A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy Part 26

Having shown that the soul is not movable, changeable or divisible, we are certain of its incorporeality, and we are ready to give a definition of the soul. Hillel accordingly defines the soul as "a stage of emanation, consisting of a formal substance, which subsists through its own perfection, and occupies the fourth place in the emanatory process, next to the Active Intellect. Its ultimate source is G.o.d himself, who is the ultimate perfection and the Good, and it emanates from him indirectly through the mediation of the separate Powers standing above it in the scale of emanation. The soul const.i.tutes the first entelechy of a natural body."[323]

The above definition is interesting. It shows that Hillel did not clearly distinguish the Aristotelian standpoint from the Neo-Platonic, for in the definition just quoted, the two points of view are combined.

That all mediaeval Aristotelianism was tinged with Neo-Platonism, especially in the doctrine of the Active Intellect, is well known. But in Hillel's definition of the soul we have an extreme form of this peculiar combination, and it represents a step backward to the standpoint of Pseudo-Bahya and Ibn Zaddik. The work of Ibn Daud and Maimonides in the interest of a purer Aristotelianism seems not to have enlightened Hillel. The Neo-Platonic emanation theory is clearly enunciated in Hillel's definition. The soul stands fourth in the series.

The order he has in mind is probably (1) G.o.d, (2) Separate Intelligences, (3) Active Intellect, (4) Soul. We know that Hillel was a student of the Neo-Platonic "Liber de Causis" (_cf._ above, p. xx), having translated some of it into Hebrew, and he might have imbibed his Neo-Platonism from that Proclean book.

Continuing the description of the soul in man, he says that the n.o.blest part of matter, _viz._, the human body, is endowed with the rational soul, and becomes the subject of the powers of the latter. Thereby it becomes a man, _i. e._, a rational animal, distinguished from all other animals, and similar to the nature of the angels.

The Active Intellect causes its light to emanate upon the rational soul, thus bringing its powers out into actuality. The Active Intellect, which is one of the ten degrees of angels, is related to the rational power in man as the sun to the power of sight. The sun gives light, which changes the _potentially_ seeing power into _actually_ seeing, and the potentially visible object into the actually visible. Moreover, this same light enables the sight to see the sun itself, which is the cause of the actualization in the sight. So the Active Intellect gives something to the rational power which is related to it as light to the sight; and by means of this something the rational soul can see or understand the Active Intellect itself. Also the potentially intelligible objects become through this influence actually intelligible, and the man who was potentially intelligent becomes thereby actually intelligent.

_Intellect_ ("sekel") in man is distinguished from _wisdom_ ("hokmah").

By the former power is meant an immediate understanding of abstract principles. The latter is _mediate_ understanding. Wisdom denotes speculation about universals through inference from particulars.

Intellect applies directly to the universals and to their influence upon the particulars.[324]

Hillel next discusses the live topic of the day, made popular by Averroes, namely, whether there are in essence as many individual souls as there are human bodies, or, as Averroes thought, there is only one universal soul, and that its individualizations in different men are only pa.s.sing incidents, due to the a.s.sociation of the universal soul with the human body, and disappear when the body dies. The "sages of the Gentiles," Hillel tells us, regard Averroes's notion as heretical, and leading besides to the absurd conclusion that the same soul is both rewarded and punished; a view which upsets all religion. Averroes employs a number of arguments to prove his point, among them being the following. If there are many souls, they are either all existing from eternity or they are created with the body. The first is impossible, for since the soul is a form of the body, we should have actually an infinite number of forms, and this would necessitate the actual existence of an infinite number of bodies also; else the existence of these souls for the purpose of joining the bodies would be in vain. But it is absurd to suppose that there has been from eternity an infinite number of bodies created like the number of souls, and yet they have not become real bodies with souls until now.

The second alternative is also impossible. For if there are many souls which came into being with the bodies, they either came from nothing or from something. From nothing is impossible, for nothing comes from nothing except by way of creation, which is a miracle; and we do not believe in miracles unless we have to. That they came from something is also impossible; for this something can be neither matter nor form. It cannot be matter, for form, the actual and superior, cannot come from the potential and inferior. It cannot be form, for then form would proceed from form by way of genesis and dissolution, which is not true.

Matter is the cause of generation and dissolution, not form. We are thus forced to the conclusion that the soul is one and eternal, one in substance and number; and that it becomes many only _per accidens_, by virtue of the multiplicity of its receiving subjects, comparable to the light of the one sun, which divides into many rays.

