Chapter 8

Can the pure intellect act effectively on the body?

306. We have discovered the root and general source of all the different effects produced in the body by the acts of the rational soul. We found it in the immanent perception of the whole of the fundamental feeling which the human being has by nature, a perception which stably unites the rational soul with the body and makes them one single subject.
This is also the key which opens the secret of the mysterious efficacy of the partial, transient, second acts of the soul on the body. We will not be wasting time if we discuss this, keeping to the facts given by experience.

307. I begin with a comment about the question, 'Does the pure intellect have any power over the body?'

The pure intellect differs from the rational principle in two ways: the rational principle is called 1. intellect in so far as it intuits ideal being, which exceeds every finite reality, and 2. rational principle in so far as it perceives some reality and consequently reasons.
We ask therefore whether the intellective principle can act effectively on the body, independently of acts of perception and reasoning.

308. It is easy to see that the intellective principle cannot exercise any action on the body directly, because its concept excludes all such communication. It is called intellect in so far as its object exceeds every finite reality given to its perception.

309. Nevertheless, the intuition of being also informs souls which are rational and in communication with the body. In this case, we can fittingly suppose, the intuition acts so that these souls are differently disposed from the state of souls without the intuition. And because the soul, as we shall see, governs the organisation, it seems certain that an intellective soul does not organise the body in the same way as a purely sensitive soul; it makes the body suitable for itself, acting always as form of the rational principle. The intellective principle has a perfect unity with the rational principle. It must therefore be capable of producing unity and harmony in the object of its perception and in the body included in this object.

310. Moreover, the intellect contributes to all those modifications of the rational principle, and consequently of the body, which are caused by cognitions and affections whose objects are things beyond the sensible, animal sphere.(144) Cognitions and affections of this kind contribute very powerfully to good and ill in the body. This is so true that suicide itself, which happens only in human beings, not in animals, must be attributed to this potency which exceeds animality. But because the proximate cause of all these effects is ultimately the rational principle, I must now speak about it.

Notes

(144) St. Augustine says: Arbitror enim omnem motum animi aliquid facere in corpore [I consider that every movement of the spirit does something in the body] (Ep., 9).