“His manners had not the reposeThat marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”
“His manners had not the reposeThat marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”
“His manners had not the reposeThat marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”
“His manners had not the repose
That marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”
Hence we are prepared to find the noblest families of Italy represented in the office, and notice such patrician names as Odescalchi, Altieri, Fieschi, Ruffo, Doria, Massimo, Pignatelli, Caracciolo, Barberini, Riario-Sforza, etc.
The auditor of his Holiness—Auditor Papæ—is the agent-general, most intimate privy councillor, and canonist of the Pope. He is third in rank of the palatine prelates, and lived in the Quirinal, where his offices and the archives were situated, until the present iniquitous occupation, since which they have been removed to the Torlonia palace, near the Vatican. This office was instituted by Paul II. (1464-1471), and the first to hold it was the renowned J. B. Millini, a Roman, who was at the same time Bishop of Urbino (which was administered by some one else in his name); he later became acardinal under Sixtus IV., in 1476. His successor at the present time is Monsignor Sagretti. Up to this century the power and general influence of the auditor were extraordinary, since he had a court of justice and ample jurisdiction, even exercising in the name of the Pope the supremacy of appeal in many matters. For this reason the great epigraphist Morcelli, who wrote before these judicial functions were abolished, called himJudex sacrarum cognitionum. Formerly he gave audience to all comers about matters of equity and appeal on Tuesdays, in his apartment at the Quirinal, standing in his prelatic robes behind a low-backed throne supposed by a sort of fiction to be then occupied by the Pope;[149]hence he was called in choice LatinCognoscens vice sacrâ—i.e., inlieuof his Holiness. The common Italian appellationUditore Santissimois only a corrupt rendering of the LatinAuditor Sanctissimi. This post has always been occupied by one of the ablest jurists in Italy; and even now the auditor must be both very learned and most incorruptible, from the part that he takes officially in filling vacant sees and making other important nominations.
The Master of the Holy Apostolic Palace—Magister Sacri Palatii Apostolici—is one of the most distinguished members for piety and doctrine of the Dominican Order. He is the Pope’s official theologian, and usually a consultor of several Roman congregations, more nearly concerned with matters of faith and morals, as the Inquisition, Indulgences and Relics, Index, etc. He ranks fourth among the palatine prelates, and resided until the late invasion in the Quirinal Palace with his “companion” and two lay brothers of his order. He is considered an honorary auditor of the Rota, and as such has a place with the prelates of this class in the papal chapels and reunions. He retains the habit of his order, but wears on his hat a black prelatical band. He isex-officiopresident of the Theological Faculty in the Roman University, and the person to whom was entrusted the censorship of the press. The origin of this office dates from the year 1218, when S. Dominic, who established the Order of Friars Preachers, suggested to Honorius III. that it would be proper if some one were charged to give religious instruction to the many servants of cardinals, prelates, and others, who used to spend their time idly in useless talk and slanderous gossip with their brethren of the papal palace while their masters were expecting an audience or engaged with his Holiness.[150]The Pope was pleased, and at once appointed Dominic to the good work, who began by explaining the Epistles of S. Paul.[151]The fruit of these pious conferences was so apparent that the pope determined to perpetuate them under the direction of a Dominican. Besides the more familiar instructions, which were given at first extempore, it was arranged later that while the popeand court were listening to the preacher appointed to sermonize in the palace during Advent and Lent, the papal domestics and other servants should also have the benefit of formal discourses, but in another part of the building. It was always the fathermaster—i.e., doctor—who held forth to them until the XVIth century, when the duties of his office becoming more onerous, especially by reason of the many attempts to misuse the recently-discovered art of printing to corrupt faith and morals in Rome itself, the obligation devolved upon his companion—Pro-MagisterorSocius—who also holds three days of catechism in preparation for each of the four general communions that are given yearly in the palace. This deputy is appointed by the master, and is a person of consequence, succeeding sometimes to the higher office. The present master is Vincenzo Maria Gatti. When the learned Alexander V. became pope (1409), the Master of the Palace was required to stand by at his meals, especially on Sundays and festival days, and be ready to propose difficult points of debate, or to enter into an argument on any matter and with any person present as the Holy Father should command.[152]There have been seventy-nine occupants of this office since its institution (not to count several anti-masters created by anti-popes), of whom seventeen have been made cardinals, and among them the celebrated church historian Orsi. The great writer on Christian antiquities, Mamachi, held this office with distinction. It is one, of course, in which “brains” rather than “blood” find a place; and since there is no royal road to learning—for as an old monkish couplet says:
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo,Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo,Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo,Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo,
Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”
—we are not surprised that the series of Masters of the Apostolic Palace exhibits no such names as those that predominate among the chamberlains and majordomos—“Not many noble” (1 Cor. i. 26).
In the mother-church of the Dominican Order at Rome,Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is also the title of the first American cardinal,[153]there is a special vault beneath the chapel of S. Dominic for the entombment of the masters; but the brutal invaders who now hold possession of Rome having forbidden all intra-mural burials—evidently through malice, because, from the dry nature of the soil and the perfection of Roman masonry, there could not be the slightest danger from a moderate number of interments within the city—they will have to sleep after death in some less appropriate spot: “How long shall sinners, O Lord, how long shall sinners glory?… Thy people, O Lord, they have brought low: and they have afflicted thy inheritance” (Ps. xciii.)
