(b) The words, aXX' ov\ bri piv rati, 8re & ov &ydynj afia fayraa^a n Otvpily].' This sense seems wet, are to be taken in close connexion with rp definitely fixed as the mind of Aristotle by a previous ohaty t>v ivcpydfy the #hole meaning: 'this mind, passage, De anima, I, iv, 12-15: — "The vov% within ever essentially active, thinks continually, and not us seems to be a subsistent being (ovaia) and im- merely at intervals.' Whether this refers to the mind perishable. If it could be impaired, it would be of the race, Aristotle agreeing with Averroes that impaired most in the feebleness of old age: whereas, mankind have existed from eternity, or whether it we may say, the case is the same with intellect as points to some superhuman intelligence, is a question with sense: for if the old man got a young man's which will be debated as long as Aristotle continues eye, he would see as the young man does. So old age to be read. is not an affection of the soul, but an affection of (c) xvptodelc tftrrl pivov rovff oxtp ltrr(9 " when what contains the soul, as in drunken bouts and separated from the body [in death, as Rodier rightly illnesses. Thus the intellectual and speculative faculty explains], it is its proper self, and nothing else," — decays when something else in the man decays, but pure fov9, apart from phantasy and sensation and of itself it is imperishable (a7ra0£c). But the exercise bodily organism; and this pure voW is, in some of the cogitative faculty (to liavotiodai), and the undefined way, " immortal and everlasting." In iarl passions of love and hate, are not functions of vovsf rovff vntp iari I think we may further recognise but of this individual organism that contains vovs, as some slight influence of a familiar idiom, by which containing it. Therefore when this organism perishes a Greek says that a thing 'is what it is,' when he is in death, the soul neither remembers nor loves: for either unable or reluctant to enter into further detail, memory and [the passion of] love were not affections (d) The concluding words mean: 4 We have no of the intelligent soul, but of the compound organism memory [after death, of the transactions of our wherein soul and matter met, which has now perished: earthly existence], because though the vov% is un- but vox* perhaps is something more divine and im- affected by death (awadic), yet the passive intellect perishable (6 2c vovq urwc Ouortpov n kcu drafle'e [6 xaOip-uwc fovc, the cogitative faculty with the earif).
phantasy, see St Thomas, Chap. LX], is perishable # Understand, so as to be frustrated in the entire [and perishes with the body], and without this there species. This argument is drawn out in my Ethics and is no understanding [of things learnt in life with its Natural Law, pp. 14-21.
concurrence, — cf. De anima. III, viii, 5, hrav Oevpjj, t Matter is indestructible, and therefore mind.
its being.* Nor lastly by the failure of its cause, for it can have no cause but one which is eternal, as will be shown (Chap. LXXXVII). In no way there- fore can the human soul be destroyed.
9. If the human soul is destroyed by the destruction of the body, it must be weakened by the weakening of the body. But the fact is that if any faculty of the soul is weakened by the body being weakened, that is only inciden- tally, inasmuch as that faculty of the soul stands in need of a bodily organ, as the sight is weakened by the weakening of the organ of sight, but only in- cidentally, as may be shown by this consideration: if any weakness fell essentially upon the faculty, the faculty would not be restored by the restora- tion of the organ; but now we see that however much the faculty of sight seems weakened, it is restored, if only the organ is restored, f Since then the soul's faculty of understanding needs no bodily organ, the understanding itseli is not weakened, neither essentially nor incidentally, either by old age or by any other weakness of body. But if in the working of the understanding there happens fatigue or hindrance through bodily weakness, this is not due to weakness of the understanding itself, but to weakness of other faculties that the understanding has need of, to wit, the phantasy, the memory, and the cogitative faculty. J 10. The same is evidenced by the very words of Aristotle: "Moving causes pre-exist, but formal causes are along with the things whereof they are causes: for when a man is well, then there is health. But whether any- thing remains afterwards, is a point to consider: in some cases there may well be something remaining: the soul is an instance, not the whole soul, but the intelligence: as for the whole soul remaining, that is perhaps an impossibility."§ Clearly then, in speaking of forms, he wishes to speak of the intellect, which is the form of man, as remaining after its matter, that is, after the body. It is clear also that though Aristotle makes the soul a form, yet he does not represent it as non-subsistent and consequently perishable, as Gregory of Nyssa imputes to him:|| for he excludes the intelle&ual soul from the general category of other forms, saying that it remains after the body and is a sub- sistent being (substantiam quandam).^ Hereby is banished the error of the impious in whose person it is said: We Were born out of nothingness; and hereafter we shall be as though We had ne^er been (Wisd. ii, 2); in whose person again Solomon says: One is the perishing oj man and beast \ and even is the lot of both: as man dies, so do beasts die: all breathe alike, and man hath no advantage oter beasts (Eccles iii, 1 9): that he does not say this in his own person, but in the person of the ungodly, is clear from what he says at the end, as it were drawing a conclusion: Till the dust return to the earth, from whence it came; and the spirit go bac\ to the God who gate it (Eccles xii, 7).
