Arg. 3. All that is in matter must be material. But if subsistent intelli- gence is the form of a body, the being of such intelligence must be in matter: for there is no being of the form beyond the being of the matter. It follows that a subsistent intelligence could not be immaterial, as supposed.
Arg. 4. It is impossible for anything having its being in a body to be apart from the body. But intelligence is shown to be apart from the body, as it is neither the body itself nor a bodily faculty.* Arg. 5. Whatever has being in common with the body, must also have a6tivity in common with the body: for the adtive power of a thing cannot be more exalted than its essence. But if a subsistent intelligence is the form of a body, one being must be common to it and the body: for out of form and matter there results absolute unity, which is unity in being. At that rate the activity of a subsistent intelligence, united as a form to the body, will be exerted in common with the body, and its faculty will be a bodily (or organic) faculty: positions which we regard as impossible.
(Chap. LXIX). It is not difficult to solve the objections alleged against the aforesaid union.
Reply 1. The first objedtion contains a false supposition: for body and soul are not two actually existing substances, but out of the two of them is made one substance adlually existing: for a man's body is not the same in actuality when the soul is present as when it is absent: it is the soul that gives actual being.f Reply 2. As for the second objection, that form and matter are contained under the same genus, it is not true in the sense that both are species of one genus, but inasmuch as both are elements of the same species. Thus then a subsistent intelligence and a body, which as separate existences would be species of different genera, in their union belong to one genus as elements of the same.
Reply 3. Nor need a subsistent intelligence be a material form, notwith- standing that its existence is in matter: for though in matter, it is not im- mersed in matter, or wholly comprised in matter.
Reply 4. Nor yet does the union of a subsistent intelligence with a body by its being that body's form stand in the way of intelligence being separable from body. J In a soul we have to observe as well its essence as also its power. In point of essence it gives being to such and such a body, while in point of power it executes its own proper a£ts. In any activity of the soul therefore which is completed by a bodily organ, the power of the soul which is the # The reference is to Aristotle, De anima, III, iv; and set bounds to. We now recognise both molar and " Nor is it reasonable to suppose it (intelligence) to be molecular mechanics: is there not also such a thing as blended with the body of which separateness of in- molecular life, with principles or ' forms ' of its own, telligence from body much will be said presently. besides the molar life of the mass of the body as such?
t This doctrine is maintained by Father Bodder, Otherwise how could there ever be such a thing as a Psycbokgia Ratumafts, pp. 356-361, ed. 2, who men- fever or a morbid growth in the body? Are not these tions other Catholics as opposing it. Their grounds abnormal developments exaggerations, we might almay be something as follows: — The doctrine was most say ' rebellions,' of secondary lives with which in formulated in an age when cell-life, protoplasm, its ordinary state the body is replete, — secondary lives blood corpuscles, microbes, were undreamt of. If there which in health work in harmony with the main life, is any value in the well-worn analogy between the of which the soul is the principle? constitution of man and that of a State, the State, it t pofc ^upon-os, the much debated Aristotelian may be observed, contains many minor associations, phrase, De anima, III, iv, v. This reply should be carewhich it does not absorb or transform into things fully borne in mind, political, but is content merely to co-ordinate, guard, principle of that aftivity must bring to aft that part of the body whereby its aftivity is completed, as sight brings the eye to aft. But in any aftivity of the soul that we may suppose not to be completed by any bodily organ, the corre- sponding power will not bring anything in the body to aft; and this is the sense in which the intelleft is said to be 'separate,' — not but that the sub- stance of the soul, whereof intelleft is a power, or the intelleftual soul, brings the body to aft, inasmuch as it is the form which gives being to such body.
Reply 5. Nor is it necessary, as was argued in the fifth place, that if the soul in its substance is the form of the body, its every operation should be through the body, and thus its every faculty should be the aftuation of some part of the body: for the human soul is not one of those forms which are entirely immersed in matter, but of all forms it is the most exalted above matter: hence it is capable of a certain aftivity without the body, being not depen- dent on the body in its aftion, as neither in its being is it dependent on the body.
