summa-contra-gentiles

CHAPTER LXXXIII 245
they ideas,— held that which in Plato's — opinion are the
separate intelligible forms of things, are the cause of
knowledge wherefore the : separate soul, since there was
no obstacle in the way, received full knowledge of all
sciences. We must therefore say, since it is found to
be ignorant when united to the body, that it forgets the
knowledge it had previously. The Platonists grant this
also, and allege as a proof of this that however ignorant
a man may be, if he be questioned methodically about
things that are taught in the sciences, he will answer the
truth ; thus if a man has forgotten some of the things which
he knew before, and some one suggests to him consecutively
the things which he has forgotten, he recalls them to
his memory. Whence it also followed that to learn is
nothing else than to remember. Accordingly it follows, as
a necessary consequence of this opinion, that union with
the body hinders the soul from understanding. Now nature
does not unite a thing to that which causes an obstacle to
its operation, rather does it unite it to that whereby its
operation is rendered more prompt. Consequently the
union of body and soul will not be natural : and so man
will not be a natural thing, nor will his generation be
natural : which statements are clearly false.
Further. The last end of anything
is that which it strives
to obtain by its operations. Now man by all his well
ordered and right operations strives to attain the contemplation
of truth for the :
operations of the active powers are
so many preparations and dispositions to the contemplative
powers. Therefore the end of man is to arrive at the contemplation
of truth. For this purpose, then, was the soul
united to the body, whereby a man comes into being.
Therefore it is not through union with the body that the
soul loses knowledge; on the contrary,
it is united to the
body that it
may acquire knowledge.
Again. If a man who is
ignorant of the sciences be
questioned about matters pertaining to the sciences, he will
not answer the truth except as regards universal principles
which no one ignores, since they are known to all in the