summa-contra-gentiles

222 THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
first recipient, namely primary matter, is incorruptible as
to its substance. Much more so therefore is the possible
intellect which is the recipient of intelligible forms. Therefore
the human soul also, whereof the intellect is a part, is
incorruptible.
Moreover. The maker is more nohle than the thing
made, as also Aristotle says.* But the active intellect
makes things actually intelligible, as shown above. ^
Since,
then, things actually intelligible, as such, are incorruptible,
much more will the active intellect be incorruptible. Therefore
such is also the soul, the light of which is the active
intellect, as appears from what has been already stated.*
Again. No form is
corrupted except either by the action
of its contrary, or by the corruption of its subject, or by the
failing of its cause :
by the action of its contrary, as heat is
of its
destroyed by the action of cold; by the corruption
subject, as the faculty of sight is destroyed through the
destruction of the eye and by the : failing of its cause, as
the light of the air fails through the sun, which was its
cause, failing to be present. But the human soul cannot
be destroyed by the action of a contrary, for nothing is
contrary thereto, since by the possible intellect it is cognizant
and receptive of all contraries. Likewise it cannot
be corrupted through the corruption of its subject for it
;
has been proved above* that the human soul is a form
independent of the body as to its being. Moreover it
cannot be destroyed through the failing of its cause, since
it can have none but an eternal cause, as we shall show
further on.^ Therefore the human soul can nowise be
corrupted.
Again.
If the soul be corrupted through the corruption
of the body, it follows that its being is weakened through
the body being weakened. Now if a power of the soul is
weakened through the weakening of the body, this is
only
accidental, in so far, to wit, as the power of the soul needs
a bodily organ thus the
; sight
is weakened, accidentally
1
3 De Anima v. 2.
« Ch. Iiviii.
* Cli. Ixxvi. »
Ch. Ixxviii.
» Ch. Ixrxvii.