The Bible cannot help us to decide this question, for its expressions can be interpreted either way. Hillel then undertakes to adjudicate between the contending views by striking a compromise. He feels that he is contributing to the solution of an important problem by an original suggestion, which he says is to be found nowhere else expressed with such clearness and brevity.

Here again Hillel's Neo-Platonic tendencies are in evidence. For he a.s.sumes both a universal soul and a great number of individual souls emanating from it in a descending series. The objection that forms cannot come from other forms by way of generation and dissolution, Hillel says, is not valid, for no such process is here involved.

Generation and dissolution is peculiar to the action of body upon body, which is by contact. A _spiritual_ form acts upon other forms not through contact, because it is not limited by time or place. We know concerning the Intelligences that each comes from the one previous to it by way of emanation, and the same thing applies to the issue of many human souls from the one universal soul. After death the rational part of every soul remains; that part which every soul receives from the Active Intellect through the help of the _possible_ or _material intellect_, and which becomes identified with the Active and separate Intellect. This is the part which receives reward and punishment, whereas the one universal soul from which they all emanate is a divine emanation, and is not rewarded or punished.[325]

We must now discuss further the nature of the three grades of intellect.

For this it will be necessary to lay down three preliminary propositions.

1. There must be an intellect whose relation to the material intellect is the same as that of the object of sense perception is to the sense.

This means that just as there must be a real and actual object to arouse the sense faculty to perceive, so there must be an actual intelligible object to stir the rational power to comprehend.

2. It follows from 1 that as the material sense has the power of perceiving the sensible object, so the material intellect has the power of perceiving this other intellect.

3. If it has this power, this must at some time be realized _in actu_.

Therefore at some time the material intellect is identified with the other intellect, which is the Active Intellect.

We must now prove 1. This is done as follows: We all know that we are potentially intelligent, and it takes effort and pains and study to become actually intelligent. In fact the process of intellection has to pa.s.s several stages from sense perception through imagination. Now our intellect cannot make itself pa.s.s from potentiality to actuality. Hence there must be something else as agent producing this change; and this agent must be actually what it induces in us. Hence it is an active intellect.

The material intellect has certain aspects in common with the sense faculty, and in certain aspects it differs. It is similar to it in being receptive and not active. But the mode of receptivity is different in the two. As the intellect understands all forms, it cannot be a power residing in a body in the sense of extending through it and being divided with the division of the body, as we see in some of the powers of sense. This we can prove as follows:

1. If the intellect were receptive in the same manner as the senses, it would receive only a definite kind of form, as for example the sense of sight does not receive taste.

2. If the intellect were a power in body and had a special form, it could not receive that form, just as for example if the eye were colored, it could not perceive colors.

3. If the intellect were a corporeal power, it would be affected by its object and injured by a powerful stimulus, as is the case in the senses of sight and hearing. A dazzling light injures the eye, a deafening noise injures the ear, so that thereafter neither sense can perform its normal function properly. This is not true with the intellect. An unusually difficult subject of thought does not injure the intellect.

4. If the intellect were similar in its activity to sense perception, it would not be self-conscious, as the sense faculties cannot perceive themselves.

5. The intellect, if it were like sense, would not be able to comprehend a thing and its opposite at the same time, or it would do so in a confused manner, as is the case in the powers of sense.

6. The intellect perceives universals; the sense, particulars.

This being the case, there is a difference of opinion as to the nature of the material intellect. Some say that it has no definite nature in itself except that of possibility and capacity, though it is different from other possibilities in this respect that it is not resident in, and dependent upon a material subject like the others. That is why Aristotle says that the material intellect is not anything before it intellects; that it is in its essence potential with reference to the _intelligibilia_, and becomes actual when it understands them actually.

Themistius says it is not any of the existents actually, but a potential essence receiving material forms. Its nature is a.n.a.logous to that of prime matter; hence it is called _material_ intellect. It is best to call it possible intellect. Being a potential existent it is not subject to generation and dissolution any more than prime matter.

Alexander of Aphrodisias thinks the material intellect is only a capacity, _i. e._, a power in the soul, and appears when the soul enters the body, hence is not eternal _a parte ante_.

Averroes holds that the possible intellect is a separate substance, and that the capacity is something it has by virtue of its being connected with the body as its subject. Hence this capacity is neither entirely distinct from it nor is it identical with it. According to him the possible intellect is not a part of the soul.