CHAPTER INll-P/ato j Theory of the Union of the Intelle&ual Soul with the Body* MOVED by these and the like objeftions, some have said that no subsistent intelligence can possibly be the form of a body. But because the nature of man of itself seemed to give the lie to this statement, inasmuch as man is seen to be composed of an intelleftual soul and a body, they have thought out various ways to save the nature of man and adjust their theory to faft. Plato therefore and his followers laid it down that the intelleftual soul is not united with the body as form with matter, but only as the mover is with the moved, saying that the soul is in the body as a sailor in his boat:t thus the union of soul and body would be virtual contaft only, of which above (Chap. LVI). But as such contaft does not produce absolute oneness, this statement leads to the awkward consequence that man is not absolutely one, nor absolutely a being at all, but is a being only acci- dentally.! To escape this conclusion, Plato laid it down that man is not a compound of soul and body, but that the soul using the body is man.§ This position is shown to be impossible: for things different in being cannot have one and the same aftivity. I call an aftivity one and the same, not in respeft to the effeft to which the aftivity is terminated, but as it comes forth from the agent. It is true that many men towing a boat make one aftion in respeft # I believe that St Thomas had no knowledge of from and independent of the body. Plato in fad Plato at first hand, not even in a Latin translation, detested material substance, and would not have He knew him only through the citations of Aristotle, spirit bound up with matter. Spirit was to rule and commentators, mostly Neoplatonists. For the matter; and when for its punishment it got en- opinion here ascribed to Plato, see Plato's Pfuedoy tangled in matter, as in man, and still more in pp. 80, 94; Pbadrus9 245, 246: Lam, 896, 897. It the lower animals, it was to do its best to break appears not so much explicitly in any one passage, as away, and (in man) to live a life of its own, as much implicitly in the general tenor of Plato's philosophy, apart from the body and bodily senses as possible, especially in the strong opposition, and even repug- t There is no such saying in the works of Plato: nance, which he supposes to obtain between soul and but Aristotle, T>e anima, lib. II, c. i, ad fin., mentions body; in his doctrine of the pre-existence of soul it as "a point not cleared up, whether the soul is the before body, also of the transmigration of souls (which form of the body in the same sense as a sailor is of argues a very loose connexion between the soul and his boat," probably referring to a saying which he the particular body which it inhabits): likewise in had heard from his master Plato, and did not agree this general difference between Aristotelian and Pla- with.
tonic ' forms,' that while Aristotle's 'forms' inhere in I Just as the combination of sailor and boat is sensible things, Plato's 'forms,' or €1817, stand apart; accidental.
so that even though Plato had allowed the soul to be § This again I believe is not explicitly in Plato, the ' form ' of the body, which he did not allow, though it is quite to his mind. It ill accords with still even so he would have kept this ' form ' apart the definition of the Council of Vienne.
of the thing done, which is one; but still on the part of the men towing there are many a<5tions, as there are many different strains and exertions to haul the boat along: for as a&ion is consequent upon form and power, it follows that where there are different forms and powers there must also be different adtions. Now though the soul has a certain proper motion of its own, which it performs independently of the body, namely, the a6l of understanding, there are however other a&ivities common to soul and body, namely, those of fear, anger, sensation, and the like; for these only come about by some change wrought in some definite part of the body; hence evidently they arc conjoint aftivities of soul and body. Therefore out of soul and body there must result one being, and the two cannot be distinct in being.
But this reasoning may be met by the following reply on behalf of Plato's view. — There is no difficulty, it will be said, in mover and moved having the same a6t, notwithstanding their difference in being: for motion is at once the a6t of the moving force, from which it is, and the a<5t of the thing moved, in which it is. Thus then, on Plato's theory, the aforesaid a&ivitics may be common to soul and body, belonging to the soul as the moving force, and to the body as the thing moved. But this explanation cannot hold for the following reasons.