The word “motion” is now commonly used for movement, but it properly means the action by which a thing is set into movement. This action, or motion, of course proceeds from an agent, and consists in the production of an act, or momentum, which must be terminated or received in a patient. The active power of the agent is its substantial act as virtually containing in itself all the acts which the agent is ready to produce, according to its nature. This active power may therefore be called the virtuality, or terminability, of the act by which the agent is. The momentum produced by such a power stands to the power in the same ontological relation as thenowof time to the virtuality of God’s eternity, and as the ubication of a point in space to the virtuality of God’s immensity; for in all these cases there is question of nothing else than of an extrinsic terminability and an extrinsic term. We may, therefore, in treating of motive powers and momentums, follow the same order of questions which we have followed in our articles on space and duration.
But the subject which we are about to investigate has a special feature of its own; because in the exertion of active power, and consequently in the momentums produced, there is something—intensity—which is not to be met with either in thewhenor in thewhere. For thewhenand thewhereare mere terms of intervals or distances, and do not partake in their continuity; from which it follows that they are not quantities, but merely terms of quantities, whereas the momentum of motion is the formal principle of the real changes produced by the agent in the patient. And these changes admit of different degrees, and thus by their greater or less magnitude reveal the greater or less intensity of the exertion. The reason of this difference is very plain; for thewhenand thewhereare not efficiently produced by God’s eternity and immensity, for these divine attributes do not connote action. Their origin is not to be traced to action, but to resultation, as we have explained in our preceding articles. The entity of every creature, on the contrary, proceeds from God as efficient cause—that is, it does not merely result from the existence of other things, but it is actively produced; and, since an act produced must have some degree of perfection, creatures are more or less perfect as to their entity, and therefore have in their own act a greater or less power of acting, according to the degree of their entitative perfection. This explains why it is that there is intensity in all action and in all act produced, whereas there is no intensity in thewhenand thewhere.
But, apart from this special feature, the questions regarding active powers, actions, and the acts produced are entirely similar to those which we have answered in treating of space and of duration. Nay, more, the same questions may beviewed under three distinct aspects—viz., first, with reference to the divine power and its causality of contingent things; secondly, with reference to second causes, their actions, and the momentums produced by them; and, thirdly, with reference to these momentums themselves and the local movements resulting from them. This third view of the subject is the only one immediately connected with the notions of space and of time, and we might limit ourselves to its consideration. Nevertheless, to shed more light on the whole treatise, we propose to say something of the other two also; for, by tracing the actions and the phenomena of the material world to their original sources, we shall discover that all different grades of reality are linked with their immediate principles in such a manner as to exhibit a perpetual analogy of the lower with the higher, till we reach the highest—God.
To ascertain the truth of this proposition, let us recall to mind the main conclusions established by us with respect to space. They were as follows:
1st. There is void space—that is, a capacity which does not imply the presence of anything created.
2d. Void space is an objective reality.
3d. Void space was not created.
4th. Absolute space is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s immensity.
5th. Absolute space is not modified by the presence of matter in it—that is, by its extrinsic termination.
6th. Ubications are extrinsic terms of absolute space, and their relations have in space itself an extrinsic foundation.
A similar series of conclusions was established in regard to duration. They were:
1st. There is a standing duration—that is, an actuality which does not imply succession.
2d. Standing duration is an objective reality.
3d. Standing duration is not created.
4th. Standing duration is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s eternity.
5th. Standing duration is not modified by the existence in it of created things—that is, by its extrinsic termination.
6th. Thewhensof creatures are extrinsic terms of standing duration, and their relations have in standing duration their extrinsic foundation.
Before we give the analogous conclusions concerning active powers and their causality, we have to premise that all power ready to act is said to bein actu primo, or in the “first act,” with respect to its termination and term, or act, which it is ready to produce. Its action is its termination, and it consists in the causation of asecond act. This second act, inasmuch as it exists in its proper term, potency, or subject, is calledactio in facto esse—that is, an action wholly complete, though the action proper is alwaysin fieri; for it consists in the very production of such a second act, as we have just stated. The result of this production is the existence of a new reality, substantial or accidental, according to the nature of the act produced. This well-known terminology we shall use here for the parallel development of the three classes of questions which we have to answer.
Origin of Power.—First, then, with regard to the primary originof active and moving powers, we lay down the following conclusions:
1st. There is some absolute power—that is, a first act which has no need of producing any second act.
2d. Absolute power is an objective reality.
3d. Absolute power is uncreated.
4th. Absolute power is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of the act by which God is.
5th. Absolute power is not modified by the production of effects—that is, by its extrinsic termination.
6th. The beings thus produced are extrinsic terms of God’s power; and although, owing to their intrinsic perfection, which may be greater or less, they can be related to one another by an intrinsic foundation, yet their “entitative distances” have only an extrinsic foundation—to wit, God’s omnipotence.
Some of these propositions are so obvious that they might have been omitted but for the object we have in view of pointing out the parallelism of absolute power with space and duration.