# Clearly, if this is allowed, the whole argument expressly said not to be a waBog of to voiiv. The of the chapter is allowed. Reference is made to inferiority of Siavoeladai to voely in Aristotle was Chap. LXVIII, where we read: "Above other forms probably suggested by, though it is not identical there is found a form, likened to the supramundane with, that of Sidvoia to vovt in Plato, Rep. vi, ad Jin. substances in point of understanding, and competent § (yfaxy) f"? *ra<ra, <£W b vovc, iccurar yap to an activity which is accomplished without any alvvarov t<rwc. Metaph. XI, iii, 5, 6. bodily organ at all; and this is the intellectual soul: II The commentators refer to a work Lhes oj for the act of understanding is not done through any Philosophers, which however is not St Gregory's, but bodily organ." was written by Eunapius, a contemporary rhetorician, t Here Aristotle is alleged, as quoted at the end hostile to Christianity, of note, p. 153- 11 6 3c vovq Iolkiv iyyCvardai ovaCa tic o3<ra, De % The 'cogitative faculty' (Chap. LX) is the anima, I, iv, 12. The passage is quoted at length in to StavotlffOat of De anima, I, iv, 14, where it is note, p. 153.
CHAPTERS LXXX, LXXXI- Arguments of those who wish to prove that the Human Soul ' perishes with the Body, with Replies to the same ARG. i. If human souls arc multiplied according to the multiplication of bodies, as shown above (Chap. LXXV), then when the bodies perish, the souls cannot remain in their multitude.* Hence one of two conclusions must follow: either the human soul must wholly cease to be; or there must remain one soul only, which seems to suit the view of those who make that alone incorruptible which is one in all men, whether that be the aflive intelleft alone, as Alexander says, or with the a6Hve also the potential intellect, as Averroes says.f Reply. Whatever things are necessarily in conjunftion and proportion with one another, are made many or one together, each by its own cause. If the being of the one depends on the other, its unity or multiplication also will depend on the same: otherwise it will depend on some extrinsic cause. Form then and matter must always be in proportion with one another, and con- joined by a certain natural tie. Hence matter and form must vary together in point of multiplicity and unity. If then the form depends on the matter for its being, the multiplication of the form will depend on the matter, and so will its unity. But if the form is in no such dependence on the matter, then, — though it will still be necessary for the form to be multiplied with the multi- plication of the matter, — the unity or multiplicity of the form will not depend on the matter. But it has been shown (Chap.LXVIII, and note, p. 1 54),thatthe human soul is a form not dependent on matter for its being. Hence it follows that, though souls are multiplied as the bodies which they inform are multi- plied, still the fa£t of bodies being many cannot be the cause of souls being many. J And therefore there is no need for the plurality of souls to cease with the destruction of their bodies.
Arg. 2. The formal nature {ratio forma lis, notes, pp. 1 1 1, 1 1 6) of things is the cause of their differing in species. But if souls remain many after the perish- ing of their bodies, they must differ in species, since in souls so remaining the only diversity possible is one of formal nature. But souls do not change their species by the destruction of the body, otherwise they would be destroyed too, for all that changes from species to species is destroyed in the transition. Then they must have been different in species even before they parted from their bodies. But compounds take their species according to their form. So then individual men must differ in species, an awkward conclusion conse- quent upon the position that souls remain a multitude after their bodies are gone.
