The Attainment of the Last End

Attainment of the Last End.—God being supersensible, the act by which He is attained cannot be any operation of the senses, but must be an act of the higher powers. Man possesses his Last End through the vision of God, from which result beatific love and every good that is compatible with the glorified state. For “we see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face” (I Cor., xiii. 12); and there shall be “glory and honor and peace to everyone that worketh good” (Rom, ii. 10).

S. Th. I-II, q. 3; C. Gent. III, 35, 26, 37, 40, 44.

30. State of the Question. - Formal beatitude (eudaimonia) is the possession or fruition of the Highest Good. The Highest Good is God. But since God is a good distinct from us and external, we shall not be blessed unless in some way we are joined to Him Himself. Hence, although as to cause or object it is something uncreated, nevertheless beatitude itself according to essence or form is something created existing in man himself.

Whence it is now asked by what created mode that attainment is made, or what is that union with God by which subjective beatitude is constituted (q. 3, a. 2).

31. Thesis I. Formal beatitude consists in the most perfect knowledge of God which man can acquire according to his capacity, and in the love following upon it. - It is proved:

1. Formal beatitude consists in the conscious conjunction of ourselves with the beatifying object, God.

But God, as immaterial, cannot be attained directly and formally by sense, but only by the mind, that is, by immaterial faculties, intellect and will; for He is an intelligible good, not a sensible one.

Therefore formal beatitude cannot consist except in an act of intellect and will, or in knowledge and love. But it is knowledge relatively most perfect according to each one's capacity, so that nothing remains to be desired by him; otherwise it would not be our ultimate perfection or true beatitude.

2. From St. Thomas after Aristotle: formal beatitude consists in an act, not of the inferior and sensitive part, but of the intellective part, and indeed in the contemplation of God and the love following upon it. For:

a) it is not in potency or habit, but in act, because the ultimate perfection of man is in act and operation, which is the ultimate act of the one operating. For since potency is ordered to act, nothing is perfect unless it is in second act. Whence a thing is said to be for the sake of operation (a. 2);

b) it is in the operation, not of the sensitive part, which man has in common with beasts and by which he cannot be joined to God, but in the operation of the most excellent part, which is especially proper to man, namely, of the intellective part (a. 3);

c) it is in the best operation of the intellective part, namely, with respect to the best object: spiritual faculties are fully perfected and satiated only when they fully attain this object, through contemplation of the Highest Truth and fruition of the Highest Good. Therefore beatitude consists in the knowledge and love of God; and indeed in the most perfect degree possible (a. 5).

3. "Each thing tends into the divine likeness as into its proper end" (or proper good; for every being is perfect insofar as it participates, according to its capacity, in the goodness of the highest good). "Therefore that through which each thing is most assimilated to God is its ultimate end. But the intellectual creature is most assimilated to God by the fact that it is intellectual: for it has this likeness before other creatures, and this includes all others. But within the genus of this likeness, it is more assimilated to God according as it actually understands... God Himself; for God, by understanding Himself, understands all other things. Therefore to understand God is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance" (Contra Gentiles III, 25).

4. Hence the Scriptures and the Fathers call the end of man eternal life. But life is the motion of a living being proceeding from itself, and is not in habit but in operation: namely, it is the vital operation by which it lives in second act. This life is the knowledge of God, according to John XVII, 3; it is the love of charity (I Cor. XIII, 8-13) and intimate friendship (Apoc. XIX, 7; XXI); and in this our beatitude consists (Mt. V, 8; XXV, 21, 34, 46).

32. Thesis II. In the present order of Providence, beatitude is not natural, consisting in the abstract, mediate, and analogical knowledge of God, even though most perfect, but supernatural, consisting in the immediate, intuitive, and proper vision of the divine essence.

The natural end is that to which we would have been destined if God by gratuitous goodness had not elevated us to the supernatural end, the vision of Himself in Himself. Now the natural end is the attainment of God known by reason alone, or abstractive contemplation of God through creatures, but in the most perfect mode by which it could be done by our powers, namely, by a science of the whole universe so perfect that nothing naturally knowable would remain; for if nature possesses all things to which it can arrive by its own powers, now all its absolute desires are fulfilled and nothing remains to be desired. This is our natural happiness, owed to nature.

