MOVED by these and the like objections, 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 intellectual soul and a body, they have thought out various ways to save the nature of man and adjust their theory to fact. Plato therefore and his followers laid it down that the intellectual 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: thus the union of soul and body would be virtual contact only, of which above (Chap. LVI). But as such contact 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 accidentally. 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 activity. I call an activity one and the same, not in respect to the effect to which the activity is terminated, but as it comes forth from the agent. It is true that many men towing a boat make one action in respect of the thing done, which is one; but still on the part of the men towing there are many actions, as there are many different strains and exertions to haul the boat along: for as action is consequent upon form and power, it follows that where there are different forms and powers there must also be different actions. Now though the soul has a certain proper motion of its own, which it performs independently of the body, namely, the act of understanding, there are however other activities 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 are conjoint activities 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 act, notwithstanding their difference in being: for motion is at once the act of the moving force, from which it is, and the act of the thing moved, in which it is. Thus then, on Plato's theory, the aforesaid activities 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 (De 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 object. 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 objects. 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 act of moving force and object moved, still it is one activity to impart motion and another to receive motion: hence the two several categories of action and passion. If then in sensation the sentient soul stands for the agent, and the body for the patient, there will be one activity 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. Thus sentient souls, even of irrational animals, will be immortal; which seems improbable, although it is not out of keeping with Plato's opinion. 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 except by a fa�on de parler; 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. 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 actuality. But by the soul the body emerges from potentiality to actuality: 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: 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 actuality of the eye: therefore the soul is the form and actuality of the body.

Human philosophy considers creatures as they are in themselves: hence we find different divisions of philosophy according to the different classes of things. But Christian faith considers them, not in themselves, but inasmuch as they represent the majesty of God, and in one way or another are directed to God, as it is said: THE glory of the Lord his work is full: hasnot the Lord made his saints to tell of his wonders? (Ecclus xlii, 16, 17.) Therefore the philosopher and the faithful Christian (fidelis) consider different points about creatures: the philosopher considers what attaches to them in their proper nature: the faithful Christian considers about creatures only what attaches to them in their relation to God, as that they are created by God, subject to God, and the like. Hence it is not to be put down as an imperfection in the doctrine of faith, if it passes unnoticed many properties of things, as the configuration of the heavens, or the laws of motion. And again such points as are considered by philosopher and faithful Christian alike, are treated on different principles: for the philosopher takes his stand on the proper and immediate causes of things; but the faithful Christian argues from the First Cause, showing that so the matter is divinely revealed, or that this makes for the glory of God, or that God's power is infinite. Hence this speculation of the faithful Christian ought to be called the highest wisdom, as always regarding the highest cause, according to the text: This is your wisdom and understanding before the nations (Deut. iv, 6). And therefore human philosophy is subordinate to this higher wisdom; and in sign of this subordination divine wisdom sometimes draws conslusions from premises of human philosophy. Further, the two systems do not observe the same order of procedure. In the system of philosophy, which considers creatures in themselves and from them leads on to the knowledge of God, the first study is of creatures and the last of God; but in the system of faith, which studies creatures only in their relation to God, the study is first of God and afterwards of creatures; and this is a more perfect view, and more like to the knowledge of God, who, knowing Himself, thence discerns other beings. Following this latter order, after what has been said in the first book about God in Himself, it remains for us to treat of the beings that come from God.

The order of our treatise will be to deal first with the production and bringing of things into being (Chapp VI-XXXVIII); secondly with the distinction of things (Chapp. XXXIX-XLV); thirdly, with the nature of things thus produced and distinct so far as it appertains to the truth of faith (Chapp. XLVI-CI).

Since power is proper to God in respect of the effects of His production, and power ranks as a principle, and a principle is so called in relation to its derivative; it is clear that something may be predicated of God in relation to the effects of His production.

2. It is unintelligible how one thing can be made a subject of predication in relation to another thing, unless contrariwise the other thing be made a subject of predication in relation to it. But other beings are made subjects of predication in relation to God, as when it is said that they have their being from God and depend on Him. God therefore must be made a subject of predication in relation to creatures.

3. Likeness is a relation. But God, as other agents, acts to the production of His own likeness.

4. Knowledge is predicated in relation to the thing known. But God has knowledge of other beings.

5. Whatever is first and sovereign, is so in relation to others, But God is the first being and the sovereign good.

Not everything is actually understood, of which there is an intellectual impression actually in the understanding. For since a subsistent intelligence has also a will, and is thereby master of his own acts, it is in his power, when he has got an intellectual impression, to use it by actually understanding it; or, if he has several, to use one of them. Hence also we do not actually consider all things whereof we have knowledge. A subsistent intelligence therefore, knowing by a plurality of impressions, uses the one impression which he wishes, and thereby actually knows at once all things which by one impression he does know. For all things make one intelligible object inasmuch as they are known by one presentation,�as also our understanding knows many things together, when your are as one by composition or relation with one another. But things that an intelligence knows by different impressions, it does not take cognisance of together. Thus, for one understanding, there is one thing at a time actually understood. There is therefore in the mind of a separately subsisting intelligence a certain succession of acts of understanding; not however movement, properly so called: since it is not a case of actuality succeeding potentiality, but of actuality following upon actuality. But the Divine Mind, knowing all things by the one medium of its essence, and having its act for its essence, understands all things simultaneously: hence in its understanding there is incident no succession, but its act of understanding is entire, simultaneous, perfect, abiding, world without end. Amen.

These relations cannot be in God as accidents in a subject, seeing that in God there is no accident (B. I, Chap XXIII). Nor again can they be in the very substance of God: for then the substance of God in its very essence would be referred to another; but what is referred to another for its very essence, in a manner depends on that other, as it can neither be nor be understood without it; but this would make the substance of God dependent on another being, foreign to itself.

2. God is the first measure of all beings (B. I, Chap. XXVIII). He is to them as the object is to our knowledge, that is to say, its measure. But though the object is spoken of in relation to the knowledge of it, nevertheless the relation really is not in the object known, but only in the knowledge of it. The object is said to be in relation, not because it is itself related, but because something else is related to it.

3. The aforesaid relations are predicated of God, not only in respect of things that actually are, but also in respect of things that potentially are, because of them also He has knowledge, and in respect of them He is called both first being and sovereign good. But what actually is bears no real relation to what is not actually but potentially. Now God is not otherwise related to things that actually are than to things that potentially are, because he is not changed by producing anything.

4. To whatsoever is added anything fresh, the thing receiving that addition must be changed, either essentially or accidentally. Now sundry fresh relations are predicated of God, as that He is lord or ruler of this thing newly come into being. If then any relation were predicated as really existing in God, it would follow that something fresh was added to God, and therefore that He had suffered some change, either essential or accidental, contrary to what was shown above (B. I, Chapp. XXIII, XXIV)

It cannot be said that the aforesaid relations are things existing outside of God. For since God is first of beings and highest of excellencies, we should have to consider other relations of God to those relations, supposing them to be things; and if the second relations again were things, we should have to invent again a third set of relations, and so on to infinity. Again, there are two ways in which a denomination may be predicated. A thing is denominated from what is outside it, as from place a man is said to be 'somewhere,' and from time 'once'; and again a thing is denominated from what is within it, as 'white' from whiteness. But from relation nothing is found to bear a denomination as from something outside itself, but only as from something within itself: thus a man is not called 'father' except from the paternity that is in him. It is impossible therefore for the relations, whereby God has relation to the creature, to be anything outside God. Since then it has been shown that they are not in Him really and yet are predicated of Him, the only possible conclusion is that they are attributed to Him merely by our mode of thought, inasmuch as other beings are in relation to Him: for when our understanding conceives that A is related to B, it further conceives that B is related to A, even though sometimes B is not really so related.

Hence it is also clear that the aforesaid relations are not predicated of God in the same way that other things are predicated of God: for all other things, as wisdom or will, are predicated of His essence, while the aforesaid relations are by no means so predicated, but only according to our mode of thought. And yet our thought is not at fault: for, by the very fact of our mind knowing that the relations of effects of divine power have God himself for their term it predicates some things of Him relatively.

It is no prejudice to the simplicity of God's being that many relations are predicated of Him, not as denoting anything affecting His essence, but according to our mode of thought. For our mind, understanding many things, may very well be related in manifold ways to a being that is in itself simple; and so it comes to view that simple being under manifold relations. Indeed the more simple anything is, the greater is its power, and the more numerous the effects whereof it is the principle; and thus it is viewed as coming into relation in more manifold ways. The fact then that many things are predicated of God relatively is an attestation of the supreme simplicity and singleness of His being.

Having shown (Chap VI) that God is to some things the cause of their being, we must further show that nothing out of God has being except of Him. Every attribute that attaches to anything otherwise than as constituting its essence, attaches to it through some cause, as whiteness to man. To be in a thing independently of causation is to be there primarily and immediately, as something ordinary (per se) and essential. It is impossible for any one attribute, attaching to two things, to attach to each as constituting its essence. What is predicated as constituent of a thing's essence, has no extension beyond that thing: as the having three angles together equal to two right angles has no extension beyond 'triangle,' of which it is predicated, but is convertible with 'triangle.' Whatever then attaches to two things, cannot attach to them both as constituting the essence of each. It is impossible therefore for any one attribute to be predicated of two subjects without its being predicated of one or the other as something come there by the operation of some cause: either one must be the cause of the other, or some third thing must be cause of both. Now 'being' is predicated of everything that is. It is impossible therefore for there to be two things, each having being independently of any cause; but either these things must both of them have being by the operation of a cause, or one must be to the other the cause of its being. Therefore everything which in any way is, must have being from that which is uncaused; that is, from God (B. I, Chap. XV).

2. What belongs to a thing by its nature, and is not dependent on any causation from without, cannot suffer diminution or defect. For if anything essential is withdrawn from or added to nature, that nature, so increased or diminished, will give place to another. If on the other hand the nature is left entire, and something else is found to have suffered diminution, it is clear that what has been so diminished does not absolutely depend on that nature, but on some other cause, by removal of which it is diminished. Whatever property therefore attaches to a thing less in one instance than in others, does not attach to that thing in mere virtue of its nature, but from the concurrence of some other cause. The cause of all effects in a particular kind will be that whereof the kind is predicated to the utmost. Thus we see that the hottest body is the cause of heat in all hot bodies, and the brightest body the cause of brightness in all bright bodies. But God is in the highest degree 'being' (B. I, Chap. XIII). He then is the cause of all things whereof 'being' is predicated.

3. The order of causes must answer to the order of effects, since effects are proportionate to their causes. Hence, as special effects are traced to special causes, so any common feature of those special effects must be traced to some common cause. Thus, over and above the particular causes of this or that generation, the sun is the universal cause of all generation; and the king is the universal cause of government in his kingdom, over the officials of the kingdom, and also over the officials of individual cities. But being is common to all things. There must then be over all causes some Cause to whom it belongs to give being.

4. What is by essence, is the cause of all that is by participation, as fire is the cause of all things fiery, as such. But God is being by His essence because He is pure being; while every other being is being by participation, because there can only be one being that is its own existence (B. I, Chapp. XXII, XLII). God therefore is cause of being to all other beings.

5. Everything that is possible to be and not to be, has some cause: because, looked at by itself, it is indifferent either way; and thus there must be something else that determines it one way. Hence, as a process to infinity is impossible, there must be some necessary being that is cause of all things which are possible to be and not to be.

6. God in His actuality and perfection includes the perfections of all things (B. I, Chap. XXVIII); and thus He is virtually all. He is therefore the apt producing cause of all.

This conclusion is confirmed by divine authority: for it is said: Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are therein (Ps. cxlv, 6). And, All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing (John ~, 3). And From whom are all things, by whom are all things, in (unto) whom are all things (Rom. xi, 16).

To every effect produced by God there is either something pre-existent or not. If not, the thesis stands, that God produces some effect out of nothing pre-existent. If anything pre-exists, we either have a process to infinity, which is impossible, or we must come to something primitive, which does not presuppose anything else previous to it. Now this primitive something cannot be God Himself, for God is not the material out of which anything is made (B. I, Chap. XVI): nor can it be any other being, distinct from God and uncaused by God (Chap. XV).

3. The more universal the effect, the higher the cause: for the higher the cause, the wider its range of efficiency. Now being is more universal than motion. Therefore above any cause that acts only by moving and transmitting must be that cause which is the first principle of being; and that we have shown to be God (B. I, Chap. XIII). God therefore does not act merely by moving and transmuting: whereas every cause that can only bring things into being out of pre-existing material acts merely in that way, for a thing is made out of material by movement or some change.

4. It is not proper to the universal cause of being, as such, to act only by movement and change: for not by movement and change is being, as such, made out of not-being, as such, but 'being this' is made out of 'not being this.' But God is the universal principle of being (Chap. XV). Therefore it is not proper to Him to act only by movement or change, or to need pre-existent material to make anything.

5. Every agent has a term of action like itself, for its acts inasmuch as it is in actuality. Given then an agent in actuality by some form inherent in it, and not to the whole extent of its substance, it will be proper to such an agent to produce its effect by causing a form in some way inherent in matter. But God is in actuality, not by anything inhering in Him, but to the whole extent of His substance (B. I, Chap. XVIII). Therefore the proper mode of divine action is to produce the whole subsistent thing, and not a mere inherent thing, as is form in matter.