The first of these conclusions is proved thus: All first act which naturally needs to produce some second act has an intrinsic and natural ordination to something distinct from itself; for all effect is really distinct from its efficient principle. But it cannot be admitted without absurdity that every first act has such an intrinsic and natural ordination; for, if everything were thus ordained to something else, all things would tend to some subordinate end, while there would be no supreme end at all; for nothing that is ordained to something else can rank as the supreme end. On the other hand, no subordinate ends can be admitted without a supreme end. And therefore there must be some first act which has no intrinsic necessity of producing any second act. Such a first act is altogether absolute.
The second conclusion is evident. For what we call here “a first act” is not an imperfect and incomplete act, since it needs no termination; nor is it a result of mental abstraction and analysis, but a perfect principle of real operations; for the epithet “first,” by which we characterize it, does not imply that it lacks anything in its entity, but, on the contrary, it means that it already contains eminently the whole reality of the effects which it is competent to produce. Hence it is clear that, if such effects are objective realities, the first act on which their production depends is an objective reality, and a much better one too.
The third conclusion needs no proof, it being evident that whatever is created must tend to the end of its creation, which is the manifestation of the perfections of its creator. This manifestation implies action—viz., a transition of the first act to its second act. Accordingly, a first act which has no necessary ordination to second acts cannot be created.
The fourth conclusion follows from the third, since an uncreated act can be nothing else than the act by which God is. This act, inasmuch as it eminently contains the reality of all possible things, is extrinsically terminable, and as thus terminable it exhibits itself as a “first” act. But, since God has no need of creatures, such a first act has no need of extrinsic terminations, and, as first, it constitutes omnipotence, or God’s absolute power. This power in its infinite simplicity has an infinite range, as it extends to all conceivable reality.
The fifth conclusion will be easily understood by reflecting that the extrinsic termination of active power consists in giving existence to contingent things by efficient action. Now, to act efficiently does not bring about any intrinsic change in the agent; for all intrinsic change follows from passion, which is the opposite of action. Nor does God, when giving existence and active powers to any number of creatures, weaken his own power. For the power imparted to creatures is not a portion of the divine power, but a product of creation, and nothing, in fact, but the created act itself. For, as all contingent things are created for the manifestation of God’s perfections, all creatures must be active; and as everything acts as it is in act, the act being the principle of the acting, it follows that all act produced by creation is an active power of greater or less perfection according to the part it is destined to fill in the plans of its Maker. This shows that the act by which a creature is, bears a resemblance to the act by which God is, inasmuch as it virtually contains in itself all those acts which it is fit to produce according to its nature. But, since all contingent act is extrinsic to God, divine omnipotence is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by creation than by non-creation; though, if God creates any being, from the term produced he will acquire the real denomination of Creator. Thus the existence of a contingent being is the existence of a real term, which extrinsically terminates the virtuality of God’s act, in which it is eminently contained. Its relation to its Creator is one of total dependence; whilst God’s relation to it is that of first causality. The foundation of this relation is the action which proceeds from God and terminates in the creature.
The first part of the sixth conclusion, that beings produced by creation are extrinsic terms of God’s power, has just been explained. But we say, moreover, that the entitative distances between such beings have an extrinsic foundation in God’s omnipotence. By “entitative distance” we mean the difference in degree between distinct beings—v.g., between a man and a tree—as we have explained in another place.[154]And we say that, as the distance between two material points in space has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s immensity, so also the entitative distance of two beings has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s infinite act—that is, in divine omnipotence. In fact, the different degrees of entity conceivable between the tree and the man are all virtually contained in God’s omnipotence, just as all the distinct ubications possible between two points are virtually in God’s immensity. Hence the foundation of such entitative distances is extrinsic to the beings compared in the same manner as the foundation of local distances.
But the terms produced by creative action, inasmuch as they possess a greater or less perfection in their individual constitution, can be compared with one another according to the relative degree of their intrinsic reality; and thus, besides the extrinsic relation just mentioned, they have a mutual relativity arising from an intrinsic foundation. The relative degree of reality of a contingent being becomes known to us through the relative intensity of its active power;which implies that the beings compared have powers of the same species. If they are not of the same species, the comparison will give no result.
Remarks.—Before leaving this part of our subject, we have to notice that, as the ubication, so also the act produced by creation, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. A created act, considered absolutely, is an act intrinsically completed by its essential potency, and constitutes the being as it isin actu secundo. The same act, considered respectively, or as ordained to something else, is a power ready to act, and thus it isin actu primowith regard to all the acts which it is able to produce.
The essential act of a contingent being, be it considered absolutely or respectively, bears no proportion to the perfection of its Creator, no more indeed than a point in space to immensity, or anowof time to eternity. Hence all contingent act or power, whatever be its perfection or intensity, as compared with God, is like nothing. It is only when a created act or power is compared with another of the same kind that we can establish a proportion between them as to degrees of perfection and of intensity. These degrees are measured by comparing the relative intensities of the effects produced by distinct causes of the same kind, acting under the same conditions.