But now we are destined to a supernatural end beyond the exigencies and powers of our nature, namely, to seeing God in an intuitive mode, face to face, without medium, that is, to seeing and loving God and enjoying Him in the same mode (although not in the same degree) as God sees and loves Himself and enjoys Himself, so that we participate in the divine life itself (St. Thomas, I, q. 62, a. 1; Q. D. De Veritate 27, a. 2).

Thus we shall have not only natural happiness, but we shall be sharers of divine happiness itself.

It is proved:

1. From the Scriptures. a) St. Paul, describing the state of final perfection, teaches that it is in the vision of God, face to face (I Cor. XIII, 12). The expression "face to face," according to Hebrew usage, always indicates the presence of person to person; and to see face to face signifies intuitive vision in itself, especially because it is opposed to mediate knowledge (through a mirror), and to imperfect and obscure knowledge (in an enigma), and to analogical knowledge (in part). Hence the Apostle adds: then I shall know even as I am known, that is, by God; but God sees us intuitively; therefore we also shall intuitively see God.

b) St. John, who called eternal life the knowledge of God (XVII, 3), adds that in it we shall see God as He is, because we shall be like God (I John III, 2), who sees Himself; but God sees Himself intuitively; therefore we also, being like Him, shall so see Him.

2. From Tradition, whose witnesses are Benedict XII in the constitution Benedictus Deus (1336), and the Council of Florence (for the union of the Greeks) after the Council of Vienne (a. 5), which define as a dogma of faith that beatitude is the vision of God. But this is supernatural, as we know from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2 and canon 3.

3. These things being posited, St. Thomas proves from reason that the natural end can no longer satiate man, nor therefore be perfect happiness: man is not perfectly blessed so long as there remains for him something to be desired and sought. But the intellect seeks perfect knowledge of the very essence of things: thus, seeing an effect, it naturally desires perfectly to know the very essence of the cause, insofar as this is possible to it. But the human intellect knows the effects of God and thus knows that God is. Hence there remains to it a natural desire to know perfectly the very essence of God (which we know from revelation to be possible), and thus it is not yet perfectly blessed unless it sees that essence (a. 8).

1. We add: insofar as it is possible..., which we know from revelation to be possible. For the argument of St. Thomas is not stringent and rigorous unless it is first known that the vision of God is in fact possible for us in the present order; and this we know only from revelation, but it was proved in I, q. 12, a. 1; otherwise there would not be an efficacious and absolute desire of seeing God, but merely an inefficacious and conditioned desire of seeing Him "if it were possible," a desire of such sort as does not impede beatitude and need not be fulfilled, since that is naturally impossible. But if you should say that such a restriction is not added by St. Thomas, and therefore is not to be supplied in his argumentation, then the argument would have to be regarded either as one of mere fittingness, not as apodictic, or as showing that special obediential potency which is naturally in man and by which he is capable of being elevated to the vision of the divine essence.

From this it follows that natural beatitude is not happiness simply and absolutely perfect, as being not the whole happiness possible in itself which can befall man, but is only perfect in a certain respect and relatively for the natural state alone; but in the supernatural order of elevation to the intuitive vision of God, it can no longer in any sense be called perfect. Whence the Scholastics are not accustomed to call the natural ultimate end perfect happiness, but reserve the name for the supernatural ultimate end of the vision of God.

33. Thesis III. Beatitude, although according to its quasi-physical essence it embraces the three acts of vision, love, and fruition, according to its logical or metaphysical essence consists in the knowledge of God alone.

This is the opinion of St. Thomas, while Scotus places beatitude in the act of love alone, but St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and Suarez require both acts, of intellect and of will.

In beings, essence can be considered in two ways: a) completely in the concrete, for the complex of all the elements which constitute a thing in its species and distinguish it from others, and this is physical essence; b) abstractly and in its fundamental element, for the perfection which first and per se constitutes a thing and distinguishes it from others and is the root of all things which pertain to the thing, and this is metaphysical or logical essence. These notions can be applied to beatitude, but analogically, because it is not a per se being but only an action and therefore an accident. Now we say that beatitude, if it is considered completely according to all essential and necessary elements, embraces an act not only of the intellect but also of the will; but if it is considered according to its fundamental element as the very attainment of the highest good from which the other goods flow, or as the action by which man primarily attains and possesses the highest good, we say that it is only an act of the intellect.