10. Between actuality and potentiality such an order obtains, that, though in one and the same being, which is sometimes in potentiality sometimes in actuality, potentiality is prior in time to actuality (although actuality is prior in nature), yet, absolutely speaking, actuality must be prior to potentiality, as is clear from this, that potentiality is not reduced to actuality except by some actual being. But matter is being in potentiality. Therefore God, first and pure actuality, must be absolutely prior to matter, and consequently cause thereof.

This truth divine Scripture confirms, saying: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. i,1). For to create is nothing else than to bring a thing into being without any pre-existent material.

Hereby is confuted the error of the ancient philosophers, who supposed no cause at all for matter, since in the actions of particular agents they always saw some matter pre-existent to every action. Hence they took up the common opinion, that nothing is made out of nothing, which indeed is true of the actions of particular agents. But they had not yet arrived at a knowledge of the universal agent, the active cause of all being, whose causative action does not necessarily suppose any pre-existent material.

Every movement or change is the actualisation of something that was in potentiality, as such: but in this action of creation there is nothing pre-existent in potentiality to become the object of the action.

2. The extremes of movement or change fall under the same order, being either of the same kind, as contraries are, or sharing one common potentiality of matter. But nothing of this can be in creation, to which no previous condition of things is supposed.

3. In every change or movement there must be something coming to be otherwise than as it was before. But where the whole substance of a thing is brought into being, there cannot be any permanent residuum, now in this condition, now in that: because such a residuum would not be produced, but presupposed to production.

Hence appears the futility of arguments against creation drawn from the nature of movement or change,�as that creation must be in some subject, or that non-being must be transmuted into being: for creation is not a change, but is the mere dependence of created being on the principle by which it is set up, and so comes under the category of relation: hence the subject of creation may very well be said to be the thing created. Nevertheless creation is spoken of as a 'change' according to our mode of conceiving it, inasmuch as our understanding takes one and the same thing to be now non-existent and afterwards existing. If Creation (creaturedom) is a relation, it is evidently some sort of reality; and this reality is neither uncreated, nor created by a further act of creation. For since the created effect really depends on the Creator, this relation must be a certain reality. Now every reality is brought into being by God; and therefore also this reality is brought into being by God, and yet was not created by any other creation than that of the first creature, because accidents and forms do not exist by themselves, and therefore neither are they terms of separate creation, since creation is the production of substantial being; but as they are 'in another,' so are they created in the creation of other things.

Succession is proper to movement. But creation is not movement. Therefore there is in it no succession.

2. In every successive movement there is some medium between the extremes. But between being and not-being, which are the extremes in creation, there can be no medium, and therefore no succession.

3. In every making, in which there is succession, the process of being made is before the state of achieved completion. But this cannot happen in creation, because, for the process of being made to precede the achieved completion of the creature, there would be required some subject in which the process might take place. Such a subject cannot be the creature itself, of whose creation we are speaking, because that creature is not till the state of its achieved completion is realised. Nor can it be the Maker, because to be in movement is an actuality, not of mover, but of moved. And as for the process of being made having for its subject any pre-existing material, that is against the very idea of creation. Thus succession is impossible in the act of creation.

5. Successive stages in the making of things become necessary, owing to defect of the matter, which is not sufficiently disposed from the first for the reception of the form. Hence, when the matter is already perfectly disposed for the form, it receives it in an instant. Thus because a transparent medium is always in final disposition for light, it lights up at once in the presence of any actually shining thing. Now in creation nothing is prerequisite on the part of the matter, nor is anything wanting to the agent for action. It follows that creation takes place in an instant: a thing is at once in the act of being created and is created, as light is at once being shed and is shining.

Since the order of actions is according to the order of agents, and the action is nobler of the nobler agent, the first and highest action must be proper to the first and highest agent. But creation is the first and highest action, presupposing no other, and in all others presupposed. Therefore creation is the proper action of God alone, who is the highest agent.

2. Nothing else is the universal cause of being but God (Chap. XV).

3. Effects answer proportionally to their causes. Thus actual effects we attribute to actual causes, potential effects to potential causes, particular effects to particular causes, and universal effects to universal causes. Now the first thing caused is 'being,' as we see by its presence in all things. Therefore the proper cause of 'being,' simply as such, is the first and universal agent, which is God. Other agents are not causes of 'being,' simply as such, but causes of 'being this,' as 'man' or 'white': but 'being,' simply as such, is caused by creation, which presupposes nothing, because nothing can be outside of the extension of 'being,' simply as such. Other productions result in 'being this,' or 'being of this quality': for out of pre-existent being is made 'being this,' or 'being of this quality.'

6. Every agent that acts as an instrument completes the action of the principal agent by some action proper and connatural to itself, as a saw operates to the making of a stool by cutting. If then there be any nature that operates to creation as an instrument of the prime creator, this being must operate through some action due and proper to its own nature. Now the effect answering to the proper action of an instrument is prior in the way of production to the effect answering to the principal agent; hence it is that the final end answers to the principal agent: for the cutting of the wood is prior to the form of the stool. There must then be some effect due to the proper operation of the instrument used for creation; and this effect must be prior in the way of production to 'being': for 'being' is the effect answering to the action of the prime creator. But that is impossible: for the more general is prior in the way of generation to the more particular.

Hereby is destroyed the error of certain philosophers, who said that God created the first spirit, and by it was created the second, and so in order to the last.

As creation is the work of God alone, so whatever beings are producible only by creation must be immediately produced by Him. Such are all spirits, the existence of which for the present let us suppose, and likewise all bodily matter. These several existences are immediate effects of creative power. Now power is not determined and limited to one effect, when it is productive of several effects immediately, and that not out of any pre-existent material. I say 'immediately,' because if the production were through intermediate agents, the diversity of effects might be ascribed to those intermediate causes. I say again 'not out of any pre-existent material,' because the same agent by the same action causes different effects according to the difference of material. God's power then is not determined and limited to one effect.

2. Every perfect active power is co-extensive with and covers all cases of its own proper effect: thus perfect building power would extend to everything that could be called a house. But the divine power is of itself the cause of being, and being is its proper effect. Therefore that power extends to all things that are not inconsistent with the idea of being: for if the divine power were available only for one particular effect, it would not be the ordinary cause of being, as such, but cause of 'this being.' Now what is inconsistent with the idea of 'being' is the opposite of 'being,' which is 'not-being.' God then can do all things that do not include in themselves the element of not-being, that is to say, that do not involve a contradiction.

3. Every agent acts inasmuch as it is in actuality. According then to the mode of actuality of each agent in the mode of its active power. Now God is perfect actuality, having in Himself the perfections of all beings (B. I, Chap. XXVIII): therefore His active power extends to all things that are not inconsistent with actual being.

5. There are three ways in which an effect may not be in the power of an agent. In one way, because it has no affinity or likeness to the agent, for every agent acts to the production of its own likeness somehow: hence man cannot be the parent of brute or plant, though he can be parent of man, who is more than they. In another way, on account of the excellence of the effect, transcending the compass of the active power: thus the active power of matter cannot produce spirit. In a third way, on account of the material being determined to some effect, and the agent having no power over it: thus a carpenter cannot make a saw, because his art gives him no power over iron. But in none of these ways can an effect be withdrawn from the divine power: not for the unlikeness of the effect, since every being, in so much as it has being, is like God (Chap. XV): nor again for the excellence of the effect, since God is above all in goodness and perfection (B. I, Chapp. XXVIII, XLI): nor lastly for the defect of the material, since God in His action needs no material (Chap. XVI).

This also is taught by divine Scripture as a tenet of faith. I am God Almighty, walk before me and be perfect (Gen. xvii, 1): I know that you can do all things (Job xlii, 2): No word shall be impossible with God (Luke i, 37).

Hereby is excluded the error of sundry philosophers, who have laid it down that God can do nothing except according to the course of nature. On such it is said: As though the Almighty had no power, they reckoned of him (Job xxii, 17).

The power of every necessary agent is determined and limited to one effect. That is the reason why all physical effects always come out in the same way, unless there be some interference: but acts of the will not so. But the divine power is not directed to one effect only (Chap. XXII). God then does not act by physical necessity, but by will.

2. Whatever does not involve a contradiction, is within the range of the divine power. But many things that do not exist in creation would still involve no contradiction if they did exist. This is most evidently the case in regard of the number and size and distances of the stars and other bodies. They would present no contradiction, no intrinsic absurdity, if they were arranged on another plan. Many things therefore lie within the range of divine power, that are not found in nature. But whoever does some and leaves out others of the things that he can do, acts by choice of will and not by physical necessity.

4. Since God's action is His substance (B. I, Chap. LXXIII), the divine action cannot come under the category of those acts that are 'transient' and not in the agent, but must be an act 'immanent' in the agent, such as are acts of knowing and desiring, and none other. God therefore acts and operates by knowing and willing.

6. A self-determined agent is prior to an agent determined from without: for all that is determined from without is reducible to what is self-determined, or we should have process to infinity. But he who is not master of his own action is not self-determined: for he acts as led by another, not as his own leader. The prime agent then must act in such a way as to remain master of his own action. But no one is master of his own action except he be a voluntary agent.

7. Will-action is naturally prior to physical action: for that is naturally prior which is more perfect, albeit in the individual it be posterior in time. But will-action is the more perfect, as within our experience voluntary agents are more perfect than physical. Therefore will-action must be assigned to God, the prime agent.

8. Where will-action and physical action go together, will-action represents the higher power and uses the other as an instrument. But the divine power is supreme, and therefore must act by will-action, not under physical necessity.

This truth also divine Scripture teaches us. All things, whatsoever he haswilled, the Lord hasdone (Ps. cxxxiv, 6): Who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will (Eph. i, 11).

The will is moved by some apprehension. But God acts by willing. Since then in God there is intellectual apprehension only, and He understands nothing otherwise than by understanding Himself, whom to understand is to be wise (B. I, Chap. LIV), it follows that God works out all things according to His wisdom.

2. Every agent acts in so far as it has within it something corresponding to the effect to be produced. But in every voluntary agent, as such, what corresponds to the effect to be produced is some intellectual presentation of the same. Were there no more than a mere physical disposition to produce the effect, the agent could act only to one effect, because for one physical cause there is only one physical mode of operation (ratio naturalis unius est una tantum). Every voluntary agent therefore produces its effect according to the mode of intellectual operation proper to itself. But God acts by willing, and therefore it is by the wisdom of His intellect that he brings things into being.

3. The function of wisdom is to set things in order. Now the setting of things in order can be effected only through a knowledge of the relation and proportion of the said things to one another, and to some higher thing which is the end and purpose of them all: for the mutual order of things to one another is founded upon their order to the end which they are to serve. But it is proper to intelligence alone to know the mutual relations and proportions of things. Again, it is proper to wisdom to judge of things as they stand to their highest cause. Thus every setting of things in order by wisdom must be the work of some intelligence. But the things produced by God bear an orderly relation to one another, which cannot be attributed to chance, since it (sit not sint) obtains always or for the most part. Thus it is evident that God, in bringing things into being, intended them in a certain order. Therefore His production of them was a work of wisdom.

All this is confirmed by divine authority, for it is said: You has made all things in wisdom (Ps. ciii, 24); and the Lord in wisdom founded the earth (Prov. iii, 19).

Hereby is excluded the error of some who said that all things depend on the absolute will of God, independent of any reason.

In God there is active power, but no potentiality. Now possibility is spoken of both as involving active power and as involving potentiality. Those things then are impossible to God, the possibility of which would mean in Him potentiality. Examples: God cannot be any material thing: He cannot suffer change, nor defect, nor fatigue, nor forgetfulness, nor defeat, nor violence, nor repentance, anger, or sadness.

Again, since the object and effect of active power is some produced reality, it must be said to be impossible for God to make or produce anything inconsistent with the notion of 'reality,' or 'being,' as such, or inconsistent with the notion of a reality that is 'made,' or 'produced,' inasmuch as it is 'made,' or 'produced.' Examples: God cannot make one and the same thing together to be and not to be. He cannot make opposite attributes to be in the same subject in the same respect. He cannot make a thing wanting in any of its essential constituents, while the thing itself remains: for instance, a man without a soul. Since the principles of some sciences, as logic, geometry, and arithmetic, rest on the formal, or abstract, constituents on which the essence of a thing depends, it follows that God cannot effect anything contrary to these principles, as that genus should not be predicable of species, or that lines drawn from the centre of a circle to the circumference should not be equal. God cannot make the past not to have been. Some things also God cannot make, because they would be inconsistent with the notion of a creature, as such: thus He cannot create a God, or make anything equal to Himself, or anything that shall maintain itself in being, independently of Him. He cannot do what He cannot will: He cannot make Himself cease to be, or cease to be good or happy; nor can He will anything evil, or sin. Nor can His will be changeable: He cannot therefore cause what He has once willed not to be fulfilled. There is however this difference between this last impossibility on God's part and all others that have been enumerated. The others are absolute impossibilities for God either to will or do: but the things now spoken of God might will and do if His will or power be considered absolutely, but not if it be considered under the presupposition of His will to the contrary. And therefore all such phrases as, 'God cannot act contrary to what He has arranged to do,' are to be understood in sensu composito; but, understood in sensu diviso, they are false, for in that sense they regard the power and will of God considered absolutely.

NOW that it has been shown (Chap. XXIII) that the divine power does not act of physical necessity, but by understanding and will, lest any one should think that God's understanding or knowledge extend only to certain fixed effects, and that thus God acts under stress of ignorance, though not under stress of physical constraint, it remains to show that His knowledge or understanding is bounded by no limits in its view of effects.

