Father Pegues concludes his discussion of the human powers by elaborating upon the intellective faculties of reason and will. The chief power of knowing in man is his reason, his intellect. Reasoning is an act proper to man because, of all the animals, “man alone is able to reason, or has need of reasoning.” It is a perfection in man to be able to reason. But, it is an imperfection to have need of reasoning, because “he attains to truth by slow degrees only, and he is thereby liable to err.” To know things as they are is to know truth; to not know things as they are is to be either in ignorance or in error. “To be in ignorance is merely not to know things as they are; whereas to be in error is to affirm that a thing is, when it is not, or conversely.” To be in error is an evil, because “man’s proper good consists in knowledge of the truth which is the good of his intellect.”

Of Human Mind and Will | SaintlySages