Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 104

80

§ 39.

hand

By

a

power

ORGANIC RELATION

[Div. II

of perception for the relations in the object.

these two together the act of understanding (actio intel-

ligendi, as the

Romans used

to call it)

becomes complete.

If the taking-up of the elements into our consciousness be

called the perception (perceptio), and the taking-up of the relations it

is

into our consciousness the thinking (cogitatio),

by these two that the object

sciousness.

What

is

reflected in our con-

has been frequently placed alongside of

the faculties of the understanding and of the will as the fac-

ulty of feeling or the faculty of perception sion of the faculty of the understanding.

is

only a subdivi-

To think (cogitare)

and

to understand (intelligere) are not the same. I can think something that does not exist, while the understanding takes place only with reference to an existing object,

which

as such never consists of pure relations, but always of

among which these relations exist. And though it is a matter of regret that a mistaken parlance has more and more interpreted the intellect as the faculty of thought, and that intellectualism has come to be the accepted term by which to stigmatize gymnastical exercises of abstract thought, we should not abandon the chaste and rich expression of facultas intelligendi, which must be interpreted as consisting of a double action on the one side of the perception, and on the other side of the coinprehension of what was perceived. This distinction in turn finds its ground in our dichotomic existence, we being partly somatical and partly psychical ; since the representation is more somatical and the conception more psychical. Of course it makes no difference whether the object to be elements as well

:

investigated lies outside of

my

my attention is same time my thinking is head,

me

or in me.

directed to

my

If I feel a pain in

head, while at the

stimulated to search out the cause

and to discover the means by which to relieve It. In the same way it does not matter whether this perception comes to me through the senses or the nerves, from a tangible and visible object, or whether this perception is an immediate emotion that affects my spiritual being from the world of justice, the beautiful, good and true. Thought of that pain

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