1. As the Philosopher proves (Dt Anima^ II), sensation results by the sentient subject being moved or impressed by external sensible things: hence a man cannot have a sensation without some external sensible thing,* as nothing can be moved without a mover. The sensory organ therefore is moved and impressed in sensation, but that is by the external sensible objedt. What receives the impression is the sense, as is evident from this, that senseless things do not receive any such manner of impression from sensible objefts. The sense therefore is the passive power of the sensory organ. The sentient soul therefore in sensation does not play the part of mover and agent, but is that principle in the subject impressed, in virtue of which the said subject lies open to the impression. But such a principle cannot be different in being from the subject impressed. Therefore the sentient soul is not different in being from the animated body.
2. Though motion is the common a<5l of moving force and objeft moved, still it is one activity to impart motion and another to receive motion: hence the two several categories of aftion and passion. If then in sensation the sentient soul stands for the agent, and the body for the patient, there will be one aftivity of the soul and another of the body. The sentient soul therefore will have an activity and proper motion of its own: it will have therefore its own subsistence: therefore, when the body perishes, it will not cease to be.f Thus sentient souls, even of irrational animals, will be immortal; which seems improbable, although it is not out of keeping with Plato's opinion. J But this will be matter of enquiry further on (Chap. LXXXII).
3. A body moved does not take its species according to the power that moves it. If therefore the soul is only united to the body as mover to moved, the body and its parts do not take their species from the soul: therefore, when the soul departs, the body and the parts thereof will remain of the same species. But this is manifestly false: for flesh and bone and hands and such parts, after the departure of the soul, do not retain their own names # ' Cannot,' understand, normally and ordinarily, none. Therefore the soul is immortal, as intellectual, t The argument holds for the intellectual soul, though not as sentient, which has an activity and proper motion of its own, t Plato countenances the transmigration of souls, whereas the sentient soul, or tht soul as sentient, has Republic, x, 6 1 8-620; Ttnutus% 42b, c; Phadrus, 246.
except by a fagon de par/er;* since none of these parts retains its proper activity, and activity follows species. Therefore the union of soul and body is not that of mover with moved, or of a man with his dress.
6. If the soul is united with the body only as mover with moved, it will be in the power of the soul to go out of the body when it wishes, and, when it wishes, to reunite itself with the body.f That the soul is united with the body as the proper form of the same, is thus proved. That whereby a thing emerges from potential to actual being, is its form and aftuality. But by the soul the body emerges from potentiality to adtuality: for the being of a living thing is its life: moreover the seed before animation is only potentially alive, and by the soul it is made actually alive: J the soul therefore is the form of the animated body.
Again: as part is to part, so is the whole sentient soul to the whole body. But sight is the form and aftuality of the eye:§ therefore the soul is the form and actuality of the body.
CHAPTER LVlll-That Vegetative, Sentient, and Intelligent are not in man Three Souls PLATO lays it down that not one and the same soul is in us at once intelligent, sentient, and vegetative. || In this view, granted that the sentient soul, is the form of the body, it does not follow that any sub- sistent intelligence can be the form of a body. The untenableness of this position is thus to be shown.
i. Attributes of the same subjefl: representing different forms are predi- cated of one another accidentally: thus * white* is said to be 'musical' accidentally, inasmuch as whiteness and music happen both to be in Socrates. If then the intelligent, sentient, and vegetative soul are different powers or forms in us, then the attributes that we have according to these forms will be predicated of one another accidentally. But according to the intelligent soul we are called 'men/ according to the sentient 'animals/ according to the vegetative 'living/ This then will be an accidental predication, c man is an animal/ or 'an animal is a living creature/ But on the contrary these are cases of essential predication: for man, as man, is an animal; and an animal, # So Aristotle, De anima, II, i, 8-10: Tohtica, I, deities, after the Supreme Deity had produced the p. 1253, a 20. intellect, misled early commentators, and after them t So savages suppose the soul actually to wander St Thomas, into the belief that Plato supposed abroad in dreams. The argument is in Aristotle, De three distinct souls in one human body. Plato never anima, I, iii, 8. speaks of * souls' except in reference to distinct t " Seed and fruit is potentially this and that bodies. He speaks of * the soul ' of man as familiarly kind of body," De anima, II, i, 11. The seed before as we do. The vow in the head, the Ovpfc (St animation is not dead matter: we are probably right Thomas's pars irascibiRs) in the chest, and the in ascribing to it a certain lower form of life kiriBvfuai {pars concupiscibilis) in the belly, are not (Bddder, Psycbologia RationaTts, nn. 557, 558, pp. 394, three souls, but three varieties of one soul. Cf.
