t Is not the term 4 separated from matter ' here used in two senses — (a) of a logical separation by abstraction, \oyu>; (b) of a real separation in nature, fyv<t€i? A tendency of Scholasticism, inherited from Neo-Platonism, was to think of Spirit as personified Idea or Form. The eTSoc took life, and became lalfiuv. Aristotle's saying means that the universal, as such, exists only in mind. But the departed soul of a bear, if it be at all, is not a universal.
% St Thomas adds, " and in inanimate things."
§ The technical terms ' physical ' and * psychical ' craving (appetitus naturalis etanimalis) are explained in Etbks and Natural Lay*, pp. 49-53.
Reply. The power of a thing does not extend to the past, but to the pre- sent or future: hence with regard to past events possibility has no place. Therefore from the fa6t of the soul having a power of being always it does not follow that the soul always has been, but that it always will be. — Besides, that to which power extends does not follow until the power is presupposed. It cannot therefore be concluded that the soul is always except for the time that comes after it has received this power.
Arg. 2. Truth of the intelle<5tual order is imperishable, eternal, necessary. Now from the imperishableness of intelledtual truth the being of the soul is shown to be imperishable. In like manner from the eternity of that truth there may be proved the eternity of the soul.
Reply. The eternity of understood truth may be regarded in two ways, — in point of the objeft which is understood, and in point of the mind whereby it is understood. From the eternity of understood truth in point of the objeft, there will follow the eternity of the thing, but not the eternity of the thinker. From the eternity of understood truth in point of the understanding mind, the eternity of that thinking soul will follow. But understood truth is eternal, not in the latter but in the former way. As we have seen, the intellectual impressions, whereby our soul understands truth, come to us fresh from the phantasms through the medium of the aCtive intellect. Hence the conclusion is, not that our soul is eternal, but that those understood truths are founded upon something which is eternal. In fadl they are founded upon the First Truth, the universal Cause comprehensive of all truth. To this truth our soul stands related, not as the recipient subjedt to the form which it receives, but as a thing to its proper end: for truth is the good of the understanding and the end thereof. Now we can gather an argument of the duration of a thing from its end, as we can argue the beginning of a thing from its efficient cause: for what is ordained to an everlasting end must be capable of perpetual dura- tion. Hence the immortality of the soul may be argued from the eternity of intellectual truth, but not the eternity of the soul.
Arg. 3. That is not perfedt, to which many of its principal parts are want- ing. If therefore there daily begin to be as many human souls as there are men born, it is clear that many of its principal parts are daily being added to the universe, and consequently that very many are still wanting to it. It follows that the universe is imperfeft, which is impossible.* Reply. The perfection of the universe goes by species, not by individuals; and human souls do not differ in species, but only in number (Chap. LXXV).
(B.) Some professing the Catholic faith, but imbued with Platonic doc- trines, have taken a middle course [between the Platonists, who held that individual souls were from eternity, now united with bodies, now released by turns; and Alexander, Averroes, — and possibly Aristotle himself, — deniers of personal immortality]. Thess men, seeing that according to the Catholic faith nothing is eternal but God, have supposed human souls not to be eternal, but to have been created with the world, or rather before the visible world, and to be united with bodies recurrently as required. Origen was the first pro- fessor of the Christian faith to take up this position, and he has since had many followers. The position seems assailable on these grounds.
# * That the universe is not yet perfedt, which is universe is the perfedt sum of all that is,' slipping into generally admitted,' would be more of a modern a judgement of Va/ue, ' the universe is the perfedt sum conclusion. In the notion of the perfection of the of all that ought to be.1 universe we seem to have a judgment of fact, 'the GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES 1. The soul is united with the body as the form and a&ualising principle thereof. Now though actuality is naturally prior to potentiality, yet, in the same subjeft, it is posterior to it in time:* for a thing moves from potentia- lity to actuality. Therefore the seed, which is potentially alive, was before the soul, which is the adtuality of life.
2. It is natural to every form to be united to its own proper matter: other- wise the compound of matter and form would be something unnatural. Now that which belongs to a thing according to its nature is assigned to it before that which belongs to it against its nature: for what belongs to a thing against its nature attaches to it incidentally, but what belongs to it according to its nature attaches to it ordinarily; and the incidental is always posterior to the ordinary. It belongs to the soul therefore to be united to the body before being apart from the body.
