Chapter 2
The substance of the soul is the sole principle of all operations
127. But despite the unicity of the soul, directly attested by consciousness, the operations of the soul, both contemporary and successive, are multiple and diverse. The relationship between the soul and its operations is the same as that which exists between myself and that which myself suffers or carries out.
128. When human beings say: 'I feel, I understand, I will, I move,' they declare themselves to be cause and subject of all these actions, both passive and active. Myself, therefore, is the sole principle and subject of all the passions and operations of the soul. But myself is the soul itself, that is, its substance perceived and affirmed by us. I conclude: 'the substance of the soul is the sole principle of all its different operations.'
129. Moreover, this principle is capable of feeling because myself feels itself; it is a first, original, substantial feeling because myself is felt by us as such. Hence
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soul is an original, stable, sole principle; the sole subject of all other feelings and of all human operations. |
130. Describing accurately this first feeling principle by separating it from all inferior active principles means describing in a proper sense the essence of the human soul. We shall see, therefore, how all the soul's operations, all the elements added afterwards as it develops, are contained in the soul as in their principle, and how the soul is first act in comparison with all second acts which are contained virtually in the first act.(67)
Notes
(67) This again is a fact to be observed, not deduced through reasoning, or wilfully disputed. The great philosophers of antiquity had noticed this fact. St. Thomas, sharing their views, wrote: Primus actus est universale principium actuum, quia est infinitum virtualiter, IN SE OMNIA PRAEHABENS, ut dicit Dionysius (De div. nom., c. 5) [The first act is the universal principle of all acts because it is virtually infinite, POSSESSING ALL THINGS IN ITSELF, as Dionysius says (De div. nom., c. 5)] (S.T, I, q. 75, art 5, ad 1). This is true in an absolute sense of God, and comparatively of all other first acts.