Which of these views is correct, says Hillel, requires discussion, but it is clear that whichever of these we adopt there is no reason opposing the conjunction of the possible intellect with the Active. For if it is an eternal substance, potential in its nature, like primary matter, then it becomes actual when it understands the intelligible objects. The same is true if it is a capacity residing in the soul.

Hillel is thus of the opinion in this other question debated in those days, whether the intellect of man is capable of conjunction during life with the angelic Active Intellect, that it is. The Active Intellect, he says, in actualizing the material intellect influences it not in the manner of one body acting upon another, _i. e._, in the manner of an efficient or material cause, but rather as its formal or final cause, leading it to perfection. It is like the influence which the separate Intelligences receive from one another, the influence of emanation, and not a material influence comparable to generation. This reception of influence from the Active Intellect on the part of the potential is itself conjunction. It means that the agent and the thing acted upon become one, and the same substance and species. The material intellect becomes a separate substance when it can understand itself.[326]

Before taking up the more theological problem of reward and punishment, he devotes the last section of the theoretical part of his book to a discussion of the relation of the possible or material intellect to the rest of the human soul. This problem also arose from Averroes's interpretation of the Aristotelian psychology, and is closely related to the other one of the unity of the human intellect. It is needless for us to enter into the technical details which are a weariness to the flesh of the modern student, but it is worth while to state briefly the motives underlying the opposing views. Averroes, who had no theological scruples, interpreted Aristotle to mean that the part of the soul which was intimately a.s.sociated with the body as its form, const.i.tuting an indissoluble organism in conjunction with it, embraced its lower faculties of sense, imagination and the more concrete types of judgment.

These are so intimately bound up with the life of the body that they die with its death. The reason on the other hand, which has to do with immaterial ideas, or intelligibles as they called them, is eternal and is not the form of the body. It is a unitary immaterial substance and is not affected by the life or death of the body. To be sure it comes in contact with the human soul during the life of the body, thus bringing into existence an individualized human reason as a pa.s.sing episode. But this individualized phase of the intellect's life is dependent upon the body and ceases when the body dies, or is reabsorbed in the universal intellect.

The theological implications of this view were that if there is any reward and punishment after death, it would either have to be administered to the lower faculties of the soul, which would have to be made immortal for the purpose, or if the rational soul is the subject of retribution, this cannot affect the individual, as there is no individual rational soul. Hence the Christian opponents of Averroes, like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas (Hillel speaks of them here as the "Religionists," or the "Sages who believe in religion"), endeavored to vindicate for the Aristotelian definition of the soul as the form of the body, also the rational part, thus maintaining the view that the reason too has an individual existence both during life and after death.

Thomas Aquinas, as a truer interpreter of Aristotle, goes so far as to maintain that the Active Intellect itself is also a part of the human soul, and not one of the angelic separate Intelligences. Neither Maimonides nor Hillel ben Samuel, nor any other Jewish philosopher was able to depart so widely from their Arabian masters or to undertake an independent study of Aristotle's text, as to come to a similar conclusion. Hence the Active Intellect in Jewish Philosophy is unanimously held to be the last of the Angelic substances, and the proximate inspirer of the prophet. The discussion therefore in Hillel's work concerns the possible intellect, and here he ventures to disagree with Averroes and decides in favor of the possible intellect as a part of the soul and the subject of reward and punishment.[327]

Concerning the nature of reward and punishment after death opinions are divided. Some think that both reward and punishment are corporeal. Some say reward is spiritual, punishment is corporeal; while a small number are of the opinion that both are spiritual. Hillel naturally agrees with the latter and gives reasons for his opinion. If the soul, as was shown before, is incorporeal, immaterial and a _formal_ substance, it cannot be influenced by corporeal treatment. For corporeal influence implies motion on the part of agent and patient, and the pervasion of the influence of the former through the parts of the latter; whereas a spiritual substance has no parts. Besides, if reward and punishment are corporeal, and Paradise is to be taken literally, then why separate the soul from the body, why not reward the living person with eternal life and give him the enjoyment of paradise while on earth? The effect would be much greater upon the rest of mankind, who would see how the righteous fare and the wicked. The objection that this would make people mercenary does not hold, for they are mercenary in any case, since they expect reward; whether in this life or in the next makes no difference.

Reward must therefore be spiritual, and so must punishment, since the two go together.[328]

When G.o.d in his kindness favored the human race by giving them a soul, which he united with the body, he also gave them the possibility of attaining eternal happiness. For this purpose he arranged three grades of ascent, _viz._, the three intellects spoken of above, the material or possible intellect, the acquired intellect (this is the actual functioning of the possible intellect and the result thereof) and the active intellect. The second intellect is partly speculative or theoretical and partly practical. The theoretical intellect studies and contemplates all intelligible existents which are separate from matter.