3. Every part, separated from its whole, is imperfefl. But the soul, being the form (Chap. XL VII), is a part of the human species. Therefore, existing by itself, apart from the body, it is imperfefl. But the perfefl is before the imperfect in the order of natural things.t (C.) If souls were created without bodies, the question arises how they came to be united with bodies. It must have been either violently or natu- rally. If violently, the union of the soul with the body is unnatural, and man is an unnatural compound of soul and body, which cannot be true. But if souls are naturally united with bodies, then they were created with a physical tendency {appetitus naturalis) to such union. Now a physical tendency works itself out at once, unless something comes in the way. Souls then should have been united with bodies from the instant of their creation except for some intervening obstacle. But any obstacle intervening to arrest a physical ten- dency, or natural craving, does violence to the same. Therefore it would have been by violence that souls were for a period separated from their bodies, which is an awkward conclusion. \ (D.) But if it be said that both states alike are natural to the soul, as well the state of union with the body as the state of separation, according to diffe- * Deanima, III, v, 3. tendencies. St Thomas's reasoning however is beset t Evolutionists say just the contrary, one great with this difficulty, that, parted from the body, the difference between them and the scholastics. The soul, on his showing, still retains a physical tendency position is saved by the consideration that any evo- to union with the body: is there any more difficulty, lution must be the ordinance of an all-perfect Mind, anything of greater violence, in a soul having to wait The Platonists and Origenists, St Thomas's op- for its first union with the body than in its having ponents in this now effete controversy about the pre- to wait, as it certainly doei wait for centuries, for its existence of souls, would not have allowed that the reunion in the resurrection?
soul was the form of the body, or was imperfect with- The two telling arguments against the preout the body, or better for union with it. Rather existence of souls arc, first, that pact Tktonis tt Orithey held that for spirit to be united with flesh was gents it is wholly unproved; secondly, that a spirit, to the spirit encumbrance and punishment. Even that had once existed free, would suffer violence by Catholics, who confess the soul to be the form of the becoming the 4 form ' of a body under conditions of body, may still linger over Plato's words: "Union mortality.
between soul and body is nowise better than separa- There are those who venture to think, although tion" (Laws, VIII, 821), such union, that is, as St Thomas docs not think so, that while the soul in obtains in this mortal life ( 1 Cor. xv, 42-50). We do the* body is properly called an 'incomplete sub- not suppose pre-existence of souls, a theory which, as stance,' — for otherwise it would not be the 4 form of St Thomas justly argues, would make humanity begin the body,' — yet, parted from the body, it expands in the degradation of its nobler component: but we into the completeness of pure intelligence, and has may suppose death to be naturally a deliverance, an no 4 natural craving ' for union with the body any elevation rather than an impairing of the disembodied more. Resurrection then is not within the purview of spirit. Such a conception of course affects the value philosophy, as it is not the fulfilment of any natural of any a priori natural argument for resurrection exigence; and, at least in the resurrection of the just, (B. IV, Chap. LXXIX). the soul shall be in the body on quite other condi- X The second of the Newtonian laws of motion tions than those under which she now dwells in this warns us that all physical tendencies to motion work prison-house of flesh. But of this in the fourth Book, themselves out concurrently and instantaneously, as GOD & HIS CREATURES BOOK II rence of times, this appears to be impossible, — because points of natural variation are accidents to the subje6t in which they occur, as age and youth: if then union with a body and separation from a body are natural variations to the soul, the union of the soul with the body will be an accident; and man, the result of that union, will not be an ordinary, regular entity (ens per se), but a casual, incidental being (ens per accidens).
(E.) But if it is said that souls are united with bodies neither violently nor naturally, but of their own spontaneous will, that cannot be. For none is will- ing to come to a worse state except under deception. But the soul is in a higher state away from the body, especially according to the Platonists, who say that by union with the body the soul suffers forgetfulness of what it knew before, and is hindered from the contemplation of pure truth. At that rate it has no willingness to be united with a body except for some deceit practised upon it. Therefore, supposing it to have pre-existed before the body, it would not be united therewith of its own accord.
(F.) But if as an alternative it is said that the soul is united with the body neither by nature, nor by its own will, but by a divine ordinance, this again does not appear a suitable arrangement, on the supposition that souls were created before bodies. For God has established everything according to the proper mode of its nature: hence it is said: God saw all things that he had made, and they Were ^ery good (Gen. i, 3 1). If then He created souls apart from bodies, we must say that this mode of being is better suited to their nature. But it is not proper for an ordinance of divine goodness to reduce things to a lower state, but rather to raise them to a higher. At that rate the union of soul with body could not be the result of a divine ordinance.
