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 IDEA

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IDEA

formally as universal. That is, in each of the in- diviiluals of the same species there is a similar nature which the mind, exercising its abstractive activity, can represent by a concept or idea as separate, or apart, from its individualizing notes. The nature, or essence, so conceived is capable of being realized in an indefinite number of individuals, and therefore was justly described as "potentially universal". P^inally, by a subsequent reflective generalizing act, the mmd considers this concept, or idea, as represen- tative of a plurality of such individuals, and thereby constitutes it a formally universal concept, or idea. In fact, it is onJy in the concept, or idea, that true universality is possible, for only in the vital mental act is there really reference of the one to the many. Even a common name, or any other general symbol, viewed as an entity, is merely an individual. It is its meaning, or significant reference, that gives it uni- versality. But the fact that in the external world individual beings of the same species, e. g., men, oak trees, gold, iron, etc., have perfectly similar natures, affords an objective foundation for our subjective universal ideas and thereby makes physical science possible.

Diverse Meaning of Idea with Medieval and Modern Scholastic Writers. — We have just been using the term idea in its modern Scholastic sense as synony- mous with "concept". By the Schoolmen the terms conceptio, conceptus mentis, species intclligihilis, and verbum mentale were all employed, sometimes as equivalents and sometimes as connoting slight differ- ences, to signify the universal intellectual concepts of the mind. The term idea, however, prolialily in conse- quence of the Platonic usage, was for a long period employed chiefly, if not solely, to signify the forms or archetypes of things existing in the Divine Mind. Even when referred to the human mind, it commonly bore the significance of forma excmplarin, the model pictured by the practical intellect with a view to artistic production, rather than that of a represen- tation effected in the intellect l)y the object appre- hended. The former was described as an exercising of the "practical", the latter of the "speculative", intellect, though the faculty W'as recognized as really the same. St. Thomas, however, saj's that idea may stand for the act of the speculative in- tellect also — " Sed tamen si ideam communiter ap- pellamus similitudinem vel rationem, sic idea etiam ad speculativam cognitionem pure pertinere potest" ((JQ. Disp. de Ideis, a. :i). But I have not been able to find any pa.s.sage in which he himself employs the word idea in the modern Scholastic sense, as equiv- alent to the intellectual concept of the human mind. The same is true as regards Suarez; so that the recog- nized general usage of the term in modern Scholastic textbooks does not seem to go much farther back than the time of Descartes.

Modern Philosoplvj. — Passing from the Schoolmen to modern philosophy, whilst, among those Catholic writers who adhered in general to the medieval phi- losophy, the term idea came to be more and more used todesignate the intellectual concept of the human mind, outside of the Scholastic tradition it was no longer confined to intellectual acts. Descartes seems to have been the first influential thinker to introduce the vague and inaccurate use of the word idea which characterizes modern speculation generally. Locke, however, as we have mentioned, is largely responsible for the confusion in respect to the term which has prevailed in English philo.sophical literature. Des- cartes tells us that he designates generally by the term idea " all that is in our minds when we con- ceive a thing"; and he says, in another place, "idea est ipsa res cogitata quatenus est objective in intellectu." The Cartesian meaning of idea seems, then, to be the general psychical determinant of cognition. This wide signification was generally

adopted by Gassendi, Hobbes, and many other writ- ers, and the problem of the origin of ideas became that of the origin of all knowledge. There is, how- ever, throughout, a reversal of the Platonic usage, for in its modern sense idea connotes something essentially subjective and intra-mental. With Plato, on the other hand, the ideas were emphatically ob- jective. Spinoza defined idea as mentis conceptus, and warned his readers to distinguish it from phan- tasms of the imagination, imagines rerum guas imag- inamus. We have cited at the beginning of this article Locke's vague definition. The confused and inconsistent usage to which he gave currency con- tributed much to the success of Berkeley's idealism and Hume's scepticism. From the position fre- quently adopted by Locke, that ideas are the object of our knowledge, that is, that what the mind knows or perceives are ideas, the conclusions drawn by Berke- ley, that we have therefore no justification for assert- ing the existence of anything el.se but ideas, and that the hypothesis of a material world, the unperceived external causes of these ideas, is useless and unwar- ranted, was an obvious inference. Hume starts with the assumption that all cognitive acts of the mind may be divided into "impressions" (acts of perception), and "ideas", faint images of the former, and then lays down the doctrine that " the difference l^etween these con.sists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike on the mind." He then shows without much difficulty that genuine knowledge of reality of any kind is logically impossible. Kant as- signed ([uite a new meaning to the term. He de- fines ideas as "concepts of the unconditioned which is thought of as a last eontlition for every conditioned ". The transcendental ideas of metaphysics with him are, (Jod, freedom, and immortality, "a pure con- cept" {ein reiner Beijriff) may be either a V erslaixdes- hegriff (notion), or a Vernunftbegriff (idea), the differ- ence being that "the latter transcends the possibility of experience." In the Hegelian philosophy the term again assumed an objective meanmg. though not that of Plato. It is a name for the .\bsolute and the Workl process viewed as a logical category. It is the absolute truth of which everything that exists is the expression.

Such being the varying signification of the term in the history of philosophy, we may now return to consider more closely its adopted meaning among Catholic philosophers. The term idea, and espe- cially ^inivcrsal idea, being generally accepted by them as equivalent to unirersat concept, it is tfie prod- uct of the intellect, or understanding, as distin- guished from the sensuous faculties. It is an act of the mintl which corresponds to a general term in ordinary speech. Thus, in the sentence, "water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen", the three words leatrr, oxggen, and hydrogen stand for any genuine samples of these substances. The names have a definite yet universal meaning. The mental act by which that universal meaning is realized is the uni- versal idea. It is a (|uite distinct thing from the par- ticular sensation or image of the imagination, more or less vivid, which may accompany the intellectual act. The image may be distinct or confused, hvely or feeble. It probably varies from moment to mo- ment. It is felt to be of a subjective, contingent, and accidental character, differing considerably from the corresponding image in other persons' minds. It is, however, always an individualistic concrete entity, referring to a singh; oliject. Not so, however, with the intellectual idea. 'Phis po.«sesses stability. It is unchangeable, and it is universal. It refers with equal truth to every possible specimen of the class. Herein lies the difference between thought and sen- suous feeling, between spiritual and organic activity (see Lvtellkct).

Omgin of Ideas. — Given the fact that the human