summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LX
i57
second : wherefore Aristotle says (i
De Anima),^ that if
any operation of the soul is apart from the body,
it is
Now the operation of
possible for the soul to be separated.
the possible intellect requires the body for the Philosopher
:
that
says (3 De AnimaY that the intellect can act by itself,
is it can understand, when it has been made actual by a
species abstracted from phantasms, which are not apart
from the body. Therefore the possible intellect is not
altogether separate from the body.
Moreover. A thing has by nature those attributes without
which its connatural operation cannot be accomplished :
thus Aristotle proves (2 De CceloY that if the movement of
the stars were progressive like that of animals, nature would
have given them the organs of progressive movement. Now
the operation of the possible intellect is
accomplished
through corporeal organs, which are necessary as subjects
of the phantasms. Therefore nature has united the possible
intellect to corporeal organs and consequently : it has not a
being separate from the body.
Again. If it had a being se parate from the body, it
would u n derstand substances that are separate frnpi matter
rather than sensible form s, for they are more intelligihIeT
and iilOi conformed to the intellect. Yet it cannot understand
substances that are altogether separate from matter^
since there are no phantasms of them :
whereas this intellect
noijoise understands ivithout phantasms, as Aristotle says
(3 De Anima) ;* hpraiit;p the phantasms are to it as sensibles
totkr ffPWTrT and wMthnnt these the sense has no sensation .
Therefore it is not a substance separate from the body in
being.
Further.
In every genus the passive potentiality extends
as far as the active potentiality of that genus; wherefore
there is not in nature a passive potentiality, to which there
does not correspond a natural active potentiality. But
the active intellect makes only the phantasms to be intelligible.
Therefore neither is the passive intellect moved
by other intelligibles than the species abstracted from the
' i- 10.
2
iv., vii.
' viii. 8.
• vii. 3.