(G.) This consideration moved Origen to suppose that when souls, created from the beginning of time, came by divine ordinance to be united with bodies, it was for their punishment. He supposed that they had sinned before they came into bodies, and that according to the amount of their guilt they were united with bodies of various degrees of nobility, shut up in them as in prisons. But this supposition cannot stand for reasons alleged above (Chap. XLIV).
CHAPTER LXXXV-That the Soul is not of the Substance of God THE divine substance is eternal, and nothing appertaining to it begins anew to be (B. I, Chap. XV). But the souls of men were not before their bodies (Chap. LXXXIII). 3. Everything out of which anything is made is in potentiality to that which is made out of it. But the substance of God, being pure a&uality, is not in potentiality to anything (B. I, Chap. XVI).
4 and 5. That out of which anything is made is in some way changed. Moreover the soul of man is manifestly variable in point of knowledge, vir- tue, and their opposites. But God is absolutely unchangeable (B. I, Chap. XIII): therefore nothing can be made out of Him, nor can the soul be of His substance.
7. Since the divine substance is absolutely indivisible, the soul cannot be of that substance unless it be the whole substance. But the divine substance cannot but be one (B. I, Chap. XLII). It would follow that all men have but one intelle<5tual soul, a conclusion already rejected (Chap. LXXV).* * Monism is the only debatable pantheism. Ad- Manichean, but cannot logically be a pantheist, mit a ' manifold/ and you may be a materialist, or a GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES This opinion seems to have had three sources. Some assumed that there was no incorporeal being, and made the chiefest of corporeal substances God. Hence sprang the theory of the Manichean, that God is a sort of corporeal light, pervading all the infinities of space, and that the human soul is a small glimmer of this light. Others have posited the intellect of all men to be one, either aftive intellect alone, or adtive and potential combined. And because the ancients called every self-subsistent intelligence a deity, it followed that our soul, or the intelle<5t whereby we understand, had a divine nature. Hence sundry professors of the Christian faith in our time, who assert the separate existence of the a<5tive intellect, have said expressly that the active intellect is God. This opinion might also have arisen from the likeness of our soul to God: for intelligence, which is taken to be the chief characteristic of Deity, is found to belong to no substance in the sublunary world except to man alone, on account of his soul.
CHAPTER LXXXVI-T&*/ the Human Soul is not transmitted by (feneration* WHERE the adtivities of active principles suppose the concurrence of a body, the origination also of such principles supposes bodily concurrence: for a thing has existence according as it has activity: everything is active according to its being. But when adtive principles have their activities independent of bodily concurrence, the reverse is the case: the genesis of such principles is not by any bodily generation. Now the activity of the vegetative and sentient soul cannot be without bodily concurrence (Chapp. LVII, LXVIII): but the activity of the intelle&ual soul has place through no bodily organ (Chap. LXIX). Therefore the vegetative and sen- tient souls are generated by the generation of the body, and date their exis- tence from the transmission of the male semen, but not the intellectual soul.f 2. If the human soul owed its origin to the transmission of the male semen, that could be only in one of two ways. Either we must suppose that the soul is actually in the male semen, being as it were accidentally separated from the soul of the generator as the semen is separated from the body: — we see some- thing of the sort in Annelid animals, \ that live when cut in pieces: these creatures have one soul actually and many potentially; and when the body is divided, a soul comes to be actually in every living part:— or in another way it may be supposed that there is in the male semen a power productive of an * The doctrine, called tradueianism, that the soul The kindness of a medical friend supplies me with is transmitted (traducitur) from parent to offspring in the following statement: the act of generation, is ascribed to Tertullian. "When the body of an Annelid, say an eartht The force of this admission will appear in the worm, is divided, as by the stroke of a spade, the next two chapters. Two propositions must be kept animal does not necessarily die, does not necessarily apart: — live. The principal nerve ganglia are situated in the (a) The origin of the intellectual soul of man is head, and though the severed part, remote from this, synchronous with the moment of conception. so-called, central nervous system, will have no resto- (b) The intellectual soul of man is, as the body rative power and will die, the segment containing the of man, simply a product of conception. nerve masses — ' brain ' — may restore or reproduce St Thomas denies both these propositions. Mo- the missing opposite extremity, or a semblance of it.