2. We have shown above (B. I, Chap. XLIII) the infinity of the divine essence. Now the plane of the infinite can never be reached by any piling up of finite quantities, because the infinite infinitely transcends any finite quantities however many, even though they were infinite in number. But no other being than God is infinite in essence: all others are essentially included under limited genera and species. Howsoever then and to whatsoever extent the effects of divine production are comprehended, it is ever within the compass of the divine essence to reach beyond them and to be the foundation of more. The divine understanding then, in perfectly knowing the divine essence (B. I, Chap. XLVII), transcends any infinity of actual effects of divine power and therefore is not necessarily limited to these or those effects.

4. If the causality of the divine understanding were limited, as a necessary agent, to any effects, it would be to those effects which God actually brings into being. But it has been shown above (B. I, Chap. LXVI) that God understands even things that neither are nor shall be nor have been.

5. The divine knowledge stands to the things produced by God as the knowledge of an artist to the knowledge of his art. But every art extends to all that can possibly be contained under the kind of things subject to that art, as the art of building to all houses. But the kind of thing subject to the divine art is 'being' (genus subjectum divinae artis est ens), since God by His understanding is the universal principal of being (Chapp. XXI, XXIV). Therefore the divine understanding extends its causality to all things that are not inconsistent with the notion of 'being,' and is not limited to certain fixed effects Hence it is said: Great is our Lord, and great his power, and of his wisdom; there is no reckoning by number (Ps. cxlvi, 5) Hereby is excluded the position of some philosophers who said that from God's understanding of Himself there emanates a certain arrangement of things in the universe, as though He did not deal with creatures at His discretion fixing the limits of each creature and arranging the whole universe, as the Catholic faith professes. It is to be observed however that, though the divine understanding is not limited to certain effects, God nevertheless has determined to Himself fixed effects to be produced in due order by His wisdom, as it is said: You have disposed all things in measure, number and weight (Wisd. xi, 21).

JUSTICE is to another, rendering him his due. But, antecedently to the universal production of all things, nothing can be presupposed to which anything is due.

2. An act of justice must be preceded by some act, whereby something is made another's own; and that act, whereby first something is made another's own, cannot be an act of justice. But by creation a created thing first begins to have anything of its own. Creation then cannot proceed from any debt of justice.

3. No man owes anything to another, except inasmuch as he in some way depends on him, receiving something from him. Thus every man is in his neighbour's debt on God's account; from whom we have received all things. But God depends on none, and needs nothing of any.

5. Though nothing created precedes the universal production of all things, something uncreated does precede it: for the divine goodness precedes as the end and prime motive of creation, according to Augustine, who says: "Because God is good, we exist" (De Verb. Apost. Serm. 13). But the divine goodness needs nothing external for its perfection. Nor is it necessary, for all that God wills His own goodness, that He should will the production of things other than Himself. God wills His own goodness necessarily, but He does not necessarily will other things. Therefore the production of creatures is not a debt of necessity to the divine goodness. But, taking justice in the wider sense of the term, there may be said to be justice in the creation of the world, inasmuch as it befits the divine goodness.

7. But if we consider the divine plan, according as God has planned it in His understanding and will to bring things into being, from that point of view the production of things does proceed from the necessity of the divine plan (B. I, Chap. LXXXIII): for it is impossible for God to have planned the doing of anything, and afterwards not to do it. Thus fulfilment is necessarily due to His every plan. But this debt is not sufficient to constitute a claim of justice, properly so called, in the action of God creating the world: for justice, properly so called, is not of self to self. Hence it is said: Who hasfirst given to Him, and recompense shall be made him? (Rom. xi, 35.) Who hasfirst given to me, that I may repay him? (Job xli, 2.)

Hereby is shut out the error of some who have tried to prove that God can do no otherwise than as He does, because He can do no otherwise than as He owes, or ought.

I SPEAK here of what is prior, not in order of time merely, but by nature. The debt is not absolute, but conditional, of the form: 'If this is to be, this must go before.' According to this necessity a triple debt is found in the production of creatures. First, when the conditional proceeds from the whole universe of things to some particular part requisite for the perfection of the universe. Thus, if God willed the universe to be such as it is, it was due that He should make the sun and water and the like, without which the universe cannot be. Second, when the conditional proceeds from one creature to another. Thus, if God willed man to be, He was obliged to make plants and animals and such like, which man needs to his perfect being: though God has made both the one and the other out of His mere will. Third, when the conditional proceeds from the existence of the individual creature to its parts and properties and accidents, on which the creature depends for its being or perfection. Thus, supposing that God wished to make man, it was due, on this supposition, that He should unite in him soul and body, senses, and other appurtenances, intrinsic and extrinsic. In all these matters, rightly considered, God is not said to be a debtor to the creature, but a debtor to the fulfilment of His own plan. On these explanations of the meaning of the term 'debt' and 'due,' natural justice is found in the universe both in respect of the creation of things and in respect of their propagation; and therefore God is said to have established and to govern all things justly and reasonably. Thus then is shut out a two-fold error: on the one hand of those who would limit the divine power, saying that God can do only as He does, because so He is bound to do; on the other, of those who say that all things follow on His sheer will, and that no other reason is to be sought or assigned in creation than that God wills it so.

ALTHOUGH all things depend on the will of God as their first cause, and this first cause is not necessitated in its operation except on the supposition of its own purpose, not for that however is absolute necessity excluded from creation, need we aver that all things are contingent.

1. There are things in creation which simply and absolutely must be. Those things simply and absolutely must be, in which there is no possibility of their not being. Some things are so brought into being by God that there is in their nature a potentiality of not being: which happens from this, that the matter in them is in potentiality to receive another form. Those things then in which either there is no matter, or, if there is any, it is not open to receive another form, have no potentiality of not being: such things then simply and absolutely must be. If it be said that things which are of nothing, of themselves tend to nothingness, and thus there is in all creatures a potentiality of not being,�it is manifest that such a conclusion does not follow. For things created by God are said to tend to nothingness only in the way in which they are from nothing; and that is only in respect of the power of the agent who has created them. Thus then creatures have no potentiality of not being: but there is in the Creator a power of giving them being or of stopping the influx of being to them.

4. The further a thing is distant from the self-existent, that is, from God, the nigher it is to not being; and the nigher it is to God, the further it is withdrawn from not being. Those things therefore which are nighest to God, and therefore furthest removed from not being,�in order that the hierarchy of being (ordo rerum) may be complete,�must be such as to have in themselves no potentiality of not being, or in other words, their being must be absolutely necessary. We observe therefore that, considering the universe of creatures as they depend on the first principles of all things, we find that they depend on the will (of God),�not as necessarily arising therefrom, except by an hypothetical, or consequent necessity, as has been explained (Chap. XXVIII). But, compared with proximate and created principles, we find some things having an absolute necessity. There is no absurdity in causes being originally brought into being without any necessity, and yet, once they are posited in being, having such and such an effect necessarily following from them. That such natures were produced by God, was voluntary on His part: but that, once established, a certain effect proceeds from them, is a matter of absolute necessity. What belongs to a thing by reason of its essential principles, must obtain by absolute necessity in all things.

IF either the entire universe or any single creature necessarily exists, this necessity must arise either from the being itself or from some other being. From the being itself it cannot arise: for every being must be from the first being; and what has not being of itself, cannot necessarily exist of itself.

But if this supposed necessity arises from another being, that is, from some extrinsic cause, then, we observe, an extrinsic cause is either efficient or final. Now an effect necessarily arising from an efficient cause means that the agent acts of necessity: when the agent does not act of necessity, neither is it absolutely necessary for the effect to arise. But God does not act under any necessity in the production of creatures (Chap. XXIII). So far therefore as the efficient cause is concerned, there is not any absolute necessity for any creature to be. Neither is there any such necessity in connexion with the final cause. For means to an end receive necessity from their end only in so far as without them the end either cannot be at all, or cannot well be. Now the end proposed to the divine will in the production of things can be no other than God's own goodness, as has been shown (B. I, Chap. LXXV): which goodness depends on creatures neither for its being nor for its well-being (B. I, Chapp. XIII, XXVIII). There is then no absolute necessity for the being of any creature: nor is it necessary to suppose creation always to have existed.

3. It is not necessary for God to will creation to be at all (B. I, Chap. LXXXI): therefore it is not necessary for God to will creation always to have been.

Arg. 1. Every agent that is not always in action, suffers some change when it comes to act. But God suffers no change, but is ever in act in the same way; and from His action created things come to be: therefore they always have been.

Reply (Chap. XXXV). There is no need of God suffering any change for fresh effects of His power coming to be. Novelty of effect can only indicate change in the agent in so far as it shows novelty of action. Any new action in the agent implies some change in the same, at least a change from rest to activity. But a fresh effect of God's power does not indicate any new action in God, since His action is His essence (B. I, Chap. XLV).

Arg. 2. The action of God is eternal: therefore the things created by God have been from eternity.

Reply. That does not follow. For, as shown above (Chap. XXIII), though God acts voluntarily in creation, yet it does not follow that there need be any action on His part intermediate between the act of His will and the effect of the same, as in us the action of our motor activities is so intermediate. With God to understand and will is to produce; and the effect produced follows upon the understanding and will according to the determination of the understanding and the command of the will. But as by the understanding there is determined the production of the thing, and its every other condition, so there is also prescribed for it the time at which it is to be; just as any art determines not only that a thing be of this or that character, but also that it be at this or that time, as the physician fixes the time for giving the medicine. Thus, assuming God's will to be of itself effectual for the production of an effect, the effect would follow fresh from the ancient will, without any fresh action coming to be put forth on the part of God.

Arg. 3. Given a sufficient cause, the effect will ensue: otherwise it would be possible, when the cause was posited, for the effect either to be or not to be. At that rate, the sequence of effect upon cause would be possible and no more. But what is possible requires something to reduce it to act: we should have therefore to suppose a cause whereby the effect was reduced to act, and thus the first cause would not be sufficient. But God is the sufficient cause of the production of creatures: otherwise He must be in potentiality, and become a cause by some addition, which is clearly absurd.

Reply. Though God is the sufficient cause of the production and bringing forth of creatures into being, yet the effect of His production need not be taken to be eternal. For, given a sufficient cause, there follows its effect, but not an effect alien from the cause. Now the proper effect of the will is that that should be which the will wants. If it were anything else than what the will wanted, not the proper effect of the cause would be secured, but a foreign effect. Now as the will wishes that this should be of this or that nature, so it also wishes that it should be at this or that time. Hence, for will to be a sufficient cause, it is requisite that the effect should be when the will wishes it to be. The case is otherwise with physical agencies: they cannot wait: physical action takes place according as nature is ready for it: there the effect must follow at once upon the complete being of the cause. But the will does not act according to the mode of its being, but according to the mode of its purpose; and therefore, as the effect of a physical agent follows the being of the agent, if it is sufficient, so the effect of a voluntary agent follows the mode of purpose.

Arg. 4. A voluntary agent does not delay the execution of his purpose except in expectation of some future condition not yet realised. And this unfulfilled futurity is sometimes in the agent himself, as when maturity of active power or the removal of some hindrance is the condition expected: sometimes it is without the agent, as when there is expected the presence of some one before whom the action is to take place, or the arrival of some opportune time that is not yet come. A complete volition is at once carried into effect by the executive power, except for some defect in that power. Thus at the command of the will a limb is at once moved, unless there be some break-down in the motor apparatus. Therefore, when any one wishes to do a thing and it is not at once done, that must be either for some defect of power, the removal of which has to be waited for, or because of the incompleteness of the volition to do the thing. I call it 'completeness of volition,' when there is a will absolutely to do the thing, anyhow. The volition I say is 'incomplete,' when there is no will absolutely to do the thing, but the will is conditioned on the existence of some circumstance not yet present, or the withdrawal of some present impediment. But certainly, whatever God now wills to be, He has from eternity willed to be. No new motion of the will can come upon Him: no defect or impediment can have clogged His power: there can have been nothing outside Himself for Him to wait for in the production of the universe, since there is nothing else uncreated save Him alone (Chapp. VI, XV). It seems therefore necessary that God must have brought the creature into being from all eternity.

Reply. The object of the divine will is not the mere being of the creature, but its being at a certain time. What is thus willed, namely, the being of the creature at that time, is not delayed: because the creature began to exist then exactly when God from eternity arranged that it should begin to exist.

Arg. 5. An intellectual agent does not prefer one alternative to another except for some superiority of the one over the other. But where there is no difference, there can be no superiority. But between one non-existence and another non-existence there can be no difference, nor is one non-existence preferable to another. But, looking beyond the entire universe, we find nothing but the eternity of God. Now in nothing there can be assigned no difference of instants, that a thing should be done in one instant rather than in another. In like manner neither in eternity, which is all uniform and simple (B. I, Chap. XV), can there be any difference of instants. It follows that the will of God holds itself in one unvarying attitude to the production of creatures throughout the whole of eternity. Either therefore His will is that creation never be realised at all under His eternity, or that it always be realised.

