Chapter 077 - The Faculties of the Soul in General

It is impossible that the substance of the soul should be identical with its faculties, because its operation is not that of substance. Nor is substance of the soul operative power; for it belongs to God only that His operation is the same as His substance.

It is impossible, also, because, if the essence of the soul were its own immediate principle of operation, that which has a soul, and is therefore living, would have the operations of life always actuated; which is not the case. Moreover, to be thus actual, and at the same time in potentia, does not belong to the soul in so far as it is form, but in virtue of its faculties; hence the faculties are not the same as the essence of the soul.

We must, moreover, admit various faculties in the soul. For there are four grades of things. The lowest of these comprises the things which are below man. These attain to some particular good for which little motion is required, while man is capable of the universal and perfect good, namely, Beatitude. But because his nature is the lowest of those to which Beatitude belongs, he requires many and various operations and faculties in order to reach it. Angels require fewer faculties, because their nature is more perfect; while in God there exists no faculty or power whatever except His Essence. But the human soul is on the confines of the spiritual and corporeal nature; hence the variety of the faculties with which it is provided.

These faculties are diversified by acts, and by the diversity of objects; for faculty is ordered to action, and an act has reference to its object. Not that any diversity of object serves to diversify the faculties; but the difference of the object is that to which the faculty in itself has regard.

And since the faculties are various, we must admit an order among them; and order in multitude must proceed from one, as explained above. This order, indeed, is threefold: one, viz. that of nature, by which the more perfect precedes the less perfect. Another, according to that of generation and time, in which the reverse is the case, since the nutritive faculties are prior to the sensitive. While, according to a third, some of the sensitive powers are ordered to each other, viz. sight, hearing and smell (for the visible is prior to the natural, being common to superior and inferior bodies; while sound which is heard in the air precedes that mixture of the elements upon which the sense of smell depends).

The subject of the organic faculties is compound, but not so with the non-organic, which are in the soul only. For some operations, such as to understand and to will, are exercised by the soul alone, without bodily organs; these are in the soul as in their subject. But to see, to hear, and to be nourished are operations of which the principles are in the body and the soul together, as their subject.

Since, therefore, the soul is the only subject of the non-organic, and joint subject of the organic faculties, it is evident that these faculties flow from its essence as from their principle; for what is accidental is caused by the subject in so far as it is actual, and received by it in so far as it is in potentia. And substantial form differs from accidental form; for the former constitutes Being absolutely, and its subject is Being in potentia, only; while accidental form causes Being to be such as it is. Moreover, matter is for substantial form, while accidental form is for the composition of the subject.

And one faculty arises out of another, because according to the order of nature that which is nearer to the original is in some manner the cause of what is more remote. For the essence of the soul, as compared with its faculties, is the active and final principle, and is also the receptive principle, by itself alone, or conjointly with the body. And since action, or end, is more perfect, while the receptive principle, as such, is less perfect, it follows that those faculties of the soul which are first according to the order of nature and perfection, are the principle of others after the mode of end and active principle; because sense is for intellect and not conversely. But if the soul, as it is possessed of sensitive faculties, be considered as the subject, and in some sort the material, in respect of the intellect, principles are found related to others after the mode of the receptive principle, and thus the more imperfect faculties come first; as in the case of generation: for animal is generated in order before man.

Those faculties which exist in the soul alone as in their subject remain after the destruction of the body; but such as belong to the soul and body conjointly do not remain actually, but only virtually; as in their principle or root.