ARTICLE I

The Question Is about Sensuality, and in the First Article We Ask: Is SENSUALITY A COGNITIVE OR ONLY AN APPETITIVE POWER?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is a cognitive power, for

1. As the Master says, "anything in our soul that is found to be had in common with beasts belongs to sensuality." But the sense cognitive powers are common to us and the beasts. They therefore belong to sensuality.

2. Augustine says: "The movement of the sensual soul, which is directed to the senses of the body, is common to us and beasts and quite outside reason as the principle of wisdom." In expatiating upon this he adds: "Corporeal things are sensed by a sense of the body, whereas eternal and unchangeable things are understood by spiritual reason, the principle of wisdom." But to sense corporeal things is the function of a cognitive power. Consequently sensuality, to which the act of sensual movement belongs, is a cognitive power.

3. The answer was given that Augustine adds this in order to point out the objects of the senses, for the movement of sensuality is attributed to the senses of the body inasmuch as it is concerned with the objects of sense.--On the contrary, Augustine adds this to show in what respect sensuality is discriminated from reason. But reason too is concerned with corporeal things, which Augustine says are the objects of the senses--lower reason by disposing them, and higher reason by judging them. And so sensuality is not by this fact discriminated from reason. Augustine therefore did not have the meaning alleged in the answer.

4. In the commission of a sin in progress within us sensuality has the role of the serpent, as Augustine says. Now in the temptation of our first parents the serpent's role was that of suggesting and proposing the sin. But that is the function of the cognitive, not the appetitive power, because the business of the latter is to be drawn to the sin. Sensuality is therefore a cognitive power.

5. Augustine says again: "Sensuality is very close to reason as the principle of science." It would not be very close to it, however, if it were only an appetitive power, since reason as the principle of science is cognitive; for in that case it would belong to a different genus of the powers of the soul. Consequently sensuality is cognitive, and not only appetitive.

6. According to Augustine sensuality is distinguished from both higher reason and lower, in both of which is contained the higher appetite, the will. Otherwise there could not be any mortal sin in them. But the lower appetite is not distinguished from the higher appetite as a different power, as will be proved directly. Therefore sensuality is not the lower appetite. It is, however, some sort of lower power of the soul, as appears from its definition. It is therefore the lower cognitive power.--Proof of the minor: An accidental difference in objects does not indicate a specific difference in powers. Sight, for example, is not divided into different species by the difference between seeing a man and seeing an ass; for man and ass are accidental differences in the object of sight as such. But the object of appetite apprehended by sense and that apprehended by intellect--the difference on which the distinction of higher and lower appetite seems to be based--are accidental to the object of appetite as such, since the appetible as appetible is good, and it is accidental to good to be apprehended by sense or by intellect. The lower appetite is therefore not a power distinct from the higher.

7. The answer was given that the two appetites mentioned are distinguished on the basis of good in an unqualified sense and something good here and now.--On the contrary, appetite is related to good as the intellect to truth. But truth in an unqualified sense and something true here and now, which is contingent, do not distinguish the intellect into two powers. Then neither can the appetite be distinguished into two powers on the basis of good in an unqualified sense and something good here and now.

8. Something good here and now is an apparent good, it seems, whereas good in an unqualified sense is the true good. But the higher appetite sometimes consents to an apparent good, and the lower appetite sometimes tends to a true good, such as the necessities of the body. Consequently good here and now and good in an unqualified sense do not distinguish a higher and a lower appetite. Thus the conclusion is the same as before.

9. The sensitive power is set over against the appetitive, as is clear from the Philosopher's distinction of five genera of activities in the soul: to nourish, to sense, to tend appetitively, to be moved locally, and to understand. But sensuality is included in the sensitive power, as even the name shows. Sensuality is therefore not an appetitive but a cognitive power.

10. What is defined corresponds to the same thing as the definition. But the definition of sensuality which the Master gives corresponds to lower reason, which also is sometimes directed to the senses of the body and the body's concerns. Lower reason and sensuality are therefore the same thing. But reason is a cognitive power; then so too is sensuality.

To the Contrary:

1'. In its definition sensuality is said to be an appetite for things which pertain to the body.

2'. Sin consists in tending by appetite, not in knowing. But in sensuality there is some very slight sin, as Augustine says. Therefore sensuality is an appetitive power.

REPLY:

Sensuality seems to be nothing but the appetitive power of the sensitive part of the soul, and it is called sensuality as being something derived from sense. The movement of the appetitive part arises somehow from apprehension, because every operation of a passive principle takes its origin from an active principle. Now appetite is a passive power, because it is moved by the object of appetite, which is an "unmoved mover," as is said in The Soul. But the object of appetite does not move the appetite unless it is apprehended. Inasmuch as the lower appetitive power is moved by the appetible object apprehended by sense, its movement is called sensual, and the power itself is called sensuality.

Now this sense appetite stands midway between natural appetite and the higher, rational appetite, which is called the will. This can be seen from the fact that in any object of appetite there are two aspects which can be considered: the thing itself which is desired, and the reason for its desirability, such as pleasure, utility, or something of the sort.

Natural appetite tends to the appetible thing itself without any apprehension of the reason for its appetibility; for natural appetite is nothing but an inclination and ordination of the thing to something else which is in keeping with it, like the ordination of a stone to a place below. But because a natural thing is determined in its natural existence, its inclination to some determined thing is a single one. Hence there is not required any apprehension by which an appetible thing is distinguished from one that is not appetible on the basis of the reason for its appetibility. But this apprehension is a prerequisite in the one who established the nature, who gave to each nature its own inclination to a thing in keeping with itself.

