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Nine  The Metaphysics as a Literary Whole Thomas commented on the first twelve books of the Metaphysics but was aware of M and N as well. From first to last, his commentary insists on the orderly discussion of the work and clearly views it as a unified whole. One of the chief tasks of a commentator is to display the order of the text before him. That being so, it is possible, on the basis of overt allusions to that order —among the various books, within a given book—to give a swift overview of the Metaphysics as Thomas reads it. His commentary begins with his own prooemium, as we have seen, but he finds in the opening three chapters of Book One Aristotle’s own preface to the work he is undertaking. Those chapters stir the pulse of the most jaded reader, and Thomas’s comments on them bring to light their implications. Thomas remarks that this Aristotelian prooemium makes two major points, first, that this science that is called wisdom considers causes, and second, the kind of causes it considers. Under the first heading, he first sets out some presuppositions from which he will derive a conclusion and then he presents the argument for his thesis. But the first thing to be established is the dignity of science as such and the hierarchical order of kinds of knowing. The dignity of science is manifested by the opening sentence, “All men by nature desire to know.” From Sensation to Wisdom Three bases for this natural desire for knowledge are listed by Thomas. First, everything naturally desires its own perfection, as matter desires form and generally the imperfect seeks to be perfect. Man’s intellect is potentially all things, a potentiality that is actualized by knowledge. Thus, we can be said naturally to desire knowledge as matter desires form. Reference is made to On the Soul, Book Three. 219 220 Thomism and PhilosophicalTheology A second reason for our innate desire for knowledge is based on the fact that everything has a natural inclination to its proper activity or operation. But knowing or understanding is the operation peculiar to man. Hence by a natural desire man is inclined to understanding, to knowing. (# 2)1 Third, for everything union with its cause is desirable, for in that its perfection consists. After referring to the way in which this is exhibited by circular motion in the Physics, Book Eight, Thomas observes that separated substances are the cause of the human intellect to which it relates as imperfect to perfect. But it is by way of knowing that man is united with such principles and in that union consists man’s happiness. That is why man naturally desires to know. (# 3) The second sentence of the text begins the display of the hierarchy of kinds of knowing. “A sign of this is the pleasure we take in sensation, particularly the sense of sight.......” The senses have a twofold purpose: to secure the necessities of life, but also simply to sense without further purpose. Sight is singled out as the sense that make differences known to us and that is delightful even for its own sake. Thomas then engages in a comparison of sight to the other senses in order to make clear its priority. The discussion explicitly relies on Aristotle’s On the Soul. (# 4) This mention of sensation and comparison of the senses leads on to a hierarchy among animals based on sensation. Being capable of sensation is what marks the animal off from lesser living things. Touch is the most basic of the senses—it is in a way a component of all the other senses—and every animal has at least it. Sight is the most perfect of the senses with respect to knowing but touch is the most necessary, as coming first in the way of generation. (# 9) Thomas then distinguishes three grades of life in brute animals: some have sense but not memory because in them sensation is not the prelude to an image (phantasia), the prerequisite of memory (phantasia). (# 10) Because some animals have memory and some do not, some animals are prudent and 1. The paragraph numbers refer to the Cathala-Spiazzi edition published by Marietti: S. Thomae Aquinatis In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Expositio. There is no Leonine edition of the commentary yet available. Despite the practice followed in the first volumes, in recent years the Leonine Commission, in its editions and reeditions of the commentaries...

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