summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LVIII
the sensitive, as potentiality is subordinate to act : for the
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intellect comes after the sensitive, and the sensitive after
the nutritive in the order of generation since in generation
;
an animal is made before a man. if
Consequently this
order makes the aforesaid predications to be per se, this
will
not be taking per se in the sense that arises from the
form, but in that which arises from matter and subject, as
a superficies is said to be coloured.^ But this is impossible.
Because when we use per se in this sense, that which is
formal is predicated per se of the subject, as when we say :
The superficies is white or The number is even. Again
when we use per se in this way, the subject is placed in the
definition of the predicate, as number in the definition of
even. But here the contrary happens
: because man is not
predicated of animal per se, but contrariwise : and again
the subject is not placed in the definition of the predicate,
but vice versa. Therefore the aforesaid definitions are not
made per se by reason of the order in question.
Further. A thing has unity, from the same cause as it
has being; for one is consequent upon being. Since then
a thing has being from its form, it w^ll have unity also
from its form. Consequently we if say that there are in
man three souls, as different forms, man will not be one
but several. Nor will the order of forms suffice for
being
the unity of man :
because to be one with respect to order
is not to be one simply ;
since unity of order is the least of
unities.
Again. The aforesaid^ difficulty will again arise, namely
that from the intellective soul and the body there results
one thing not simply but only accidentally. For whatever
accrues to a thing after its
complete being, accrues thereto
accidentally, since it is outside its essence. Now every
substantial form makes a complete being in the genus of
substance, for it makes an actual being and this particular
thing. Consequently whatever accrues to a thing
first substantial form, will accrue to it accidentally.
after its
Hence,
since the nutritive soul is a substantial form,— for living is
1
C. I Poster, iv. 4.
« Ch. Ivii.