1.

2 The Degrees or Levels of Life

It is our common knowledge that there are three basic kinds of living things namely plants, animals
and humans. Accordingly, we can speak of three degrees of life: vegetative life, sensitive life and
intellectual life. St. Thomas in his Summa Theologiae gives a philosophical basis for the above
division. His argument is as follows. If there are degrees of self-movement, then there are degrees of
life, because self-movement is, as it were, a measure of life. Are there degrees of self-movement?
There are, as we shall see below.
Some living things merely execute or carry out self-movement. It is not in their power to choose
their movement. This is the lowest degree of self-movement and is characteristic of vegetative life.
For example, a plant growing in the shade bends towards the sunlight. It is not that the plant chooses
to bend towards the sun, rather it cannot help because it is embedded in its nature to do so.
The self-movement in some other living things extend not only to execution but also to the principle
of self-movement. This is the next higher degree of self-movement, and is characteristic of sensitive
life. For example, a dog sitting in the cold sees the sunlight, acquires a sense of it, and moves
towards it. Thus, the dog is not only able to carry out self-movement but also to acquire the principle
of movement.
There are still higher degrees of self-movements. Some living things not only acquire the principle of
self-movement and carry out the self-movement, but also determine the end or purpose of their
movements. This is the highest degree of self-movement and is characteristic of human beings. For
example, a man sitting in the cold sees the sunlight, acquires the knowledge of it, and moves towards
it in order to warm himself. Thus, he is able not only to acquire the principle of self-movement, but
also to determine its purpose.

1.3 Summary

Vegetative life has only execution of self-movement. Sensitive life has the principle as well as the
execution of self-movement. Intellectual life has the principle, the purpose as well as the execution
of self-movement. Thus, we see that there are three degrees of self-movements and hence there are
three degrees of life.
There is an increasing gradation of self-movement from vegetative to intellectual life, and
correspondingly an increasing gradation of life. Thus, in the scale of life, vegetative life is the
lowest, then comes sensitive life and intellectual life is the highest. From the lower to the higher
types of life, there is an increasing immanence or interiority of self-movement, from the mere
execution to the possession of the principle and the end. St. Thomas says, in Contra Gentiles, that the
higher the nature of a thing, the more interior will be its activity. Thus the intellectual activity of man
has a greater interiority than the sensitive activity of animals or the vegetative activity of plants.
It is also to be remembered that the higher forms of life include the lower ones. Thus the intellectual
life includes both sensitive and vegetative lives; and sensitive life includes vegetative life. Thus man
has, in addition to his intellectual activity, sensitive as well as vegetative functions. And an animal, a
dog, has in addition to sensitive functions also vegetative functions.