Reply. It is not any and every diversity of form that makes a difference of species. The fa<5t of souls separated from their bodies making a multitude follows from their forms being different in substance, inasmuch as the sub- # The body being the principle of individuation, t See note, p. 135. when that principle is taken away, it would seem X A soul is created for each human body; and in that nothing is left to differentiate one soul from that way the animation of many human foetuses inanother. St Thomas would reply that the soul is in- volves the creation of as many human souls. But dividualised, not by the body, but by adaptation to once existent, the soul is a substance, not an accident: some particular body which it animates and informs, and therefore, whether in the body or out of the which adaptation continues after that body is dead body, it is in its own right distinct from other similar and gone. See Chap. LXXV, arg. 1, with reply and substances, note, p. 144; and in this chapter the reply to the second argument.
stance of this soul is different from the substance of that. But this diversity does not arise from the souls differing in their several essential constitutions, but from their being differently commensurate with different bodies: for one soul is commensurate with one body and not with another.* These commen- surations remain in souls even when their bodies perish, as the substances of the souls also remain, not being dependent on their bodies for their being. For it is by their substances that souls are forms of bodies: otherwise they would be united with their bodies only accidentally, and soul and body would not make up an essential but only an accidental unity. But inasmuch as they are forms, they must be commensurate with their bodies. Hence it is clear that their several different commensuratenesses remain in the departed souls, and consequently plurality.
Arg. 3. It seems quite impossible, on the theory of those who suppose the eternity of the world, for human souls to remain in their multitude after the death of the body. For if the world is from eternity, infinite men have died before our time. If then the souls of the dead remain after death in their multitude, we must say that there is now an a6tual infinity of souls of men previously dead. But adtual infinity is impossible in nature, t Reply. Of supporters of the eternity of the world, some have simply allowed the impossibility, saying that human souls perish altogether with their bodies. Others have said that of all souls there remains one spiritual existence which is common to all, — the aftive intelledt according to some, J or with the active also the potential intellefl according to others. § Others have supposed souls to remain in their multitude after their bodies; but, not to be obliged to sup- pose an infinity of souls, they have said that the same souls are united to different bodies after a fixed period;|| and this was the opinion of the Pla- tonists, of which hereafter (Chap. LXXXIII). Others, avoiding all the afore- said answers, have maintained that there was no difficulty in the existence of an adtual infinity of departed souls: for an aftual infinity of things, not related to one another, was only an accidental infinity, in which they saw no diffi- culty; and this is the position of Avicenna and Algazel.^[ Which of these was the opinion of Aristotle is not expressly set down in his writings, although he does expressly hold the eternity of the world. But the last mentioned opinion is not inconsistent with his principles: for in the Physics, III, v, his argument against an aftual infinity is confined to natural bodies, and is not extended to immaterial substances. Clearly however the professors of the Catholic faith can feel no difficulty on this point, as they do not allow the eternity of the world.** Arg. 5. It is impossible for any substance to exist destitute of all activity.
* With the body in health or with the body in § Averroes. sickness? with the infantine or with the full-grown || A thousand years, according to the my thus of body? St Thomas probably would reply, * with the Er, son of Armenus (Plato, Rep, x, 615). full-grown and healthy body,' — else we should have 11 Abu Hamed Mohammed Algazali, a.d. 1058- millions of souls maimed, not through any fault of 11 11, a theologian of the orthodox Mohammedan their own. But how can a soul be commensurate with school, wrote a work Destructions of Pkilosopkets, to a body such as it has not informed for years before which Averroes replied with Destruction of Destrue- ns final departure, and in many cases has never in- Hons. Algazali denied the eternity of the world, formed at all? This view of the souls of the departed ## As neither do the modern sciences of astronomy is very difficult: but so is every view on the subjedt. and geology, at least as regards the world viewed as It would make some difference between a woman's the oucovfUvri, or dwelling-place of man. Both sciences and a man's soul. Cf. Chap. LXXIII, A. 2 and 3, concur to set severe limits to the duration of the with note, p. 136. human race, as well in regard of the past as of the t See Chap. XXXVIII. future. A notable instance of a religious difficulty re- X Alexander and Avicenna. moved by physical science.
