FACULTIES
750
FACULTIES
the Scholastics generally use the corresponding Latin
term potentice).
Any attempt, however, to define with greater pre- cision the meaning of faculties, is sure to call forth vigorous protest . In fact, few psychological questions of similar importance have been the object of so many animated discussions, and, it may be added, of so many misiuiderstandings. One extreme view looks upon faculties as real, though secondary agents, exer- cising an active influence on one another, and as being scientific explanations of psychological facts. Why does man see and reason? Because he has the facul- ties of vision and reasoning. The will acts, is free ; there is an interaction of the intellect, the will, the senses, the feelings, etc. Sometimes, however, such expressions are used with the understanding that they are metaphors, and with the explicit or implicit warn- ing that they must not be taken literally.
At the other extreme are found psychologists — and they are numerous to-day — who refuse to concede any kind of reality whatsoever to faculties. Processes alone are real ; faculties are simply general terms used to label certain groups of processes. Like all abstrac- tions they should never be looked upon as having any reality outside of the mind, which uses them as logical substitutes to facilitate the classification of mental facts.
That the faculty theory has no essential connexion with Catholic dogma is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that it has found, and still finds, opponents as well as advocates among Catholic theologians and philosophers.
Judging, therefore, the question on its own merits, it may be said that the doctrine of St. Thomas avoids both extremes mentioned above, and is at least free from the absurdities with which modern psychologists so frequently charge the faculty theory. His expres- sions, taken apart from their context, and translated without a sufficient acquaintance with Scholastic ter- minology, might easily be given a wrong interpreta- tion. For as the knowledge of the nature of the soul and its faculties, according to St. Thomas, is partly negative, and, in its positive aspect, analogical, it is necessary to use expressions taken from things which are known more directly. Bvit we are given some prin- ciples which must always be kept in mind ; for instance, "the faculties act only by the energy of the soul"; they have no energj- of their own, for " they are not the agents". Coming to more special applications, " it is not the intellect that understands, but the soul through the intellect" (Qua;st. Disp., De Veritate, x, 9, ad 3). Again, the question is not asked whether the will is free, but whether man is free (Summa, I, Q. Ixxxiii; I-IL xiii; De Veritate. xxiv; De Malo, vi). This shows that when a real distinction is admitted between the soul and its faculties, or between the facul- ties themselves, the meaning is not that of a distinction between substances or agents. In Scholastic termin- ologj', distinction does not always mean separation nor even the possibility of separation. And the dis- tinction between a substance and its qualities, at- tributes or modes, was called a real distinction.
If the soul can originate or experience states which, as everybody admits, may be widely different, it is because there are in the mind various modes of energy or faculties. Since minds differ not only by the actual contents of consciousness, but also, anil chiefly, by the power which they have of experiencing different pro- cesses, it is clear that if this constitutes a real differ- ence, it must itself be something real. So unavoid- able is this conclusion, that .some of the strongest oppo- nents of faculties are at the same time the strongest defenders of the theory of psychical dispositions, which they postulate in order to explain the facts of memory, mental habit, and in general, the utilization, conscious or unconscious, of past experience. .\nd yet, what is a psychical disposition but an acquired
power or faculty? Stuart Mill's " background of pos-
sibilities" or Taine's "permanent possibility" are cer-
tainly less clear and more objectionable than faculties,
for the faculty is not a mere possibility, but a real
power of an agent, a potentia (see Actus et potentia).
Psychical dispositions are no more explanations of facts than are faculties, if by explanation is meant the assigning of an antecedent better known than, or known independently of, the facts to be explained. In both cases, the whole knowledge of the faculty, or the disposition, is derived from the processes themselves, for neither can fall under direct observation. The possibility of an experience or action, if known, is always known by direct inference or by analogy from past experiences or actions. Yet without being a scientific explanation, and without substituting itself for scientific explanations, the faculty, like the disposi- tion, trace, subconscious activity, etc., is a legitimate postulate.
II. Cl.4^ssific.\tion. — Plato admits three parts, forms, or powers of the soul, perhaps even three dis- tinct souls: the intellect (toCs), the nobler affections (0vix6s), and the appetites or passions (iTridvfj.-qTiKbv). For Aristotle, the soul is one, but endowed with five groups of faculties (Suni/ieis) : the " vegeta- tive" faculty (BpcirTiKiv), concerned with the main- tenance and development of organic life; the appetite i&peKTiKbv), or the tendency to any good; the faculty of sense perception {a.la6T)TiK6v); the "locomotive" faculty (kivhit i.k6v) , which presides over the various bodily movements; and reason {Si.avor]TiKbti). The Scholastics generally follow Aristotle's classification. For them body and soul are united in one complete substance. The soul is the forma substantiahs, the vital principle, the source of all activities. Hence their science of the soul deals with functions which nowadays belong to the provinces of biology and physiology. In more recent tunes, however, espe- cially vmder the influence of Descartes, the mind has been separated, and even estranged, from the organ- ism. Psychology deals only with the inner world, that is, the world of consciousness and its conditions. The nature of the mind and its relations to the organ- ism are questions that belong to philosophy or meta- physics. As a consequence, also, modern psychology fails to distinguish between the spiritual faculties of the soul, i. e. those which the soul exercises itself with- out the intrinsic co-operation of the organism, and the faculties of the co?npos>tum, i. e. the soul and organism united in one complete principle of action, or of one special animated organ. This distinction was also an essential point in the Aristotelean and Scholastic psychology.
Finally, the Scholastics reduced affective life to the general faculty of appetitus, whereas to-day, espe- cially since Kant, a tripartite division is more com- monly accepted, namely into cognitive, affective, and conative faculties. Some, however, still hold a bipar- tite division. Others, finally, reject both as unsatis- factory, and follow the order of development, or base their classification both on objective conditions and subjective characteristics. Without entering into the discussion, it may be said that, however useful and justifiable the tripartite classification may prove in psychology, the Scholastic reduction of feelings to " appetite " seems to be deeper and more philosophi- cal. For feelings and emotions, pleasurable or pain- ful, result from an agreement or conflict between cer- tain experiences and the mind's tendency.
^umma Theologica, I, Q. Ixxvii sqq.; Quccst.
esp. art. xi snq.; De spiritualibus creatur'
St. Thoma
Disp.Deani ^ __ ,, . .
xi; Maher, Psj/choloay (New \ork, 1000): Mercieh. Psj/choloffie (Louvain, 190.3); Idem, On(o/offte (Louvain. 1905); DnBRAT, The Theory of Psychical Disposilions (New York. 1905); Gah- NiER, 'Traite des jacxiltt^ de Vdme (Paris, 1872); Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics (Boston, 1859), Lect. xx; Teil-books of Psychology, esp. by Sully and Stout; Eisler, Worterbuch der phUosophischen Begriffe (Berlin, 1904), s. v. SeelenvermOgen. C. A. DUBRAY.