It is proved:

1. Negatively: beatitude does not consist in an act of the will, namely, of love or joy, because that act cannot be the attainment of the highest good.

For the will is inclined to something and by affection alone is terminated at the thing and attains it, but not effectively and really. But inclination is not the attainment of the good; otherwise it would suffice to will something intensely in order to possess it (a. 4).

And indeed every act of the will toward the good is either an inclination toward an absent good, and then it is not the attainment of the thing; or a quieting in a present good, and then it supposes possession and attainment already. Thus in species: fruition or rest in a possessed good does not make the possession of the good but follows it; desire is a tendency toward an absent good; and love abstracts from the presence and absence of the good, by which therefore no good is made present. Therefore no act of the will makes us possess God, nor is it the essence of beatitude.

2. Positively and assertively: beatitude consists, at least partially, in an act of the intellect.

For the essence of beatitude is the act of the power most proper to man and most noble. But this is the intellect, both because its object is more universal, more simple, more immaterial, and more abstract, and because it is the power nearer to the soul and from which the will itself arises. Therefore (a. 5).

Nor should you say that the will is nobler, which moves the intellect itself. For, on the contrary, "first and per se the intellect moves the will: a) For the will as such is moved by its object, which is the apprehended good; but the will moves the intellect as if per accidens, namely, insofar as understanding itself is apprehended as good and so is desired by the will. From this it follows that the intellect actually understands, and in this very thing precedes the will: for the will would never desire to understand unless first the intellect apprehended understanding itself as good. b) And again, the will moves the intellect to operating in act in the mode in which an agent is said to move; but the intellect moves in the mode in which an end moves, for the understood good is the end of the will. But the agent is posterior in moving than the end, for the agent does not move except on account of the end. Whence it is apparent that the intellect is simply higher than the will, but the will is higher than the intellect per accidens and in a certain respect" (Contra Gentiles III, 26).

3. Positively and exclusively: beatitude consists in the act of the intellect alone. - For:

a) The essence of happiness is the attainment of the highest good, which is an intelligible good. But the highest intelligible good cannot be possessed except by the act of intellect alone: for the will is borne toward an object outside itself and is only an inclination toward it, whereas the intellect apprehends the object and draws it to itself, and thus sets it before itself as present and is joined to it really and effectively, and so truly possesses it. Therefore the essence of happiness is obtained not by the will but by the intellect alone.

b) The essence of beatitude is the first act which truly attains God Himself and is the root of all the other things which are required for beatitude. But this is the act of the intellect alone, because it first attains God and is the root from which love and joy necessarily arise. Therefore the essence of beatitude is the act of the intellect alone, not of the will (a. 4).

34. Corollaries.

From the aforesaid things it can be concluded with St. Thomas:

a) That beatitude consists more in the speculative intellect than in the practical (a. 5), which is clear from three things: first, because the best object of the intellective power is the divine good, which is not the object of the practical intellect but of the speculative; whence beatitude especially consists in the contemplation of divine things; secondly, because contemplation is especially sought for its own sake, whereas the act of the practical intellect is not sought for its own sake but for the sake of action; but actions themselves are ordered to some end. Whence it is manifest that the ultimate end cannot consist in the active life but in the contemplative; thirdly, because in the contemplative life man communicates with higher beings, namely, with God and the angels, to whom he is assimilated through beatitude; but in those things which pertain to the active life, animals also communicate in some way with man. And therefore ultimate and perfect beatitude wholly and principally consists in contemplation.

"And now as he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good fortune; but after a little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the King's uncle, when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said: 'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou weepest.' 'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity, when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.' 'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt the wish—I will not say once, but full many a time—that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives us the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.'" (Herodotus, vii., 45, 46.)