Reply. It is impossible to mark any difference of parts of any duration antecedent to the beginning of all creation, as the fifth objection supposed that we could do. For nothingness has neither measure nor duration, and the eternity of God has no parts, no before and no after. We cannot therefore refer the beginning of all creation to any severally marked points in any pre-existing measure. There are no such points for the beginning of creation to be referred to according to any relation of agreement or divergence. Hence it is impossible to demand any reason in the mind of the agent why he should have brought the creature into being in this particular marked instant of duration rather than in that other instant preceding or following. God brought into being creation and time simultaneously. There is no account to be taken therefore why He produced the creature now, and not before, but only why the creature has not always been. There is an analogy in the case of place: for particular bodies are produced in a particular time and also in a particular place; and, because they have about them a time and a place within which they are contained, there must be a reason assignable why they are produced in this place and this time rather than in any other: but in regard of the whole stellar universe (coelum), beyond which there is no place, and along with which the universal place of all things is produced, no account is to be taken why it is situated here and not there. In like manner in the production of the whole creation, beyond which there is no time, and simultaneously with which time is produced, no question is to be raised why it is now and not before, but only why it has not always been, or why it has come to be after not being, or why it had any beginning.

Arg. 6. Means to the end have their necessity from the end, especially in voluntary actions. So long then as the end is uniform, the means to the end must be uniform or uniformly produced, unless they come to stand in some new relation to the end. Now the end of creatures proceeding from the divine will is the divine goodness, which alone can be the end in view of the divine will. Since then the divine goodness is uniform for all eternity, alike in itself and in comparison with the divine will, it seems that creatures must be uniformly brought into being by the divine will for all eternity. It cannot be said that any new relation to the end supervenes upon them, so long as the position is clung to that they had no being at all before a certain fixed time, at which they are supposed to have begun to be.

Reply. Though the end of the divine will can be none other than the divine goodness, still the divine will has not to work to bring this goodness into being, in the way that the artist works to set up the product of his art, since the divine goodness is eternal and unchangeable and incapable of addition. Nor does God work for His goodness as for an end to be won for Himself, as a king works to win a city: for God is His own goodness. He works for this end, only inasmuch as He produces an effect which is to share in the end. In such a production of things for an end, the uniform attitude of end to agent is not to be considered reason enough for an everlasting work. Rather we should consider the bearing of the end on the effect produced to serve it. The one evinced necessity is that of the production of the effect in the manner better calculated to serve the end for which it is produced.

Arg. 7. Since all things, so far as they have being, share in the goodness of God; the longer they exist, the more they share of that goodness: hence also the perpetual being of the species is said to be divine. But the divine goodness is infinite. Therefore it is proper to it to communicate itself infinitely, and not for a fixed time only.

Reply. It was proper for the creature, in such likeness as became it, to represent the divine goodness. Such representation cannot be by way of equality: it can only be in such way as the higher and greater is represented by the lower and less. Now the excess of the divine goodness above the creature is best expressed by this, that creatures have not always been in existence: for thereby it appears that all other beings but God Himself have God for the author of their being; and that His power is not tied to producing effects of one particular character, as physical nature produces physical effects, but that He is a voluntary and intelligent agent.

Arg. 1. There are creatures in which there is no potentiality of not being (see Chap. XXX): it is impossible for them not to be, and therefore they always must be.

Reply (Chap. XXXVI). The necessity of such creatures being is only a relative necessity, as shown above (Chap. XXX): it does not involve the creature's always having been: it does not follow upon its substance: but when the creature is already established in being, this necessity involves the impossibility of its not-being.

Arg. 3. Every change must either go on everlastingly, or have some other change preceding it. But change always has been: therefore also changeable things: therefore creatures.

Reply. It has already been shown (Chapp. XII, XVII) that without any change in God, the agent, He may act to the production of a new thing, that has not always been. But if a new thing may be produced by Him, He may also originate a process of change.

Arg. 5. If time is perpetual, motion must be perpetual, time being the record of motion. But time must be perpetual: for time is inconceivable without a present instant, as a line is inconceivable without a point: now a present instant is always inconceivable without the ending of a past and the beginning of a future instant; and thus every given present instant has before it a time preceding and after it a time succeeding, and so there can be no first or last time. It follows that created substances in motion have been from eternity.

Reply. This argument rather supposes than proves the eternity of motion. The reason why the same instant is the beginning of the future and the end of the past is because any given phase of motion is the beginning and end of different phases. There is no showing that every instant must be of this character, unless it be assumed that every given phase of time comes between motion going before and motion following after, which is tantamount to assuming the perpetuity of motion. Assuming on the contrary that motion is not perpetual, one may say that the first instant of time is the beginning of the future, and not the end of any past instant. Even in any particular case of motion we may mark a phase which is the beginning only of movement and not the end of any: otherwise every particular case of motion would be perpetual, which is impossible.

Arg. 6. If time has not always been, we may mark a non-existence of time prior to its being. In like manner, if it is not always to be, we may mark a non-existence of it subsequent to its being. But priority and subsequence in point of duration cannot be unless time is; and at that rate time must have been before it was, and shall be after it has ceased, which is absurd. Time then must be eternal. But time is an accident, and cannot be without a subject. But the subject of it is not God, who is above time and beyond motion (B. I, Chapp. XIII, XV). The only alternative left is that some created substance must be eternal.

Reply. There is nothing in this argument to evince that the very supposition of time not being supposes that time is (read, Si ponitur tempus non esse, ponatur esse). For when we speak of something prior to the being of time, we do not thereby assert any real part of time, but only an imaginary part. When we say, 'Time has being after not being', we mean that there was no instant of time before this present marked instant: as when we say that there is nothing above the stellar universe, we do not mean that there is any place beyond the stellar universe, which may be spoken of as 'above' it, but that above it there is no 'place' at all.

Arg. 1. It is the common opinion of all philosophers, and therefore it must be true, that nothing is made of nothing (Aristotle, Physics, B. I, Chapp. VII, VIII). Whatever is made, then, must be made of something; and that again, if it is made at all, must be made of something else. But this process cannot go on to infinity; and therefore we must come to something that was not made. But every being that has not always been must have been made. Therefore that out of which all things are first made must be something everlasting. That cannot be God, because He cannot be the material of anything. Therefore there must be something eternal outside God, namely, primordial matter.

Reply (Chap. XXXVII). The common position of philosophers, that nothing is made of nothing, is true of the sort of making that they considered. For all our knowledge begins in sense, which is of singular objects; and human investigation has advanced from particular to general considerations. Hence, in studying the beginning of things, men gave their attention to the making of particular things in detail. The making of one sort of being out of another sort is the making of some particular being, inasmuch as it is 'this being,' not as it is 'being' generally: for some prior being there was that now is changed into 'this being.' But entering more deeply into the origin of things, philosophers came finally to consider the issuing of all created being from one first cause (Chapp. XV, XVI). In this origin of all created being from God, it is impossible to allow any making out of pre-existent material: for such making out of pre-existent material would not be a making of the whole being of the creature. This first making of the universe was not attained to in the thought of the early physicists, whose common opinion it was that nothing was made of nothing: or if any did attain to it, they considered that such a term as 'making' did not properly apply to it, since the name 'making' implies movement or change, whereas in this origin of all being from one first being there can be no question of the transmutation of one being into another (Chap. XVII). Therefore it is not the concern of physical science to study this first origin of all things: that study belongs to the metaphysician, who deals with being in general and realities apart from motion. We may however by a figure of speech apply the name of 'making' to creation, and speak of things as 'made,' whatsoever they are, the essence or nature whereof has its origin from other being.

Arg. 2. Everything that takes a new being is now otherwise than as it was before: that must come about by some movement or change: but all movement or change is in some subject: therefore before anything is made there must be some subject of motion.

Reply. The notion of motion or change is foisted in here to no purpose: for what nowise is, is not anywise, and affords no hold for the conclusion that, when it begins to be, it is otherwise than as it was before.

These then are the reasons which some hold to as demonstrative, and necessarily evincing that creatures have always existed, wherein they contradict the Catholic faith, which teaches that nothing but God has always existed, and that all else has had a beginning of being except the one eternal God. Thus then it evidently appears that there is nothing to traverse our assertion, that the world has not always existed. And this the Catholic faith teaches: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. i, 1): and, Before he made anything, from the beginning (Prov. viii, 22).

Arg. 1. God is the cause of all things (Chap. XV). But a cause must be prior in duration to the effects of its action.

Reply. That is true of things that act by motion, for the effect is not till the termination of the motion: but with causes that act instantaneously there is no such necessity.

Arg. 2. Since the whole of being is created by God, it cannot be said to be made out of any being: whence the conclusion follows that it is made out of nothing, and consequently that it has existence after not existing.

Reply. To the notion of being made out of something, if that is not admitted one must supply the contradictory notion: which contradictory notion is not being made out of anything. Observe, it is not being made out of nothing, except in the former sense of not being made out of anything.

Arg. 3. It is not possible to pass through infinity. But if the world always had been, infinity would have been passed through by this time, there being infinite days, or daily rounds of the sun, if the world always has been.

Reply. An infinite quantity, though not existing in simultaneous actual realisation, may nevertheless be in succession, because every infinite, so taken, is really finite. Any given round of the sun could be passed, because so far the number of them was finite: but when they are all viewed together, on the supposition that the world had always existed, it would be impossible to fix upon any first day, and so to make any transition from that to the present day, since transition always requires two extreme points.

Arg 4. It would follow that addition is made to the infinite, because to past days, or sun-rounds, a new round is daily added.

Reply. There is nothing to hinder addition to the infinite on that side on which it is finite. Supposing time eternal, it must be infinite as preceding, but finite as succeeding, for the present is the limit of the past.

Arg. 5. It would follow in a world always existing that we should have an infinite series of efficient causes, father being cause of child, and grandfather to father, and so to infinity.

Reply. The impossibility of an infinite series of efficient causes, according to philosophers (Aristotle, Metaph. ii, 2), holds for causes acting together: because then the effect has to depend on an infinity of co-existent actions; and the infinity of causes there is essential, the whole infinite multitude of them being requisite for the production of the effect. But in the case of causes not acting together no such impossibility holds, in the opinion of those who suppose an endless series of generations. The infinity in this case is accidental to the causes: for to Socrates's father, as such, it is quite an accident whether he be the son of another man or no: whereas to a stick, inasmuch as it moves a stone, it is not an accident whether it be moved by an hand: for it only moves inasmuch as it is moved.

Arg. 6. It would follow that an infinite multitude exists, to wit, the immortal souls of infinite men who have been in the past.

Reply. This objection is more difficult: nevertheless the argument is not of much use, because it supposes many things. Since these reasons, alleged by some to prove that the world has not always existed, are not necessarily conclusive, though they have a certain probability, it is sufficient to touch on them slightly, without insisting too much, that the Catholic faith may not seem to rest on empty reasonings, and not rather on the solid basis of the teaching of God.

IF the diversity of things proceeds from diversity or contrariety of diverse agents, this would seem to hold especially of the contrariety of good and evil, so that all good things should proceed from a good principle, and evils from an evil principle. Now there is good and evil in all genera. But there cannot be one first principle of all evils: for the very essence of such a principle would be evil, and that is impossible. Everything that is, inasmuch as it is a being, must necessarily be good: for it loves and strives to preserve its own being, a sign whereof is this fact, that everything fights against its own destruction: now what all things seek is good. It is impossible therefore for the diversity of things to arise from two principles, one good and one evil.

9. What in no manner of way is, is neither good nor evil: while every thing that is, in so far as it is, is good. A thing can be evil therefore only inasmuch as it is not-being, that is, privative being; and the evil is precisely the privation. Now privation never comes of the ordinary action of any cause: because every cause acts inasmuch as it is endowed with 'form'; and thus the ordinary effect of its action must also be endowed with 'form,' since every agent acts to the production of its own likeness, unless it be accidentally hindered. It follows that evil does not come of the ordinary action of any cause, but is accidentally incident among the effects of ordinary causation. There is therefore no one primary and essential principle of all evil: but the first principle of all is one primary good, among the effects of which there ensues evil incidentally.

Hence it is said: I am the Lord, and there is none other, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I am the Lord doing all these things (Isa. xlv, 6, 7). And, Good things and evil things, life and death, poverty and rank are from God (Ecclus xi, 14). And, Against evil is good, and against life death; so against the just man is the sinner. And so behold all the works of the Most High, two and two, and one against one (Ecclus xxxiii, 15).

God is said to make and create evil things, inasmuch as He creates things that are good in themselves and yet hurtful to others: thus the wolf, though a good thing naturally in his kind, is evil to the sheep. Hence it is said: Shall there be evil in the city that the Lord hasnot done? (Amos iii, 6.)

Hereby is excluded the error of those who suppose two primitive contrary principles, good and evil. This error of the early philosophers some evil-minded men have presumed to introduce into Christian teaching, the first of whom was Marcion, and afterwards the Manicheans, who have done most to spread this error.

ORIGEN in his book Peri Arch�n says that God out of mere bounty in His first production of creatures made them all equal, all spiritual and rational, and they by free will behaved in various ways, some adhering to God more or less, and others receding from Him more or less; and thus by order of divine justice various grades ensued among spiritual substances, some appearing as angels of various orders, some as human souls also of various states and conditions, some again as demons in various states. He also said that it was through this variety of rational creatures that God instituted a variety also of material creatures, so that the nobler spiritual substances should be united to the nobler bodies, and that in divers other ways the material creation might serve to express the variety of spiritual substances. According to Origen, man, sun, and stars are composed of rational substances united with corresponding bodies. Now all this opinion can be shown to be manifestly false.