The quantity of efficient power may be conceived as a virtual sum of degrees of power. In this particular the quantity of power differs entirely from the quantity of distance; because this latter cannot be conceived as a virtual sum of ubications. The reason of this difference is that ubications, as being simple points, have no quantity, and therefore cannot by addition make up a continuous quantity; whereas the degrees of power always possess intensity, and are quantities; hence their sum is a quantity of the same kind.
It may be useful to remark that all continuous quantity has a necessary connection with the quantity of power, and that all extension owes its being to the efficacy of some motive principle. In fact, all intervals, whether of space or of time, are reckoned among continuous quantities only on account of the quantity of continuous movement which can be made, or is actually made, in them, as we have explained in a preceding article; but the quantity of movement is itself to be traced to the intensity of the momentum produced by the agent, and the momentum to the intensity of the motive power. As soon as movement is communicated to a point, its ubication begins to shift and to extend a continuous line in space; and itsnow, too, for the same reason begins to flow and to extend continuous time.
When the quantity of power is expressed by a number, its value is determined, as we have stated, by the intensity of its efficiency in a given time and fixed conditions. The unit of intensity by which the amount of the effect produced is measured is arbitrary; for there is no natural unit for the degrees of intensity, it being evident that such degrees can be divided and subdivided without end, just like the continuum. Hence the numbers by which we express degrees of intensity are only virtually discrete, just as those by which we express continuous quantities. The ordinary unit assumed for the measure of intensity is that degree of intensitywhich causes a unit of weight to measure a unit of distance in a unit of time. As all these units are arbitrary, it is evident that such is also the unit of intensity.
Let us remark, also, that the power of natural causes has in its action a twofold continuity—that is, with regard both to space and to duration. As long as a natural cause exists, it acts without interruption, owing to its intrinsic determination, provided there be, as there is always in fact, some subject capable of being acted upon by it. This constitutes the continuity of action with regard to duration. On the other hand, the motive power of such natural causes is exerted, according to the Newtonian law, throughout an indefinite sphere, as we have shown in another place;[155]and this constitutes the continuity of action through space. Moreover, if the point acted upon approaches the agent or recedes from it, the continuous change of distance will be accompanied by a continuous change of action; and thus the intensity of the act produced by the agent will increase or decrease in a continuous manner through infinitesimal degrees corresponding to the infinitesimal changes of local relations occurring in infinitesimal instants of time. This relation of changes is the base of dynamics. But enough on this point.
Origin of movement.—We may now pass to the conclusions concerning movement as dependent on its proximate cause. The power by which the natural causes produce momentums of movement is called “motive power.” This power is to be found both in material and in spiritual beings; but as in spiritual substances the exercise of the motive power is subject to their will, and consists in the application of a nobler power to the production of a lower effect, we do not and cannot consider the power of spiritual beings as merely “motive,” for it is, above all, intellective and volitive. Material things, on the contrary, because they possess no other power than that of moving, are characterized by it, and are naturally determined to exercise it according to a law which they cannot elude. It is of these beings in particular that the following conclusions are to be understood.
1st. There is in all material creatures a motive power—that is, a first act of moving—which, considered in its absolute state, has no need of extrinsic termination, that is, of producing a momentum of movement.
2d. This motive power is an objective reality.
3d. The same power is nothing accidentally superadded to the being of which it is the power.
4th. This power is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of the act by which the agent is.
5th. This power is not modified by the production of momentums in extrinsic terms.
6th. The momentums thus produced are second acts of the motive power, extrinsic to it; and though, owing to their intensity, which may be greater or less, they can be related to one another through an intrinsic foundation, yet their entitative distances have only an extrinsic foundation—to wit, the agent’s power.
Some of these propositions are quite evident; but our present object is not only to explain what may require a special discussion, but also, and principally, to dissectour subject in such a manner as to make it manifest that a perpetual analogy exists between the conditions and the principles of all kinds of continuum, and that in all of them the transition from the absolute to the relative, from the cause to the effect, and from the formal reason to its formal result, is made through a like process and through similar degrees. For this reason we think that even those conclusions which seem too obvious to deserve mention become interesting and serve a good purpose; for in the parallel treatment of analogous subjects, those things which are clearer throw light on those which are more abstruse, and about which we often feel a certain hesitation.
The first of our present conclusions needs only a short explanation. When we say that in every creature there is a motive power which,considered in its absolute state, has no need of producing a momentum, we mean that in every creature there is an act which is a principle of activity, but that the exercise of this activity is not required for the substantial perfection and essential constitution of the creature itself, though it may be required for some other reason, as we shall see presently. In fact, every substance has its own complete being independently of accidents; and since the exertion of motive power is an accident, every substance is entitatively independent of it. We conceive that if God had created nothing but an element of matter, such an element would indeed (on its own part) be ready to act and to produce a momentum of movement; but, as there would be no subject capable of receiving a momentum, the motive power would remainin actu primo—that is, without actual exertion. And yet it is evident that the non-existence of other elements can have no bearing on the intrinsic constitution and substantial perfection of the element in the question. Therefore the power of an element of matter is a first act, which, as far as the entity of the element itself is concerned, has no need of producing any second act.
