St.

Thomas Aquinas

De Motu Cordis

On the Motion of the Heart

Text, Translation, Supplemental Texts and Notes
§

(c) 2013-2025 Bart A. Mazzetti

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 De Motu Cordis On the Movement of the Heart

Quia omne quod movetur, necesse est habere 1. Since everything that moves must have a
motorem, dubitabile videtur quid moveat cor, et mover, what moves the heart, and what kind of
qualis motus eius sit. motion it has is a matter for inquiry.

Non enim videtur eius motus esse ab anima. Ab 2. For it does not appear to be moved by the soul.
anima enim nutritiva non movetur, animae enim For it is not moved by the nutritive soul, for the
nutritivae opera sunt generare, alimento uti, et activities of the nutritive soul are generation, the
augmentum et diminutio: quorum nullum motus use of food, and increase and decrease, none of
cordis esse videtur. Et anima quidem nutritiva which appear to have anything to do with the
etiam plantis inest; motus autem cordis heart. For the nutritive soul exists even in plants;
animalium proprius est. but the motion of the heart is proper to animals.

Neque sensitivae animae motus esse videtur, sed 3. Nor does it appear to be moved by either the
nec intellectivae, intellectus enim et sensus non sensitive or intellective souls, for the mind and
movent nisi mediante appetitu: motus autem sense move only by means of desire, but the
cordis involuntarius est. motion of the heart is involuntary.

Sed neque naturalis esse videtur. Est enim ad 4. But neither does it appear to be natural. For it
contrarias partes: componitur enim ex pulsu et goes in different directions: for it is composed
tractu; motus autem naturalis ad unam partem of a push and a pull; but a natural motion goes
est, ut ignis sursum, et terrae deorsum. in one direction, as fire only moves upward and
earth downward.

Dicere autem motum cordis esse violentum, est 5. Now to say that the motion of the heart is
omnino extra rationem. Manifeste enim hoc violent would be completely irrational. For it is
motu subtracto, moritur animal, nullum autem obvious that when this motion is done away with
violentum conservat naturam. Videtur quidem the animal dies, since nothing violent preserves
igitur hic motus maxime naturalis esse, vita a nature. It therefore seems that this motion is
enim animalis et hic motus se inseparabiliter indeed most natural to it, since the life of the ani-
consequuntur. mal and this motion follow one another insep-
arably.1

Dicunt autem quidam hunc motum naturalem 6. Now some say that this natural motion comes
esse non ab aliqua particulari natura intrinseca not from any particular nature intrinsic to the
animali, sed ab aliqua natura universali, vel animal, but from some “universal” nature, or
etiam ab intelligentia. even from an [angelic] intelligence.

Sed hoc ridiculum apparet. In omnibus enim But this seems ridiculous. For in every natural
rebus naturalibus propriae passiones alicuius thing the proper passions of any genus or species
generis vel speciei aliquod principium intrin- follow upon some intrinsic principle. For natural
secum consequuntur. Naturalia enim sunt quor- things are those of which the principle of motion
um principium motus in ipsis est. Nihil autem is in them. Now nothing is more proper to ani-
est magis proprium animalibus quam motus mals than the motion of the heart, upon the ceas-
cordis; quo cessante, perit eorum vita. Oportet ing of which their life ends. There must, then, be
igitur inesse ipsis animalibus aliquod princi- some principle of this motion in animals.
pium huius motus.

Adhuc, si aliqui motus corporibus inferioribus 7. What is more, if any such motion in lower
ex natura universali causentur, non semper eis bodies were caused by a universal nature [a-

1
That is to say, where there is life there is a heartbeat, and vice versa.

2
 adsunt: sicut in fluxu et refluxu maris apparet lone], this motion would not always be in them:
quod consequitur motum lunae, et secundum as, for instance, is clear in the ebb and flow of
ipsum variatur. Motus autem cordis semper ad- the sea, which is a consequence of the moon’s
est animali. Non igitur est ab aliqua causa sep- motion, and varies according to it. But the mo-
arata tantum, sed a principio intrinseco. tion of an animal’s heart is always in it. There-
fore it is not from any separated cause alone, but
from some intrinsic principle.

