A Response to Blondel’s “Action” by Ambroise Gardeil: Pt. 1, “The Objective Requirements of ‘Action’”

Brief Translator’s Introduction

The present series of articles (to appear in several posts on To Be a Thomist) serves as a kind of homage to high praise expressed by Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange on multiple occasions. While working over the past decade on translations of various texts by Garrigou-Lagrange, I repeatedly came across references to a series of articles written by Ambroise Gardeil—articles that Garrigou-Lagrange remarked ought to be gathered into a single volume:¹ Fr. Ambroise Gardeil, “Les exigences objectives de ‘l’action’,” Revue Thomiste 6 (1898): 125–138, 269–294; “L’action: ses ressources subjectives,” 7 (1899): 23–39; “Les ressources de vouloir” Revue Thomiste 7 (1899): 447–461; “Les ressources de la raison practique: Utrum beatitudo sit operatio intellectus practici (1)” Revue Thomiste 8 (1900): 377–399; “Ce qu’il y a vrai dans le néo-scotisme” 8 (1900): 531–550, 648–665; Revue Thomiste 9 (1901): 407–443.” Gardeil seems, however, not to have finished the sequence. (At around that time of his writing, he begins to shift his focus to questions concerning theological methodology and the reform of the curriculum at the Saulchoir. Some of the latter articles have been translated for To Be a Thomist: “The Notion of a Theological Locus”, “The De locis theologicis: Its Nature, History, Aftermath, and Potential Future. An article by Fr. Ambroise Gardeil from the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique”, and “On Probable Certainty.”)

I will allow Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange himself to situate the articles:

Between 1898 and 1900—during the period when Fr. Schwalm,² a friend of Fr. Gardeil, was publishing “Le Dogmatisme du cœur et celui de l'esprit” (1898) and various other works in response to Maurice Blondel’s L’Action—Fr. Gardeil himself authored a series of masterful studies: “Les exigences objectives de l’‘Action’ (May and July 1898); “L’Action, ses ressources subjectives”(March 1899); “Les Ressources du vouloir” (September 1899); “Les Ressources de la raison pratique” (September 1900).

These articles really should have been gathered into a single volume, especially the earlier ones, which address: the psychological elements of human activity; the conditions of voluntary action (such as the necessity of a single, ultimate end); God as the final object, or the Thomistic proof for the existence of God—Who is the sovereign good—through the natural desire for happiness (Revue Thomiste, July 1898, pp. 269–295); and the beatific vision (ibid., March 1899).

[Georges] Fonsegrive wrote that such a constructive work could not have come into being except in the wake of the publication of Maurice Blondel’s L’Action. Nonetheless, Gardeil’s articles were, in point of fact, the substance of the commentaries that he had written on the Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologiae (on the treatises concerning the ultimate end and beatitude) prior to the appearance of Blondel’s book. What he presents there in is nothing but the pure Thomistic doctrine concerning the formal object of the will: “The will, or rational appetite, is specified by the universal good—that is, by a good that exists in things, though not a good constricted to this or that particular good, but, rather, by an absolute good”, according to the comments made by Cajetan on ST I–II, q. 2, a. 7. However, this teaching was here presented by a Thomist who loved to read Saint Augustine, who readily cited Pascal, and who deeply assimilated the thought of Saint Thomas—not being any less interested in fundamental principles than in the conclusions that follow from them.³

For some time, however, I have wanted to present these texts by Gardeil. They represent a particularly stirring response to the important questions roused by the work of Maurice Blondel. They also provide the framework for elements of a kind of deepened account of practico-moral reason, especially in its deepest springs, based upon solid foundations. I offer them as a testament to two of my masters. Eternal memory and blessed repose!

Gardeil’s Text

“All our actions and thoughts,” says Pascal, “will follow quite different paths depending on whether there are eternal goods to hope for or not. So different will be their trajectories that it is impossible to take a single step with sense and judgment unless it is guided by the view of that end which must be our final object.”