395). But inasmuch as it has not yet the more per- Tinueus, 89c, " three kinds of soul have been put fed life of the creature that is born of it, St Thomas to dwell in us in three several places: Tim. 72 d, calls it, in reference to this life which is to follow, " what the soul has of mortal and of divine in its "only potentially alive." being": Republic, 439e, "two kinds being in the § "Were the eye an animal, sight would be its soul": Rep. 441 c, "there are varieties in the soul soul," says Aristotle, De anima, II, i, 9. of each individual." In Laws, 863b he doubts II From his references, St Thomas appears to have whether the foyxos is to be called " an affection or been more familiar with the Tmaus than with any a part of the soul." In the ultimate analysis of other of Plato's writings. That poetic, mystical and Plato's meaning nothing more will appear, I believe, obscure dialogue was a special favourite of the than the triple division, accepted by Aristotle and Neoplatonists, from whom St Thomas gathered his St Thomas, of vovs, Ovjifc, hnOvpia, three phases of knowledge of Plato. The passage, Tinutus, 69c-7oa, one soul, the first inorganic and spiritual, the two describing how " the mortal kind of soul," with its latter organic and involving connexion with the body, two divisions, was allocated in the body by inferior as an animal, is a living creature. Therefore it is from the same principle that one is man, animal, and alive.* 2. A thing has unity from the same principle whence it has being, for unity is consequent upon being. Since then everything has being from its form, it will have unity also from its form. If therefore there are posited in man several souls, as so many forms, man will not be one being but several. Nor will the order of the forms to one another, one ensuing upon the other, suffice for the unity of man: for unity in point of orderly succession is not absolute unity: such unity of order in fa£t is the loosest of unities. f.
4. If man, as Plato held, is not a compound of soul and body, but is a soul using a body; either this is understood of the intelligent soul, or of the three souls, if there are three, or of two of them. If of three, or two, it follows that man is not one, but two, or three: for he is three souls, or at least two. But if this is understood of the intelligent soul alone, so that the sentient soul is to be taken for the form of the body, and the intelligent soul, using the animate and sentient body, is to be man, there will still ensue awkward consequences, to wit, that man is not an animal, but uses an animal; and that man does not feel, but uses a thing that does feel.
5. Of two or three there cannot be made one without anything to unite them, unless one of them stands to the other as actuality to potentiality: for so of matter and form there is made one without any external bond to bind them together. But if in man there are several souls, they do not stand to one another as matter and form, but they are all supposed to be adtualities and principles of a&ion. If then they are to be united to make one man, or one animal, there must be something to unite them. This cannot be the body, since rather the body is made one by the soul: the proof of which faft is that, when the soul departs, the body breaks up. It must be some more formal principle that makes of those several entities one; and this will be rather the soul than those several entities which are united by it. If this again has several parts, and is not one in itself, there must further be something to unite those parts. As we cannot proceed to infinity, we must come to something which is in itself one; and this of all things is the soul, j There must therefore in one man, or one animal, be one only soul.
• In a paragraph here omitted occur these words, individual, as Chap. LXXXVI shows, not of the race; which are of interest in the discussion of evolution, or what is now called ' ontogenetic ' as opposed to " The order of the sentient to the intelligent, and of 4 phylogenetic ' development.
the vegetative to the sentient, is as the order of f e.g., the unity of a dynasty of kings, or of a potentiality to actuality: for the intelligent is posterior line of bishops, now called ' continuity.'
in generation to the sentient, and the sentient to the t This argument is from Aristotle, De awima, I, vegetative: for animal is prior in generation to man." v, nn. 26-28.