1. The better a thing is, the higher place does it hold in the intention of the agent who produces it. But the best thing in creation is the perfection of the universe, which consists in the orderly variety of things: for in all things the perfection of the whole is preferable to the perfection of parts and details. Therefore the diversity of creatures does not arise from diversity of merits, but was primarily intended by the prime agent.

2. If all rational creatures were created equal from the beginning, we should have to allow that they do not depend for their activity one on another. What arises by the concurrence of divers causes working independently of one another is matter of chance; and thus the diversity and order of creation comes by chance, which is impossible.

12. Since a spiritual creature, or angel, does not deserve to be degraded except for sin,�and it is degraded from its high, invisible estate, by being united with a visible body,�it seems that visible bodies have been added to these spiritual creatures because of sin; which comes near to the error of the Manicheans, who laid it down that the visible creation proceeded from an evil principle. Origen seems not to have given sufficient weight to the consideration that, when we give, not in discharge of any debt, but out of liberality, it is not contrary to justice if we give in unequal measure: but God brought things into being under no debt, but of sheer liberality (Chap. XXVIII): therefore the variety of creatures does not presuppose variety of merits.

SINCE every agent intends to induce its own likeness in the effect, so far as the effect can receive it, an agent will do this more perfectly the more perfect itself is. But God is the most perfect of agents: therefore it will belong to Him to induce His likeness in creation most perfectly, so far as befits created nature. But creatures cannot attain to any perfect likeness of God so long as they are confined to one species of creature; because, since the cause exceeds the effect, what is in the cause simply and as one thing is found in the effect in a composite and manifold way, unless the effect be of the same species as the cause; which is impossible in the case before us, for no creature can be equal to God. Multiplicity therefore and variety was needful in creation, to the end that the perfect likeness of God might be found in creatures according to their measure.

2. As the things that are made of any material are contained in the potentiality of the material, so the things done by any agent must be in the active power of the agent. But the potentiality of the material would not be perfectly reduced to actuality, if out of the material were made only one of those things to which the material is in potentiality. Therefore if any agent whose power extends to various effects were to produce only one of those effects, his power would not be so completely reduced to actuality as by making many. But by the reduction of active power to actuality the effect attains to the likeness of the agent. Therefore the likeness of God would not be perfect in the universe, if there was only one grade of all beings.

3. A creature approaches more perfectly to the likeness of God by being not only good itself, but able to act for the good of others. But no creature could do anything for the good of another creature, unless there were plurality and inequality among creatures, because the agent must be other than the patient and in a position of advantage (honorabilius) over it.

5. The goodness of the species transcends the goodness of the individual. Therefore the multiplication of species is a greater addition to the good of the universe than the multiplication of individuals of one species.

7. To a work contrived by sovereign goodness there ought not to be lacking the height of perfection proper to it. But the good of order in variety is better than the isolated good of any one of the things that enter into the order: therefore the good of order ought not to be wanting to the work of God; which good could not be, if there were no diversity and inequality of creatures. There is then diversity and inequality between creatures, not by chance, not from diversity of elements, not by the intervention of any (inferior) cause, or consideration of merit, but by the special intention of God, wishing to give the creature such perfection as it was capable of having. Hence it is said, God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good (Gen. i, 31); and this after He had said of them singly, that they were good; because while things are good singly in their several natures, all taken together they are very good, because of the order of the universe, which is the final and noblest perfection of creation.

THIS then being the cause of the diversity among creatures, it remains now to treat of the several distinct creatures themselves as we proposed to do in the third part of this book (Chap. V). And we will show first that by the disposition of Divine Providence assigning perfection to creatures in the way best befitting them, it was consonant with reason that some intellectual creatures should be placed at the head of creation.

5. Nothing else moves God to the production of creatures but His own goodness, which He has wished to communicate to other beings according to the manner of their assimilation to Himself (B. I, Chap. LXXXVII). Now the likeness of one thing may be found in another in two ways: in one way in point of natural being, as the likeness of heat is found in the body heated; in another way in point of knowledge, as the likeness of fire (perceived) is in sight or touch. In order then that the likeness of God might be in creatures in such modes as were possible, it was necessary that the divine goodness should be communicated to creatures, not only by likeness in being, but also by likeness in knowing. But mind alone can know the divine goodness. Therefore there needed to be intelligent creatures.

6. In all comely arrangements of things, the attitude of the secondary to the last imitates the attitude of the first to all, as well secondary as last, though the imitation is not always perfect. Now God comprehends in Himself all creatures (B. I, Chapp. XXV, LI, LIV); and this is represented in material creatures, although in another way: for the higher body comprehends and contains the lower, according to quantitative extension; whereas God contains all creatures in simple mode, and not by quantitative extension. In order then that an imitation of God might not be wanting to creatures even in this mode of containing, there were made intellectual creatures to contain material creatures, not by any extension of quantity, but simply by mode of intelligence: for what is understood is in the mind that understands it, and is comprehended in its intellectual activity.

GOOD is what all things yearn after, and in all beings there is a craving (appetitus) for good. In beings unendowed with any sort of cognition, this craving is called 'physical appetite' (appetitus naturalis) . In beings that have sensitive cognition it is called 'animal appetite,' and is divided into 'concupiscible' and 'irascible.' In intelligent beings it is called the 'intellectual' or 'rational appetite,' otherwise the 'will.'

THEY must be free, if they have dominion over their own acts.

2. A free agent is an agent that is cause of its own action (sui causa, sibi causa agendi). Agents that are determined (moventur) and act only inasmuch as they are determined by others, are not causes of their own acts. Only self-determining agents (moventia seipsa) have liberty of action; and these alone are guided in their action by judgement. A self-determining agent is made up of two elements, one determining and another determined. The element determined is the appetite; and that is determined either by intellect, or by phantasy, or by sense: for to these powers it belongs to judge. Of such self-determining agents, those alone judge freely which determine their own judgement. But no faculty of judging determines its own judgement unless it reflects upon its own act. If then it is to determine itself to judge, it must know its own judgement; and that knowledge belongs to intellect alone. Irrational animals then have a sort of free determination, or action, but not a free judgement (sunt quodammodo liberi quidem motus, sive actionis, non autem liberi judicii): while inanimate things, being dependent for their every determination on things other than themselves, have not so much as free action, or determination. On the contrary, intelligent beings have not only free action, but also free judgement, which is having free will.

3. An apprehension becomes a motive according as the thing apprehended takes the form of something good or suitable. In agents that determine their own movements, the outward action goes upon some judgement pronouncing a thing good or suitable according as it is apprehended. If the agent pronouncing the judgement is to determine himself to judge, he must be guided to that judgement by some higher form or idea in his apprehension. This idea can be no other than the universal idea (ipsa ratio) of goodness or fitness, by aid whereof a judgement is formed of any given definite good, fit, or suitable thing. Therefore those agents alone determine themselves to judge, which have this general concept of goodness or fitness,�that is to say, only intelligent agents. Therefore intelligent agents alone determine themselves, not only to act, but also to judge. They therefore alone are free in judging, which is having free will.

4. No movement or action follows from a general concept except by the medium of some particular apprehension, as all movement and action deals with particulars. Now the understanding naturally apprehends the universal. In order then that movement or any manner of action may follow upon the intellectual apprehension, the universal concept of the understanding must be applied to particular objects. But the universal contains in potentiality many particular objects. Therefore the application of the intellectual concept may be made to many divers objects; and consequently the judgement of the understanding about things to be done is not determined to one thing only.

5. Some agents are without liberty of judgement, either because they have no judgement at all, as is the case with things that have no knowledge, as stones and plants, or because they have a judgement naturally determined to one effect, as irrational animals. For by natural reckoning the sheep judges that the wolf is hurtful to it, and on this judgement flies from the wolf. But whatever agents have their judgement of things to be done not determined by nature to one effect, they must have free will. Such are all intelligent agents; for the understanding apprehends, not only this or that good, but good itself in general. Hence, since it is through the idea in apprehension that the understanding moves the will; and in all things the motive, or moving power, and the object moved must be proportioned to one another; it follows that the will of an intelligent subsistent being is not determined by nature except to good in general. Whatever therefore is presented to the will under the specific notion of good (sub ratione boni), the will may incline to it, without let or hindrance from any natural determination to the contrary. Therefore all intelligent agents have free will, arising out of the judgement of the understanding; and free will is defined 'a free judgement on the matter of a specific notion, or general concept.'

IF the understanding were a corporeal substance, intelligible ideas of things would be received in it only as representing individual things. At that rate, the understanding would have no conception of the universal, but only of the particular, which is manifestly false.

4. If the understanding were a corporeal substance, its action would not transcend the order of corporeal things, and therefore it would understand nothing but corporeal things, which is manifestly false, for we do understand many things that are not corporeal.

5. There can be no infinite power in any finite body: but the power of the understanding is in a manner infinite in the exercise of intelligence: for it knows the universal, which is virtually infinite in its logical extension.

7 and 8. Of no bodily substance is the action turned back upon the agent. But the understanding in its action does reflect and turn round upon itself: for as it understands an object, so also it understands that it does understand, and so endlessly. Hence Holy Scripture calls intelligent subsistent beings by the name of 'spirits,' using of them the style which it is wont to use for the incorporeal Deity, according to the text, God is a Spirit (John iv, 24). Hereby is excluded the error of the ancient natural philosophers, who admitted no substance but corporeal substance: which opinion some have endeavoured to foist into the Christian faith, saying that the soul is an effigy of the body, a sort of outline contour of the human body.

THOUGH subsistent intelligences are not corporeal, nor compounded of matter and form, nor existent as material forms in matter, still it must not be thought that they come up to the simplicity of the being of God: for there is found in them a certain composition, inasmuch as existence (esse) and essence (quod est) is not in them the same.

4. Whatsoever reality subsists of and by itself, nothing attaches to that reality except what is proper to being as being. For what is said of any reality not as such, does not belong to that reality otherwise than accidentally by reason of the subject: hence, considered apart from the subject in a particular case, the attribute does not belong to that reality at all. Now to be 'caused by another' does not belong to being, as being: otherwise every being would be caused by another, which is impossible (B. I, Chap. XIII) Therefore that existence which is being of itself and by itself, must be uncaused. No caused being therefore is its own existence.

5. The substance of every reality is a being of itself and not through another. Hence actual illumination is not of the substance of air, because it accrues to it through another. But to every created reality existence accrues through another, otherwise it would not be a creature. Therefore of no created substance is it true to say that its existence is its substance.

Hence in Exodus iii, 14, existence is assigned as the proper name of God, He who is: because it is proper to God alone that His substance is none other than His existence.

In inferior agents it is a sign of attained perfection, when they can produce their own likeness. But God is sovereignly perfect (B.I. Chap. XXVIII). Therefore it belongs to Him to make some being like Himself in actual existence.

6. The more perfect any principle of activity is, the wider its sphere of action. But that pure actuality, which is God, is more perfect than actuality mingled with potentiality, such as is in us. Now actuality is the principle of action. Since then by the actuality which is in us, we are not only capable of immanent acts, such as understanding and willing, but also of acts tending to exterior things and productive of effects, much more can God, by virtue of His actuality, not only understand and will, but also produce an effect.Who maketh great and wonderful and inscrutable works without number (Job v.9).

IN whatever being there are found two elements, the one complementary to the other, the proportion of the one element to the other is as the proportion of potential to actual: for nothing is completed except by its own actuality. But in a created intelligent subsistent being there are two elements, the substance itself and the existence thereof which is not the same thing as the substance. Now that existence is the complement of the existing substance: for everything actually exists by having existence. It follows that in every one of the aforesaid substances there is a composition of actuality and potentiality.

2. What is in any being, and comes of the agent that produced it, must be the actuality of that being: for it is an agent's function to make a thing be in actuality. But, as shown above (Chap. XV), all other substances have their existence of the prime agent: indeed their being created substances consists precisely in this, that they have their existence of another. Existence itself therefore is in these created substances as a sort of actualisation of the same. But that in which actuality is received is potentiality: for actuality is such in relation to potentiality. In every created subsistent being therefore there is potentiality and actuality.

WHAT ordinarily and of itself attaches to a thing, inheres in it necessarily and invariably and inseparably, as roundness ordinarily and of itself inheres in a circle, but in a bit of brass metal only incidentally. It is possible for a bit of brass metal to be other than round: it is impossible for a circle to be other than round. Now existence ordinarily follows upon the form: for we call that 'ordinary,' which the thing is inasmuch as it is itself; and everything has existence inasmuch as it has form. Substances therefore that are not pure forms may be deprived of existence inasmuch as they lose their form, as brass is deprived of roundness inasmuch as it ceases to be circular. But substances that are pure forms are never deprived of existence: thus if the ideal circle had substantial existence, that substance could never be made other than round. But subsistent intelligences are pure subsistent forms: therefore it is impossible for them ever to cease to exist.

8. Everything that perishes, perishes by suffering something. Destruction is a sort of suffering. But no subsistent intelligence can suffer any impression such as to lead to its destruction. For to suffer is to receive something; and whatever is received in a subsistent intelligence must be received according to the manner of the same: that is to say, it must be received as an intelligible impression. But whatever is so received in a subsistent intelligence, goes to perfect that intelligence, not to destroy it: for the intelligible is the perfection of the intelligent. A subsistent intelligence therefore is indestructible.