But all a&ivity of the soul ends with the body, as may be shown by simple enumeration. For the faculties of the vegetative soul work through bodily qualities and a bodily instrument; and the term of their activity is the body itself, which is perfected by the soul, is thereby nourished and developed, and comes to furnish the generative products. Also all the activities of the faculties of the sensitive soul are accomplished through bodily organs; and some of them are accompanied by (sensible) bodily change, as in the case of the pas- sions. As for the a<5t of understanding, although it is not an activity exercised through any bodily organ, nevertheless its objects are phantasms, which stand to it as colours to sight: hence as sight cannot see without colours, so the intellectual soul cannot understand without phantasms. The soul also needs, for purposes of understanding, the faculties which prepare the phantasms to become aftual terms of intellect, namely, the cogitative faculty and the me- mory, of which it is certain that they cannot endure without the body, seeing that they work through organs of the body. Hence Aristotle says that "the soul by no means understands without a phantasm," and that "nothing understands without the passive intellect," by which name he designates the cogi- tative faculty, " which is perishable "; and that "we remember nothing" after death of the things that we knew in life.* Thus then it is clear that no acti- vity of the soul can continue after death, and therefore neither can its substance continue.
Reply. The assertion that no activity can remain in the soul after its sepa- ration from the body, we say, is incorreCt: for those activities remain which are not exercised through organs, and such are understanding and will. As for activities exercised through bodily organs, as are the activities of the vegeta- tive and sentient soul, they do not remain. But we must observe that the soul separated from the body does not understand in the same way as when united with the body: for everything aCts according as it is. Now though the being of the human soul, while united with the body, is perfeCt {absolutum)y not depending on the body, still the body is a sort of housing {stramentum f) to it and subjeCt receptive of it. Hence the proper activity of the soul, which is understanding, while independent of the body in this that it is not exercised through any bodily organ, nevertheless finds in the body its objeCt, which is the phantasm. J Hence, so long as the soul is in the body, it cannot under- stand without a phantasm,§ nor remember except by the cogitative and reminiscent faculty whereby phantasms are shaped and made available (Chap. LXXIII); and therefore this method of understanding and remembering has to be laid aside when the body is laid aside. But the being of the departed soul belongs to it alone without the body:|| hence its intellectual activity will not be accomplished by regard to such objeCts as phantasms existing in bodily organs, but it will understand by itself after the manner of those intelligences that subsist totally apart from bodies (Chapp. XCI-CI), from which superior * De anima, III, vii, 4: III, v, 3. Seep. 153. thus sensibly illustrated. The use of what may be t Stramentum may be either the thatched roof over called the 4 algebra of language ' is to deliver us from your head, the coverlet over your back, or the stray* the necessity of all this actual delineation. And this you stand or lie on. raises the question: 4 Do departed souls carry their X The phantasm, and every other subjective im- knowledge of language with them? ' It is hard to de- pression ministering to knowledge, is the ohjectum termine such questions a priori, quo, not the ohjectum quod (intettgitur). See Chap. II The opponent had contended: 4 It acts not, LXXV, arg. 2, and note, p. 145. therefore it is not.' St Thomas seems to reply: 4 It § 4 Phantasm ' here cannot be taken to mean a is, therefore it ads.' He must be supposed to fall back consciously portrayed picture in the imagination, upon the proofs of Chap. LXXIX, and to be here Reading a book, or writing a letter, would be very only concerned to argue that activity on the part of slow work, if every act of understanding had to be a departed soul is not inconceivable.
beings it will be able to receive more abundant influence in order to more perfefl understanding.
We may see some indication of this even in living men. When the soul is hampered by preoccupations about its body, it is less disposed to understand higher things. Hence the virtue of temperance, withdrawing the soul from bodily delights, helps especially to make men apt to understand.* In sleep again, when men are not using their bodily senses, they have some perception of things to come, impressed upon them by superior beings, and attain to fafts that transcend the measure of human reasonings. f This is much more the case in states of syncope and ecstasy, as the withdrawal from the bodily senses is there greater. And that is what one might expert, because, as has been pointed out above (Chap. LXVIII), the human soul being on the boundary-line between corporeal and incorporeal substances, and dwelling as it were on the horizon of eternity and time, it approaches the highest by receding from the lowest. Therefore, when it shall be totally severed from the body, it will be perfectly assimilated to the intelligences that subsist apart, and will receive their influence in more copious streams. Thus then, though the mode of our understanding according to the conditions of the present life is wrecked with the wreck of the body, it will be replaced by another and higher mode of understanding.