There is nothing practical in this contemplation, it is just the knowledge of existents and their causes. This is called the science of truth, and is the most important part of philosophy.

The practical intellect is again divided into the _cogitative_ and the _technological_. The former decides whether a thing should be done or not, and discriminates between the proper and the improper in human actions and qualities. It is important as a guide to the happiness of the soul because it instructs the appet.i.tive power in reference to those things which are subject to the will, and directs it to aim at the good and to reject the evil.

The technological intellect is that by which man learns arts and trades.

The practical intellect is also theoretical in the sense that it has to think in order to discriminate between the proper and the improper, and between the beneficial and injurious in all things pertaining to practice. The difference between the speculative and practical intellects is in the respective objects of their comprehension, and hence is accidental and not essential. The objects of the theoretical intellect are the true and the false; of the practical, the good and the bad. The acquired intellect gives these intelligibles to the soul through the possible intellect, and is intermediate between the latter and the Active Intellect, which is one of the separate Intelligences above soul. The Active Intellect watches over the rational animal that he may attain to the happiness which his nature permits.

Men differ according to their temperamental composition and their human conduct. This leads to differences in the power of understanding and in the amount of influence received from the Active Intellect. Hillel quotes Maimonides in support of his view that the prophetic stage is an emanation of glory from G.o.d through the medium of the Active Intellect, which exerts its influence upon the rational power and upon the imagination, so that the prophet sees his vision objectified _extra animam_. The three conditions requisite for prophecy are perfection in theory, perfection in imagination and perfection in morals. The first without the second and third produces a philosopher; the second without the first and third gives rise to a statesman or magician.

It is important to know, he tells us, that the cultivation of the reason and imagination alone is not sufficient. Practice of the commandments is very important. Hence a man must guide properly the two powers of sense perception and desire, which are instruments of the rational power. For, as Maimonides says in his commentary on Aboth (_cf._ p. 282), all observance and violation of the commandments, good and bad qualities depend upon those two powers. Without a proper training of these the influence of the active intellect upon the reason and imagination may lead to evil.

Beginning with sense perception a man must train all his five senses to attend only to what is good and to turn away from evil. When he satisfies his sensuous desires, he must do this in order to preserve his body that he may be enabled to serve G.o.d in the best possible way.

The same applies to the power of desire. This is the power which directs one to pursue the agreeable and shun the disagreeable. From it proceed also courage, confidence, anger, good will, joy, sorrow, humility, pride. All these qualities must be used in the service of G.o.d. If a man do this, he will attain the grade of an angelic being even during life, and will be able to perform miracles like the prophets and the sages of the Talmud.

After death the souls of such men reach even a higher degree than they had before entering the body, as a reward for not allowing themselves to be degraded by their corporeal desires, but on the contrary directing these to higher aims.[329]

As for the nature of reward and punishment more particularly, we may say that the soul of the wicked loses all the glory promised to her and descends to a position lower than was hers originally. She is expelled from the land of life and remains in darkness forever, without returning to her original station. Knowing what she has lost, she will feel continuous distress, sorrow and fear, for the power of imagination remains with the soul after death. But there is no physical burning with fire. On the other hand, the soul of the righteous will return to G.o.d.

The doctrine of the resurrection and the explanation for it are a further proof that the soul after death is not punished corporeally. The motive of the resurrection is that the soul and body may receive their compensation together as in life. If then the retribution of the soul is corporeal, there is no need of resurrection.[330]

Hillel then proceeds to show that the words of the Rabbis which seem to speak for corporeal retribution are not to be taken literally. In this connection it is worth while to reproduce his cla.s.sification of the contents of the Talmud and his att.i.tude toward them. He enumerates six cla.s.ses.

1. Pa.s.sages in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature which must be taken literally. These are the discussions of the _Halaka_ (the legal and ceremonial portions). To pervert these from their literal meaning, or to maintain that the _intention_ of the law is the important thing and not the practice of the ceremony, is heresy and infidelity; though it is meritorious to seek for an explanation of every law, as the Rabbis themselves do in many instances.

2. Pa.s.sages which should be understood as parables and allegories with a deeper meaning. These are the peculiar _Haggadahs_, or the strange interpretations of Biblical verses where no ceremonial precept is involved.