ABSTRACT
The unique dignity of the human person, commonly recognized as being the patrimony of the Christian West, has been defended often from reasons taking their point of departure from the liberty of the will and its subsequent inviolability. The concept of spirit, however, is sufficiently rich that its elucidation admits of more than one point of departure. The mark of self-reflection, crucial to the study, is central to Saint Thomas Aquinas' theory of intellection and to his elaboration of the verbum. A more perfect grade of life is the privilege of the intelligence because the intellect is capable of reflecting upon itself and thus understanding itself. Saint Thomas equates the perfection of life with intellectual reflection which is a kind of returning of the intellect to itself. Returning to the human intelligence, one can discover the origin of a highly sophisticated theory of intellectual self-reflection.