1. It needs no argument to show that happiness, as defined in the last section, can never be perfectly realized in this life. Aristotle took his definition to represent an ideal to be approximated to, not attained. He calls his sages "happy as men" (Eth., I., x., 16), that is, imperfectly, as all things human are imperfect. Has Aristotle, then, said the last word on happiness? Is perfect happiness out of the reach of the person whom in this mortal life we call man? However that may be, it is plain that man desires perfect happiness. Every man desires that it may be perfectly well with him and his, although many have mistaken notions of what their own well-being consists in, and few can define it philosophically. Still they all desire it. The higher a man stands in intellect, the loftier and vaster his conception of happiness, and the stronger his yearning after it. This argues that the desire of happiness is natural to man: not in the sense in which eating and drinking are natural, as being requirements of his animal nature, but in the same way that it is natural to him to think and converse, his rational nature so requiring. It is a natural desire, as springing from that which is the specific characteristic of human nature, distinguishing it from mere animal nature, namely reason. It is a natural desire in the best and highest sense of the word.

2. Contentment is not happiness. A man is content with little, but it takes an immensity of good to satisfy all his desire, and render him perfectly happy. When we say we are content, we signify that we should naturally desire more, but acquiesce in our present portion, seeing that more is not to be had. "Content," says Dr. Bain, "is not the natural frame of any mind, but is the result of compromise."

3. But is not this desire of unmixed happiness unreasonable? Are we not taught to set bounds to our desire? Is not moderation a virtue, and contentment wisdom? Yes, moderation is a virtue, but it concerns only the use of means, not the apprehension of ends. The patient, not to say the physician, desires medicines in moderation, so much as will do him good and no more; but, so far as his end is health, he desires all possible health, perfect health. The last end, then, is to be desired as a thing to possess without end or measure, fully and without defect.

4. We have then these facts to philosophise on: that all men desire perfect happiness: that this desire is natural, springing from the rational soul which sets man above the brute: that on earth man may attain to contentment, and to some happiness, but not to perfect happiness: that consequently nature has planted in man a desire for which on earth she has provided no adequate satisfaction.

5. If the course of events were fitful and wayward, so that effects started up without causes, and like causes under like conditions produced unlike effects, and anything might come of anything, there would be no such thing as that which we call nature. When we speak of nature, we imply a regular and definite flow of tendencies, this thing springing from that and leading to that other; nothing from nothing, and nothing leading nowhere; no random, aimless proceedings; but definite results led up to by a regular succession of steps, and surely ensuing unless something occurs on the way to thwart the process. How this is reconciled with Creation and Freewill, it is not our province to enquire: suffice it to say that a natural agent is opposed to a free one, and creation is the starting-point of nature. But to return. Everywhere we say, "this is for that," wherever there appears an end and consummation to which the process leads, provided it go on unimpeded. Now every event that happens is a part of some process or other. Every act is part of a tendency. There are no loose facts in nature, no things that happen, or are, otherwise than in consequence of something that has happened, or been, before, and in view of something else that is to happen, or be, hereafter. The tendencies of nature often run counter to one another, so that the result to which this or that was tending is frustrated. But a tendency is a tendency, although defeated; this was for that, although that for which it was has got perverted to something else. There is no tendency which of itself fails and comes to naught, apart from interference. Such a universal and absolute break-down is unknown to nature.

6. All this appears most clearly in organic beings, plants and animals. Organisms, except the very lowest, are compounds of a number of different parts, each fulfilling a special function for the good of the whole. There is no idle constituent in an organic body, none without its function. What are called rudimentary organs, even if they serve no purpose in the individual, have their use in the species, or in some higher genus. In the animal there is no idle natural craving, or appetite. True, in the individual, whether plant or animal, there are many potentialities frustrate and made void. That is neither here nor there in philosophy. Philosophy deals not with individuals but with species, not with Bucephalus or Alexander, but with horse, man. It is nothing to philosophy that of a thousand seeds there germinate perhaps not ten. Enough that one seed ever germinates, and that all normal specimens are apt to do the like, meeting with proper environment. That alone shows that seed is not an idle product in this or that class of living beings.

7. But, it will be said, not everything contained in an organism ministers to its good. There is refuse material, only good to get rid of: there are morbid growths; there is that tendency to decay, by which sooner or later the organism will perish. First, then, a word on diseases. Diseases are the diseases of the individual; not of the race. The race, as such, and that is what the philosopher studies, is healthy: all that can be imputed to the race is liability to disease. That liability, and the tendency to decay and die, are found in living things, because their essence is of finite perfection; there cannot be a plant or animal, that has not these drawbacks in itself, as such. They represent, not the work of nature, but the failure of nature, and the point beyond which nature can no further go.

