ARTICLE III

In the Third Article We Ask: IS MEMORY DISTINGUISHED FROM UNDERSTANDING AS ONE POWER FROM ANOTHER?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is not, for

1. Different acts belong to different powers. But the possible intellect and memory, as part of the mind, are said to have the same act, to preserve the species. For Augustine assigns this function to memory and the Philosopher assigns it to the possible intellect. Therefore, memory is not distinguished from understanding as one power from another.

2. To receive something without paying attention to any difference of time belongs properly to understanding, which abstracts from the here and now. But memory pays no attention to difference of time, for, according to Augustine, memory deals indifferently with things present, past, and future. Therefore, memory is not distinguished from understanding.

3. According to Augustine, intelligence can be taken in two ways. According to the first, we are said to understand that which we actually think. According to the second, we are said to understand that which we do not actually consider. But intelligence, in the meaning of understanding only that which we actually think, is understanding in act. This is not a power, but the activity of a power; hence, it is not distinguished from memory as a power from a power. But, in so far as we understand those things which we do not actually consider, understanding is not in any way distinguished from memory, but belongs to it. This is clear from Augustine: "If we look to the inner memory of the mind by which it remembers itself, to the inner understanding by which it understands itself, and to the inner will by which it loves itself, where these three are always together, whether they are thought about or not, we will see that the image of the Trinity belongs only to the memory." Therefore, understanding is in no way distinguished from memory as a power from a power.

4. Someone may say that intelligence is a power through which the soul is able actually to think, and so, also, that the intelligence through which we are said to understand only when we are thinking is distinguished from memory as one power from another.--On the contrary, it belongs to the same power to have a habit and to use that habit. But to understand when not thinking is to understand habitually, whereas to understand when thinking is to use the habit. Therefore, to understand when not thinking and to understand when thinking belong to the same power. And so, for this reason, understanding does not differ from memory as one power from another.

5. In the intellective part of the soul there are only the cognoscitive and motive, or affective, powers. But the will is the affective or motive; understanding, the cognoscitive. Therefore, memory is not a different power from understanding.

To the Contrary:

1'. Augustine says that "the soul partakes of the image of God in this, that it can use reason and understanding to know and see God." But the soul can see through its powers. Therefore, the image in the soul is considered according to its powers. But the image in the soul is considered according to the presence of memory, understanding, and will in the soul. Therefore, these three are three distinct powers.

2'. If these are not three powers, there must be one of them which is act or activity. But act is not always in the soul, for one does not always actually understand or will. Therefore, these three will not always be in the soul, and consequently the soul will not always be in the image of God, contrary to Augustine.

3'. There is a certain equality among these three which portrays the equality of the divine Persons. But there is no equality among act, habit, and power, because power embraces more than habit and habit more than act. For many habits belong to one power, and many acts can come from one habit. Therefore, one of these cannot be habit and another act.

REPLY:

We must say that the image of the Trinity in the soul can be predicated in two ways: one in which there is perfect imitation of the Trinity, the other in which the imitation is imperfect.

For the mind perfectly imitates the Trinity in this, that it actually remembers, actually understands, and actually wills. This is so because in the uncreated Trinity the middle Person is the Word. Now, there can be a word only with actual cognition. Hence, it is according to this kind of perfect imitation that Augustine puts the image in memory, understanding, and will. In it, memory refers to habitual knowledge, understanding to actual cognition which proceeds from the habitual knowledge of memory, and will to the actual movement of the will which proceeds from thought. This appears expressly from what he says in The Trinity: "Since the word cannot be there," in the mind, "without thought; for everything which we speak we think with that internal word which belongs to the language of no people, the image is found especially in those three: memory, intelligence, and will. Intelligence I now call that by which we understand when thinking; I call that will which joins this offspring [thought] with its parent [intelligence].

We have the image in which there is imperfect imitation when we designate it according to habits and powers. It is thus that Augustine bases the image of the Trinity in the soul upon mind, knowledge, and love. Here, mind means the power; knowledge and love, the habits existing in it. In place of knowledge he could have said habitual intelligence, for both can be taken in the sense of habit. This is clear from The Trinity, where he says: "Can we correctly say that the musician knows music, but he does not now understand it because he is not now thinking about it, or that he now understands geometry because he is now thinking about it? This opinion is obviously absurd." So, in this sense, knowledge and love, taken as habitual, belong only to memory, as is clear from the authoritative citation from Augustine in the objections.

But, since acts have radical existence in powers, as effects in their causes, even perfect imitation according to memory, understanding in act, and will in act can in the first instance be found in the powers through which the soul can remember, actually understand and will, as the citation from Augustine shows. Thus, the image will be based upon the powers, though not in the sense that in the mind memory could be some power besides the understanding. This is clear from what follows.

Diversity of objects is the source of differentiation of powers only when the diversity comes from those things which of themselves belong to the objects, in so far as they are objects of such powers. Thus, hot and cold in something colored do not, as such, differentiate the power of sight. For the same power of sight can see what is colored, whether hot or cold, sweet or bitter. Now, although mind or understanding can in a certain way know what is past, still, since it relates indifferently to knowledge of present, past, and future, the difference of past and present is accidental to what is intelligible, in so far as it is intelligible. For this reason, although memory can be in the mind in a certain way, it cannot be there as a power distinct of itself from other powers in the way in which philosophers speak of the distinction of powers. In this way, memory can be found only in the sensitive part, which is referred to the present as present. For this reason, a higher power than that of sense is needed if it is to relate to the past.

Nevertheless, although memory is not a power distinct from intelligence, taken as a power, the Trinity is still in the soul if we consider those powers in so far as the one power of understanding has an orientation to different things, namely, habitually to keep the knowledge of something, and actually to consider it. It is in this way that Augustine distinguishes lower from higher reason, according to an orientation to different things.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Although memory as belonging to the mind is not a power distinct from the possible intellect, there is a distinction between memory and possible intellect according to orientation to different things, as we have said.*

2. The same answer can be given to the four following difficulties.

Answers to Contrary Difficulties:

1'. In the passage cited, Augustine is not talking about the image which is in the soul according to perfect imitation. This is present when the soul actually imitates the Trinity by understanding It.

2'. In the soul there is always an image of the Trinity in some way, but not always according to perfect imitation.

3'. Between power, act, and habit there can be equality inasmuch as they are referred to one object. Thus, the image of the Trinity is in the soul inasmuch as it is directed to God. Still, even in the ordinary way of speaking about power, habit, and act, there is an equality among them. However, this equality does not follow the distinctive character of the nature, because activity, habit, and power have the act of existence in different ways. But it does follow the relation to act according to which we consider the quantity of these three. It is not necessary to consider only one act numerically, or one habit, but habit and act in general.