ARTICLE VIII

In the Eighth Article We Ask: IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE WOULD CHILDREN HAVE HAD THE FULL USE OF REASON IMMEDIATELY AT BIRTH?

Difficulties:

It seems that they would, for

1. If they were restricted in its use, this would have resulted only from some bodily defect. But in that state there was nothing in which the body resisted the soul. Therefore, the use of reason could not be restricted.

2. A virtue or power which does not use an organ is not restricted in its activity because of a defect of an organ. But the understanding is a power which does not use an organ, as is said in The Soul. Therefore, the act of the understanding could not then be impeded because of the defect of a bodily organ.

3. If it be said that the act of understanding was restricted because of a defect of body in so far as the understanding received something from the senses, the answer is that the understanding is higher than any sense power. But it seems to be out of order for the higher to receive from the lower. Therefore, since there was nothing out of order in man's nature in that state, it seems that it would not have been necessary for the understanding to receive from the senses.

4. The understanding needs the senses to acquire knowledge through them. But, once it has acquired knowledge, it does not need them, just as a man does not need a horse once he has finished his journey, as Avicenna says. But, according to one opinion, children in the state of innocence had the fullness of all knowledge. Therefore, they could not be kept from using the knowledge they had because of imperfection in the sense organs.

5. Defect of bodily organs hinders sense more than understanding. But children do not suffer so great a bodily defect that they cannot see and hear. Therefore, neither is their understanding hindered because of bodily defect, but seemingly because of the punishment for the first sin. But this would not have existed before the fall. Therefore, children at that time would have had the full use of understanding as soon as they were born.

6. Man's relation to the knowledge which he has naturally is the same as that which brute animals have to natural [instinctive] judgment. But brute animals can make use of this natural judgment immediately at birth. Therefore, in the state of innocence children were able to make use of natural knowledge, at least of first principles, immediately at birth.

7. Wisdom (9:15) says: "For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul. . . ." But in the state of innocence the body was not corruptible. Therefore, the soul was not weighed down by it, and so kept from having free use of reason.

To the Contrary:

1'. Every activity which is common to soul and body is hindered because of a defect of the body. But understanding is an activity common to soul and body, as is clear from The Soul. Therefore, the use of reason could be hindered by a bodily defect or imperfection which the children suffered.

2'. According to the Philosopher: "The soul in no way understands without a phantasm." But the use of the imagination can be hindered by a defect of a bodily organ. Therefore, so can the use of understanding. We conclude as before.

REPLY:

There are two opinions on this question. For some say that children in the state of innocence would have had the full use of all their bodily members and that the clumsiness which we now see in children, that they are not able to use their feet to walk, their hands to carve, and so on, comes entirely from the first sin.

Others, thinking that this type of clumsiness has its cause in natural principles, as moistness, which must abound in children, say that in the state of innocence the members of children would not have been altogether suitable for their acts, although they would not be so completely deficient as they now are, since now what is due to corruption has been added to that which is due to nature. And this opinion seems more probable.

Hence, since it is necessary that moistness, especially in the brain, abound in children, and it is the brain in which imagination, natural judgment, memory, and common sense have their organs, the acts of these powers must be particularly hindered, and, consequently, understanding, which receives something immediately from these powers, and turns to them whenever it is in act, must be hindered, too. Nevertheless, the use of understanding was not fettered in children to the extent that it is now. However, if the other opinion were true, the use of understanding in children at that time would not have been fettered in any way.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. The soul can be restricted by the body in two ways. One is by way of opposition, as happens when the body resists the soul and obscures it. This, however, would not have happened in the state of innocence. The other is by way of incapacity and defect, namely, in so far as the body is unable to execute all that the soul would be capable of considered in itself. And there was nothing to keep the soul from being restricted by the body in this way in the state of innocence. For it is thus evident that by reason of the body the soul is hindered from passing through things thrust in its path and from changing its location with as much ease as it does when separated from the body. In this way, also, it is kept from being able to have perfect use of its powers. Still, there would have been no pain in this, since the soul, by reason of its orderly disposition, would have given only those commands which the body could carry out.

2. Although the understanding does not use an organ, nevertheless, it receives something from faculties which use an organ. Therefore, its act can be restricted because of an impediment or defect of the bodily organs.

3. The intelligible species has that which is formal in it, through which it is actually intelligible, from the agent intellect, which is a higher power than the possible intellect, although that which is material in it is abstracted from phantasms. Therefore, more properly, the possible intellect receives from what is higher than from what is lower, since that which is from the lower can be received by the possible intellect only in so far as it receives the form of intelligibility from the agent intellect.

Or we should say that the lower powers are higher in some respect, especially in the ability to act and to cause. This is due to their greater proximity to external things, which are the cause and measure of our knowledge. It is for this reason that the sense serves imagination, not of itself, but in so far as it is informed by the species of a sensible thing, and so for the rest.

4. According to the Philosopher, the intellective soul is related to phantasms as to its objects. Consequently, our understanding needs conversion to phantasms not only in acquiring knowledge but also in using knowledge once it is acquired. This is evident from the fact that, as long as the soul is in the body, a man cannot use even previously acquired knowledge if the organ of the power of imagination is injured, as happens in the insane. What Avicenna says should be taken of the soul separated from the body, which has a different mode of understanding.

5. The organ of the power of imagination, of memory, and of the cogitative sense is in the brain itself, which is the place of greatest moistness in the human body. Therefore, because of the large measure of moistness which is in children, the acts of these powers are hindered more than the acts of the external senses. But understanding receives immediately from the interior and not the exterior senses.

6. Some other animals naturally have a dry disposition; hence, at their birth there is not so great a profusion of moistness which greatly impedes the acts of the interior senses. But man naturally has a moderate disposition, and therefore he must have a high degree of warmth and moistness. So, at the beginning of his existence there has to be proportionately more moistness in him. For all animal and plant generations begin from moistness.

7. The body which corrupts weighs down the soul not only because it is powerless but also because it resists and obscures the soul. However, the human body in the state of innocence hindered the acts of the soul only because of the imperfection of a power or disposition.