Note 124 — THE PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES OF ST. AUGUSTINE COMPARED WITH THE IDEOLOGY OF THE MODERN SCHOOLS.

The Civilta Cattolica, (series v. vol. viii. 585) seems to have wished to continue the series of these opposing arguments of the antagonistic schools, where, in the name of those whom I call psychologists, it speaks thus: "To maintain the essential distinction between the sense and the intellect, it is not necessary to attribute to the latter the immediate perception of a divine object, as, to maintain the essential distinction between the body and the spirit, it is not necessary to ascribe to the second a divine existence. It suffices that as the spirit is differentiated from the body by the immateriality of its essence, so the intellect should be differentiated from the sense by the immateriality of its cognoscitive power." If it be so, the ontologists will respond, that in the above passage the word sense signifies only that with which we perceive bodies; so that to sense is given as its term or object that which is corporeal, and to intellect that which is spiritual. Now, S. Augustine had at first adopted the same language; but afterward he recognized its imperfection, and in his Retractations (lib. i. cap. 1, 3, 4) declares that the word sense ought to include also the intimate sense with which the soul perceives what passes within itself. Then this has as object that which is spiritual. Therefore the spirituality of its object cannot any longer serve to differentiate intellect from sense. (Vid. La Scuola of F. Milone, p. 32, et seq.)