10. The intelligible is the proper perfection of the intellect: hence the understanding in the act of understanding, and its term, or object in the act of being understood, are one. What therefore belongs to the object as intelligible, must belong also to the mind as cognisant of that object; because perfection and perfectible are of the same genus. Now the intelligible object, as such, is necessary and imperishable: for things necessary, or things that must be, are perfectly cognisable to the understanding; while things contingent, that are but might not be, as such, are cognisable only imperfectly: they are not matter of science, but of opinion. Hence the understanding attains to science of perishable things, only in so far as they are imperishable,�that is to say, in so far as they become to the mind universals. Intellect therefore, as such, must be indestructible.

13. It is impossible for a natural desire to be void of object, for nature does nothing in vain. But every intelligence naturally desires perpetuity of being, not only perpetuity of being in the species, but in the individual: which is thus shown. The natural desire which some creatures have arises from conscious apprehension: thus the wolf naturally desires the killing of the animals on which he feeds, and man naturally desires happiness. Other creatures, without any conscious apprehension, are led by the inclination of primitive physical tendencies, which is called in some 'physical appetite.' The natural desire of being is contained under both modes: the proof of which is that creatures devoid of any sort of cognitive faculty resist destructive agencies to the full strength of their natural constitution, while creatures possessed of any manner of cognitive faculty resist the same according to the mode of their cognition. Those creatures therefore, devoid of cognition, who have in their natural constitution strength enough to preserve perpetual being, so as to remain always the same numerically, have a natural appetite for perpetuity of being even in respect of sameness of number: while those whose natural constitution has not strength for this, but only for preservation of perpetuity of being in respect of sameness of species, also have a natural appetite for perpetuity. This difference then must be noted in those creatures whose desire of being is attended with cognition, that they who do not know being except in the present time, desire it for the present time, but not for ever, because they have no apprehension of everlasting existence: still they desire the perpetual being of their species, a desire unattended with cognition, because the generative power, which serves that end, is preliminary to and does not come under cognition. Those then that do know and apprehend perpetual being as such, desire the same with a natural desire. But this is the case with all subsistent intelligences. All such subsistent intelligences therefore have a natural desire of everlasting being. Therefore they cannot possibly cease to be.

13. All things that begin to be, and afterwards cease to be, have both their beginning and their ceasing from the same power: for the same is the power to make to be and to make not to be. But subsistent intelligences could not begin to be except through the power of the prime agent. Therefore neither is there any power to make them cease to be except in the prime agent, inasmuch as that agent may cease to pour being into them. But in respect of this power alone nothing can be called perishable; as well because things are called necessary or contingent in respect of the power that is in them, not in respect of the power of God (Chap. XXX), as also because God, the author of nature, does not withdraw from things that which is proper to their nature; and it has been shown that it is proper to intellectual natures to be perpetual.

A SUBSISTENT intelligence Cannot be united with a body by any manner of combination: for combined elements, when the combination is complete, do not remain actually, but virtually only: for if they remained actually, it would not be a combination, but a mere mechanical mixture. But this combination and consequent cessation of actual existence cannot befall subsistent intelligences; for they are imperishable.

It is likewise evident that a subsistent intelligence cannot be united with a body by any manner of contact, properly so called. For contact is only of bodies: those things are in contact, the extremities of which are together, as points, or lines, or circumferences, which are the extremities of bodies.

Still there is one mode of contact whereby a subsistent intelligence may be mingled with a body. For natural bodies in touching one another involve a change, and thus are united together, not only in their quantitative extremities, but also by likeness of one same quality or form, the one in pressing its form on the other. And though, if we regard only quantitative extremities, the contact must be mutual in all cases, yet, if we consider action and passion, there will be found some cases of touching without being touched, and some cases of being touched without touching. Any cases that may be found of contact without contact in quantitative extremities must still be ca]led instances of contact, inasmuch as they are instances of action: thus we say that he who saddens another 'touches' him. According to this mode of touch it is possible for a subsistent intelligence to be united to a body by contact: for subsistent intelligences act upon bodies and move them, being more highly actualised than bodies are.

This contact is not quantitative but virtual, and differs from bodily contact in three respects. First, because in this contact the indivisible can touch the divisible, which cannot happen in bodily contact: for only that which is indivisible can be touched by a point, whereas a subsistent intelligence, indivisible though it be, can touch a divisible quantity by acting upon it. The point and the subsistent intelligence are not indivisible in the same way. The point is indivisible as a term of quantity, and has a definite situation in a continuous surface, beyond which it cannot be thrown: whereas a subsistent intelligence is indivisible by being outside of the category of quantity altogether: hence no indivisible element of quantity is marked out for contact with it. Secondly, because quantitative contact is only with extremities, but virtual contact is with the whole subject touched: for the subject is touched inasmuch as it is acted upon and moved; but that is inasmuch as it is in potentiality; and potentiality extends to the whole, not merely to the extremities of the whole: hence the whole is touched. From this appears a third difference: because in quantitative touch, which is of extremities, the touching body must be outside of the touched, and cannot pervade it, but is stopped by it; whereas the virtual contact, which is proper to subsistent intelligences, reaching to the inmost recesses of things, makes the touching substance be within the touched and pervade it without let or hindrance. Thus then a subsistent intelligence may be united with a body by virtual contact.

Elements united by such contact are not absolutely one: they are one in action and in being acted upon, which does not involve absolute oneness of being. Such absolute oneness may be in three ways: in the way of indivisibility, in the way of continuity, and in the way of natural unity. Now out of a subsistent intelligence and a body there cannot be made an indivisible unity: it must be a compound of two things. Nor again a continuous unity, because the parts of a continuum are quantitative. It remains to be enquired whether out of a subsistent intelligence and a body there can result such a unity as means oneness of nature. But out of two permanent elements there results no being one by nature except that which results of the union of substantial form with matter: for out of substance and accident there results no being one by nature, for the nature or essence of 'man' and 'whiteness' is not the same. This question then remains to be studied, whether a subsistent intelligence can be the substantial form of any body. Looking at the matter argumentatively, it might seem that the thing is impossible.

Arg. 1. Of two actually existent substances no one being can be made: for the actuality of every being is that whereby it is distinguished from another being. But a subsistent intelligence is an actually existing substance: so likewise is a body. Apparently therefore no one being can be made of a subsistent intelligence and a body.

Arg. 2. Form and matter are contained under the same genus: for every genus is divided into actual and potential. But a subsistent intelligence and a body are of different genera.

Arg. 3. All that is in matter must be material. But if subsistent intelligence 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 activity in common with the body: for the active 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 objection 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 actually 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.

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, notwithstanding that its existence is in matter: for though in matter, it is not immersed 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. 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 acts. In any activity of the soul therefore which is completed by a bodily organ, the power of the soul which is the principle of that activity must bring to act that part of the body whereby its activity is completed, as sight brings the eye to act. But in any activity of the soul that we may suppose not to be completed by any bodily organ, the corresponding power will not bring anything in the body to act; and this is the sense in which the intellect is said to be 'separate,'�not but that the substance of the soul, whereof intellect is a power, or the intellectual soul, brings the body to act, 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 actuation 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 activity without the body, being not dependent on the body in its action, as neither in its being is it dependent on the body.

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 subsistent intelligence can be the form of a body. The untenableness of this position is thus to be shown.

1. Attributes of the same subject representing different forms are predicated 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, '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, 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 fact is the loosest of unities.

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 actualities and principles of action. 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 fact 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. There must therefore in one man, or one animal, be one only soul.

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 intellect 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 intellect, 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. Also from the argument by which Aristotle proves that because the potential intellect receives all impressions of sensible things, and is in potentiality to them all, it must be devoid of all to begin with, as the pupil of the eye, which receives all impressions of colours, is devoid of all colour; because if it had of itself any colour, that colour would prevent other colours from being seen; nay, nothing would be seen except under that colour; and the like would be the case of the potential intellect, if it had of itself any form or nature of sensible things, as it would have were it the form of any body; because, since form and matter make one, the form must participate to some extent in the nature of that whereof it is the form. These passages moved Averroes to suppose the potential intellect, whereby the soul understands, to be separate in being from the body, and not to be the form of the body. But because this intellect would have no connexion with us, nor should we be able to understand by it unless it were somehow united with us, Averroes fixes upon a mode in which it is united with us, as he thinks, sufficiently. He says that an impression actually made in the understanding is a 'form' of the potential intellect, in the same way that an actually visible appearance, as such, is a 'form' of the visual faculty; hence out of the potential intellect, and this form or impression actually made in the same, there results one being. With whatever being therefore this 'form' of the understanding is conjoined, the potential intellect is also conjoined with that being. But this 'form 'is conjoined with us by means of the 'phantasm,' or image in the phantasy, which image is a Sort of subject receiving in itself that 'form' of understanding.

1. It is easy to see how frivolous and impossible all this construction is. For what has understanding is intelligent; and that of which an intelligible impression is united with the understanding, is understood. The fact that an intelligible impression, united with a (foreign) understanding, comes somehow to be in man, will not render man intelligent; it will merely make him understood by that separately subsisting intelligence.

2. Besides, the impression actually in understanding is the form of the potential intellect, in the same way that the actual visible appearance is the form of the visual power, or eye. But the impression actually in understanding is to the phantasms as the actual visible appearance is to the coloured surface, which is outside the soul. This similitude is used by Averroes, as also by Aristotle. Therefore the supposed union of the potential intellect (by means of the intelligible form) with the phantasm that is in us will resemble the union of the visual power with the colour that is in the stone. But this union does not make the stone see, but be seen. Therefore the aforesaid union does not make us understand, but be understood. But, plainly, it is properly and truly said that man understands: for we should not be investigating the nature of understanding were it not for the fact that we have understanding. The above mode of union then is insufficient.

3. The intellect in the act of understanding and the object as represented in understanding are one, as also the sense in the act of sensation and the object as represented in sense. But the understanding as apt to understand and its object as open to representation in understanding are not one, as neither is sense, so far as it is apt to have sensation, one with its object, so far as that is open to be represented in sensation. The impression made by the object, so far as it lies in images of the phantasy, is not any representation in the understanding. Only by undergoing a process of abstraction from such images does the impression became one with the intellect in the act of understanding. In like manner the impression of colour is actually felt in sense, not as it is in the stone, but as it is in the eye. Now, on the theory of Averroes, the intelligible form, or impression in the understanding, only comes to be conjoined with us by finding place in the images of our phantasy. Therefore it is not conjoined with us inasmuch as it is one with the potential intellect, being its form. Therefore it cannot be the medium whereby the potential intellect is conjoined with us: because, in so far as it is conjoined with the potential intellect, it is not conjoined with us; and in so far as it is conjoined with us, it is not conjoined with the potential intellect.

AVERROES endeavours to meet these arguments and to maintain the position aforesaid. He says accordingly that man differs from dumb animals by what Aristotle calls the 'passive intellect,' which is that 'cogitative power' (vis cogitativa) proper to man, in place whereof other animals have a certain 'estimative power' (aestimativa). The function of this 'cogitative power' is to distinguish individual ideas and compare them with one another, as the intellect, which is separate and unmixed, compares and distinguishes between universal ideas. And because by this cogitative power, along with imagination and memory, phantasms, or impressions of phantasy, are prepared to receive the action of the 'active intellect,' whereby they are made actual terms of understanding, therefore the aforesaid cogitative power is called by the names of 'intellect' and 'reason.' Doctors say that it has its seat in the middle cell of the brain. According to the disposition of this power one man differs from another in genius, and in other points of intelligence; and by the use and exercise of this power man acquires the habit of knowledge. Hence the passive intellect is the subject of the various habits of knowledge. And this passive intellect is in a child from the beginning; and by virtue of it he is a member of the human species before he actually understands anything. So far Averroes. The falsity and perverseness of his statements evidently appears.

1. Vital activities stand to the soul as second actualities to the first. Now the first actuality is prior in time to the second in the same subject, as knowledge is prior in time to learned speculation. In whatever being therefore there is found any vital activity, there must be some portion of soul standing to that activity as the first actuality to the second. But man has one activity proper to him above all other animals, namely that of understanding and reasoning. Therefore we must posit in man some proper specific principle, which shall be to the act of understanding as the first actuality to the second. This principle cannot be the aforesaid 'passive intellect': for the principle of the aforesaid activity must be "impassible and nowise implicated with the body," as the Philosopher proves, whereas evidently quite the contrary is the case with the passive intellect. Therefore that cognitive faculty called the 'passive intellect' cannot possibly be the speciality that differentiates the human species from other animals.

2. An incident of the sensitive part cannot constitute a being in a higher kind of life than that of the sensitive part, as an incident of the vegetative soul does not place a being in a higher kind of life than the vegetative life. But it is certain that phantasy and the faculties consequent thereon, as memory and the like, are incidents of the sensitive part. Therefore by the aforesaid faculties, or by any one of them, an animal cannot be placed in any higher rank of life than that which goes with the sentient soul. But man is in a higher rank of life than that. Therefore the man does not live the life that is proper to him by virtue of the aforesaid 'cogitative faculty,' or 'passive intellect.'