Dicunt igitur alii principium huius motus in 8. Others therefore say that the principle of this
animali esse ipsum calorem, qui per spiritus motion in animals is heat itself, which being
generatos movet cor. Sed hoc irrationabile est. generated by spirit moves the heart. But this is
Illud enim quod est principalius in aliqua re, irrational. For that which is most principal in a
oportet esse causam. Principalius autem videtur thing must be the cause. Now the most princi-
esse in animali motus cordis et magis contem- pal thing in an animal, and more contemporan-
poraneum vitae, quam quaecumque alteratio eous with life, seems to be the motion of the
secundum calorem. Non igitur alteratio secun- heart rather than any alteration involving heat.
dum calorem est causa motus cordis, sed magis Therefore an alteration involving heat is not the
e converso motus cordis est causa alterationis cause of the heart’s motion; rather the heart’s
secundum calorem. Unde et Aristoteles dicit in motion is the cause of such an alteration as
Lib. de motu Anim.: oportet quod futurum est involving heat. And so the Philosopher in On the
movere, non alteratione tale esse. Movement of Animals (ch. 10, 703a 24-25) says:
“what is about to initiate movement, not by
alteration, is of this kind”.

Item animal perfectum, quod est movens 9. Again, a perfect animal, which is one that
seipsum, maxime accedit ad similitudinem moves itself, most approaches to a likeness of
totius universi: unde et homo qui est perfec- the whole universe: and so man, who is the most
tissimum animalium, dicitur a quibusdam mi- perfect of animals, is by some called a “micro-
nor mundus. In universo autem primus motus est cosm”.2 Now in the universe the first motion is
motus localis, qui est causa alterationis et local motion, which is the cause of alteration as
aliorum motuum. Unde et in animali magis well as the other motions, for which reason even
videtur motus localis esse alterationis prin- in animals the principle of alteration appears to
cipium, quam e converso. Unde et Aristoteles in be local motion. And so the Philosopher in the
octavo Physic., hanc similitudinem sequens, eighth book of the Physics (ch. 1, 250 b 14-15),
dicit quod motus est ut vita quaedam natura pursuing this resemblance, says that motion is
existentibus omnibus. “like a kind of ‘life’ existing in all things”.3

2
For further remarks on this comparison, see the supplemental texts given below.
3
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 18, art. 1. obj. 1, ad 1 (tr. Alfred J. Freddoso):

Objection 1: In Physics 8 the Philosopher says that motion is, as it were, a sort of life in all things that
exist by nature. But all natural things participate in motion. Therefore, all natural things participate in
life.
<…>

Reply to objection 1: This passage from the Philosopher can be understood to apply either to the first
motion, viz., the movement of the celestial bodies, or to motion in general. And in both senses motion
is said to be like the life of natural bodies according to a certain likeness and not properly speaking. For
the motion of the celestial bodies in the universe of corporeal natures is like the motion of the heart by
which life is conserved in an animal. Similarly, every natural motion is, as it were, a certain likeness of
a vital operation in natural things. Hence, if the whole corporeal universe were a single animal, so that
(as some have claimed) its motion were from an intrinsic mover, then it would follow that its motion is
the life of all natural bodies.

Note that, for St. Thomas, the motion of the heavens comes from a conjoined mover; cf. Ia, q. 70, art. 3.

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 Adhuc, quod est per se, prius est eo quod est per 10. Besides, what is per se is prior to what is per
accidens. Primus autem motus animalis est accidens.4 But the first motion of an animal is
motus cordis; calor autem non movet localiter the motion of the heart; but heat does not move
nisi per accidens: per se enim caloris est alter- locally except accidentally: for it belongs to heat
are, per accidens autem movere secundum lo- to alter per se, but to move something in place
cum. Ridiculum igitur est dicere, quod calor sit [belongs to heat] per accidens. It is therefore
principium motus cordis, sed oportet ei assig- ridiculous to say that “heat is the principle of the
nare causam quae per se possit esse principium motion of the heart;” rather one must assign a
motus localis. per se cause which can be an intrinsic cause of
motion in place.

Principium igitur huius considerationis hinc 11. One must therefore take as the principle of
oportet accipere quod, sicut Aristoteles dicit in this inquiry that, as Aristotle says in the eighth
octavo Physic., [Quod enim ipsum a seipso book of the Physics (ch. 7, 254b 16-20), “[a
movetur, natura movetur, ut quodlibet animal- thing which is moving by itself is moving by
ium. Movetur enim animal a seispso,] quorum- nature, e.g. each of the animals. For an animal
cumque principium motus in seipsis est, haec moves itself by itself, but] we say that whatever
natura dicimus moveri. Unde animal quidem things have a principle of motion in themselves
totum natura ipsum seipsum movet; corpus are moving by nature. Whence the animal as a
tamen eius contingit et natura et extra naturam whole by nature, moves itself by itself; never-
moveri. Differt enim secundum qualem motum theless its body can be moving both by nature
quod movetur eveniat, et ex quali elemento and beside nature. For it makes a difference
constet. what sort of motion what is moving chances [to
have] and from what sort of elements it is
constituted.”5

Cum enim animal movetur deorsum, quidem est For when an animal moves itself downward, it
motus eius naturalis et toti animali et corpori, eo is indeed a motion that is natural to the entire
quod in corpore animalis elementum grave animal and its body, since in the body of an ani-
praedominatur. Cum autem animal movetur mal the heavier elements predominate [, the
sursum, est quidem naturalis motus animali, nature of which is to move down.] But when an
quia est a principio intrinseco ipsius quod est animal moves upward, this motion is indeed
anima; non tamen est naturale corpori gravi; natural to the animal since it comes from an in-
unde et magis fatigatur animal in hoc motu. trinsic principle which is the soul; but it is never-
theless not natural to a heavy body, and so in
[undergoing] this kind of motion the animal tires
out more.