dern Catholic theologians usually are content with But, if the injury were very near the head, so thataldenying the second only. most all the vital organs, viscera, etc., were included X Amulosa, St Thomas calls them: they are now in the segment remote from the nerve ganglia, death known as Axnefidae, worms, centipedes, and the like, would occur, not even the nerve ganglia in the head The cutting of an Annelid in two is not a case of having the power to restore or reproduce an almost reproduction. But in the lowest animal life, that of entirely new body, viscera, blood-vessels, etc. So, Amoebae, there is a true reproduction by 'fissure'; as while one part may live, both parts may die. It dealso in the propagation of plants by cuttings. pends upon the amount and importance of the part or parts to be reproduced, or restored."
intelle<5tual soul, so that the intelledtual soul may be taken to be in the said semen virtually, not adtually. The first of these suppositions is impossible for two reasons. First, because the intelligent soul being the most perfect of souls and the most potent, the proper subjedt for it to perfedt is a body having a great diversity of organs apt to respond to its manifold adtivities: hence the intelledtual soul cannot be in the male semen cut off from the body (in semine deciso), because neither are the souls of the lower animals of the more perfedt sort multiplied by cutting them in pieces {per decisionem), as is the case with Annelid animals. Secondly, because the proper and principal faculty of the intelligent soul, the intelledt, not being the adtualisation of any part of the body,* cannot be accidentally divided with the division of the body: there- fore neither can the intelligent soul. The second supposition (that the intel- ligent soul is virtually contained in the male semen) is also impossible. For the a6tive power in the semen is effedtual to the generation of an animal by effe&ing a bodily transmutation: there is no other way for a material power to take effe6t. But every form, which owes its being to a transmutation of matter, has being in dependence on matter: for (n. 3) every form, educed into existence by a transmutation of matter, is a form educed out of the potentiality of matter: for this is the meaning of a transmutation of matter, that something is educed into actuality out of potentiality. But an intelligent soul cannot be educed out of the potentiality of matter: for it has been shown above (Chap. LXVIII) that the intelligent soul transcends the whole power of matter, as it has an immaterial adtivity (Chap. LXIX). Therefore the in- telligent soul is not induced into being by any transmutation of matter, and therefore not by the adtion of any power that is in the male semen.
5. It is ridiculous to say that any subsistent intelligence is either divided by division of the body or produced by any corporeal power. But the soul is a subsistent intelligence (Chap. LXVIII). Therefore it can neither be divided by the separation of the semen from the body, nor produced by any aftive power in the same.
6. If the generation of this is the cause of that coming to be, the destruc- tion of this will be the cause of that ceasing to be. But the destruction of the body is not the cause of the human soul ceasing to be (Chap. LXXIX). Neither then is the generation of the body the cause of the soul commen- cing to be.
CHAPTER LXXXVU-TAat the Human Soul is brought into Being by a Qreative AEl of God EVERYTHING that is brought into being is either generated or created. But the human soul is not generated, either by way of com- position of parts or by the generation of the body (Chap. LXXXVI); and yet it comes new into existence, being neither eternal nor pre-existent (Chapp. LXXXIII, LXXXIV): therefore it comes into being by creation. Now, as has been shown above, God alone can create (Chap. XXI).
2. Whatever has existence as a subsistent being, is also made in the way that a subsistent being is made: while whatever has no existence as a sub- sistent being, but is attached to something else, is not made separately, but only under condition of that having been made to which it is attached. But the soul has this peculiarity to distinguish it from other forms, that it is a * As sight, for example, is the actuality (areAc'xcto, realisation, or full perfection) of the eye.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES subsistent being; and the existence which is proper to it it communicates to the body. The soul then is made as a subsistent being is made: it is the sub- ject of a making-process all its own, unlike other forms, which are made incidentally in the making of the compounds to which they belong. But as the soul has no material part, it cannot be made out of any subjedt-matter: consequently it must be made out of nothing, and so created.
5. The end of a thing answers to its beginning. Now the end of the human soul and its final perfedtion is, by knowledge and love to transcend the whole order of created things, and attain to its first principle and beginning, which is God. Therefore from God it has properly its first origin.