4. The 'potential intellect' is proved not to be the actualisation of any corporeal organ from this consideration, that the said intellect takes cognisance of all sensible forms under a universal aspect. Therefore no faculty, the activity of which can reach to the universal aspects of all corporeal forms, can be the actualisation of any corporeal organ. But such a faculty is the will: for of all of the things that we understand we can have a will, at least of knowing them. And we also find acts of the will in the general: thus, as Aristotle says (Rhet. II, 4), we hate in general the whole race of robbers. The will then cannot be the actualisation of any bodily organ. But every portion of the soul is the actualisation of some bodily organ, except only the intellect properly so called. The will therefore belongs to the intellectual part, as Aristotle says. Now the will of man is not extrinsic to man, planted as it were in some separately subsisting intelligence, but is in the man himself: otherwise he would not be master of his own acts, but would be worked by the will of a spirit other than himself: those appetitive, or conative, faculties alone would remain in him, the activity whereof is conjoined with passion, to wit the irascible and concupiscible in the sentient part of his being, as in other animals, which are rather acted upon than act. But this is impossible: it would be the undoing of all moral philosophy and all social and political science. Therefore there must be in us a potential intellect to differentiate us from dumb animals: the passive intellect is not enough.

6. A habit and the act proper to that habit both reside in the same faculty. But to view a thing intellectually, which is the act proper to the habit of knowledge, cannot be an exercise of the faculty called 'passive intellect,' but must properly belong to the potential intellect: for the condition of any faculty exercising intelligence is that it should not be an actualisation of any corporeal organ. Therefore the habit of knowledge is not in the passive intellect, but in the potential intellect.

8. Habitual understanding, as our opponent acknowledges, is an effect of the 'active intellect.' But the effects of the active intellect are actual representations in understanding, the proper recipient of which is the potential intellect, to which the active intellect stands related, as Aristotle says, "as art to material." Therefore the habitual understanding, which is the habit of knowledge, must be in the potential intellect, not in the passive.

As passive power, or passivity, follows upon being in potentiality, so active power follows upon being in actuality; for everything acts by being in actuality, and is acted upon by being in potentiality. But it belongs to God to be in actuality; and therefore there is suitably ascribed to Him active power, but not passive power.

Hence it is said: You are powerful, O Lord (Ps. lxxxviii, 9); and Your power and your justice, O God, are even to the highest heaven, in the wonders that you have made (Ps. lxx, 18, 19).

ARISTOTLE defines soul, "the first actuality of a natural, organic body, potentially alive"; and adds, "this definition applies universally to every soul." Nor does he, as the aforesaid Averroes pretends, put forth this latter remark in a tentative way, as may be seen from the Greek copies and the translation of Boethius. Afterwards in the same chapter he adds that there are "certain parts of the soul separable," and these are none other than the intellectual parts. The conclusion remains that the said parts are actualisations of the body.

2. Nor is this explanation inconsistent with Aristotle's words subjoined: "About the intellect and the speculative faculty the case is not yet clear: but it seems to be another kind of soul." He does not hereby mean to separate the intellect from the common definition of 'soul,' but from the peculiar natures of the other parts of soul: as one who says that fowls are a different sort of animal from land animals, does not take away from the fowl the common definition of 'animal.' Hence, to show in what respect he called it "another kind," he adds: "And of this alone is there possibility of separation, as of the everlasting from the perishable." Nor is it the intention of Aristotle, as the Commentator aforesaid pretends, to say that it is not yet clear whether intellect be soul at all, as it is clear of other and lower vital principles. For the old text has not, "Nothing has been declared," or "Nothing has been said," but "Nothing is clear," which is to be understood as referring to the peculiar properties of intellect, not to the general definition (of soul). But if, as the Commentator says, the word 'soul' is used not in the same sense of intellect and other varieties, Aristotle would have first distinguished the ambiguity and then made his definition, as his manner is: otherwise his argument would rest on an ambiguity, an intolerable procedure in demonstrative sciences.

3. Aristotle reckons 'intellect' among the 'faculties' of the soul. Also, in the passage last quoted, he names 'the speculative faculty.' Intellect therefore is not outside the human soul, but is a faculty thereof.

4. Also, when beginning to speak of the potential intellect, he calls it a part of the soul, saying: "Concerning the part of the soul whereby the soul has knowledge and intellectual consciousness."

5. And still more clearly by what follows, declaring the nature of the potential intellect: "I call intellect that whereby the soul thinks and under stands": in which it is manifestly shown that the intellect is something belonging to the human soul.

The above tenet (of Averroes) therefore is contrary to the mind of Aristotle and contrary to the truth: hence it should be rejected as chimerical.

UPON consideration of these words of Aristotle, Alexander determined the potential intellect to be some power in us, that so the general definition of soul assigned by Aristotle might apply to it. But because he could not understand how any subsistent intelligence could be the form of a body, he supposed the aforesaid faculty of potential intellect not to be planted in any subsistent intelligence, but to be the result of some combination of elements in the human body. Thus a definite mode of combination of the components of the human body puts a man in potentiality to receive the influence of the active intellect, which is ever in act, and according to him, is a spiritual being subsisting apart, under which influence man becomes actually intelligent. But that in man whereby he is potentially intelligent is the potential intellect: hence it seemed to Alexander to follow that the potential intellect in us arises from a definite combination of elements. But this statement appears on first inspection to be contrary to the words and argument of Aristotle. For Aristotle shows (De anima, III, iv, 2-4) that the potential intellect is unmingled with the body: but that could not be said of a faculty that was the result of a combination of bodily elements. To meet this difficulty Alexander says that the potential intellect is precisely the 'predisposition' (praeparatio, epit�deiot�s) which exists in human nature to receive the influence of the active intellect; and that this 'predisposition' is not any definite sensible nature, nor is it mingled with the body, for it is a relation and order between one thing and another. But this is in manifest disagreement with the mind of Aristotle, as the following reasons show:

3. Aristotle assigns these characteristics to the potential intellect: to be impressed by the intelligible presentation, to receive intelligible impressions, to be in potentiality towards them (De anima, III, iv, 11, 12): all which things cannot be said of any 'disposition,' but only of the subject predisposed. It is therefore contrary to the mind of Aristotle, that the mere 'predisposition' should be the potential intellect.

4. An effect cannot stand higher above the material order than its cause. But every cognitive faculty, as such, belongs to the immaterial order. Therefore it is impossible for any cognitive faculty to be caused by a combination of elements. But the potential intellect is the supreme cognitive faculty in us: therefore it is not caused by a combination of elements.

6. No bodily organ can possibly have a share in the act of understanding. But that act is attributed to the soul, or to the man: for we say that the soul understands, or the man through the soul. Therefore there must be in man some principle independent of the body, to be the principle of such an act. But any predisposition, which is the result of a combination of elements, manifestly depends on the body. Therefore no such predisposition can be a principle like the potential intellect, whereby the soul judges and understands.

But if it is said that the principle of the aforesaid operation in us is the intellectual impression actually made by the active intellect, this does not seem to suffice: because when man comes to have actual intellectual cognition from having had such cognition potentially, he needs to understand not merely by some intelligible impression actualising his understanding, but likewise by some intellectual faculty as the principle of such activity. Besides, an impression is not in actual understanding except so far as it is purified from particular and material being. But this cannot happen so long as it remains in any material faculty, that is to say, in any faculty either caused by material principles or actualising a material organ. Therefore there must be posited in us some immaterial intellectual faculty, and that is the potential intellect.

THE maintainers of this view did not mean that the soul is a harmony of sounds, but a harmony of contrary elements, whereof they saw living bodies to be composed. The view is rejected for the follow ing reasons:

1. You may find such a harmony in any body, even a mere chemical compound (corpus mixtum). A harmony cannot move the body, or govern it, or resist the passions, as neither can a temperament. Also a harmony, and a temperament also, admits of degrees. All which considerations go to show that the soul is neither harmony nor temperament.

2. The notion of harmony rather befits qualities of the body than the soul: thus health is a harmony of humours; strength, of muscles and bones; beauty, of limb and colour. But it is impossible to assign any components, the harmony of which would make sense, or intellect, or other appurtenances of the soul.

3. Harmony may mean either the composition itself or the principle of composition. Now the soul is not a composition, because then every part of the soul would be composed of certain parts of the body, an arrangement which cannot be made out. In like manner the soul is not the principle of composition, because to different parts of the body there are different principles of composition, or proportions of elements, which would require the several parts of the body to have so many several souls,�one soul for bone, one for flesh, one for sinew; which is evidently not the case.

LIVING beings are composed of matter and form,�of a body, and of a soul which makes them actually alive. One of these components must be the form, and the other the matter. But a body cannot be a form, because a body is not in another as in its matter and subject. Therefore the soul must be the form: therefore it is not a body.

5. The act of understanding cannot be the act of anything corporeal. But it is an act of the soul. Therefore the intellectual soul at least is not a body.

It is easy to solve the arguments whereby some have endeavoured to prove that the soul is a body. They point such facts as these,�that the son resembles the father even in the accidents of his soul, being generated from the father by severance of bodily substance; and that the soul suffers with the body; and is separated from the body, separation supposing previous bodily contact. Against these instances we observe that bodily temperament is a sort of predisposing cause of affections of the soul: that the soul suffers with the body only accidentally, as being the form of the body: also that the soul is separated from the body, not as touching from touched, but as form from matter; although there is a certain contact possible between an incorporeal being and the body, as has been shown above (Chap. LVI).

Many have been moved to this position by their belief that what is not a material body has no existence, being unable to transcend the imagination, which deals only with material bodies. Hence this opinion is proposed in the person of the unwise: The breath of our nostrils is smoke, and reason a spark in the beating of the heart (Wisdom ii, 2).

SENSE is found in all animals, but animals other than man have no intellect: which is proved by this, that they do not work, like intellectual agents, in diverse and opposite ways, but just as nature moves them fixed and uniform specific activities, as every swallow builds its nest in the same way.

2. Sense is cognisant only of singulars, but intellect is cognisant of universals.

3. Sensory knowledge extends only to bodily things, but intellect takes cognisance of things incorporeal, as wisdom, truth, and the relations between objects.

4. No sense has reflex knowledge of itself and its own activity: the sight does not see itself, nor see that it sees. But intellect is cognisant of itself, and knows that it understands.

PHANTASY is found in other animals besides man, the proof of which is that, as objects of sense recede from sense, these animals still shun or pursue them. But intellect is not in them, as no work of intelligence appears in their conduct.

2. Phantasy is only of things corporeal and singular; but intellect, of things universal and incorporeal.

4. Intelligence is not the actualisation of any bodily organ. But phantasy has a fixed bodily organ.

Hence it is said: Who teacheth us above the beasts of the earth, and above the fowls of the air instructeth us (Job xxxv, 11): whereby we are given to understand that there is in man a certain cognitive power, above the sense and fancy that are in other animals.

If a subsistent intelligence is not united with a body merely as its mover, as Plato thought (Chap. LVII); nor is the intellect, whereby man understands, a predisposition in human nature, as Alexander said (Chap. LXII; nor a temperament, as Galen (Chap. LXIII); nor a harmony, as Empedocles (Chap. LXIV); nor a body, nor a sense, nor a phantasy (Chapp. LXV, LXVI, LXVII); it remains that the human soul is a subsistent intelligence, united with the body as its form: which may be thus made manifest.

There are two requisites for one thing to be the substantial form of another. One requisite is that the form be the principle of substantial being to that whereof it is the form: I do not mean the effective, but the formal principle, whereby a thing is and is denominated 'being.' The second requisite is that the form and matter should unite in one 'being'; namely, in that being wherein the substance so composed subsists. There is no such union of the effective principle with that to which it gives being. A subsistent intelligence, as shown in Chap. LVI, is not hindered by the fact that it is subsistent from communicating its being to matter, and becoming the formal principle of the said matter. There is no difficulty in the identification of the being, in virtue of which the compound subsists, with the form itself of the said compound, since the compound is only through the form, and neither subsist apart.

It may be objected that a subsistent intelligence cannot communicate its being to a material body in such a way that there shall be one being of the subsistent intelligence and the material body: for things of different kinds have different modes of being, and nobler is the being of the nobler substance. This objection would be in point, if that being were said to belong to that material thing in the same way in which it belongs to that subsistent intelligence. But it is not so: for that being belongs to that material body as to a recipient subject raised to a higher state; while it belongs to that subsistent intelligence as to its principle and by congruence of its own nature.

In this way a wonderful chain of beings is revealed to our study. The lowest member of the higher genus is always found to border close upon the highest member of the lower genus. Thus some of the lowest members of the genus of animals attain to little beyond the life of plants, certain shellfish for instance, which are motionless, have only the sense of touch, and are attached to the ground like plants. Hence Dionysius says: "Divine wisdom has joined the ends of the higher to the beginnings of the lower." Thus in the genus of bodies we find the human body, composed of elements equally tempered, attaining to the lowest member of the class above it, that is, to the human soul, which holds the lowest rank in the class of subsistent intelligences. Hence the human soul is said to be on the horizon and boundry line between things corporeal and incorporeal, inasmuch as it is an incorporeal substance and at the same time the form of a body.

Above other forms there is found a form, likened to the supramundane substances in point of understanding, and competent to an activity which is accomplished without any bodily organ at all; and this is the intellectual soul: for the act of understanding is not done through any bodily organ. Hence the intellectual soul cannot be totally encompassed by matter, or immersed in it, as other material forms are: this is shown by its intellectual activity, wherein bodily matter has no share. The fact however that the very act of understanding in the human soul needs certain powers that work through bodily organs, namely, phantasy and sense, is a clear proof that the said soul is naturally united to the body to make up the human species.

The arguments wherewith Averroes endeavours to establish his opinion do not prove that the subsistent intelligence is not united with the body as the form of the same.