Various attempts, making use of sundry methods, have been made to resolve this fundamental problem. The method of authority, supported by signs and testimonies, seems to have been Pascal’s preference. The rational method, which considers the existence of a final end as the conclusion of the demonstration of the existence of a provident God and the immortality of the soul, has generally attracted spiritualist philosophers. The psychological method—undoubtedly the one that is best suited to a study in which our psychology is supremely involved—has often been used without rigorous care and development. More often than not, it furnishes rhetorical flourishes rather than well founded demonstrative content. In recent times, however, some psychologists have scientifically investigated the exigencies of human activity. What we will attempt in the following articles is intended to be a contribution to those studies. Relying on the doctrine developed by Saint Thomas in ST I-II, q. 1 and 2, as well as in similar texts, we aim to show that God, under the aspect of being the final end, is required by the internal structure and the activity of our voluntary dynamism. The thesis that we propose stands midway between two extremes: on the one hand, the denials of those who, like Édouard Recéjac,⁴ wish to confine the aspirations of the will within symbols unfounded upon actual reality; and, on the other, the claims of those who believe they find in the immanence of our inner psychology a positive warrant in favor of specific supernatural dogmas.

We shall divide this study into three parts: 1˚ The psychological elements of human activity; 2˚ the objective conditions of its functioning; 3˚ On God as our final object.

I. The Psychological Elements of Human Activity

In the field of my consciousness, I experience two kinds of phenomena: I know and I will. Here, we take these two words in their broad sense.

Knowledge and will intersect at every moment of my psychological life. All my practical ideas involve willing, and every act of willing contains an element of knowledge. Nevertheless, these two groups of phenomena have irreducible characteristics. For the time being, let one example suffice: knowledge is essentially static, while willing is essentially dynamic. Anticipating modern psychology, Thomas writes: “The operation of the apprehensive power is likened to rest; the operation of the appetitive power, however, is likened to motion”.⁵ Since our present inquiry concerns, in a very particular way, the requirements of human activity—man in the dynamic state, homo in agendo non in essendo⁶—we shall consider representative elements only insofar as they pertain to action, which alone constitutes man as an agent.

Every action is preceded by an appetition, and every appetition is characterized by a tendency toward an object. The object of appetition is not the effect produced by the action. It is, if you will, that effect in an ideal state, in the state of being a goal present to the will but not yet realized. Nor is it the image that represents it to consciousness. No doubt, every object of appetition coincides with an image. However, what I desire is not the image of the object, but the object represented in the image. Many ideas arouse no appetite in me; only one has the power to set me in motion: the idea of the good—I mean, of my good, of what is good for me, or at least what is presented to me as such in conceptual representation, of the good as synonymous with the perfection of my being, the bonum perfectum, says Saint Thomas. Therefore, when my will acts upon this object, it does not do so because it is represented in a concept. This representation is only the necessary condition for the attraction; it cannot, however, be the specific stimulus, the formal motive. Representation belongs to knowledge, and the object we are now speaking of pertains solely to the will. The former specifies and distinguishes our various cognitions by specifying them. Its influence upon the corresponding power belongs to the order of exemplary causality, that is, to the order of [extrinsic] formal causality. The object of the will, by contrast, belongs to a properly active and motive order. To be sure, its motive action is not one that can be quantitatively measured. It is by analogy that we call it a motion. But, for the psychological observer who has learned how to discern it, it is no less real, for it is under its “finalizing” influence that the will—a reality if anything is—sets itself into motion. It is within the immanence of our psychology that it finds its field of activity. Our object is akin to the attraction exercised by a magnet: deploying an activity unseen by the human eye, it nonetheless draws into the orbit of its influence the dust of our acts of willing, formerly scattered abroad but now set in motion under its attractive force.

For, under the influence of their objects, our appetitions soon begin to gather themselves together. From a host of sporadic elements, pairs arise, then even entire systems which form under its influence. For now, we will only determine specifically the elements that compose them. In next section of our study, we will consider the laws involved in their formation and functioning.

The objects of our acts of willing are specifically defined as being ends or means. The end is that which, within a given order of acts of will, is willed for its own sake; the means is that which is willed for the sake of an end. In the ordinary course of things, an end may become a means by being referred to a further end.

