summa-contra-gentiles

while the soul is present,
CHAPTER LXIX
and when the soul is absent : and
i75
it is the soul that makes it to be actually.
The statement, contained in the second objection, that
form and matter belong to the same genus, is true, not as
though they were both species of the same genus, but
because they are the principles of the same species.
Accordingly, .the intellectual substance and the body,
which if
they existed apart would be species of different
genera, through being liUlted are of_the^ same genus as
prinriple.s thoreof ^
Nor does it follow that the intellectual substance is a
material form, although its being is in matter ;
as the third
argument contended. For it is not in matter as merged in
matter, or wholly encompassed by matter, but in another
way, as stated.
Nor does the intellectual substance bein g
united to the
body as jtsJorm prevent the_ intellect being separ ate from
thfij^idy^-.as ihe philosophers say. For we must consider
in the soul, both its essence and its
power. According to
its essence it
gives being to such and such a body, while
according to its power it accomplishes its proper operations.
If therefore an operation of the soul be accomplished by
means of a corporeal organ,
it follows that the power which
is the principle of that operation, is the act of that part of
the body by which its operation is accomplished thus :
sight
is the act of the eye. If, however, its operation be not
accomplished by means of a corporeal organ,
its
power will
not be the act of a body. It is in this sense that the intellect
is said to be separate, and this does not preclude the substance
of the soul of which the intellect is a power, otherwise
the intellective soul, from being the act of the body, as the
form which gives being to such a body.
And although the soul by
its substance is the form of the
body, Jjt is. not necessary that its
every operation be perfDjrmed-.by.
means of the body, and that consequently its
ev.ery power. be. the act of a body, as the fifth
argument
..su.RI>9sed. For it has been already shown that the human
soul is not such a form as is
wholly merged in matter, but