St Thomas is here describing the development of the CHAPTER LIX-TAaf the Potential IntelleEi of Man is not a Spirit subsisting apart from Matter * THERE were others who used another invention in maintaining the point, that a subsistent intelligence cannot be united with a body as its form. They say that the intelleft which Aristotle calls 'potential,' is a spiritual being, subsisting apart by itself, and not united with us as a form. And this they endeavour to prove from the words of Aristotle, who says, speaking of this intelleft, that it is " separate, unmixed with body, simple, and impassible," terms which could not be applied to it, they say, if it were the form of a body.f Also from the argument by which Aristotle proves that * These chapters, LIX-LXXVIII, are the most abtruse in the whole work. They are founded on the scholastic theory of the origin of ideas, which again is based on Aristotle, T>e anima, III, Chapp. IV, V. The theory first presupposes the doctrine of matter and form, of which there is a fairly good account in Grote's Aristotle, vol. II, pp. 1 81-196. Grote goes on to expose the Aristotelian doctrine of Nous (intelleclus), as he understands it. In this exposition two points are noteworthy. (1) No account is taken of St Thomas's distinction between potential (possi- bilis) and * passive ' (passfyus) intellect. (2) A view is ascribed to Aristotle, closely allied to the views which Averroes and Avicenna ascribe to him, views which St Thomas laboriously combats as being neither Aristo- telian nor correct. If these Mohammedan commenta- tors, with Grote and many moderns, are right, Aristotle cannot be claimed as a believer in personal immortality. Still the feet that Plato steadily held the individual soul to be immortal, joined to the fact that Aristotle, who was forward enough in contradicting his master, nowhere explicitly contra- dicts him on this head, — as also the obscurity of the language of the De anima, — " may give us pause."
For any understanding of what follows it is necessary to distinguish the ' passive intellect ' (intel- ledus passives, vcfc TraBrjruc6<;), the 'potential intellect* (intelleclus possibilis, vovq oWaros, or 6 ovva/tct vovs), and the ' active intellect ' (intelleSlus agens, vovs iroirp-ucds), 1. ' Passive intellect' is not intellect at all. It is found in the higher dumb animals; and is only called ' intellect ' by a sort of brevet rank, because, being the highest power of the sensitive soul, it comes closest to intellect and ministers to it most nearly. St Thomas calls it in dumb animals vis <rsti- matiVa; in man, vis cogitativa and ratio particularis. It has no English name, but may be defined: 'an instinct whereby the sentient soul directly recognises a sensible object as a particular something here and now present.' See Father Bidder's Psycbologia, pp. 71- 79, who appositely cites Cardinal Newman's Grammar of Assent j pp. 107 sq. See too Silvester Maurus, Com- mentary on Aristotle, De anima, lib. Ill, cap. iv (ed. Lethielleux, Paris, 1886, torn. IV, pp. 94, 95). Aristotle tells us of this faculty that it perishes with the body, but that its operation is an indispensable preliminary to all human understanding, 6 8c iraOrjriKos vovc f^aprdct kcu avev tovtov ovOkv voci (De anima, III, v, ult.)
2. Much more important is the * potential intel- lect,'— intelleclus possibilis, a term occurring again and again in all the writings of the schoolmen, being founded on one word of Aristotle, T>e anima III, iv, 3, /i^S* airrov clvoi <f>v<riv ohSifxlav &XX rj ravrrjv 0V1 Bwcltov (nor has it any other natural property than this, that it is able, capable, potential). It is denned by Maurus (I.e.): " the intellect inasmuch as it is capable of being [representatively] made all things, by re- ceiving intelligible impressions of all things." An ' intelligible impression ' differs from a ' sensible im- pression ' as the universal from the particular, e.g. as the triangle in the mind, which stands for any triangle, from the image of this particular triangle chalked on the board and taken up by sense and phantasy.
3. Of equal scholastic importance is the 'active intellect,' intelleclus agens, defined by Maurus: "The intellect inasmuch as it is capable of [representatively] making all things, by impressing on the potential intellect intelligible impressions of all things." The term vovs 0-0171*1*09, though not actually found, is implied in De anima, III, v. The 'active' and 'potential' intellect together make up the under- standing. The exact extent of the distinction between them is matter of some dispute (Bodder, Psycbologia,