Thus, several means may be ordered in relation to one another. At every moment, we may look upon the phenomena of our voluntary life and observe these hierarchized objects, to which correspond hierarchized acts of willing.

Subjectively, the proportion of end to means is expressed in the principle: he who wills the end wills the means. This means that as the will passes from the volition of the end to the volition of the means, no additional objective influence is required. By the very fact that I will this end, I am capable of determining myself to will the means suitable for attaining that end. I have within myself all the energy needed for doing so. Knowledge concerning the best means has only a determining influence in relation to specification: it is by virtue of willing the end that I choose one, given specification for my willing in contrast to some other. Thus, the problem concerning the objective requirements of voluntary dynamism can—and must—disregard the acts of willing means in order to focus on the acts of willing ends. Without the attraction of ends, our voluntary life would never awaken; it is on the side of ends that we must seek the cause of our voluntary activity.

I am well aware that this conclusion clashes with many common ideas. Most contemporary philosophers place the ultimate reason for our human dynamism in freedom. Nonetheless, freedom has only the value of a consequence. What my will seeks above all else is an end; freedom is only the instrument for the choice of means, an incomparably valuable instrument, to be sure, but one that would serve no purpose if, prior to it, there were not goods presenting themselves to our wills as capable of perfecting and satisfying them—that is to say, ends.

Let us summarize what we have said up to this point: human action is psychologically justified only by the attractive action exercised, in the opposite direction, by an objective reality. Before being an action, it is reaction. This objective reality is immanent, being presented in a concept. It is not the concept as a pure object of knowledge that sets the will in motion, but an objective reality belonging to a specific order—a pure object of will. This pure object of will is the proper good of the subject who wills. Our proper goods have the character of ends or of means. The reactions of the will to these two kinds of specific stimuli are not on the same level. The willing of the means is directly under the influence of the willing of the end, and it is only through it that it is under the moving influence of the object. Ultimately, the inquiry into the objective conditions of human willing must be directed toward the analysis of primary acts of willing that concern ends.

II. The Conditions of Voluntary Functioning

We now must turn our attention to any one of those groupings of acts of will organized according to the relation of means to end, whose existence I briefly noted. For example, a philosopher resolves to go for a walk. What are the conditions of functioning of this man’s will? I discern three: 1˚ the presence of an ultimate end for the given group [of means]; 2˚ this ultimate end is unique; 3˚ all the appetitions composing this group are organized into a unified system in relation to each other and in relation to the ultimate end.

1˚ There is an ultimate end in every given group. Scotus claims the opposite. According to him, our appetitive dynamism is fragmentary. Its only organizing principle is a freedom that is essentially arbitrary. The ultimate reason for the functioning of the will lies in the will itself. This thesis has in our day been taken up again by contingentists and libertinists, by thinkers like Renouvier and Fouillée.

In opposition to this theory, psychological examination reveals within our appetitive dynamism an objective organizing unity which it does not create, but upon which it depends. This dependence can be recognized by the following marks: 1˚ Something determinate is willed; 2˚ voluntary action is not indefinite; 3˚ before acting, the intention is fixed; 4˚ deliberation has an ultimate terminus; 5˚ execution has a beginning.

These five phenomena—so simple that it seems almost naïve to point them out—are inexplicable unless one admits that the entire voluntary cycle affected by them unfolds under the influence of a so-called ultimate end.

Let us make our point more tangible. Never will the aforementioned philosopher feel the desire to go for a walk rather than do something else, never will he determine himself to so definite an action, never will he emerge from the inner deliberation amid which he hesitates, never, finally, will he take his cane and hat in hand and open his door, unless he proposes to himself an end which, in these given circumstances, is a final end. The conclusion seems harmless enough at first glance. We will assess it soon. In the while, the fact stands: my philosopher has gone out for his walk. It is urgent to prove our assertion.