Motus autem secundum locum in animalibus 12. Now in animals, motion according to place
causatur ex appetitu et apprehensione sensitiva is caused by desire and by a sensitive or intel-
vel intellectiva, ut Aristoteles docet in tertio de lective apprehension, as the Philosopher teaches
anima. in the third book of the De Anima (433a 9-b 30).

In aliis quidem animalibus totus processus In other animals, to be sure, the entire process of
motus naturalis est: non enim agunt a proposito, motion is natural: for they do not act by intention
sed a natura: naturaliter enim et hirundo facit but from nature: for a swallow builds its nest
nidum et aranea telam. Solius autem hominis est naturally and a spider a web. But to act inten-
a proposito operari, et non a natura. tionally and not by nature belongs solely to man.
Nevertheless, the principle of any of his own ac-
tivities is natural. For although he does not

4
That is to say, the essential comes before the accidental.
5
Glen Coughlin trans.

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 Sed tamen cuiuslibet suae operationis princi- naturally know the conclusions of the specula-
pium naturale est. Quamvis enim conclusiones tive and practical sciences, but discovers them
scientiarum speculativarum et practicarum non by reasoning, still, the first indemonstrable prin-
naturaliter sciat, sed ratiocinando inveniat, ciples are known to him naturally, from which
prima tamen principia indemonstrabilia sunt ei he proceeds in order to know other things. Like-
naturaliter nota, ex quibus ad alia scienda pro- wise in the case of desire, to desire the last end,
cedit. Similiter ex parte appetitus, appetere which is happiness, and to flee from misery, is
ultimum finem, qui est felicitas, est homini natural to man; but to desire other things is not
naturale, et fugere miseriam; sed appetere alia natural but proceeds from the desire for his last
non est naturale, sed ex appetitu ultimi finis end to the desire for other things: for in this way
procedit in appetitum aliorum: sic enim est finis the end in desirable things is like an indemon-
in appetibilibus, ut principium indemonstrabile strable principle in intellectual things, as the
in intellectualibus, ut dicitur in secundo Physic. Philosopher says in the second book of the Phy-
sics (ch.15, 200a 15-24).6

Sic igitur et cum motus omnium aliorum mem- And so therefore since the motion of all the other
brorum causentur ex motu cordis, ut probat members of the body is caused by the motion of
Aristoteles in Lib. de Mot. Anim., motus qui- the heart, as the Philosopher proves in On the
dem alii possunt esse voluntarii, sed primus Movement of Animals (ch. 10, 703a—703b 2),
motus qui est cordis, est naturalis. the other motions can indeed by voluntary, but
the first motion which is of the heart, is natural.

Oportet autem considerare quod motus sursum 13. Now we must consider that upward motion
est naturalis igni eo quod consequitur formam is natural to fire as a consequence of its form:
eius: unde et generans, quod dat formam, est per and so the generator, which gives the form, is its
se movens secundum locum. per se mover in place.

Sicut autem formam elementi consequitur Now just as any natural motion follows the form
aliquis motus naturalis, nihil prohibet et alias of the element, in the same way other natural
formas alios motus naturales sequi. Videmus motions follow upon other forms. For we ob-
enim quod ferrum naturaliter movetur ad mag- serve that iron is naturally moved toward the
netem, qui tamen motus non est ei naturalis magnet, which motion is nevertheless not
secundum rationem gravis et levis, sed secun- natural to it according to its character of being
dum quod habet talem formam. Sic igitur et heavy or light, but insofar as it has such a form.7
animal inquantum habet talem formam quae est Thus inasmuch as an animal has such a form
anima, nihil prohibet habere aliquem motum which is the soul, nothing prevents it from

6
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia-IIae, q. 17, art. 9, ad 2 (tr. Fr. Laurence Shapcote, O.P.):

Reply to Objection 2: In things pertaining to intellect and will, that which is according to nature stands
first, whence all other things are derived: thus from the knowledge of principles that are naturally
known, is derived knowledge of the conclusions; and from volition of the end naturally desired, is
derived the choice of the means. So also in bodily movements the principle is according to nature. Now
the principle of bodily movements begins with the movement of the heart. Consequently the movement
of the heart is according to nature, and not according to the will: for like a proper accident, it results
from life, which follows from the union of soul and body. Thus the movement of heavy and light things
results from their substantial form: for which reason they are said to be moved by their generator, as the
Philosopher states (Phys. viii, 4). Wherefore this movement is called ‘vital.’ For which reason Gregory
of Nyssa [Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxii] says that, just as the movement of generation and nutrition
does not obey reason, so neither does the pulse which is a vital movement. By the pulse he means the
movement of the heart which is indicated by the pulse veins.
7
Cf. St. Thomas’s opusculum, De operationibus occultis naturae, excerpts of which are given below.

