ABSTRACT
N O T E S ( f r o m p. 40) understanding is causally dependent on sense and imagination, but is not directly the function o f a corporeal organ, such as the cerebral cortex. T h e nervous functions are the material, but not the efficient or formal, cause o f intellection.A nother sort o f evidence is relevant and favorable to the T hom istic analysis. M uscular fatigue can be increased to a point at w hich the m uscle being studied is no longer able to operate. But all the experimental studies o f so-called “mental fatigue” have been unable to discover any similar phenom enon o f total collapse. T h e weariness o f the individual doing incessant mental w ork over long periods o f time is discovered to be muscular. T his physical weariness affects mental activity, as that is measured b y the tim e taken and the errors made in perform ing such operations as arithmetical calculations. In other w ords, if w e speak o f a man’s mind becom ing w eary, such predication o f weariness is p e r a c c id e n s . T h e weariness o f the bod y, im pairing the operations o f sense and imagination, hinders understanding “inasmuch as the intellect requires the operation o f the sensitive pow ers in the production o f phantasms” ( I b id ., Q .75, A .3, ad.2).In conclusion, it must be pointed out that the sort o f evidence w hich is gathered b y m odem physiological and neurological research does not establish the proposition that understanding is not the act o f a bod ily organ. ( V d . the authorities cited in N o te 36 in fr a .) T h at proposition is established b y philosophical demonstration, independently o f all such evidence. T h e present discussion m erely makes explicit the com patibility o f the scientific facts w ith the philosophical proposition, b y show ing that these facts are relevant to the w a y in w hich the understanding depends on sense and imagination. 20
20. T h e w ord “cosm ology” is sometimes used to name that part o f m etaphysics w hich is know ledge o f the m ode o f being appropriate to physical things. It is sometimes used, even more narrow ly, to name the m etaphysical propositions w hich are involved in the philosophy o f nature, and sometimes it is used as a synonym for the philosophy o f nature. It is a regrettable name and carries w ith it the distortions o f the W olffian tradition w hich have infected m odem philosophy, scholastic and otherwise. V d. N o te 9 su pra . “C osm ology” should be restricted to mean the philosophy o f nature. It is not a branch o f m etaphysics, but it necessarily presupposes m etaphysical principles. I used the w ord in Lecture II to indicate that metaphysical principles w ere being discussed o n ly in so far as th ey w ere involved in the philosophy o f nature. I could not in the scope o f that lecture discuss the deeper ontological significance o f those principles or their significance for natural th eology. W here in that Lecture I talk superficially o f four m etaphysical doctrines I mean four philosophies o f nature, four “cosm ologies”, w hich are divergent because arising from different m etaphysical positions. T hus, the traditional name “h ylo-m orphism ” is m ore appropriately applied to a philosophy o f nature 164
n o t e s ( f r o m p . 4 1 ) such a little w ay w hen physics has ramified into m any fields and has com e so far” (E . G . Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, N e w York, 1933: p. 3; b y permission o f D . A ppleton-C entury C o.).A nd Freud says: “Strictly speaking, indeed, there are on ly tw o sciences-psych o logy , pure and applied, and natural science” (N ew Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, N e w York, 1933: p. 245).