1. The words of Aristotle about the potential intellect, that it is "impassible, unmixed, and separate," do not necessitate the admission that the intellectual substance is not united with the body as its form, giving it being. They are sufficiently verified by saying that the intellectual faculty, which Aristotle calls the 'speculative faculty,' is not the actualisation of any organ, as exercising its activity through that organ.

2. Supposing the substance of the soul to be united in being with the body as the form of the body, while still the intellect is not the actualisation of any organ, it does not follow that intellect falls under the law of physical determination, as do sensible and material things: for we do not suppose intellect to be a harmony, or function (ratio, logos) of any organ, as Aristotle says that sense is.

3. That Aristotle is saying that the intellect is 'unmingled,' or 'separate,' does not intend to exclude it from being a part, or faculty, of the soul, which soul is the form of the whole body, is evident from this passage, where he is arguing against those who said that there were different parts of the soul in different parts of the body:�"If the whole soul keeps together the body as a whole, it is fitting that each part of the soul should keep together some part of the body: but this looks like an impossibility: for it is difficult even to imagine what part of the body the intellect shall keep together, or how."

HENCE it is plainly shown that there is not one and the same potential intellect, belonging to all men who are and who shall be and who have been, as Averroes pretends.

A.1. It has been shown that the substance of the intellect is united with the human body and is its form (Chap. LVII). But it is impossible for there to be one form otherwise than of one matter. Therefore there is not one intellect for all men.

A.2 and 3. It is not possible for a dog's soul to enter a wolf's body, or a man's soul any other body than the body of a man. But the same proportion that holds between a man's soul and a man's body, holds between the soul of this man and the body of this man. It is impossible therefore for the soul of this man to enter any other body than the body of this man. But it is by the soul of this man that this man understands. Therefore there is not one and the same intellect of this man and of that.

A.4. A thing has being from that source from whence it has unity: for one and being are inseparable. But everything has being by its own form. Therefore the unity of the thing follows the unity of the form. It is impossible therefore for there to be one form of different individual men. But the form of any individual man is his intellectual soul. It is impossible therefore for there to be one intellect of all men.

But if it is said that the sentient soul of this man is other than the sentient soul of that, and so far forth the two are not one man, though there be one intellect of both, such explanation cannot stand. For the proper activity of every being follows upon and is indicative of its species. But as the proper activity of an animal is to feel, so the proper activity of a man is to understand. As any given individual is an animal in that he has feeling, so is he a man by virtue of the faculty whereby he understands. But the faculty whereby the soul understands, or the man through the soul, is the potential intellect. This individual then is a man by the potential intellect. If then this man has another sentient soul than another man, but not another potential intellect, but one and the same, it follows that they are two animals, but not two men.

B. To these arguments the Commentator replies by saying that the potential intellect is conjoined with us through its own form, namely, through an intelligible impression, one subject of which [is the said potential intellect, and one subject again] is the phantasm existing in us, which differs in different men; and thus the potential intellect is multiplied in different men, not by reason of its substance, but by reason of its form.

The nullity of this reply appears by what has been shown above (Chap. LIX), that it would be impossible for any man to have understanding, if this were the only way in which the potential intellect were conjoined with us. But suppose that the aforesaid conjunction (continuatio) were sufficient to render man intelligent, still the said answer does not solve the arguments already alleged.

B.1. According to the above exposition, nothing belonging to intellect will remain multiplied as men are multiplied except only the phantasm, or impression in phantasy; and this very phantasm will not be multiplied as it is actually understood, because, as so understood, it is in the potential intellect, and has undergone abstraction of material conditions under the operation of the active intellect; whereas the phantasm, as a potential term of intelligence, does not transcend the grade of the sentient soul.

B.2. Still the objection holds, that this man will not be differentiated from that except by the sentient soul; and the awkward consequence follows that this man and that together do not make a plurality of men.

B.3. Nothing attains its species by what it is potentially, but by what it is actually. But the impression in phantasy, as multiplied in this man and that, has only a potentially intelligible being. Therefore that impression, as so multiplied, does not put any given individual in the species of 'intelligent animal,' which is the definition of 'man.' Thus it remains true that the specific ratio of 'man' is not multiplied in individual men.

B.4. It is the first and not the second perfection that gives the species to every living thing. But the impression in phantasy is a second perfection; and therefore not from that multiplied impression has man his species.

B.6. That which puts a man in the species of man must be something abiding in the same individual as long as he remains: otherwise the individual would not be always of one and the same species, but now of one species and now of another. But the impressions of phantasy do not remain always the same in the same man; but new impressions come, and previous impressions perish. Therefore the individual man does not attain his species by any such impression: nor is it anything in the phantasy that conjoins him with the formal principle of his species, which is the potential intellect.

C. But if it is said that the individual does not receive his species by the phantasms themselves, but by the faculties in which the phantasms are, namely, the phantasy, the memory, and the vis cogitativa which is proper to man, and which in the De anima, III, v, Aristotle calls the 'passive intellect,' the same awkward consequences still follow.

C.1. Since the vis cogitativa operates only upon particulars, the impressions of which it puts apart and puts together; and further, since it has a bodily organ through which it acts, it does not transcend the rank of the sentient soul. But in virtue of his sentient soul, as such, man is not a man, but an animal. It still therefore remains true that the element, supposed to be multiplied in us, belongs to man only in his animal capacity.

C.2. The cogitative faculty, since it acts through an organ, is not the faculty whereby we understand. But the principle whereby we understand is the principle whereby man is man. Therefore no individual is man by virtue of the cogitative faculty: nor does man by that faculty essentially differ from dumb animals, as the Commentator pretends.

C.3. The cogitative faculty is united to the potential intellect, the principle of human intelligence, only by its action of preparing phantasms for the active intellect to render them actual terms of intelligence and perfections of the potential intellect. But this preliminary activity of the cogitative faculty does not always remain the same in us. Therefore it cannot be the means whereby man is conjoined with the specific principle of the human species, or made a member of that species.

C.4. If the potential intellect of this and that man were numerically one and the same, the act of understanding would be one and the same in both which is an impossibility.

D. But if it is said that the act of understanding is multiplied according to the diversity of impressions in phantasy, that supposition cannot stand.

D.3. For the potential intellect understands a man, not as this individual man, but as man simply, according to the specific essence of the race. But this specific essence remains one, however much impressions in phantasy arc multiplied, whether in the same man or in different men. Therefore no multiplication of phantasms can be the cause of multiplication of the act of understanding in the potential intellect, considering the same species; and thus we shall still have numerically one action in different men.

D.4. The proper subject in which the habit of knowledge resides is the potential intellect. But an accident, so long as it remains specifically one, is multiplied only by coming to reside in different subjects. If then the potential intellect is one in all men, any habit of knowledge specifically the same, say, the habit of grammar, must be numerically the same in all men, which is unthinkable.

E. But to this they say that the subject of the habit of knowledge is not the potential intellect, but the passive intellect and the cogitative faculty (Chap. LX): which it cannot be.

E.1. For, as Aristotle shows in the Ethics (II, i), like acts engender like habits; and like habits reproduce like acts. Now by the acts of the potential intellect there comes to be the habit of knowledge in us; and we are competent for the same acts by possession of the habit of knowledge. Therefore the habit of knowledge is in the potential intellect, not in the passive.

E.2. Scientific knowledge is of demonstrated conclusions; and demonstrated conclusions, like their premises, are universal truths. Science therefore is in that faculty which takes cognisance of universals. But the passive intellect is not cognisant of universals, but of particular notions.

F. The error of placing the habit of scientific knowledge in the passive intellect seems to have arisen from the observation that men are found more or less apt for the study of science according to the several dispositions of the cogitative faculty and the phantasy.

F.1. But this aptitude depends on those faculties only as remote conditions: so it also depends on the complexion of the body, as Aristotle says that men of delicate touch and soft flesh are clever. But the proximate principle of the act of speculative understanding is the habit of scientific knowledge: for this habit must perfect the power of understanding to act readily at will, as other habits perfect the powers in which they are.

F.2. The dispositions of the cogitative faculty and the phantasy regard the object: they regard the phantasm, which is prepared by the efficiency of these faculties readily to become a term of actual understanding under the action of the active intellect. But habits do not condition objects: they condition faculties. Thus conditions that take the edge off terrors are not the habit of fortitude: fortitude is a disposition of the conative part of the soul to meet terrors. Hence it appears that the habit of knowledge is not in the passive but in the potential intellect.

F.3. If the potential intellect of all men is one, we must suppose that the potential intellect has always existed, if men have always existed, as Averroists suppose; and much more the active intellect, because agent is more honourable than patient, as Aristotle says (De anima, III, v). But if the agent is eternal, and the recipient eternal, the contents received must be eternal also. Therefore the intellectual impressions have been from eternity in the potential intellect: therefore it will be impossible for it to receive afresh any new intellectual impressions. But the only use of sense and phantasy in the process of understanding is that intellectual impressions may be gathered from them. At this rate then neither sense nor phantasy will be needed for understanding; and we come back to the opinion of Plato, that we do not acquire knowledge by the senses, but are merely roused by them to remember what we knew before.

G. But to this the Commentator replies that intellectual presentations reside in a twofold subject: in one subject, from which they have everlasting being, namely, the potential intellect; in another subject, from which they have a recurring new existence, namely, the phantasm, or impression in phantasy. He illustrates this by the comparison of a sight-presentation, which has also a twofold subject, the one subject being the thing outside the soul, the other the visual faculty. But this answer cannot stand.

G.1. For it is impossible that the action and perfection of the eternal should depend on anything temporal. But phantasms are temporal things, continually springing up afresh in us from the experience of the senses. Therefore the intellectual impressions, whereby the potential intellect is actuated and brought to activity, cannot possibly depend on phantasms in the way that visual impressions depend on things outside the soul.

G.2. Nothing receives what it has already got. But before any sensory experience of mine or yours there were intellectual impressions in the potential intellect: for the generations before us could not have understood had not the potential intellect been reduced to act by intellectual impressions. Nor can it be said that those impressions, formerly received in the potential intellect, have ceased to be: because the potential intellect not only receives, but keeps what it receives: hence it is called the "place of ideas." Therefore, on this showing, no impressions from our phantasms are received in the potential intellect.

G.6 and 7. If the potential intellect receives no intellectual impressions from the phantasms that are in us, because it has already received them from the phantasms of those who were before us, then for the like reason we must say that it receives impressions from the phantasms of no generation of men, whom another generation has preceded. But every generation has been preceded by some previous generation, if the world and human society is eternal, as Averroists suppose. Therefore the potential intellect never receives any impressions from phantasms; and from this it seems to follow that the potential intellect has no need of phantasms to understand. But we (nos) understand by the potential intellect. Therefore neither shall we need sense and phantasm for our understanding: which is manifestly false and contrary to the opinion of Aristotle.

For the potential intellect, like every other substance, operates according to the mode of its nature. Now according to its nature it is the form of the body. Hence it understands immaterial things, but views them in some material medium; as is shown by the fact that in teaching universal truths particular examples are alleged, in which what is said may be seen. Therefore the need which the potential intellect has of the phantasm before receiving the intellectual impression is different from that which it has after the impression has been received. Before reception, it needs the phantasm to gather from it the intellectual impression, so that the phantasm then stands to the potential intellect as an object which moves it. But after receiving the impression, of which the phantasm is the vehicle, it needs the phantasm as an instrument or basis of the impression received. Thus by command of the intellect there is formed in the phantasy a phantasm answering to such and such an intellectual impression; and in this phantasm the intellectual impression shines forth as an exemplar in the thing exemplified, or as in an image.

G.8. If the potential intellect is one for all men and eternal, by this time there must have been received in it the intellectual impressions of all things that have been known by any men whatsoever. Then, as every one of us understands by the potential intellect,�nay, as the act of understanding in each is the act of that potential intellect understanding,�every one of us must understand all that has been understood by any other men whatsoever.

H. To this the Commentator replies that we do not understand by the potential intellect except in so far as it is conjoined with us through the impressions in our phantasy, and that these phantasms are not the same nor similar amongst all men. And this answer seems to be in accordance with the doctrine that has gone before: for, apart from any affirmation of the unity of the potential intellect, it is true that we do not understand those things, the impressions whereof are in the potential intellect, unless the appropriate phantasms are at hand. But that this answer does not altogether escape the difficulty, may be thus shown.

When the potential intellect has been actualised by the reception of an intellectual impression, it is competent to act of itself: hence we see that, once we have got the knowledge of a thing, it is in our power to consider it again when we wish: nor are we at a loss for lack of phantasms, because it is in our power to form phantasms suitable to the consideration which we wish, unless there happens to be some impediment on the part of the organ, as in persons out of their mind or in a comatose state. But if in the potential intellect there are intellectual impressions of all branches of knowledge,�as we must say, if that intellect is one and eternal,�then the necessity of phantasms for the potential intellect will be the same as in his case who already has knowledge, and wishes to study and consider some point of that knowledge, for that also he could not do without phantasms. Since then every man understands by the potential intellect so far as it is reduced to act by intellectual impressions, so every man should be able on this theory to regard, whenever he would, all the known points of all sciences: which is manifestly false, for at that rate no one would need a teacher. Therefore the potential intellect is not one and eternal.

Active power belongs to the perfection of a thing. But every divine perfection is contained in God's own being (B. I, Chap. XXVIII). God's power therefore is not different from his being. But God is His own being (B. I, Chap. XXII); He is therefore His own power.