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 naturalem; et movens hunc motum est quod dat having a natural motion; and the mover [which
formam. gives it] its form gives it this motion.

Dico autem motum naturalem animalis eum qui 14. I take the position that the natural motion of
est cordis: quia, ut Aristoteles dicit in Lib. de an animal is that of the heart, seeing that, as the
motu Anim., existimandum est constare animal Philosopher says in his book On the Movement
quemadmodum civitatem bene legibus rectam. of Animals (ch. 10, 703a29-b2),8 “In a sense, an
In civitate enim quando semel stabilitus fuerit animal can be compared to a city governed by
ordo, nihil opus est separato monarcho quem good laws. For once a stable order exists in a
oporteat adesse per singula eorum quae fiunt, city, no action is performed by an individual
sed ipse quilibet facit quae ipsius ut ordinatum agent that is truly separate from the monar-
est, et fit hoc post hoc propter consuetudinem. chical rule, but everything is done by custom
and in accord with due order. Now in animals
this comes about by nature: and since each one
In animalibus autem idem hoc propter naturam is naturally constituted to perform its proper
fit: et quia natum est unumquodque sic con- work, so that there is no need for a soul to be in
stantium facere proprium opus, ut nihil opus sit each one, insofar, namely, as it is a principle of
in unoquoque esse animam, scilicet inquantum motion, but rather existing in a certain principal
est principium motus, sed in quodam principio part of the body, the other parts live indeed be-
corporis existente alia quidem vivere, eo quod cause they are naturally adapted to perform their
adnata sunt, facere autem proprium opus pro- proper work according to nature.”
pter naturam.

Sic igitur motus cordis est naturalis quasi 15. The motion of the heart is therefore natural
consequens animam, inquantum est forma talis as following upon the soul, inasmuch as it is the
corporis, et principaliter cordis. Et forte secun- form of such a body, and principally of the heart.
dum hunc intellectum aliqui dixerunt motum And perhaps in accordance with this under-
cordis esse ab intelligentia, inquantum posuer- standing of the matter some have said that the
unt animam ab intelligentia esse, sicut Aristot- motion of the heart is caused by an [angelic]
eles dicit motum gravium et levium esse a gen- intelligence, inasmuch as they held the soul to
erante, inquantum dat formam quae est prin- be from an intelligence, just as Aristotle says in
cipium motus. the eighth book of the Physics (ch. 4, 256a1), the
motion of heavy and light things comes from
that which generates them, inasmuch as it gives
the form which is the principle of motion.

Omnis autem proprietas et motus consequitur For every property and motion follows on some
aliquam formam secundum conditionem ipsius, form according to its condition, just as upon the
sicut formam nobilissimi elementi, puta ignis, form of the noblest9 element, for example fire,
consequitur motus ad locum nobilissimum, qui follows motion to the noblest place, which is
est sursum. above.

Forma autem nobilissima in inferioribus est Now the noblest form in lower things is the soul,
anima, quae maxime accedit ad similitudinem which most approaches to a likeness to the prin-
principii motus caeli. Unde et motus ipsam ciple of the motion of the heavens. And so the
consequens simillimus est motui caeli: sic enim motion following upon it is most similar to the
est motus cordis in animali, sicut motus caeli in motion of the heavens: for the motion of the
mundo. heart in an animal is like the motion of the
heavens in the world.

8
Tr. John Y. B. Hood.
9
“Noblest”—that is, that which has “the highest rank”, so to speak.

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 Sed tamen necesse est motum cordis a motu 16. But the motion of the heart necessarily falls
caeli deficere sicut et principiatum deficit a short of the motion of the heavens, just as what
principio. Est autem motus caeli circularis et is from a principle falls short of the principle.
continuus, et hoc competit ei inquantum est Now the motion of the heavens is circular and
principium omnium motuum mundi: accessu continuous, and this is appropriate to it inas-
enim et recessu corpus caeleste imponit rebus much as it is the principle of every motion of the
principium et finem essendi, et sua continuitate world: for the approach and withdrawal of a
conservat ordinem in motibus, qui non sunt celestial body imposes upon things the begin-
semper. ning and end of their existence, and by its con-
tinuity preserves the order in motions, which are
not always [occurring].