Let us suppose that our philosopher, being the true philosopher he is, adores philosophy. Philosophizing is his passion, whereas he is utterly indifferent to going for a walk. However, to philosophize is to reflect, and our philosopher, having had his dinner, now experiences a certain heaviness in his stomach. He says to himself: intellectual work requires a mind freed from such tyrannical tensions, and a good and prompt digestion would restore to him the freedom of his thoughts; yes, a post-dinner walk might be a means to hasten his digestion. Now, since one, not even a philosopher, does not go out without his hat, and since a cane is a welcome addition to the pleasure of a leisurely walk... Well, then, alea jacta est, the die is cast. Our philosopher has taken his cane and hat in hand, and there he goes, out the door, no longer thinking, you might imagine, of philosophy. Do you really believe that? Let us recall the series of acts of will he passed through in his deliberation. Everything depends on the first link in the chain. Let us suppose, we said, that our philosopher adores philosophy. The love of philosophy: here is the final end, the hidden spring for every decision he has made, for every step he takes. Remove, even for but a moment, this walking man’s devotion to philosophy, and he will find himself in the middle of the road like a sleepwalker suddenly awakened. He will have no reason to go on. Like a new Ménalque, he will wonder at much: what is this cane in his hand, and why did he think to put on his hat? How did he desire to go outside? Why did he wish to hasten his digestion? And if it occurs to him that he did this in order to clear his mind, then he will still ask: to what end? Why not simply let nature take its course?

Thus, if you removed the idea of the final end, then all human action will be eliminated as well. Our present intention is not to extend this conclusion over the whole of human life. It suffices that it be true for any given cycle of voluntary activity. And this is precisely what Saint Thomas had clearly recognized when he said that if the notion of a final end were removed from the order of the will “nothing would be desired, nor would any action come to an end, nor would the agent’s intention find rest… No one would begin to do anything, nor would deliberation be brought to its conclusion, but rather, would continue ad infinitum.” ⁷ And, it is clear as day that all this stands in absolute contradiction with even the most elementary psychological observation. To eliminate the final end is to eliminate the whole of voluntary life as it actually exists.

Therefore, in opposition to the those theories of action which would have our voluntary life be fragmented under the influence of an unguided freedom, we have this first result: the notion of an objective ultimate end is a necessary condition for the functioning of all that we gather together in our voluntary activity.

2˚ This ultimate end is unique.

At first glance, this assertion may seem included in the previous one. This is not the case, however. Despite the proverb that one cannot chase two rabbits at once, man very often pursues several goals through a single expenditure of activity, without it being possible to say that one of them is determinative or exclusive of the others. For example, it might happen that my philosopher, alongside a very real devotion to philosophy, harbors literary ambitions or is not indifferent to the earnings he makes from his books or lectures. Faced with these data, do we now need to posit three ultimate ends in order to justify his walk? The supposition is jarring! So be it! But is the case itself fantastical? No. Therefore, we will likely be able to determine more precisely what we mean by an ultimate end if we take up an examination of this new aspect of the problem.

Let us return to our walker. We now have three distinct aims at the source of his action: philosophy, glory, and money! But, in point of fact, are there three ends? In themselves, the point is not debatable, since each of these motives would suffice to justify a walk. But for him? In view of the living activity that animates him? (I speak of his voluntary activity.) Let us ask him.

Is it for the love of philosophy that you go walking, O philosopher?—Certainly!

And why do you love philosophy?—Because it is, for me, both a joy and a legitimate perfection.

But do you also love philosophy for the sake of glory?—Not at all, though, I love both glory and philosophy—or rather, the glory that is attached to philosophy!

Why?—Can a man be indifferent to so pure a glory? Is it not a great good for him?

Very well, but the same is not true as regards money, and it is said that you grow rich by philosophizing?—No doubt. It is better to philosophize than to grow rich. But still, one must live, and if one must live, I like to live well.

So, it seems you can unite these diverse devotions within your soul?—Indeed, I can, for in them I do seek after different things, but one and the same: the development and perfection of my being.

Very well, but now I see that you are no more a philosopher than a sincere lover of walks! —Listen: I am a man, nthing is foreign to me... Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.

