4 EDWARD D. SIMMONS 



capacities for knowledge. That we can know is evident. It is 

 both futile and unnecessary to attempt to prove this.* 



Although St. Thomas did not hamper his capacities for 

 knowledge by imposing a 'priori restrictions upon them, he saw 

 that, in a sense, they imposed restrictions upon him. There is 

 no question, from the very start, as to the radical integrity 

 of sense and intellect. Despite the fact that we are sometimes 

 in error, it is evident that we can, and adequately, know what 

 is. But our capacities for knowing are in no sense unlimited. 

 Honest reflection upon the epistemological facts reveals that 

 the human intellect is that lesser type of intellect which is at 

 once a reason. For us all doctrine and discipline is from pre- 

 existing knowledge.* We learn by moving from what is already 

 known to what follows from this. The fact is clear that, as 

 far as learning is concerned, the human intellect is naturally 

 discursive. Moreover, the price of discursive advance in knowl- 

 edge is the construction within the intellect of logical artifices 

 such as definitions and argumentations. The method of con- 

 struction which is called for by the demands of discourse is in 

 no sense arbitrary. As always, the final cause is the cause of 

 the causality of the other causes. The end of the logical con- 

 struct requires certain determinate rules according to which 

 the objects known are to be ordered in knowledge in reference 

 to one another. Thus, there are definite rules of procedure 

 which constrain the intellect in its discursive progress.^ These 



* Cf., Smith, Gerard, S. J., "A Date in the History of Epistemology," in The 

 Maritain Volume of The Thomist (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1943), pp. 246-255. 



* In I Post. Anal., lect. 1, n. 9: " Omnis autem disciplinae acceptio ex prae- 

 existenti cognitione fit." (The quotations from St. Thomas will be taken from the 

 Leonine for the Summa, the Decker for the De Trinitate, the Lethielleux for the 

 Sentences, and from the respective Marietti editions for each of the other works 

 cited.) 



The general rules of discursive procedure, we shall note, are one with the laws 

 of logic. Logic is simultaneously an art and a science. As an art it is directive of a 

 productive activity — precisely, for logic, the construction within the reason of the 

 instruments of discourse, such as definition and argumentation. The character of 

 any work-to-be-produced sets the standard according to which the artistic effort 

 is to be effected. Thus every art has its own determinate rules of procedure. In the 

 case of logic, of course, these are the rules of sound discourse. And in the case of 