Nevertheless, since all creatures must in some manner glorify God as long as they exist, because such is the true and highest end of their existence, hence to every created power some proportionate term or subject corresponds, in which its exertion is received without interruption. In the same manner as the understanding never lacks an intelligible object, and the sense never lacks a sensible term, about which to exercise itself by immanent operation, the motive power of inferior beings never fails to meet a proportionate—that is, movable—term and to impress upon it a momentum of a certain intensity. Hence, when we regard, not the substance of natural things as such, but the natural necessity they are under of tending constantly to the ultimate end of their creation, we see that their first act of moving must always entail some second act, or momentum, in all the terms which it can reach according to its natural determination.
The second conclusion is self-evident; for, if the principle of real movement were not an objective reality, a real effect would proceed from an unreal cause—which is absurd. Nor does it matter that the power is only a “first” act. For, as we have explained above, it is first as compared with the acts which it can produce, but it is intrinsically complete in the entityof the agent, as it is terminated to its substantial term.
The third conclusion is nothing but a corollary of the well-known axiom that in all things the principle of operation is the substantial act:Forma est id quo agens agit, andPrincipium essendi est principium operandi. We have proved in another place[156]that no natural accident possesses active power or is actually concerned in any of the effects produced by the agent. This truth should be well understood by the modern scientists who very commonly mistake the conditions of the action for the active principle. Of course no creature can act independently of accidental conditions; but these conditions have no bearing on the active power itself—they only determine (formally and not efficiently) the mode of its application according to a constant law. Thus the distance of two material points has noactiveinfluence on their motive power or on their mutual action, but only constitutes the two points in a certain relation to one another; and when such a relation is altered, the action is changed, not because the power is modified, but because its determination to act—that is, its very nature—demands that it should in its application follow the Newtonian law of the inverse ratio of the squared distances.
The philosophers of the old school admitted, but never proved, that, although the substantial form is the main principle of activity in natural things, nevertheless this principle was in need of some accidental entity, that it might be proximately disposed to produce its act. This opinion, too, originated in the confusion of active power with the conditions on which the mode of its exertion depends. What they called “active qualities” is now acknowledged to be, not a new kind of active power superadded to the substantial forms, but merely a result of the concurrence of many simple powers acting under determinate conditions. The accidental change of the conditions entails the change of the result and action, but the active powers evidently remain the same. The ancients said also that the substantial forms were the active principles of substantial generations, whereas the “active qualities” were the active principles of mere alterations. As we have shown that the whole theory of substantial generations, as understood by the peripatetic school, is based on assumption and equivocation, and leads to impossibilities,[157]we may be dispensed from giving a new refutation of the opinion last mentioned.
Our fourth conclusion directly follows from the general principle that the act by which a thing has its first being is its principle of action:Quo aliquid primo est, eo agit. The substantial act, considered as to its absolute entity, does not connote action, but simply constitutes the being of which it is the act. In order to conceive it as an active power, we must refer to the effects which it virtually contains—that is, we must consider its virtuality. In this manner what is a second act with regard to the substance of the agent, will be conceived as a first act with reference to the effects it can produce, according to a received axiom:Actus secundus essendi est actus primus operandi.
The fifth conclusion, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of many philosophers, is quite certain. For all intrinsic modification is the result of passive reception or passion. Now, to produce a momentum of movement is action, not passion. Therefore, when such a momentum is produced, no other subject is intrinsically modified by it except the one which passively receives it. It is therefore the being which is acted on, not that which acts, that acquires an intrinsic modification. The power of the agent is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by action than by non-action. Its action is an extrinsic termination, and gives it nothing but the real denomination of agent, by which it is really related to the term acted on. The patient, by its reception of the momentum, becomes similarly related to the agent, as is evident. And the relation consists in this: that the patient acquires formally an act which the agent virtually contains. This relation is of accidental causality on the one side and of accidental dependence on the other. The foundation of the relation is the accidental action as coming from the one and terminating in the other.
As everything that is in movement must have received the motion from a distinct agent, according to the principleOmne quod movetur, ab alio movetur, it follows that whatever is in movement is accidentally dependent on an extrinsic mover; and, since all material elements are both movers and moved, they all have a mutual accidental causality and dependence.
Our sixth conclusion is sufficiently clear from what has been said concerning the sixth conclusion of the preceding series. The momentum of movement is evidently the second act of the motive power—that is, the extrinsic term of its exertion. The entitative distance between two momentums produced by the same mover is an extrinsic relation; for its foundation is the virtuality of the act by which the agent is, as has been explained above. But the same momentums, as possessing greater or less intensity, can also be compared with one another according to their intrinsic entity or degree; and thus they will be found to have a mutual relation arising from an intrinsic foundation.
Remarks.—As the ubication, so also the momentum produced by accidental action, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. The momentum, considered absolutely, is an act received in a subject—an absolute momentum, an extrinsic term of the virtuality of the motive principle; and, as such a momentum is only one out of the innumerable acts which can proceed from the agent, it has an entity infinitely less than that of the agent. It is evident, in fact, that between a substantial and an accidental act there must be an infinite entitative disproportion, both because no substance can be substantially changed by its accidents, and because the substantial act can never be exhausted, and not even weakened, by the production of accidental acts, as we have established in another place.[158]The momentum is considered respectively when it is compared with another momentum, in which case we can find the relation of the one to the other as to intensity. This intensity is measured by the quantity of the movement to whichthey give rise when not counteracted.
