Chapter 9

Relationship between the substance of the soul and human nature

204. We can also see, therefore, the relationship between the human soul, that is, the substance of the soul, and the whole man,(87) that is, human nature, the composite resulting from soul and body personally united.

205. A single individual arises from this union, single because the individual has a single supreme principle which virtually brings together in itself all inferior activities. This supreme principle is the substance of the soul.

206. Because the substance of the human soul is the active principle, that is the principle which embraces virtually all other activities in man, it is normally called form of the human being. The word form has been understood from very ancient days as 'the first active power found in a given being, through which it is this being rather than another.'

207. A passage from St. Thomas helps to confirm this. Aquinas explains how the Aristotelians call the soul act of the body. He says: 'In the individual whose soul is called "act", the soul too is included, in the sense that we speak of heat as the act of something hot, and light as the act of something bright, although it is not bright without light, but bright as a result of the light. Similarly, we say that the soul is the act of the body, and so on, because the body, as a result of the soul, is body, is organic and is a potency possessing life.'(88)

208. In man, however, there is, besides the activity constituting his substance, something else not pertaining to that activity, although it contributes to maintaining it. This is what is first understood; it is not the activity which understands, but that which renders this activity possible and subsistent. It is rightly called the form of the intelligence in so far as it adheres to the subjective principle and renders it intelligent.

209. It is an extrasubjective term of the intelligence, and properly speaking its object. In calling it the object of intelligence we mean that it is a term distinguishing itself from the intelligent principle in the very act communicated to that principle. It communicates itself without confusing itself; indeed, it distinguishes itself from the principle and from every subject (through intuition).

210. In the same way, that which is first felt is not the sentient activity, but an extrasubjective element. This element, however, does not possess any relationship of object to subject because that which is sentient does not, as sentient, distinguish it from itself, but simply feels it. In fact, in every sense-experience the sentient principle is not felt in a manner distinct from its term. Only the intelligence distinguishes it. The term of the senseexperience together with that which feels constitute a single feeling, and can never become two through any sensitive act because sensitivity does not reflect upon itself, but finishes simply in its own act. That which is felt can be called term but not object of that which feels.

211. Nevertheless, that which is felt can be called the form of that which feels, just as that which is first understood (object) can be called the form of that which understands. What is understood and what is felt are properly speaking the final perfection, the apex and, as we said, the term of the act of understanding and feeling. There is, however, an immense difference between these forms. The essential object is so necessary that, even if all human minds were wiped out, it would not cease to exist. It does, in fact, demand and presuppose an eternal mind where it can never cease to be.(89) On the other hand, what is felt bodily is obviously contingent and can be annihilated.

212. Elsewhere I have described what is first felt as matter of the potency of feeling.(90) I also said that matter is not what is first felt, but the force extraneous to feeling which changes feeling. This force is what I have called sensiferous.(91) Here it seems that I am developing a third opinion by affirming that what is felt is the form of what feels. These apparent contradictions now have to be reconciled.

213. The contradiction is indeed apparent, not real, and is caused by the complication of actions and passions produced in the interior of the sensitive being. The word matter means something relative, and changes its meaning as the precise terms of the relationship change.

214. Let us define matter. 'Matter is an element constituting a given entity, but extraneous to the activity of the given entity and subsisting in virtue of that activity.'(92)

215. Let us now examine carefully the sensitive ens. If we consider sentient activity within this ens, it is clear: 1. that what is first felt is an element constituting this activity because without the felt there is no act of feeling; but it is also clear 2. that this element is extraneous to the activity because what is felt is not that which feels, but its opposite; it is also clear 3. that by this activity, that is, by the act of feeling, that which is felt is posited in being because that which is felt would not be without the act of feeling of which it is contemporaneously the effect. Hence, what is felt is the matter of feeling, as I said in A New Essay where I observed, however, that this condition of matter pertains to the first, immanent felt thing, not to what is felt in acquired sensations. In fact, the sensitive ens is constituted by the former, not the latter. Consequently, I said that what is first felt is matter of the sensitive ens, and that what is felt later are terms of the actions of the sensitive ens. There is nothing, however, to prevent our calling these accidental felt things matter of accidental sensations.

This argument is entirely true as long as the potency of feeling, not its act, is under consideration. In other words, if we consider this act in its formation, not as already fully formed. It is certain that what is felt still does not exist as long as the primitive act of feeling is being formed. It exists only as soon as the act of feeling is totally formed. At the moment of formation, activity is present on the part of the operating principle, and passivity on the part of the effect (the felt) which is produced. At this moment, therefore, what is felt bears the characteristic of matter which is at it were invaded by the sentient act.