Motus autem cordis principium quidem est om- 17. Now the motion of the heart is the principle
nium motuum qui sunt in animali; unde Aris- of all the motions that are in an animal; and so
toteles dicit in tertio de Part. Anim. quod motus the Philosopher in the third book of On the Parts
delectabilium et tristium et totaliter omnis of Animals (ch. 4, 661a 13-14) says that “the
sensus hinc incipientes videntur, scilicet in cor- motion involved in pleasure and pain and all
de, et ad hoc terminari. other sensations seem to begin there, namely, in
the heart, and terminate there.”

Unde ad hoc quod cor esset principium et finis And so in order for the heart to be the principle
omnium motuum, habet quemdam motum non and end of every motion that exists in the ani-
quidem circularem sed similem circulari, mal, it has a certain motion not in fact circular,
compositum scilicet ex tractu et pulsu; unde but similar to the circular—one, namely, com-
Aristoteles dicit in tertio de Anim., quod movens posed from a pull and a push; and so the Philoso-
organice est ubi est principium et finis idem. pher says in the third book of the De Anima
Omnia autem pulsu et tractu moventur; propter (433b 20-25) “what moves instrumentally is
quod oportet sicut in circulo manere aliquid et found wherever a beginning and an end coin-
hinc incipere motum. cide” [, as in a ball and socket joint]. But “all
things are moved by a push and a pull, on
account of which there must be something re-
maining stationary, as in a wheel, and from that
point motion begins.”10

10
Sc. as with the pivots of the axle of a wagon wheel, or, to take the obvious point of comparison, as with the
poles of the axis of the celestial sphere; “for a body revolving in a circle is kept as a whole in the same place
by the immobility of the centre and the poles” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima
translated by Kenelm Foster, O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P., Book III, lectio 15, n. 835). “However, if we
desire to apply it to the fixed stars, then we must take the word “center” as meaning the “pole” since, just as
the center is to a circle on a plane surface, so is the pole in a way to a circle on a spherical surface.” (St. Thomas
Aquinas, In II De Caelo, lect. 11, n. 400; tr. Conway & Larcher, rev. B.A.M.) It is to be understood, then, that
for motion to take place, there must be a fixed point of immobility as its ‘center’, as with a fulcrum. Cf. the
entire passage from the Commentary on the De Anima excerpted above, nn. 832-835:

§ 832. Next, at ‘Now, in short” he briefly states his view on the organ of local motion. He says that the
primary organic motive-principle must be such that the movement starts and finishes in the same point,
proceeding in a circle, as it were, and having a swelling out at the starting point and a concavity at the
end. For the contractual movement draws the organ into concavity, while the expansive impulse,
whence movement begins, follows a swelling out of the organ. § 833. Now, granted that this primary
organ is both the starting point and term of movement, it must, as starting point, be motionless, and, as
term, in movement; and both these at once. For in any movement the starting point itself does not move,
all movement must proceed from the motionless,—as, for instance, while the hand is moving the arm
is still, and while the arm moves the shoulder is still. However, these two factors in the organ, the
motionless and the moved, though distinct in thought, are substantially and spatially inseparable. [cont.]

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Est etiam motus iste continuus durante vita And this motion continues throughout the life of
animalis, nisi inquantum necesse est intercidere the animal, except inasmuch as it is necessary
morulam mediam inter pulsum et tractum, eo for a pause to intervene between the push and
quod deficiat a motu circulari. the pull, by reason of which it falls short of circ-
ular motion.

Per hoc igitur de facili solvuntur quae in 18. Based on this, we can easily dispose of the
contrarium obiici possunt. Neque enim dicimus objections to the contrary. For we are not saying
motum cordis esse naturalem cordi inquantum that the motion of the heart is natural to the heart
est grave vel leve, sed inquantum est animatum inasmuch as it is heavy or light, but inasmuch as
tali anima; et duo motus qui videntur contrarii it is animated by a soul of this sort; and the two
sunt quasi partes unius motus compositi ex motions that appear to be contrary are like the
utroque, inquantum deficit a simplicitate motus parts of one motion composed from both, inas-
circularis, quem tamen imitatur inquantum est much as it falls short of the simplicity of circular
ab eodem in idem. Et sic non est inconveniens si motion, which it nevertheless imitates inasmuch
quodammodo sit ad diversas partes, quia et as it returns to the same point it started from.
motus circularis aliqualiter sic est. Neque etiam And thus it is not inappropriate if in some way
oportet quod causetur ex apprehensione et it goes in different directions, because circular
appetitu, quamvis causetur ab anima sensitiva; motion in some way is like this. Nor is it neces-
non enim causatur ab anima sensitiva per op- sary that it be caused by apprehension and de-
erationem suam, sed inquantum est forma et sire, even though it be caused by the sensitive
natura talis corporis. soul; for it is not caused by the sensitive soul by
its own activity, but inasmuch as it is the form
and nature of such a body.