The unit of intensity is arbitrary in the momentums, as in their principles, for the same reason—that is, because in neither case a natural unit of intensity can be found. The number expressing the relative intensity of a momentum is only virtually discrete, because the momentum is only virtually compounded, since it is not a number of distinct acts, but one act equivalent to many.
Movement and its affections.—The production of a momentum entails movement. The general definition of movement, according to Aristotle and S. Thomas, isActus existentis in potentia ut in potentia, or, as we would say, an actual passage from one potential state to another. Now, all created being is potential in two manners: first, on account of its passive receptivity; secondly, on account of its affectibility, which is a consequence of its passivity, as we have explained in the “Principles of Real Being.”[159]Hence the momentum of movement, inasmuch as it is received in the patient, actuates its passive potency; and inasmuch as its reception entails a certain mode of being, it affects its resultant potentiality. But besides this double potentiality, which is intrinsic to the subject, there is another potentiality which refers to an extrinsic term, and for this reason movement is considered both as it is a modification of its subject,ratione subjecti, and as it points at an extrinsic term,ratione termini.
With regard to its subject, movement is usually divided intoimmanentandtransient. It is called immanent when it results from immanent acts, as when the soul directs its attention to such or such an object of thought; and it is called transient when it brings about a change in a subject distinct from the agent, as when a man moves a stone, or when the sun moves the earth. But this is inaccurate language; for what is transient in these cases is theaction, not themovement.
With regard to its term, movement is divided into two kinds—that is, movement to a place,motus ad ubi, and movement towards a certain degree of perfection or intensity of power,motus virtutis.[160]The first is calledlocalmovement, of which we will speak presently. The second is subdivided intointension,remission, andalteration. Intension and remission are the acquisition or loss of some degree of perfection or of intensity with regard to power and qualities; alteration is the passage from one kind of quality or property to another. Thus, in water, heat is subject to intension and remission; but when the cohesive force of the molecules is superseded by the expansive force of vapor, there is alteration.
It is important to notice that there is nomotus virtutisin primitive elements of matter. The exertion of their power varies indeed according to the Newtonian law, but the power itself is always exactly the same, as its principle is the substantial act, which cannot be modified by accidental action. It is only in material compounds that themotus virtutiscan be admitted,for the reason that the active powers and qualities in them are a result of composition; hence a change in the mode of the composition brings about a change in the resultant. So also in spiritual substances there is nomotus virtutis, because their active faculties are always substantially the same. True it is that the intellect has also its passivity with regard to intelligible species, and that it acts by so much the more easily and perfectly in proportion as it is better furnished with intelligible species distinctly expressed and arranged according to their logical and objective connection. But this cannot mean that the active power of the intellect can be increased, but only that it can be placed in more suitable conditions for its operations. And the like is to be said of all acquired habits; for they give a greater facility of acting, not by intensifying the intrinsic power, but by placing the active faculty in such conditions as are more favorable for its operation.
But let us revert to local movement. This movement may be defined asthe act of gliding through successive ubications. Such a gliding alters the relations of one body to another, as is evident, but it involves no new intrinsic modification of the subject. As long as the subject continues to move under the same momentum, its intrinsic mode of being remains uniformly the same, while its extrinsic relations to other bodies are in continual change. Hence the local movement of any point of matter merely consists in the act of extending from ubication to ubication, or, as we may say, inthe evolution of the intensity of the momentum into continuous extension. The reason of this evolution is that the momentum impressed on a subject has not only a definite intensity, but also a definite direction in space; whence it follows that the subject which receives the momentum receives a determination to describe a line in a definite direction, which it must follow, owing to its inertia, with an impetus equal to the intensity of the momentum itself. And in this manner a material point, by the successive flowing of its ubication, describes a line in space, or evolves the intensity of its momentum into extension.
Hence, of local movement we can predicate bothintensityandextension. The intensity is the formal principle, which, by actuating the inertia or mobility of the subject, evolves itself into extension. The extension is the actual evolution of the momentum, and constitutes the essence of local movement, which is alwaysin fieri. And this is what is especially pointed out in Aristotle’s words:Motus est actus existentis in potentia, ut in potentia. Theactusrefers to the intensity, which is notin fieri, but has a definite actuality; whilst thein potentia ut in potentiaclearly refers to the evolution of extension, which is continuallyin fieriunder the influx of said act. Accordingly, local movement is both intensive and extensive. But this last epithet is to be looked upon as equivalent to “extending,” not to “extended”; for it is the line drawn, or the track of the movement already made, that is properly “extended,” whereas the movement itself is the act of extending it.
The formal intensity of local movement is calledvelocity. We say theformalintensity, because movement has also amaterialintensity. The formal intensity regards the rate of movement of eachelement of matter taken by itself, and it is greater or less according as it evolves a greater or a less extension in equal times. The material intensity regards the quantity of matter which is moving with a given velocity, and is measured by the product of the velocity into the mass of the moving body. This product is called the momentum of the body, or its quantity of movement.