Holy Scripture seems to insinuate this conclusion: for whereas, speaking of the origin of other animals, it ascribes their souls to other causes, as when it says: Let the waters produce the creeping thing of living soul (Gen. i, 20): coming to man, it shows that his soul is created by God, saying: Qod formed man from the slime of the earthy and breathed into bis face the breath of life CHAPTERS LXXXVIII, LXXXIX-Arguments against the Truth of the Conclusion last drawn, with their Solution* FOR the better understanding of the solutions given, we must prefix some exposition of the order and process of human generation, and of animal generation generally. First then we must know that that is a false opinion of certain persons who say that the vital adls which appear in the embryo before its final development {ante ultimum complementum)y come not from any soul or power of soul existing in it, but from the soul of the mother, t If that were true, we could no longer call the embryo an animal, as every animal consists of soul and body. The activities of life do not proceed from an adlive principle from without, but from a power within; a fadt which seems to mark the distinction between inanimate and living things, it being proper to the latter to move themselves. Whatever is nourished, assimilates nourishment to itself: hence there must be in the creature that is nourished an adtive power of nutrition, since an agent adts to the likeness of itself. This is still more manifest in the operations of sense: for sight and hearing are attributable to a power existing in the sentient subjedt, not in another. Hence, as the embryo is evidently nourished before its final development, and even feels, this cannot be attributed to the soul of the mother.
It has been alleged that the soul in its complete essence is in the male semen from the first, its adtivities not appearing merely for want of organs. But that cannot be. For since the soul is united with the body as a form, it is only united with that body of which it is properly the adtualisation. Now the soul is the adtualisation of an organised body. Therefore before the organi- sation of the body the soul is in the male semen, not adtually, but virtually. Hence Aristotle says that seed and fruit have life potentially in such a way • Contra determinatam verilatem. 'Determinare in that the mother is not everything, — that the embryo scholastic Latin means to draw a conclusion. A bache- has vital acts of its own, though not independent lor in a mediaeval University was determinator, one afts; that the embryo lives and dcvelopcs, which it who set up theses and defended them* — In fusing these could not do without a distinct vegetative soul to two chapters together I have commenced with the animate it. But when he presently goes on to attriintrodudtion prefixed to Chap. LXXXIX. bute operations of sense to the embryo, and says that t In calling this opinion 'false,' St Thomas can it feels, — speaking of the embryo ante ultimum eomplenever have meant to deny the intimate connexion of mentum9 — he outruns all probability. Feeling supposes the vital ac"b of the embryo with those of the mother, an advanced development of the nervous system. It so that separation from the mother at an early stage is impossible to believe that the merely cellular emby abortion or miscarriage is death. He means only bryo, with only a potential nervous system, can feel.
that they " cast away," i.e. are destitute of soul; whereas that (body) whereof the soul is the a<5tualisation has life potentially, and does not " cast away " soul.* It would also follow, if the soul were in the male semen from the first, that the generation of an animal was only by fissure (per decisionem), zs is the case with Annelid animals, that are made two out of one. For if the male semen had a soul the instant it was cut off from the body,f it would then have a substantial form. But every substantial generation precedes and does not follow the substantial form. Any transmutations that follow the substantial form are not diredted to the being of the thing generated, but to its well- being. At that rate the generation of the animal would be complete in the mere cutting off of the male semen from the body of the parent; and all sub- sequent transmutations would be irrelevant to generation. The supposition is still more ridiculous when applied to the rational soul, as well because it is impossible for that to be divided according to the division of the body, so as even to be in the semen cut off therefrom; as also because it would follow that in all cases of the semen being wasted, without conception ensuing, souls were still multiplied.
Nor again can it be said, as some say, that though there is not in the male semen at its first cutting off J any soul aftually, but only virtually, for want of organs, nevertheless, as the said semen is a bodily substance, organisable although not organised, so the aftive power of that semen is itself a soul, poten- tial but not aftual, proportional to the condition of the semen. The theory goes on to say that, as the life of a plant requires fewer organs than the life of an animal, the aforesaid adtive power turns into a vegetative soul as soon as the semen is sufficiently organised for the life of a plant; and further that, when the organs are more perfected and multiplied, the same power is ad- vanced to be a sentient soul; and further still that, when the form of the organs is perfect, the same becomes a rational soul, not indeed by the adtion of the power of the semen itself, but by the influence of some exterior agent: and this the advocates of this theory take to be the reason why Aristotle said (De gen. animal.^ II, iii) that the intelleft is from without.