Whether Hope Is in the Apprehensive or in the Appetitive Power?
Objection 1: It would seem that hope belongs to the cognitive power.
Because hope, seemingly, is a kind of awaiting; for the Apostle says
(Rom. 8:25): "If we hope for that which we see not; we wait for it
with patience." But awaiting seems to belong to the cognitive power,
which we exercise by _looking out._ Therefore hope belongs to the
cognitive power.
Obj. 2: Further, apparently hope is the same as confidence; hence
when a man hopes he is said to be confident, as though to hope and to
be confident were the same thing. But confidence, like faith, seems
to belong to the cognitive power. Therefore hope does too.
Obj. 3: Further, certainty is a property of the cognitive power. But
certainty is ascribed to hope. Therefore hope belongs to the
cognitive power.
_On the contrary,_ Hope regards good, as stated above (A. 1). Now
good, as such, is not the object of the cognitive, but of the
appetitive power. Therefore hope belongs, not to the cognitive, but
to the appetitive power.
_I answer that,_ Since hope denotes a certain stretching out of the
appetite towards good, it evidently belongs to the appetitive power;
since movement towards things belongs properly to the appetite:
whereas the action of the cognitive power is accomplished not by the
movement of the knower towards things, but rather according as the
things known are in the knower. But since the cognitive power moves
the appetite, by presenting its object to it; there arise in the
appetite various movements according to various aspects of the
apprehended object. For the apprehension of good gives rise to one
kind of movement in the appetite, while the apprehension of evil
gives rise to another: in like manner various movements arise from
the apprehension of something present and of something future; of
something considered absolutely, and of something considered as
arduous; of something possible, and of something impossible. And
accordingly hope is a movement of the appetitive power ensuing from
the apprehension of a future good, difficult but possible to obtain;
namely, a stretching forth of the appetite to such a good.
Reply Obj. 1: Since hope regards a possible good, there arises in man
a twofold movement of hope; for a thing may be possible to him in two
ways, viz. by his own power, or by another's. Accordingly when a man
hopes to obtain something by his own power, he is not said to wait
for it, but simply to hope for it. But, properly speaking, he is said
to await that which he hopes to get by another's help, as though to
await (_exspectare_) implied keeping one's eyes on another (_ex alio
spectare_), in so far as the apprehensive power, by going ahead, not
only keeps its eye on the good which man intends to get, but also on
the thing by whose power he hopes to get it; according to Ecclus.
51:10, "I looked for the succor of men." Wherefore the movement of
hope is sometimes called expectation, on account of the preceding
inspection of the cognitive power.
Reply Obj. 2: When a man desires a thing and reckons that he can get
it, he believes that he can get it, he believes that he will get it;
and from this belief which precedes in the cognitive power, the
ensuing movement in the appetite is called confidence. Because the
movement of the appetite takes its name from the knowledge that
precedes it, as an effect from a cause which is better known; for the
apprehensive power knows its own act better than that of the appetite.
Reply Obj. 3: Certainty is ascribed to the movement, not only of the
sensitive, but also of the natural appetite; thus we say that a stone
is certain to tend downwards. This is owing to the inerrancy which
the movement of the sensitive or even natural appetite derives from
the certainty of the knowledge that precedes it.
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