Our interrogation has succeeded beyond all expectation, and the notion of the ultimate end is thereby completely transformed. Let us no longer call the ultimate end the material good in which it happens to be realized—whether philosophy, glory, money. The ultimate end is not one material being preferred to another. Above all, it is an object, a mover of action. It is the attraction of the good capable of perfecting us, forever posited before our desires and coming to clothe particular goods with its influence, without being confused with any of them. All the diverse goods that we actually will are gathered together in this pure object of our volitions. What we seek in these various goods is the good that corresponds to our being, to our present dispositions. Consequently, even when the objects change or multiply, there can be, in reality, only one ultimate end for any given set of volitions. Thus purified, the ultimate end becomes the perfective good of our being and the perfect good. Indeed, nothing can be added to it, and every conceived good arranges itself under it as one of its parts.⁸

Thus, in the final analysis, the perfect good—the exclusive and dominant concern for our perfection—considered in its objective source, is the hidden spring of our appetitions. Clearly, it is unique, by reason of the very unity of the subject in relation to which it is defined.

But, it will be said, is this object not merely an abstraction—nothing more, it seems, than our desires transformed into an object, substantialized, and as it were hypostatized?

Pay heed! When we say that the perfect good is the objectified desire for our perfection, we are providing a means for defining it. We do not mean that this transfer from subject to object actually takes place. The psychological examination of our will, from its very first movement, finds the object already formed and terminating the act of appetition. Indeed, when it investigates which of the two—subject or object—has the character of being the determining factor, the appetitive act declares that it undergoes the attraction of the object. Therefore, let us not invert their roles. Merely because we must begin from the subject in order to recognize the object, let us not make a mere point of method into a law governing realities.

The very vitality of our will’s movements in the face of this ideal of our proper good—always pursued, always reappearing—shows that it is not an abstraction drawn from our subjectivity. This active cause is not an abstraction. When birds fly hundreds of kilometers to return to their nesting grounds, is this orienting instinct a mere abstraction? Man’s appetite is no less oriented than the swallow’s instinct or the gravitational inclinations of material bodies. In the words of Augustine: “My love is my weight; wherever I am carried, it is love that carries me.”⁹ Say what you will about the immanence of man’s orientation toward his happiness—even though immanent, a dynamic orientation is not, for all that, subjective. It necessarily divides into two elements: the mover and what is moved. Both are real, both are concrete. (The concreteness of the activity tending toward an object guarantees the concreteness of that objective terminus which acts upon it.)

And therefore—and this is our second conclusion—a cycle of voluntary activity cannot function without the real presence and action of an objective and dominant attraction, a single attraction beneath the most disparate and multiple forms. It is the attraction of the good proper to our nature, of that bonum conveniens, that bonum perfectum and perficiens, which we do not create, but which preexists the stirring of our appetition, as the cause preexists the effect.

3˚ The appetitive organism.

No volition—however free it may be—can escape this attraction. Our volitions form a linked system, a living mechanism, an organism entirely dominated by that central component which is the good of our nature, elevated to the rank of ultimate end for every given voluntary whole.

According to Scotus—in whom the entire libertinist school, from Molina to Fouillée, is heard—the will is, in its essence, absolutely autonomous: will = freedom. According to him, there will be acts that escape the influence of objective goodness—neutral acts, that is, acts which regard neither an end nor means, which assign to themselves the termini of their activity at whim, acts that, within a given voluntary cycle, detach a particular good from the whole and fix upon it apart from any consideration of its subordination to an end. The free will shall be the sole reason for the exercise of such acts. Not depending upon an object, they will create it. Consequently, there would be no common and a priori rule for human volitions. Freedom is the first good: what it wills—that is the good. If it is to be limited, it will be by another will. Which one? Scotus admitted the divine will; our modern libertinists admit only the human will¹⁰ as the limit and rule of the human will.

From the psychological point of view, we deny the accuracy—and therefore the legitimacy—of this position. We maintain that the exercise of human activity is conditioned, from start to finish, by objective norms which we do not create and which it is not within our power to alter.