The higher appetite, the will, however, tends directly to the very reason for appetibility itself in an absolute way. Thus the will tends primarily and principally to goodness itself, or utility, or something like that. It tends to this or that appetible thing, however, secondarily, inasmuch as it shares in the above-mentioned reason. This is because a rational nature has a capacity so great that an inclination to one determinate thing would not be sufficient for it, but it has need of a number of different things. For that reason its inclination is to something common found in many things; and so by the apprehension of that common aspect it tends to the appetible thing in which it knows that this aspect is to be sought.

The lower appetite of the sensitive part, called sensuality, tends to the appetible thing itself as containing that which constitutes the reason for its appetibility. It does not tend to the reason for the appetibility in itself because the lower appetite does not tend to goodness or utility or pleasure itself, but to this particular useful or pleasurable thing. In this respect the sense appetite is lower than the rational appetite. But because it does not tend only to this or only to that thing, but to every being which is useful or pleasurable to it, it is higher than natural appetite. For this reason it too has need of an apprehension by which to distinguish the pleasurable from what is not pleasurable.

It is a manifest sign of this distinction that natural appetite is under necessity in regard to the thing to which it tends, as a heavy body necessarily tends to a place downward; whereas sense appetite does not lie under any necessity in regard to any particular thing before it is apprehended under the aspect of the pleasurable or the useful, but of necessity goes out to it once it is apprehended as pleasurable (for a brute animal is unable, while looking at something pleasurable, not to desire it); but the will is under necessity in regard to goodness and utility itself (for man of necessity wills good), but is not under any necessity in regard to this or that particular thing, however much it may be apprehended as good or useful. This is so because each power has some kind of necessary relationship to its proper object.

From this it can be understood that the object of natural appetite is this thing inasmuch as it is of this particular kind; that of sense appetite is this thing inasmuch as it is agreeable or pleasurable (as water inasmuch as it is agreeable to taste, and not inasmuch as it is water); and the proper object of the will is good itself taken absolutely. And the apprehension of sense and that of intellect differ in the same way; for it is the function of sense to apprehend this colored thing, but of intellect to apprehend the very nature of color.

It is accordingly clear that the will and sensuality are specifically different appetites, just as goodness itself and a particular good thing are tended to in different ways; for goodness is tended to for its own sake, but a particular good thing is tended to as sharing in something. And so, just as things which share are perfected by what they share, as a particular good thing by goodness, in the same way the higher appetite rules the lower, and the intellect likewise judges about the things which sense apprehends. The proper object of sensuality is accordingly a thing which is good or suitable for the one sensing. This comes about in two ways: (1) because it is suitable for the very existence of the one sensing, as food and drink and the like; and (2) because it is suitable to our senses for sensing, as a beautiful color is suitable for sight to see and a modulated sound suitable for hearing to hear, and so on.

The Master thus explains sensuality completely. For in saying that it is "a lower power of the soul," he points out its distinction from the higher appetite; in saying "from which there is a movement which is directed to the senses of the body," he shows its relation to the things which are suitable to our senses for sensing; and in saying "and an appetite for the concerns of the body," he shows its relation to the things which are suitable for preserving the existence of the one sensing.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Something belongs to sensuality in three ways: (1) As of the essence of sensuality. In this way only the appetitive powers belong to sensuality. (2) As a prerequisite for sensuality. In this way the sense apprehensive powers belong to sensuality. (3) As pursuant to sensuality. In this way the motive and executive powers belong to sensuality. It is accordingly true that everything which is common to us and the beasts belongs in some way to sensuality, though not everything is of the essence of sensuality.

2. Augustine adds the passage quoted in order to exemplify to what sort of acts the movement of sensuality is directed. He does not mean that sensing corporeal things is itself the movement of sensuality.

3. Lower reason has a motion in regard to the senses of the body, but not of the same kind as that by which the senses perceive their objects. For the senses perceive their objects in particular, whereas lower reason has an act concerning sensible things according to a universal intention. But sensuality tends to the object of the senses in the same way as the senses themselves, that is, in particular, as has been said.* The conclusion accordingly does not follow.

4. In the temptation of our first parents the serpent not only proposed something to be sought, but by his suggestions he deceived them. Now a man would not be deceived when a pleasurable object of sense is proposed if the judgment of reason were not inhibited by a passion of the appetitive faculty. Sensuality is accordingly an appetitive power.

5. Sensuality is said to be very near reason as the principle of science, not as regards the genus of the power, but as regards its objects, because both deal with temporal matters, though in different ways, as has been said.

6. The difference in the apprehensions would be accidental to the appetitive powers if there were not joined to it a difference of things apprehended. For sense, which attains only particulars, does not apprehend goodness taken absolutely, but a particular good; whereas the intellect, which attains universals, apprehends goodness itself taken absolutely. But from this difference the difference of lower and higher appetite is taken, as has been said.

7. The good here and now to which sense appetite is directed is a particular good considered as it is here and now, whether it be necessary or contingent (for "it is delightful for the eyes to see the sun," as is had in Ecclesiastes [11:7]), and also whether it be a true or an apparent good.

8. From the previous answer the answer to this difficulty is clear.

9. The sensitive part is taken in two ways: (1) Sometimes it is taken as opposed to the appetitive power, and then it includes only the apprehensive powers. Thus taken sensuality does not belong to the sensitive part except as to that which is, so to speak, its source. This is enough to justify the name derived from it. (2) It is sometimes taken as including both the appetitive and the motive powers, as is the case when the sensitive soul is opposed to the rational and the vegetative. In this usage sensuality is included in the sensitive part of the soul.

10. Lower reason is directed to the senses of the body and the body's concerns in a different way from sensuality, as was said above. For this reason the argument is not consequent.