". But I do not really see the

sweetness. Sweetness is itself (" per se ") an object only of taste. What I see is

the coloured surface of that which I otherwise know to be also sweet. Thus sweet

ness is indirectly or concomitantly an object of vision : it is " visibile per accidens ".

To be thus an object per accidens of any faculty, a datum must be (i) itself an ob

ject per se of some other faculty, and (2) objectively conjoined with what is an

object per se of the former faculty. Cf. JEANNIERE, op. cit., pp. 386-7.

So THE OK Y OF A NO W LEDGE

attained by sense really and objectively embody these other ob

jects which are apprehended only by intellect, viz., substance,

cause, matter, spirit, intellect, will, thought, volition, etc.

Now it might, perhaps, be maintained that sense docs make us aware of

all these objects in the concrete : that it makes us aware of material substance

in the concrete, and therefore of substance and all its accidents, of being or

reality and all its modes, in the concrete : and that therefore all knowable

modes of reality are themselves (per sc} objects of sense in the concrete as well

as of intellect in the abstract : so that all intelligibilia per se (as abstract}

would be scnsibilia per accidens, just as all sensibilia per se (as concrete) would

be intelligibilia per accidens.^

If this latter assertion were understood in the sense which we have ex

plained as the true meaning of the aphorism, Nihil est in intellcciu quod

prius non fucrit in sensu, i.e. if it were understood to mean that all modes

of reality which become intelligible to the human intellect become objects of

the latter only through concepts which, being derived from sense data, are

properly applicable only to the per se sensible or material modes of reality,

the modes that are made " immaterial " or " intelligible " only " negatively " or

" by abstraction " (71, 74, 76), it might be allowed to pass as admissible.

But if it (and the assertion immediately preceding it) were understood to mean

that only such modes of reality as are themselves, per se, sensible, are intel

ligible and knowable by the human mind, these assertions would then be ex

pressions of the erroneous doctrine of Sensism?

As a matter of fact sense does not make us aware of substance, or of

material substance, or of cause, spirit, intellect, volition, etc., even in the con

crete. We may, no doubt, say that it makes us aware of materiality in the con

crete ; for materiality in the concrete means just all those concrete qualities,

proper and common, which are themselves ^ per sc, objects of sense. But if

we were merely sentient beings, like the lower animals, and had no higher or

rational cognitive faculty, we could never attain to any awareness of substance,

cause, spirit, intellect, will, etc., even though we sensuously apprehended

beings which were really substances and causes, which really had a spiritual

nature and spiritual faculties such as intellect and will. To say that such

modes of being are for us "sensibilia per accidens " is really another way of

saying that we do not sensuously perceive them at all, but that intellect con

ceives or apprehends them in and with the data which we do sensuously

perceive.

Now all the positive content of our concepts of substance, cause, attribute

Are space and time "per se intelligible" or "per sc sensible"? Are they

per se " concepts," objects of intellect, or per sc " percepts " objects of sense. Per se

they are concepts, objects of intellect ; for the terms space and time express abstract

objects. They are sensible, or objects of sense, only per accidens. They are per se

neither proper nor common sensibles. No one sense and no combination of senses

can perceive them. They are objects elaborated by thought through the addition

of rational relations (entia rationis) to our concepts of the "common sensibles," ex

tension and motion respectively. Cf. Ontology, 84, 85.

2 Cf. supra, p. 76, n. i.

PERCEPTION OF SENSE QUALITIES 81

or accident, quality, power, faculty, relation, action, etc., is derived from the

" material " data of sense consciousness, together with the data furnished by

reflection on the immediate intuitions we have of our own higher (intellectual

and volitional) activities (71, 100, 105). But intellect, reflecting on those

concepts, and on all the data of our conscious experience, can see that those

concepts or thought-objects, considered apart from the sense-data in which

they were originally apprehended, are applicable to modes of reality that are

not themselves, or per se, sensible ; can see the possibility of such positively

immaterial motes of reality ; and can infer the actual existence of such modes

of being the rational, intelligent, spiritual, human soul with its spiritual

faculties ; and the Divine, Infinite, Necessary Being or First Cause as neces

sarily involved in, and implied by, the direct data of conscious human experi

ence (71). And it can see at the same time that such concepts, though they

can be applied to such positively suprasensible or immaterial realities only by

emptying them of their sensible or material content (via negationis], can give

us a knowledge which, though negative and analogical, is nevertheless, so far

as it goes, an objectively and really valid knowledge of such suprasensible or

spiritual domains of being (66, 74, 100).