Let us first note that one cannot invoke, in favor of the Scotist thesis, any supposed psychological observation. Introspection—or better, “inner sense”—certainly bears witness to the existence of free will, but in no way establishes its absolute autonomy. “Let each of us listen to and consult himself, he will feel that he is free, just as he will feel that he is rational.” That is the final word of the inner sense. And Bossuet, who so expressed it, did not believe that this fact of consciousness contradicted the most absolute factual determinism.¹¹ The same must be said concerning the argument drawn from the idea of duty or responsibility. Duty and responsibility are compatible with a freedom limited by objective conditions. Indeed, they presuppose such conditions. Therefore, one would be reaching unproven conclusions were one to consider the existence of neutral acts as the consequence of a notion of freedom that nothing establishes.

Thus, in order to ground autonomy, Scotus deemed it necessary to establish the existence of neutral objects of will—that is, objects which are neither ends nor means.¹² Here are his two principal arguments: 1˚ in many of our volitions, we can observe the absence of any actual consideration of a goal, much less of a final end. We act without knowing why we do so. 2˚ The intellect, by its power of abstraction, can just as well form the idea of a pure good, detached from the notion of end and means. Accordingly, the will can will this good precisely as such.

The first argument can be resolved without any serious difficulty. No one has ever claimed that, in order for a volition to be referable to an end, it must be accompanied by actual, thoughtful consideration of that end. As St. Thomas observes: “The man who walks along a road need not, at every moment, think about the destination of his journey.”¹³ Nonetheless, his act will be voluntary and performed for the sake of the goal if it proceeds from an act of will issued once and for all. Now, perhaps one could attempt to argue that there is absolutely no such antecedent volition, but Scotus did not, as far as I know, marshal such an argument—and understandably so. Experience concerning this point is among the least conclusive. How often do we believe that we have acted without intention, when, upon but a moment of reflection, we discover quite real motives, perfectly though implicitly formulated, at the very root of our actions.¹⁴

The second argument will detain us longer. It rests on an indisputable psychological foundation: the abstractive power of the intellect. Can this power of abstraction can extend so far as to alter at will the object of our volition and create objects for it? This is the whole question before us here.

The answer would be affirmative if the object of our will were the idea itself. Indeed, it is understandable to say that as abstraction produces modifications, ideas change, and the will specified by them would change in turn. Thus, in relation to the abstract idea of the pure good—which would have the character neither of end nor of means, but, rather, would be a bonum absolutum—there would follow a perfectly autonomous will, since it would be detached from the objective framework of ends and means. Is this possible?

No—for the proper mover of my will is not just any given idea, not even the idea of the absolute good, of the good as such. It is the attraction of my good, radiating, as it were, within the idea that expresses it.¹⁵ Let each reader examine himself once more. You will recognize quite clearly that your will is stirred only once you perceive your personal good in some given idea. Prior to that, abstraction may have been in full swing, but all has remained unmoved. It is like one of those speeches we listen to with indifference, until, all the sudden, a practical truth arises, one suited to our innermost desires, immediately reverberating upon our will while merely passing through the intellect. You can deploy all your dialectic prowess to persuade me that the object of your thoughts deserves my full sympathy. However, so long as you have not placed it in that perspective where it appears to me as my good, I can understand you, but I do not commit myself. The absolute good, as Scotus imagines it, is like the De la Fontaine’s rooster looking at the pearl: “I think it is fine, but the smallest grain of millet would serve my purpose far better.”

For there are only two ways in which a good can appear to me as my good: 1˚ by presenting itself to me as having an intrinsic and immediate fittingness to my aspirations and desires, and this fittingness will at once make me regard it as a goal worthy of my activity—as an end. And, 2˚ by appearing as capable of actually realizing a goal already willed. No intermediate is possible, not even logically.¹⁶ Whatever good I will, I do so either because of its intrinsic suitability to my appetites—in which case it is my end—or I will it for its relation to another good that is fitting for me, in which case I will it as a means. And this, moreover—if one is willing to observe himself carefully—is precisely what experience attests.