But memory, being an a6t exercised through a bodily organ, as Aristotle shows,! cannot remain in the soul after the body is gone; unless 4 memory' be taken in another sense for the intellectual hold upon things known before: this intelledtual memory of things known in life must remain in the departed soul, since the intellectual impressions are indelibly received in the potential intellect (Chap. LXXIV). As regards other activities of the soul, such as love, joy, and the like, we must beware of a double meaning of the terms: some- times they mean passions, or emotions, which are activities of the sensitive appetite, concupiscible or irascible,§ and as such they cannot remain in the soul after death, as Aristotle shows:|| sometimes they mean a simple aCt of will without passion, as Aristotle says that " The joy of God is one, everlast- ing, and absolute,'' and that " In the contemplation of wisdom there is admi- rable delight "; and again he distinguishes the love of friendship from the love of passion. ^[ But as the will is a power that uses no bodily organ, as neither does the understanding, it is evident that such acts, inasmuch as they are aCts of will, may remain in the departed soul.
* Good and well-digested meals also help to make bodily affe&ion, because often we cannot remember men apt to understand; and hunger and much priva- things when we would, and again they rush in upon tion enfeeble mental vigour. us without our seeking them, showing that some t " Concerning divination by dreams it is not easy bodily organ is stirred, either to despise or to believe it." So Aristotle opens § Plato's bnOvfua and Ovpfc, as distinguished his short treatise on Prophetic Dreaming (Bekker's from vovctext, III, p. 309). There seem to be dreams and || " When the body perishes, there is no more dreams; and once in a blue moon a man is apt to be- remembering nor loving: for memory and love did lieve that sleep has raised him to a higher state, such not belong to the intelligence, but to the compound, as St Thomas speaks of, above the usual inanities of which is no more" De anima, I, iv, 15. dreamland. 11 Eth. Nicom. VII, xiv, 8: X, vii, 3: VIII, v, 5— X De memoria, ii, 27, 28. He argues that it is a See Aquinas Etbicus, I, 84, 93.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES CHAPTER LXXXlI-That the Souls of Dumb Animals are not Immortal NO a&ivity of the sentient part can have place without a body. But in the souls of dumb animals we find no activity higher than the activities of the sentient part. That animals neither understand nor reason is apparent from this, that all animals of the same species behave alike, as being moved by nature, and not acting on any principle of art: for every swallow makes its nest alike, and every spider its web alike. Therefore there is no activity in the soul of dumb animals that can possibly go on without a body.* 2. Every form separated from matter is actually understood. Thus the a6tive intellect makes impressions actually understood, inasmuch as it abstracts them. But if the soul of a dumb animal remains after the body is gone, it will be a form separated from matter. Therefore it will be a form actually understood. But " in things separated from matter understanding and under- stood are the same" (De anima^ III, iv, 13). Therefore the soul of a dumb animal will have understanding, which is impossible.!
3. In everything that is apt to arrive at any perfection, there is found a natural craving after that perfection: for good is what all crave after, every- thing its own good. But in dumb animals there is no craving after perpetuity of being except in the form of perpetuity of the species, inasmuch as they have an instinCt of generation, whereby the species is perpetuated, — and the same is found in plants. J But they have not that craving for perpetuity of being, which is properly psychical, which would be a craving consequent upon apprehension: for since the sentient soul apprehends only what is here and now, it cannot possibly apprehend perpetuity of being, and therefore has no psychical craving after such perpetuity.§ Therefore the soul of a dumb animal is incapable of perpetuity of being.
CHAPTERS LXXXIII,LXXXIV- Apparent Arguments to show that the Human Soul does not begin with the Body, but has been from Eternity, with Replies to the same ARG. 1. (<•//.) What will never cease to be, has a power of being always. But of that which has a power of being always it is never true to say that it is not: for a thing continues in being so far as its power of being extends. What therefore will never cease to be, will never either begin to be.
* The irrationality of dumb animals is apparent from this, first, that they are dumb (aXoycx), or devoid of rational speech; secondly, that they are uncivilised^ and uncivil isable, except in so far as they partake of the civilisation of man; thirdly that, apart from man, they are racially unprogresshe; fourthly, that they are devoid of all idea of morality and religion; fifthly, that there is no inter-breeding between them and even the lowest types of the one incontestably rational animal, man. The indefeasible coexistence of human shape and animal rationality is as well established as any coexistence in physical science. But, setting aside spiders and swallows, it is not true that monkeys, elephants, horses, dogs, and other educable animals, in their respective species, "all behave alike." St Thomas however may claim to speak only of animals in a state of nature, wholly uninfluenced by man.