The divine life in three treatises

Answ. The point is weighty, and hath oft unhappily fallen into injudicious hands. I shall endeavour to resolve it as truly, clearly and impartially as I can. 1. It is a great error against the Nature of man, to say, that Knowledge as such, is fit to be any mans chief and ultimate End. It may be that act which is next the Enjoying Act of the Will, which is it that indeed is next the End, objectively considered: But it is not that Act which we call Ultimate Ultimus. And this is plain 1. Because the Object of the Understanding, which is Truth, is not formally the nearest object or matter of full felicity or delight: It is Goodness that is the nearest object. 2. And therefore the office of the Intellect is but introductive and subservient to the office of the Will, to apprehend the Verity of Good, and present it to the will to be prosecuted or embraced, or delighted in. There are many Truths that are ungrateful and vexatious, and which men would wish to be no truths: And there is a knowledge which is troublesome, useless, undesirable and tormenting, which even a wise man would fain avoid if he knew how. Morality is but preparatively in the intellect: and therefore intellectual acts as such are not morally Good, or evil, but only participatively, as subject to the Will. And therefore knowledge as such being not a Moral Good, can be no other than such a Natural Good as is Bonum alicui, only so far as it tendeth to some Welfare or Happiness, or pleasure of the possessor or some other: And this Welfare or Pleasure is either that which is suited to the Sensitive Powers, or to the Rational (which is to be found in the love of God alone.)

Answ. The point is weighty, and hath oft unhappily faln into injudicious hands. I shall endeavour to resolve it as truly, clearly and impartially as I can. 1. It is a great errour against the Nature of man, to say, that Knowledge as such, is fit to be any mans chief and ultimate End. It may be that act which is next the Enjoying Act of the Will, which is it that indeed is next the End, objectively considered: But it is not that Act which we call Ultimate Ultimus. And this is plain 1. Because the Object of the Understanding, which is Truth, is not formally the nearest object or matter of full felicity or delight: It is Goodness that is the nearest object. 2. And therefore the office of the Intellect is but introductive and subservient to the office of the Will, to apprehend the Verity of Good, and present it to the will to be prosecuted or embraced, or delighted in. There are many Truths that are ungrateful and vexatious, and which men would wish to be no truths: And there is a knowledge which is troublesome, useless, undesirable and tormenting, which even a wise man would fain avoid if he knew how. Morality is but preparatively in the intellect: and therefore intellectual acts as such are not morally Good, or evil, but only participatively, as subject to the Will. And therefore knowledge as such being not a Moral Good, can be no other than such a Natural Good as is Bonum alicui, only so far as it tendeth to some Welfare or Happiness, or pleasure of the possessor or some other: And this Welfare or Pleasure is either that which is suited to the Sensitive Powers, or to the Rational (which is to be found in the love of God alone.)