But objections seem to be close at hand: Altruism, disinterested love, love of art for art’s sake, and Platonic love. The words have a noble ring, but the question remains: under those names, what is the reality that they bear for the will? If you investigate them closely, you will soon recognize that the driving mechanism behind all these theories is our rightly understood self-interest. By “rightly understood self-interest” I mean: that which leads us to prefer, above all else, the objects that correspond to our higher aspirations, for precisely as human beings, our true good is, above all, the rational good. Every object, every act that appears to us as satisfying the demands of our higher part outweighs in quality the goods of our animal part. When we understand this law and put it into practice, we then have disinterested love in all its various forms. However, let us be precise as to what such love is disinterested in. It is not disinterested in our own good, for its very object is that good in its highest form. Rather, it is disinterested only in one part of that good. Thus, self-love is what alone justifies the sacrifice of self-love. Even heroism finds its justification in a noble and holy egoism. Nothing—not even martyrdom— escapes the dominant sway of the ultimate end, of the good that can perfect us.

Therefore, the neutral act is a chimera, since no object can be assigned to it. Not only is the condition for all the will’s functioning found in the objective influence of a final end, not only is this final end unique for every set of related acts of will, but moreover, at every level of willing, the influence of the ultimate end makes itself felt. Our entire voluntary life, at each and every moment, is ordered in relation to our own proper good. Various groupings of voluntary actions will come, one after another, each differing from the others. Only this center of attraction remains: this is what gives action its specific unity. Now, let us not forget, psychological examination reveals this organizing unity to us as being an objective unity, an object that exercises its influence upon us from outside our subjectivity.

* * *

In itself, what could this object be, which causes all my movements, upon which all my activity, as it were, hangs? Is it even something in itself—an individuated, characterized being, not only always the same for me, but ever identical and permanent in itself?

I find myself in the presence of a kind of mysterious magnet. I observe that it draws me, and I strive to determine the cause of what is happening to me, to discover what inwardly differentiates this magnetized iron from ordinary iron.

To whom shall I turn to resolve the question? To whom, if not once again to my immanent will? This will is what has served as the special reagent; its own phenomena were what first brought to my attention, and then revealed to me, the laws governing the attraction that was overwhelming me. And, after having set me on the path, this will is what unveiled to me, in all its purity, the nature of an object of volition, its dominating power, and its various modes of influence. And, now, it is from this will—from it alone—that I now seek, so to speak, to extract the definitive characteristics of my final object. If I am to find God at the end of my inquiry, why should He not appear to me as being required by the very nature and operation of my will?

(To be continued.)

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1. See Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020), 254 (a discussion of the relationship between the will’s formal object and proofs for God’s existence); idem., On Divine Revelation, vol. 2, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2022), 310 (the religious and moral aspirations of the human person).↩︎

2. Later this year (2025), I plan to present a translation of an homage to Fr. Schwalm, written by Fr. Gardeil. I have partly prepped a translation of it and plan for it to finish it for the fall.↩︎

3. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “In memoriam: Le Père A. Gardeil,” Revue thomiste 64 (1931): 797-808 (here, 799–800).↩︎

4. Édouard Recéjac, Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance mistique (Paris: Alcan, 1897).↩︎

5. ST I, q. 81, a. 1c.↩︎

6. See Cajetan’s commentary on ST I-II, q. 1, a. 1.↩︎

7. ST I–IIae, q. 1, a. 4; cf. ibid., a. 6.↩︎

8. ST I-II, q. 1, a. 5c.↩︎

9. Augustine, Confessions, bk. 13, ch. 9.↩︎

10. Fouillée, Critique des systèmes de morale contemporains [n.d.], 394.↩︎

11. See his Treatise on Free Will.↩︎

12. [Gardeil cites “Scotus” in the following dated manner, not differentiating between the Lectura, Ordinatio, and various extant Reportationes:] In IV Sent., dist. 49 (§Utrum homo omnia quae appetit, appetat propter beatitudinem.↩︎

13. ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3.↩︎

14. ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6 ([in particular,] see Cajetan’s commentary on this article)↩︎

15. ST I-II, q. 8, a. 1 (again, see Cajetan’s commentary).↩︎

16. ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6.↩︎