8. On the preceding observations Aristotle formulated the great maxim—called by Dr. Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, p. i., sect. 15, "the only indisputable axiom in philosophy,"—Nature does nothing in vain. (Ar., Pol., I., viii., 12; De Anima, III., ix., 6; De part. animal., I. i., p. 641, ed. Bekker.)

9. The desire of happiness, ample and complete, beyond what this world can afford, is not planted in man by defect of his nature, but by the perfection of his nature, and in view of his further perfection. This desire has not the character of a drawback, a thing that cannot be helped, a weakness and decay of nature, and loss of power, like that which sets in with advancing years. A locomotive drawing a train warms the air about it: it is a pity that it should do so, for that radiation of heat is a loss of power: but it cannot be helped, as locomotives are and must be constructed. Not such is the desire of perfect happiness in the human breast. It is not a disease, for it is no peculiarity of individuals, but a property of the race. It is not a decay, for it grows with the growing mind, being feeblest in childhood, when desires are simplest and most easily satisfied, and strongest where mental life is the most vigorous. It is an attribute of great minds in proportion to their greatness. To be without it, would be to live a minor in point of intellect, not much removed from imbecility. It is not a waste of energy, rather it furnishes the motive-power to all human volition. It comes of the natural working of the understanding that discerns good, and other good above that, and so still higher and higher good without limit; and of the natural working of the will, following up and fastening upon what the understanding discerns as good. The desire in question, then, is by no means a necessary evil, or natural flaw, in the human constitution.

10. It follows that the desire of perfect happiness is in man by the normal growth of his nature, and for the better. But it would be a vain desire, and objectless, if it were essentially incapable of satisfaction: and man would be a made and abiding piece of imperfection, if there were no good accessible to his intellectual nature sufficient to meet its proper exigence of perfect happiness. But no such perfect happiness is attainable in this world. Therefore there must be a world to come, in which he who was man, now a disembodied spirit, but still the same person, shall under due conditions find a perfect good, the adequate object of his natural desire. Else is the deepest craving of human nature in vain, and man himself is vanity of vanities.

11. It may be objected that there is no need to go beyond this world to explain how the desire of perfect happiness is not in vain. It works like the desire of the philosopher's stone among the old alchemists. The thing they were in search of was a chimera, but in looking for it they found a real good, modern chemistry. In like manner, it is contended, though perfect happiness is not to be had anywhere, yet the desire of it keeps men from sitting down on the path of progress; and thus to that desire we owe all our modern civilization, and all our hope and prospect of higher civilization to come. Without questioning the alleged fact about the alchemists, we may reply that modern chemistry has dissipated the desire of the philosopher's stone, but modern civilization has not dissipated the desire of perfect happiness: it has deepened it, and perhaps rather obscured the prospect of its fulfilment. A desire that grows with progress certainly cannot be satisfied by progressing. But if it is never to be satisfied, what is it? A goad thrust into the side of man, that shall keep him coursing along from century to century, like Io under the gadfly, only to find himself in the last century as far from the mark as in the first. Apart from the hope of the world to come, is the Italy of to-day happier than the Italy of Antoninus Pius? Here is a modern Italian's conclusion: "I have studied man, I have examined nature, I have passed whole nights observing the starry heavens. And what is the result of these long investigations? Simply this, that the life of man is nothing; that man himself is nothing; that he will never penetrate the mystery which surrounds the universe. With this comfortless conviction I descend into the grave, and console myself with the hope of speedy annihilation. The lamp goes out; and nothing, nothing can rekindle it. So, Nature, I return to thee, to be united with thee for ever. Never wilt thou have received into thy bosom a more unhappy being." (La Nullità della Vita. By G. P., 1882.)

This is an extreme case, but much of modern progress tends this way. Civilization is not happiness, nor is the desire for happiness other than vain, if it merely leads to increased civilization.

Readings.—St. Thomas, C. G., iii., 48; Newman's Historical Sketches—Conversion of Augustine; Mill's Autobiography, pp. 133-149.