216. But if we consider the act of feeling at the moment when it is formed (when what is felt in it is not in potency, but is itself in act), it is certain that what feels in this moment feels in virtue of what is felt, precisely because what is felt is the final evolution and perfection of what feels. It is, as it were, the final outcome of what feels. At this moment in the existence of the sensitive ens, when it is fully developed, what is felt can be called its form not because the felt feels but because it is that through which what feels, feels. It is not form in so far as what is felt is the sentient activity, but in so far as the activity is not called 'sentient' until it has produced what is felt, although the activity, not yet sentient but on the way to become such, precedes what is felt. We can therefore distinguish two moments in the existence of a contingent sentient being: 1. when it is about to become sentient and 2. when it has already become sentient. In the first moment, what is felt, which does not yet exist but is about to be produced, takes on the concept of matter and of a certain passive term; in the second, when that which feels is completely activated, that which is felt takes on the concept of form because this act dwells as it were in what is felt and is complete as a result of what is felt. What is first felt is therefore matter of the still inactivated potency of feeling but form of the activated potency as potency. Although these are different aspects or views on the part of the understanding, they have their own value. If they are not kept distinct, the language formed on their basis becomes confused, and renders concepts false.

217. But is it then true to say, as I did in Anthropology, that matter is properly speaking not that which is felt, but the brute force which changes what is first felt (the force called sensiferous)? — In Anthropology I offered a distinction between body and matter. I said that something felt and extended was sufficient for the concept of body. In fact, what is felt and extended contains 'a force with power diffused in extension', which are the two elements constituting the concept of body.(93) But I also said that besides what is felt, there is in nature something anterior to the felt, a kind of substratum to the felt itself. It is a force that does not belong to the constitution of what is felt, but changes it. We know of its existence through the violence we feel done to us when one felt thing is taken away and another substituted in its place;(94) the same is true for extrasubjective perception.

This force, which properly speaking causes that which is felt, is called matter in relationship to the felt itself, for which we reserve the name 'body' in the proper sense. We do not know the existence of this force anterior to what is felt and to the subjective body except through what it does in the felt itself, that is, through the violence with which it alters and changes the felt. The positive foundation of our concept of body, therefore, is what is felt, that is, what is felt is the first thing that we know about body. From it alone do we argue to the formation of the first, essential concept of body which, as a result, essentially involves the actual sensibility of body. But the force that subtracts or changes what is felt is not itself a felt extension. It does not possess, therefore, the actuality that characterises the concept of body. Nevertheless, although extraneous to bodily activity (which, according to us, consists in actual sensibility), that force is considered as an element necessary to the material body because the force operates in every point of what is felt as extended, and can withdraw every point of this felt extension from our sensitive principle, just as it can proffer some other sensible extension to this principle. In other words, this force, before being felt, operates in the soul to produce what is felt. As a result, it is considered in potency to be felt. It does not have, therefore, the act of being felt, but it is a previous, necessary condition of what is felt. This is the first characteristic of matter which, as we said, is an element constituting, but exterior to, the activity resulting from matter and form.

But where do we find the other element? Where do we find that it exists in virtue of the activity itself? It is found in the fact that the concept of force which produces or changes what is felt is known by us only through what is felt. All that we know of this force is its relationship with what is felt. Consequently, as potency is known through act, so the force producing what is felt is known only through and in what is felt. In this sense, it exists through what is felt because it is in this that we find the force actuated. Generally speaking, therefore, we call this force matter.

218. There is nothing to prevent our considering this force in two distinct moments, that in which it acts on the soul and is moving to produce what is felt, and that in which what is felt is already produced. In the former moment, this force is not the matter of what is felt (which does not yet exist), but rather the action of the corporeal principle which is argued to, rather than perceived by, the human being. In the second moment, the force is conceived mentally to be the felt in potency. In this case, it is called the matter of what is felt, or the matter of body.

219. In the composite, soul is the form, body the matter of the human being. But can we also say that body is the matter of the soul? This is possible provided we mean by body the matter of body which we have just defined.

220. To understand this, we first have to demonstrate that in our present state we conceive body and matter as a single ens manifesting two activities, the first of which consists in producing a feeling without itself being felt. From this point of view, we have what we call matter or material body. The second activity consists in being felt directly. From this point of view, we have what we call body.

We realise that these two activities pertain to one and the same ens by noting that the first activity, which moves towards the production of that which is felt, acts in the entire extension of what is felt, which it changes and alters. This shows that matter is extended and occupies the same identical extension as what is felt. As a result, we conceive matter as if it were what is felt in potency, the body in potency. But potency and act pertain to the same ens. We conclude, therefore, that matter and body are the same ens.