Motus autem progressivus animalis causatur per 19. Now the progressive motion of an animal is
operationem sensus et appetitus; et propter hoc caused by an operation of sense and desire, and
medici distinguunt operationes vitales ab on this account medical men distinguish vital
operationibus animalibus, et quod animalibus activities from animal activities, and they say
cessantibus remanent vitales, vitalia appellantes that even when animal activities cease the vital
quae motum cordis concomitantur. Et hoc ones remain, naming ‘vital’ those which accom-
rationabiliter. Vivere enim viventibus est esse, pany the motion of the heart. And they do so
ut dicitur in secundo de Anim.: esse autem uni- with good reason. For “in living things, to live is
cuique est a propria forma. to be,” as is said in the second book of the De
Anima (ch. 7, 415b13): but the being of each
thing is from its proper form.

Hoc autem differt inter animam et principium 20. Now the soul and the principle of the motion
motus caeli, quod illud principium non movetur of the heavens differ in this, that the latter princi-

§ 834. And that the organ is both starting point and term (and therefore both motionless and moved) is
clear from the fact that all animal movements consist of impulsions and retractions. In impulsion the
motive force comes from the starting point, for the impelling agent thrusts itself forward against what
is impelled. But in retraction the motive force comes from the term, for the drawing power draws
something back to itself. Thus the first organ of local motion in animals must be at once both a starting
point and a term.

§ 835. So then there must be in it something that stays still and yet initiates motion. And in this it resem-
bles circular movement: for a body revolving in a circle is kept as a whole in the same place by the
immobility of the centre and the poles. In thought it may move as a whole, but not in reality. In reality
it keeps to one place. But its parts are changing their places really, and not only in thought. And so it is
with the heart: it remains fixed in the same part of the body while it dilates and contracts and so gives
rise to movements of impulsion and retraction. Thus it is, in a sense, both motionless and moving.

8
 neque per se neque per accidens, anima autem ple is moved neither per se nor per accidens, but
sensitiva etsi non moveatur per se, movetur the sensitive soul, though it not be moved per se,
tamen per accidens: unde proveniunt in ipsa is nevertheless moved per accidens: and so there
diversae apprehensiones et affectiones. Unde arise in it diverse apprehensions and sensations.
motus caeli semper est uniformis, motus autem And so the motion of the heavens is always uni-
cordis variatur secundum diversas apprehen- form, but the motion of the heart varies accord-
siones et affectiones animae. Non enim affec- ing to diverse apprehensions and sensations of
tiones animae causantur ab alterationibus cor- the soul. For the sensations of the soul are not
dis, sed potius causant eas; unde in passionibus caused by alterations of the heart, but rather they
animae, utputa in ira, formale est, quod est ex cause them; and so in passions of the soul, in
parte affectionis, scilicet quod sit appetitus vin- anger, for example, what is formal is on the part
dictae; materiale autem quod pertinet ad alter- of the sensation, namely, that it be a desire for
ationem cordis, utpote quod sit accensio sang- revenge; but material which pertains to the
uinis circa cor. alteration of the heart, for example that there be
a boiling of blood around the heart.11

Non autem in rebus naturalibus forma est Now in natural things the form is not for the sake
propter materiam, sed e converso, ut probatur in of the matter, but the other way around, as is
secundo Physic., sed in materia est dispositio ad clear in the second book of the Physics; but in
formam. Non igitur propter hoc aliquis appetit matter there is a disposition for the form. There-
vindictam quia sanguis accenditur circa cor, sed fore someone desires vengeance not because
ex hoc aliquis est dispositus ad iram; irascitur blood boils around his heart, but by this one is
autem ex appetitu vindictae. disposed toward anger; but one is angered from
a desire for vengeance.

Quamvis autem aliqua variatio accidat in motu 21. Now although some variation occur in the
cordis ex apprehensione diversa et affectione, motion of the heart from different apprehen-
non tamen ista variatio motus est voluntaria, sed sions and sensations, nevertheless this variation
involuntaria, quia non fit per imperium of motion is not voluntary because it does not
voluntatis. come about through the command of the will.

