9 THE HIERARCHY OF INDIVIDUAL FACULTIES
As we have just said, the profound distinction between the intellect and mentality consists essentially in the fact that the first is of the universal order, whereas the second is of the purely individual order; consequently, they cannot apply to the same domain or to the same objects, and in this respect there is good reason to distinguish the non-formal idea from the formal thought that is only its mental expression, that is, its translation into individual mode. The being's activity in these two different orders, intellectual and mental, can become so dissociated as to make them completely independent of each other as far as their respective manifestations are concerned even while being exercised simultaneously; but we mention this only in passing, since further development of this subject would inevitably require that we forsake the strictly theoretical point of view to which we intend to limit ourselves at present.
Moreover, the psychic principle that characterizes human individuality is also dual in nature: apart from the mental element properly speaking, it also includes the sentimental or emotive element, which obviously belongs to the domain of individual consciousness as well, but is even further removed from the intellect while at the same time being more closely dependent on organic conditions, thus closer to the corporeal or sensible world. This new distinction, although established within the strictly individual domain and
hence less fundamental than the preceding, is nevertheless far more profound than might be supposed at first sight; and many errors or misapprehensions of Western philosophy, particularly under its psychological form, [1] arise from the fact that, despite appearances, it is fundamentally no more aware of this distinction than it is of the distinction between intellect and mentality, or at least it fails to recognize its real significance. What is more, the distinction, and we could even say the separation, of these faculties shows that there is a veritable multiplicity of states, or more precisely of modalities, in the individual himself, although in his totality the individual constitutes only a single state of the total being; the analogy of the part to the whole is found here, as everywhere. [2] One can therefore speak of a hierarchy of individual faculties as well as of a hierarchy of the states of the total being, but the faculties of the individual, although they may be indefinite in their possible extension, are definite in number, and the simple fact of subdividing them to a greater or lesser extent by a dissociation pushed to one or another degree, obviously adds to them no new potentiality, whereas, as we have already said, the states of the being are truly indefinite in their multiplicity, since by their very nature they correspond to all the degrees of universal Existence, at least for the manifested states. One could say that in the individual order the distinction operates only by division, whereas in the extra-individual order, on the contrary, it operates by multiplication, the analogy operating here, as in all cases, in an inverse sense. [3]
We have no intention of entering here upon a specialized and detailed study of the different individual faculties and their respective functions or attributes. Such a study would necessarily have a psychological character, at least as long as we confined ourselves to the theory of these faculties, which in any case need only be named
for their proper objects to be clearly enough defined-provided of course that we keep to generalities, our sole concern just now. Since the more or less subtle analyses of this kind are not the province of metaphysics, and since usually they are the more futile, the more subtle they are, we gladly abandon them to those philosophers who profess to enjoy such things; our present intention on the contrary is not to treat the constitution of the human being completely, which we have already done in another work; [4] and this relieves us of the need to develop more fully such points which are of secondary importance in relation to the subject that now occupies us.
In short, if we have seen fit to say a few words on the hierarchy of the individual faculties, it is only because in so doing we can better understand what the multiple states are by giving a sort of reduced image of them insofar as they are comprised within the limits of individual human possibility. This image can only be exact in its own frame of reference if one takes into account the reservations we made concerning the application of analogy; furthermore, since the less restricted it is the more useful it will be, it seems fitting to include, along with the general notion of the hierarchy of the faculties, a consideration of the various prolongations of the individuality already discussed above. These prolongations, moreover, which are of different orders, can be included among the subdivisions of the general hierarchy; there are even some which, as we have said, are in a way organic in nature and simply relate to the corporeal order, but on condition that we see even in the latter something psychic to a certain degree, this corporeal manifestation being as it were enveloped and permeated at the same time by the subtle manifestation, in which it has its immediate principle. In truth, there is no reason to separate the corporeal much more profoundly from other individual orders, that is, from other modalities belonging to the same individual state envisaged in the integrality of its extension, than the latter must be separated among themselves, since it is situated on the same level as they in the totality of universal Existence, and consequently in the totality of the states of the being; but,