221. All bodies exterior to our own manifest only material activity. We call them 'body', however, precisely because we feel their force spread in the identical space in which the subjective sensation (that which is felt directly) is diffused.(95) Identity of space enables us to understand that the anatomic body, as we have called it, is identical with our subjective body.(96)

Nevertheless, when we consider both these activities in the body, we call it material body. Thus we attribute material properties to the body as to their subject.

222. Granted this, we now want to explain how, in the composite human being, corporeal matter is suitably called 'matter of the soul'.
If we compare an animate(97) with an inanimate body, we can see many great differences between them. It is certain, therefore, that animation alters and modifies the body in so far as it is the object of our external observation and called by us the 'common' or 'anatomic' body.

223. From this, Aristotle induced that there is a certain act proper to the animate body but absent from the inanimate body. In this act he posits the essence of the soul. I cannot agree with this definition. As far as I am concerned, the soul is not an act of the body, but the principle which produces this act [App., no. 3]. In a word, the soul produces animation, but is not animation itself.

224. Aristotle, I believe, erred because he considered only the phenomena of the common, anatomic body. These are in no way the essence of the body, but mere signs enabling us to induce its material activity. Moreover, he did not succeed in comprehending the body as given by the subjective feeling, in which the essence of body consists. The fact that Aristotle granted a soul to plants showed that he restricted his considerations to the external phenomena that the body produces on our organs. Aristotle's vegetative soul, lacking all feeling, is simply a principle assumed to explain the extrasubjective phenomena presented by the organisation, nutrition, growth, generation and germination of plants. There is nothing subjective in this, however. No feeling is attributed to plants; they lack the substantial subject which alone can be called 'soul'.(98) On the other hand, animation and soul are certainly present where this subjective or sensitive principle is found, as in animals. Is animation, however, itself an effect of the soul's action in the body, or is it ultimately perhaps an effect of the mutual actions between body and soul?

I have already stated my opinion; I said that the material body, which has no power of itself to act on the soul, is first modified by the soul and drawn into a new act enabling it to act on the soul and there produce feeling. Aristotle himself, together with many of his followers, acknowledges this.(99)
This first modification received by the body from the soul, through which the body moves towards the production of feeling, is properly speaking that which constitutes animation. Through this animation the body is apt to produce externally the extrasubjective phenomena proper to animated bodies and equally apt to produce feeling in the soul. In so far as the body receives from the soul this act of animation, the body becomes matter for the operation of the soul itself.

225. Nevertheless, we still have to show that animation of the body is first of all an act of the soul acting in the body rather than an act of the body acting in the soul.

To do this, we need to note that continuous extension, at least continuous subjective extension, which is essential to the body, is found only in an unextended principle.(100) In fact, all ways of conceiving the extension of the body are reduced to two, just as the concepts of extension formed by human beings are reduced to two; that is, we have a concept of material, extrasubjective extension and a concept of corporeal, subjective extension. The concept of extra subjective extension is that of a force which changes what is felt; the concept of subjective extension is that of the felt itself of which extension is the mode. The first of the two concepts, therefore, is reduced to the second so that, by analysing all we know about the extension of the body, we come to conclude that its essence is simply the mode of what is felt bodily and fundamentally.(101) But that which is felt fundamentally is the animate body. It is, therefore, through an action of the soul that the body is animated because the soul is that which gives the body its subjective extension, to which are connected all the extrasubjective phenomena of bodies called animate.(102)

226. If the body is matter of the soul in the composite, it follows that the soul is the form of the body, that which gives the body animation, the act through which the body lives. This consists, as we saw, in the body's becoming subjectively extended, that is, being felt as extended in the fundamental feeling. This first, essential characteristic of animation is consistently coupled with extrasubjective phenomena, the signs of animation, but not animation itself. But is the form of the body the intellective soul or only the sensitive soul?

227. There is only one soul in the human being, the rational soul, which therefore is the form of the body.(103)

228. I said the rational rather than the intellective soul (although the word 'intellective' is normally used promiscuously for the word 'rational') because we have already seen that the intellective and sensitive principles depend in the human being on another principle which unifies them in itself and, being first principle of both, constitutes the human, substantial subject (cf. 180). This first principle (in which resides the substance of the soul) is called with greater propriety rational.(104) This is in accord with the definition we have given of reason, that is, 'the faculty which unites what is sensible with what is intelligible by enunciating what it feels through the idea, and acting according to what it enunciates.'