Local movement is subject to three affections—viz.,intension,remission, andinflexion. In fact, since local movement consists in extending with a certain velocity in a certain direction, it is susceptible of being modified either by a change of velocity, which will intensify or weaken it, or by a change of direction—that is, by inflexion. So long, however, as no agent disturbs the actual movement already imparted to a body, the movement must necessarily continue in the same direction and with the same velocity; for matter, owing to its inertia, cannot modify its own state. This amounts to saying that the tendency uniformly to preserve its rate and its direction is not an accidental affection, but the very nature, of local movement.
This being premised, we are going to establish a series of conclusions, concerning movement and its affections, parallel to that which we have developed in the preceding pages respecting power and its exertions. The reader will see that the chain of our analogies must here end; for, since movement is not action, it affects nothing new, and produces no extrinsic terms, but only entails changes of local relations. On the other hand, the affections of local movement are not of a transient, but of an immanent, character, and thus they give rise to no new entity, but are themselves identified with the movement of which they are the modes. Our conclusions are the following:
1st. There is in all local movement something permanent—that is, a general determination of a lasting character, which has no need of being individuated in one manner more than in another.
2d. This constant determination is an objective reality.
3d. This same determination is nothing accidentally superadded to local movement.
4th. This determination is the virtuality of the momentum of movement, or the act of evolving extension in a definite direction.
5th. This determination is not intrinsically modified by any accidental modification of local movement.
6th. The affections of local movement are intrinsic and intransitive modes, which identify themselves with the movement which they modify.
The first of these conclusions is briefly proved thus: whatever is a subject of real modifications has something permanent. Local movement is a subject of real modifications. Therefore, local movement involves something permanent.
The second conclusion is self-evident.
The third conclusion, too, is evident. For whatever is accidentally superadded to a thing can be accidentally taken away, and therefore cannot belong to the thing permanently and invariably. Hence the constant and fixed determination in question cannot be an accident of local movement.
The fourth conclusion is a corollary of the third. For nothing is necessarily permanent in local movement, except that which constitutes its essence. Now, its essencelies in this: that it must evolve extension at the rate and in the direction determined by the momentum of which it is the exponent. Therefore the permanent determination of which we are speaking is nothing else than the virtuality of the momentum itself as developing into extension. And since the momentum by which the moving body is animated has a determinate intensity and direction, which virtually contains a determinate velocity and direction of movement, it follows that the permanent determination in question consists in the actual tendency of movement to evolve uniformly and in a straight line—uniformly, because velocity is the form of movement, and the velocity determined by the intensity of the actual momentum is actually one;in a straight line, because the actual momentum being one, it gives but one direction to the movement, which therefore will be straight in its tendency. Whence we conclude that it is of the essence of local movement to havean actual tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line.
Some will object that local movement may lack both uniformity and straightness. This is quite true, but it does not destroy our conclusion. For, as movement is alwaysin fieri, and exists only by infinitesimal instants in which it is impossible to admit more than one velocity and one direction, it remains always true that within every instant of its existence the movement is straight and uniform, and that in every such instant it tends to continue in the same direction and at the same rate—that is, with the velocity and direction it actually possesses. This velocity and direction may, of course, be modified in the following instant; but in the following instant, too, the movement will tend to evolve uniformly and in a straight line suitably to its new velocity and direction. Whence it is manifest that, although in the continuation of the movement there may be a series of different velocities and directions, yet the tendency of the movement is, at every instant of its existence, to extend uniformly in a straight line. This truth is the foundation of dynamics.
Our fifth conclusion is sufficiently evident from what we have just said. For, whatever be the intensity and direction of the movement, its determination to extend uniformly in a straight line is not interfered with.
Our last conclusion has no need of explanation. For, since the affections of local movement are the result of new momentums impressed on the subject it is plain that they are intrinsic modes characterizing a movement individually different from the movement that preceded. The tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line remains unimpaired, as we have shown; but the movement itself becomes entitatively—viz., quantitatively—different.
Remarks.—Local movement is divided intouniformandvaried. Uniform movement we call that which has a constant velocity. For, as velocity is the form of movement, to say that a movement is uniform is to say that it has but one velocity in the whole of its extension. We usually call “uniform” all movement whose apparent velocity is constant; but, to say the truth, no rigorously uniform movement exists in nature for any appreciable length of time. In fact, every element of matter lies within the sphere of action ofall other elements, and is continually acted on, and continually receives new momentums; the evident consequence of which is that its real movement must undergo a continuous change of velocity. Hence rigorously uniform movement is limited to infinitesimal time.
Varied movement is that whose rate is continually changing. It is divided intoacceleratedandretarded; and, when the acceleration or the retardation arises from a constant action which in equal times imparts equal momentums, the movement is said to beuniformlyaccelerated or retarded.
