summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LVII
i39
being one, I refer not to that in which the action terminates,
:—
but to the manner in which it
proceeds from the agent
for many persons rowing one boat make one action on the
part of the thing done, which is one, but on the part of the
rowers there are many actions, for there are many strokes
of the oar,
— because, since action is consequent upon form
in forms and
and power,
it follows that things differing
powers differ in action. .Np3\\though_the
soul has a proper
operation, where in the body has no share, namelv intelligence^
t.hei£.are,i3eYeilhsk§SL.QS^
common to
it and the bod}-, such as f^r, ^ng^er. -ensation, and so
forth ;
for these happen by reason of a certain transmutation
in a determinate part of the body, which proves that they
are operations of the soul and body together. Therefore
from the soul and body there must result one thing, and
they have not each a distinct being.
According to the opinion of Plato this argument may be
rebutted. For it is not i
mpossib le for mover and moved,
though different in bei ng, to have the same act : because
the same act belongs to the mover as "wherejrom it is, and
to Jhe moved asjvheremjx.
is.* Wherefore Plato held that
the aforesaid operations are common to the soul and body,
so that, to wit, they are the soul's as mover, and the body's
as moved.
But this cannot be. For as the Philosopher proves in
2 De Anima,^ sensation results from our being moved by
exterior sensibles. Wherefore a man cannot sense without
an exterior sensible, just as a thing cannot be moved without
a mover. Consequently the organ of sense is moved
to the external
and passive in sensing, but this is
owing
sensible. And that whereby it is passive is the sense :
which is
proved by the fact that things devoid of sense are
not passive to sensibles by the same kind of passion.
J[^^Te{oTe sense is the passive powe r of the organ, Consequently
the sensitive soul is not as mover and agent in
sensing, but as that whereby the patient is passive. And
this cannot have a distinct being from the patient. There-
1 3 Phys.
iii. * v. i. 6.