25. A man can labor for very different objects — now for honor, now for wealth, again for the pleasure of eating or drinking, or for the performance of duty, etc. Yet there is one thing common to all his objects, or ends, or purposes — namely, a desire of well-being, of happiness. All men desire happiness, but they often differ widely concerning the object in which they expect to find their happiness.

"Oh, happiness, our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content, — whate'er thy name."

26. Not only do all men desire happiness, but they also desire perfect happiness or beatitude. Beatitude may be defined as that state in which man is made perfect by the possession of all good things. It implies endless duration and the full satisfaction of all desires. Is such a state attainable by every man?

27. Thesis IV. Every man can attain perfect happiness.

Proof. If a certain good is found in all men, it must be part of man's nature, and hence it proceeds from the Author of nature. Now, there exists in us all, as we know by our consciousness, a desire of perfect happiness; and this desire is good, for by it we are impelled to perfect ourselves. Therefore, this desire proceeds from the Author of nature. But God could not have implanted such a desire in our nature unless he gave us the means to satisfy it; because to allure us by a desire and a hope which He had destined to disappointment would be opposed to God's infinite goodness and truthfulness. Consequently, God has given us the means whereby every one of us can attain perfect happiness.

28. But here a difficulty presents itself. We often experience contradictory desires; a man, e. g., may love peace, yet when provoked by an insult he feels inclined to break the peace. It is evident that perfect happiness cannot exist where desires are in conflict. How, then, can the conflict be made to cease? Clearly, not until the lower cravings of our complex nature cease to war against reason. But as this never comes to pass fully in this life, the logical inference is that beatitude is not attainable in this life. Yet we have proved it to be attainable; it follows, therefore, that we can gain perfect happiness in a future life.

29. At this point another question arises: Is man to be made supremely happy by being deprived of half his nature? Shall the soul be beatified alone, and the body moulder into dust? You may reply, there will be a resurrection by which all things will be made right. In that event, full gratification will be given to man's desires, among which there will never more be strife; for the faculties of his lower nature will be in perfect subjection to the spirit. This is the answer of Father Costa-Rossetti, S. J., and others, who maintain that in a purely natural order of things the soul cannot attain beatitude without the body. In the state of separation, they say, the soul would feel a longing to be reunited to the body, which nature intended for it, and with which it formed one person. Nothing prevents us, they continue, from supposing that a future resurrection belongs to the order of nature, in this sense: that, as God gave us a natural desire for perfect happiness, He thereby pledged Himself to procure the realization of that desire for those who obey the laws of nature.

30. Most philosophers, however, consider the resurrection as entirely supernatural, and in no sense due to our nature, and they maintain that the soul can be perfectly happy without the body. To prove this point, they reason thus: The lower powers of man exist to subserve his higher powers in this life. When the soul possesses in the next life the full knowledge and love of God, it no longer needs the body or the lower faculties, and consequently it will have no desire for reunion with its inferior companion.

The authorities and arguments for both opinions are sufficiently weighty to warrant the student freedom to accept either. Whichever opinion be adopted, every objection against the attainment of beatitude can be satisfactorily answered.

31. Thesis V. No created object can make man perfectly happy.

Proof. Man is distinctively man chiefly by his intellect and will; hence no object can make him perfectly happy, unless it fully satisfies his intellect and will. This, however, no created object can do. Such objects are riches, honors, pleasures, human science and virtue. But as none of these, nor all of them together, can satisfy man's intellect and will, it is clear that no created object can make man perfectly happy.

1. Not riches, which are only a means of providing other good things. At their best they cannot last beyond the present life, and they do not perfect the intellect and will.

2. Not honor. For honor, whether viewed as the esteem which others have of us or as the outward manifestation of this esteem, cannot perfect our intellect and will. It generally has uncertain existence when it is obtained, and it cannot be obtained by all. Besides, honors are often bestowed upon the undeserving and denied to those who are most worthy of them.

3. Not sensual pleasures, which certainly cannot perfect our higher faculties. On the contrary, the pursuit of sensuality degrades man to the level of the brute; and surely it is absurd to say that man's perfect happiness consists in self-degradation.

4. Not the human sciences. Since human nature is essentially the same in all men, the perfect happiness of the human species must be the same in kind for every individual, and hence within the reach of all. But science is not within the reach of all, because many persons have not sufficient ability to acquire it. Being, moreover, something finite, science can neither satisfy the intellect, which is always reaching out for unlimited knowledge, nor the heart, which is capable of loving and, therefore, desiring the Infinite.