Epilogue.—The explanation we have given of space, duration, and movement suffices, if we are not mistaken, to show what is the true nature of the only continuous quantities which can be found in the real order of things. The reader will have seen that the source of all continuity is motive power and its exertion. It is such an exertion that engenders local movement, and causes it to be continuous in its entity, in its local extension, and in its duration. In fact, why is the local movement continuousin its entity? Because the motive action strengthens or weakens it by continuous infinitesimal degrees in each successive infinitesimal instant, thus causing it to pass through all the degrees of intensity designable between its initial and its final velocity. And again: why is the local movement continuousin its local extension? Because it is the property of an action which proceeds from a point in space and is terminated to another point in space, to give a local direction to the subject in which the momentum is received; whence it follows that the subject under the influence of such a momentum must draw a continuous line in space. Finally, why is the local movement continuousin its duration? Because, owing to the continuous change of its ubication, the subject of the movement extends its absolutewhenfrombeforetoafter, in a continuous succession, which is nothing but the duration of the movement.
Hence absolute space and absolute duration, which are altogether independent of motive actions, are notformallycontinuous, but only supply the extrinsic reason of the possibility of formal continuums. It is matter in movement that by the flowing of itsubifromheretothereactually marks out a continuous line in space, and by the flowing of itsquandofrombeforetoaftermarks out a continuous line in duration. Thus it is not absolute space, but the line drawn in space, that isformallyextended fromheretothere; and it is not absolute duration, but the line successively drawn in duration, that isformallyextended frombeforetoafter.
With regard to the difficulties which philosophers have raised at different times against local movement we have very little to say. An ancient philosopher, when called to answer some arguments against the possibility of movement, thought it sufficient to reply:Solvitur ambulando—“I walk; therefore movement is possible.” This answer was excellent; but, while showing the inanity of the objections, it took no notice of the fallacies by which they were supported. We might follow the same course; for the arguments advanced against movement are by no means formidable. Yet we will mention and solve three of them before dismissing the subject.
First.If a body moves, it moves where it is, not where it is not. But it cannot move where it is; for to move implies not to remain where it is, and therefore bodies cannot move. The answer is, that bodies neither move where they are nor where they are not, butfromthe place where they aretothe place where they are not.
Second.A material element cannot describe a line in space between two points without gliding through all the intermediate ubications. But the intermediate ubications are infinite, as infinite points can be designated in any line; and the infinite cannot be passed over. The answer is that an infinite multitude cannot be measured by one of its units; and for this reason the infinite multitude of ubications which may be designated between the terms of a line cannot be measured by a unit of the same kind. Nevertheless, a line can be measured by movement—that is, not by the ubication itself, butby the flowingof an ubication; because the flowing of the ubication is continuous, and involves continuous quantity; and therefore it is to be considered as containing in itself its own measure, which is a measure of length, and which may serve to measure the whole line of movement. If the length of a line were an infinite sum of ubications—that is, of mathematical points—the objection would have some weight; but the length of the line is evidently not a sum of points. The line is a continuous quantity evolved by the flowing of a point. It can therefore be measured by the flowing of a point. For as the line described can be divided and subdivided without end, so also the time employed in describing it can be divided and subdivided without end. Hence the length of a line described in a finite length of time can be conceived as an infinite virtual multitude of infinitesimal lengths, just in the same manner as the time employed in describing it can be conceived as an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants. Now, the infinite can measure the infinite; and therefore it is manifest that an infinite multitude of infinitesimal lengths can be measured by the flowing of a point through an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants.[161]
Third.The communication of movement, as we know by experience, requires time; and yet time arises from movement, and cannot begin before the movement is communicated. How, then, will movement be communicated? The answer is that time and movement begin together, and evolve simultaneously in the very act of the communication of movement. It is not true, then, that all communication of movement requires time. Our experience regards only the communication offinitemovement, which, of course, cannot be made except the action of the agent continue for a finite time. But movement is always communicated by infinitesimal degrees in infinitesimal instants; and thus the beginning of the motive action coincides with the beginning of the movement, and this coincides with the beginning of its duration.
And here we end. The considerations which we have developed in our articles on space, duration, and movement have, we think, a sufficient importance to be regarded with interest by those who have a philosophical turn of mind. The subjects which we have endeavored so far to investigate are scarcely ever examined as deeply as they deserve by the modern writers of philosophical treatises; but there is no doubt that a clearer knowledge of those subjects must enable us to extricate ourselves from many difficulties to be met in other parts of metaphysics. It is principally in order to solve the sophisms of the idealists and of the transcendental pantheists that we need an exact, intellectual notion of space and of time. We see how Kant, the father of German idealism and pantheism, was led into numerous errors by his misconception of these two points, and how his followers, owing to a like hallucination, succeeded in obscuring the light of their noble intellects, and were prompted to deny and revile the most certain and fundamental principles of human reasoning. In fact, a mistaken notion of space lies at the bottom of nearly all their philosophical blunders. If we desire to refute their false theories by direct and categorical arguments, we must know how far we can trust the popular language on space, and how we can correct its inaccuracies so as to give precision to our own phraseology, lest by conceding or denying more than truth demands we furnish them with the means of retorting against our argumentation. This is the main reason that induced us to treat of space, duration, and movement in a special series of articles, as we entertained the hope that we might thus help in cutting the ground from under the feet of the pantheist by uprooting the very germ of his manifold errors.