229. Nevertheless, the first principle, that is, the rational principle, is not immersed entirely in matter, as the Scholastics say,(105) but only in so far as it is the principle of activity which perceives the body. Its purely intellective activity remains immune from matter. A mere intellective operation such as the intuition of being receives nothing from bodily sensation, and even rational operations, although receiving from sensation the matter on which they work, retain an altogether immaterial form throughout these operations.

230. Hence the ancients' distinction between soul and spirit (anima and animus). The word soul (anima) was attributed to the proximate principle of animation of the body, that is the sensitive principle, and the word spirit (animus) to the same substance in so far as it is intellective and immune from bodily contact.(106) The ancients were also accustomed to say that beasts have only a soul (anima), but that human beings have in addition a spirit (animus).(107)

Notes

(87) Sometimes the word man is taken to mean subject. In this sense, man is reduced to soul, as we noted (cf. 10). Sometimes man means human nature, and in this sense the soul is only the form of man, as we shall explain in this chapter.

(88) S.T., I, q. 76, art. 4, ad 1.

(89) Hence the a priori demonstration of the existence of God given in NE, vol. 3, 1456.

(90) NE, vol. 2, 1005-1019.

(91) AMS, 247-257.

(92) .I shall speak more at length about matter in the second part of Psychology, where I shall show that its essence is to be term, never principle. Extremely important consequences derive from this.

(93) NE, vol. 2, 871.

(94) We can prove as follows that the material part is not an element of what is felt as such. 'The material particles of our body can be substituted by others without our feeling this substitution, provided it comes about naturally and without any change in the felt extension.' Consequently, it is impossible to notice the changes of particles which occur at every moment in the human body, as long as the body remains identical, because the material part is not properly speaking constitutive of the human body. It is true that the particles lost or acquired daily by the body can be connected with minimal sensations which, through their persistence and number, can be fused into certain general feelings - for example, that which accompanies digestion. But it is certain that if material particles of the same species and form were substituted in an instant, say by the power of God, there would be no sensation.

(95) Cf. NE, vol. 2, 842.

(96) AMS, 135-261.

(97) .Let us grant that a body in which no animal phenomenon were observed is nevertheless made up of animal elements, each of which is too small to be sensed by us. In this case only the composite body would fall under our senses. This would then be called, and actually be, an inanimate body because the composite body would in fact be inanimate. We can. therefore, allow the existence of brute bodies even in every possible hypothesis about the animation of the primal elements.

(98) To be animated, plants must have a sensitive principle for their actions. If this principle were not sensitive, it would have only an extra subjective existence, which could never constitute a true, substantial subject such as the soul. Some philosophers, besides supposing a soul for plants, attributed indivisibility to it. This was consistent. Amongst them were Nemesius (De Anima hominis, c. 2), Marsilio Ficino (De Theol. Platonis, bk. 1, c. 6-8), The Tianese [Apollonius of Tyana] (De Anima, bk. 2, text. 22), and Pomponazzi (De nutriente et nutrito, bk. 1, c. 10). — The Syrians mentioned by Gennadius distinguished two souls in the human being, a sensitive soul present in the blood and an intellective soul. Apparently they had recognised that there was no third, vegetative soul. Gennadius (AD 470) writes: 'Nor do we say, like James and other Syrian writers, that in a single human being there are two souls, an animal soul which animates the body and is mixed with the blood, and a spiritual soul which furnishes reason. We maintain that there is one and the same soul in man which vivifies his body by its society and disposes itself by its reason' (De Eccles. dogmat., c. 13).

(99) Aristotle's words, 'There is nothing potentially alive which is void of soul; each living thing has a soul', clearly means that it is the soul which gives the body its aptitude for being animated.

(100) AMS, 94-103. The ancients had glimpsed this great truth, but expressed it in other words. They said, for example, that the body needs something simple to contain it. This manner of conceiving the body as contained in the simplicity of the soul can be found in Nemesius, who attributes it to the most ancient masters. He says: 'The things said by Ammonius, Plotinus' teacher, and Numenius Pythagoreus, are sufficient answer to all those who maintain that body is soul. The ancients say that bodies change of their nature; they are totally dispensable and infinitely divided. If, however, nothing unchangeable is left in them, they need SOMETHING TO CONTAIN and connect them, something to restrict and limit them. We call this soul. If, therefore, body is soul, even in the most tenuous fashion, what will CONTAIN IT? It has been shown that every body requires SOMETHING TO CONTAIN IT and so on ad infinitum until we come to something which is devoid of body' (De nat. hominis, c. 2). This passage receives its full light and efficacy if we are clear about what has already been shown, that is: 1. a continuum is necessary for the body; 2. the extended continuum can have its seat only in the unextended principle which is the soul.