Dicit enim Aristoteles in Lib. de causa Mot. For Aristotle says in the book On the Cause of
Anim., quod multoties apparente aliquo, non the Motion of Animals (ch. 10, 703b 7-8, 11-21),

11
Cf. Commentary on the De Anima, op. cit., lectio 2, n. 22:

§ 22. Next, when he says ‘Now all the soul’s,’ he draws out what had been presupposed above, namely
that certain modifications affect soul and body together, not the soul alone. And this he shows by one
argument in two parts; which runs as follows. Whenever the physical constitution of the body
contributes to a vital activity, the latter pertains to the body as well as the soul; but this happens in the
case of all the ‘modifications’ of the soul, such as anger, meekness, fear, confidence, pity and so forth,
hence all these ‘modifications’ would seem to belong partly to the body. And to show that the physical
constitution plays a part in them he uses two arguments. (1) We sometimes see a man beset by obvious
and severe afflictions without being provoked or frightened, whereas when he is already excited by
violent passions arising from his bodily disposition, he is disturbed by mere trifles and behaves as
though he were really angry. (2) At ‘This is still more evident:’ what makes this point even clearer is
that we see in some people, even when there is no danger present, passions arising that resemble one
such ‘modification’ of the soul; for instance melancholy people, simply as a result of their physical
state, are often timid when there is no real cause to be. Obviously then, if the bodily constitution has
this effect on the passions, the latter must be ‘material principles’, i.e. must exist in matter. This is why
‘such terms,’ i.e. the definitions of these passions, are not to be predicated without reference to matter;
so that if anger is being defined, let it be called a movement ‘of some body’ such as the heart, or ‘of
some part or power’ of the body. Saying this he refers to the subject or material cause of the passion;
whereas ‘proceeding from’ refers to the efficient cause; and ‘existing for’ to the final cause.

9
tamen iubente intellectu, movetur cor et puden- that “oftentimes upon something appearing, and
dum, et huius causam assignat quoniam ne- not by the intellect commanding, the heart and
cesse est alterari naturali alteratione animalia; private parts are moved,” and he assigns the
alteratis autem partibus, haec quidem augeri, cause of this, since it is necessary for the animal
haec autem detrimentum pati, ut iam move- to be altered by a natural alteration; but upon the
antur et permutentur natis haberi permuta- parts being altered, one part will grow larger, but
tionibus invicem. another suffer decrease, such that they are im-
mediately moved and changed by the influences
they are naturally apt to have upon each other.

Causae autem motuum caliditas et frigiditas, 22. Now the causes of the motions [are] warmth
quae de foris et intus existentes naturales. Et and coldness, whether from without or occur-
praeter rationem utique facti motus dictarum ring naturally within. And motions of the afore-
partium, idest cordis et pudendi, alteratione said parts, i.e. of the heart and private parts, [of
incidente fiunt. Intellectus enim et phantasia those] at any rate produced against reason, come
factiva passionum afferunt, ut concupiscentiae, about by an incidental alteration. For the mind
irae et huiusmodi, ex quibus cor calescit et in- and the imagination are productive of the pas-
frigidatur. sions, such as concupiscence, anger and the like,
by reason of which the heart is heated or cooled.

Et haec de motu cordis ad praesens dicta suf- 23. And let these things said about the motion of
ficiant. the heart suffice for the present.

10
N.B. For an additional witness on the movement of the heart, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas,
Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, translated by Mary C. Fitzpatrick and John J.
Wellmuth (Milwaukee, 1949), art. 2, c. (excerpt):

It must be said that the truth of this question depends to some extent on the preceding one. For
if the rational soul is united to the body only through virtual contact, like a mover, as some
have asserted, nothing would prevent us from saying that there are many intermediates be-
tween the soul and the body, and more so between the soul and prime matter. But if it be
asserted that the soul is united to the body as a form, it must be said that it is united to the body
immediately. For every form, whether substantial or accidental, is united to matter or to a sub-
ject. For each individual thing is one on the same basis on which it is a being. Now, each indi-
vidual thing is actually a being through a form, whether in the case of actual substantial being
or in the case of actual accidental being. And hence every form is an act, and as a consequence
it is the reason for the unity whereby a given thing is one. Therefore, just as we cannot say that
there is any other medium whereby matter has actual being through its own form, so it cannot
be said that there is any other medium uniting a form to matter or to a subject. In consequence
of the fact that the soul, then, is the form of the body, there cannot be any medium between
the soul and the body. But in consequence of the fact that it is a mover, from this point of view
nothing prevents our asserting many media there: for obviously the soul moves the other
members of the body through the heart, and also moves the body through the spirit.7
7
Cf. Q. De An. (9 ad 13): “It must be said that the heart is the primary instrument by means
of which the soul moves the other parts of the body; and therefore through it as a medium the
soul is united to the other parts of the body as mover”; ibid., ad 7: “although the same effect
is partly produced by the dissolution, caused by the blood, of those humors, whereby the heart
is dilated and contracted.” Perhaps then our text ought to read: “and also moves the heart and
the spirit.” (emphasis added)