5. Not virtue, which consists in a habitual tendency to perfection. Virtue is consequently not the ultimate object of desire, but only a means to attain that object (No. 72 et seq.).

6. Not all these united. For they are all confined to the present life, and they cannot satisfy the desires of a being that longs for everlasting happiness.

32. Thesis VI. God is the only object that can make man perfectly happy.

Proof 1. Every man can attain perfect happiness (Thesis IV.); therefore an object must be attainable that can make every man perfectly happy. But no created object can do this (Thesis V.). Therefore the Creator is the only object that can make man perfectly happy.

Proof 2. Man's perfect happiness supposes perfect satisfaction for his highest powers — i. e., his intellect and will; but no object can give such satisfaction to these two powers except perfect truth and perfect goodness. For his intellect ever seeks to know the causes of things and the causes of these causes; nor can it ever rest content until it understands the First Cause. As the First Cause contains all good, the human will cannot help loving and desiring it when it is once known. Therefore the perfect or infinite truth and goodness, which is God, is the only object that can make man perfectly happy; in other words, the possession of God is our subjective last end.

33. Man's ultimate beatitude, as Philosophy treats it, viewing the subject by the light of reason alone, does not include the intuitive knowledge of God, the beatific vision, which we know from revelation to be really in store for us. The beatific vision is not due naturally to man or to any other creature; it is a supernatural gift. A soul in a state of natural beatitude would know God in a manner proportionate to its nature; it would understand the perfections of the Creator by reasoning from the knowledge it possesses of itself and other creatures. This knowledge of God, though abstract and not intuitive, would not be a cold speculation; on the contrary, in such a knowledge of a Being all good, all beautiful, all amiable, the soul would enjoy all perfection. Thus the primary element in natural beatitude would be the perfect knowledge of a perfect object. Yet, consequent on that knowledge and inseparable from it, as an attribute or even an essential part of perfect happiness, would be the love and enjoyment of that object on the part of the will.

34. No one pretends that perfect happiness, as here described, can be attained in this life. The nearest approach to it possible on earth lies in the right ordering of our faculties towards the attainment of our last end. Indeed, from the nature of things and from the laws of harmony which an all-wise Creator has established in the universe, the happiness of a being is proportionate to that being's perfection. Hence the more perfect we become, the happier we shall be.

35. Moreover, we may distinguish three kinds of perfection; (a) Physical perfection, which supposes the possession of all the faculties required for the "acts of the man ;" (b) Moral perfection, which regards our human acts as properly directed to our last end; (c) Final perfection, which consists in our attainment of that end. Possessing then the physical perfection of human nature, we must, to attain higher moral perfection, so order our faculties by the practice of virtue, that:

1. Our lower powers shall aid and never impede the proper action of the intellect and will. This implies that we must restrain and control our passions, and suppress all inordinate desires for bodily pleasures, riches, honors, and power. By so doing we shall live free from contention, impatience, restless ambition; from intemperance and lust, with their attendant degradation of body and soul.

2. Our higher powers, the intellect and will, shall tend to ennobling objects which bring us nearer to God. We ought to study His perfections. We should endeavor to appreciate His constant care for us, and to understand His supreme right to manage the whole course of our lives. In this way we shall acquire an humble resignation to God's sovereign will, and a loving trust in His fatherly providence — dispositions which secure us in peace against the passing ills of life. Thus, unlike the Stoics of old, who vainly strove to imagine that there were no ills for the just on earth, we must accept, as men of sound common sense, the sufferings of this time in confidence and love, as purifications through which we are to pass to the full possession of eternal happiness in God.

3. Of the goods of earth, which are needed for our bodily life, we shall exert ourselves to obtain a sufficiency. Accordingly, a man should from his youth qualify himself for some respectable pursuit, in order either to procure a decent support for himself and those depending on him, or, if he already has the gifts of fortune, to enable him to pass successfully through possible reverses. With such an equipment, though his station in life may seem ever so lowly, a man can enjoy deeper peace of soul and greater happiness than those who abound in riches and honors and the world's false delights.