(101) This is a suitable point for recalling the famous Scholastic question: does the soul inform naked matter, or does it inform matter possessing the form of corporeity?
According to what I have said, the soul would inform naked matter, and Suarez' opinion, together with that of many of his predecessors, would be true: the soul provides matter with 'some degree of corporeity', although in another sense. St. Thomas agrees with this. After showing that in each species there can be only one substantial form, he writes: 'The soul is a substantial form because it constitutes the human being in a determined species of substance. Thus, there is no other substantial form between the soul and PRIME MATTER. Human beings are perfected by the rational soul according to different degrees of perfection, which make it BODY, ANIMATE BODY and RATIONAL SOUL' (De Anima, art. 9). This thesis (that prime matter receives from the soul its being even as body, not just its animate being) is taken very seriously by Aquinas who uses it to show that the soul according to its essence is in all the parts of the body, and to demonstrate other propositions of considerable import. But as far as I can see, there is no complete demonstration until we come to realise that the concept of body, as it appears from careful consideration of its origin, is the same as that of the felt, which involves an essential relationship with what feels. Only at this point is it clearly demonstrated that the form itself of corporeity depends on the soul. However, I cannot see that the Scholastics were clearly aware or even indicated a truth of which they did indeed feel the need. I cannot see that they clearly indicated the nature of subjective extension which becomes the proper form of the body. — For those wanting to know about this Scholastic controversy, cf. P. Suarez, Metaphysicarum disputat., d. 15, sect. 10, n. 8-15; d. 13, lect. 3. — Tract de Anima, . bk. 1, c. 2).

(102) It is worth noting that the sentient principle which in brute animals is the soul does not exist without that which is felt, just as what is felt does not exist without the sentient principle. This explains why the ancients used the word 'soul' to express the result of the contact between two elements distinguished mentally in the composite, but not existing separately. Hence, the word 'soul' is sometimes used to indicate the animating sensitive principle, the cause of life in the body, and sometimes the life itself of the body, that is, Aristotle's actus corporis.

(103) The Council of Vienna, under Clement V (1311) defined the following: 'We reprove as erroneous and inimical to Catholic truth all teaching which asserts or doubts that the SUBSTANCE OF THE RATIONAL or intellective SOUL is not truly and per se the form of the human body. This is in accordance with what the said Council has approved' (Clement., bk. 1, tit. 1). This teaching was confirmed in the 8th session of the Lateran Council under Leo X.

(104) Thus, St. Thomas writes: 'Indeed the soul is the form of the body ACCORDING TO THE ESSENCE of the intellectual soul, not ACCORDING TO ITS intellectual OPERATION' (Q. de Anima, art. 9, ad 2).

(105) The soul is of itself true and perfect; it is single, intelligent, in no way composed of crass matter, but mixed with this crass nature THROUGH THE SENSES' (St. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, c. 14). — Feeling is the effect, term, complement of animation which can, therefore, be attributed to the soul in so far as it is sensitive. But the soul, in the same animation completed through sensory life, also produces organic life, as I explained in Anthropology, 367-498, to which I refer the reader. It was the consistent opinion of ecclesiastical writers that even organic life should be attributed to the soul itself. St. John Damascene will serve as an example for them all. He writes: 'The soul is a living, simple substance, devoid of body, of its nature hidden from bodily eyes, immortal, sharing in what is rational and intelligent, devoid of shape, using a bodily organ TO WHICH IT GIVES LIFE, GROWTH, SENSE, AND THE GENERATIVE FACULTY, having its mind undivided from itself because the mind is simply THE PUREST PART OF IT. What the eye is to the body, the mind is to the soul. The mind is furnished with free will, and with the faculty to will and act. In a word, it is changeable and as such subject to the alterations of the will, granted its created state' (Della fede Ortodossa, bk. 2, c. 12).

(106) One and the same spirit is called SPIRIT RELATIVE TO ITSELF and SOUL RELATIVE TO THE BODY. — Hence the human soul, because it has being IN THE BODY and OUTSIDE THE BODY, is called both SOUL and SPIRIT. It is called SOUL in so far as it is life of the body; SPIRIT in so far as it is a spiritual substance furnished with reason. In our present life the SOUL is dependent on the SPIRIT'S salvation' (Hugh of St. Victor, Tract. super Magnif.).

(107) How shall I divide living things? Let me say that some have a SPIRIT (animus), some have only a SOUL (anima)' (Seneca, Ep. 58). — 'Our common maker gave them only SOULS; to us he gave a as well' (Juvenal, Sat. 15: 148).