11
 St. Thomas Aquinas on the Movement
of the Heart
VINCENT R. LARKIN*

Introduction
The letter De Motu Cordis, which is here translated, is regarded as an authentic work of
Thomas Aquinas by Mandonnet and Grabmann.a The letter is addressed to a Master Philip.
Mandonnet says he was a professor of medicine in Bologna and afterwards in Naples,b but,
as Eschmann observes, this has not been established by Mandonnet.c We conclude that
nothing definite is known about Master Philip. Mandonnet sets the date of composition at
1273, but Eschmann prefers 1270/1.
The opusculumd is found in the following editions of Thomas’ works:
Opera Omnia, Rome, 1570-71, vol. XVII, p. 24. Piana edition.
Opera Omnia, Parma, 1852-73, vol. XVI, p. 358. Parma edition.
Opera Omnia, Rome, 1889, vol. XVII, p. 508. Vives edition.
Opuscula Omnia, Paris, 1927, vol. I, p. 28, ed. Mandonnet.
Opuscula Omnia, Paris, 1949, vol. I, p. 62, ed. Perrier.
Opuscula Philosophica, Turin, 1954, p. 165, ed. Marietti edition.
The present translation has been made from the Marietti text edited by R. M. Spiazzi, O.P.e
Because the argument of this opusculum is not easy to follow, I have numbered the
paragraphs. It is hoped the following outline will be helpful:

* Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles.

a
P. Mandonnet, O.P., Des écrits authentiques de St. Thomas d’Aquin. ed. II, Fribourg.
1910, p. 104, n. 18, M. Grabmann, Die Werke des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Munster, 1949, pp.
347-348.
b
Opuscula omnia, Paris, 1927, vol. I, pp. xxv, xxvi.
c
I. T. Eschmann, O.P., “A Catalogue of St. Thomas’ works” in E. Gilson, The Christian
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, New York, 1956, p. 419.
d
For a summary of the contents of this work, see Walter Pagel, “The philosophy of
circles—Cesalpino—Harvey, a penultimate assessment,” J. Hist. Med., 1957, 12, 141-143.
e
The translation of Thomas in the footnotes were made from the Summa theologiae,
Ottawa, 1941 and from Summa contra gentiles in Opera Omnia, Rome, 1888-1906. The
Aristotelian references are to the Greek text, Aristotelis opera, ed. Immanuel Bekker, Berlin,
1831; the Platonic ones to the Greek text, Platonis opera, John Burnet, Ed., Oxford, 1899-
1906.

[22-23]

PART I
I. THE PROBLEM
The Movement of the Heart
A. What is its origin? (par. 1)
B. What is its nature? (par. 1)

12
 II. OPINIONS
As to origin
The principle of heart movement is
A. not the soul:
neither 1) the nutritive soul (par. 2)
nor 2) the sensitive soul (par. 3) Refutation (par. 23)
nor 3) the intellectual soul (par. 3)
B. an intelligence (par. 5) Refutation (par. 22)
C. heat (par. 8) Refutation (par. 9, 10)
As to nature
Heart movement is not natural
because it is
A. in opposite directions (par. 4) Refutation (par. 22)
B. violent (par. 4) Refutation (par. 4)
III. SOLUTION
As to origin
The principle of heart movement is the soul
As to nature
Heart movement is natural
because the soul is the form of the body (par. 15, 16, 17)

PART II
I. HEART MOVEMENT CONSIDERED IN ITSELF
Cardiac cycle consists of a push and a pull with a rest period in between (par. 19, 20)

II. HEART MOVEMENT CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO EMOTION

Emotions cause modification of cardiac rhythm (par. 25, 27)

TEXT

1. Because everything that is moved must have a mover,1 we can pose the problem: what
is it that moves the heart and what is the nature of its movement?2
2. Now its movement does not seem to proceed from the soul.3 The heart is not moved by
the nutritive soul, for the functions of the nutritive
1
Cf. Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. VII, ch. 1, 241 b 24. Also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, vol. I,
Pars I, q. 2, art. 3, p. 13 b.
2
Aquinas, ibid., vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 37, art. 4, c. p. 918b: “Man’s life consists in a certain movement
which flows from the heart to the other parts of the body.”
3
Plato defines the soul as the self-moving source of motion in Laws, vol. V, Bk. X, 896 a 1-2.
Aristotle says in De anima, vol. I., Bk. I, ch. 3, 406 a 2 that the soul is not self-moving, though it is
the principle of living things. His definition of the soul as the first act of a physically organized body
having life in potency is found in De anima, vol. I, Bk. II, ch. 1, 412 a 27, 412 b 5.

[23-24]

13
soul4 are reproduction, nutrition, growth, and decay. None of these seems to account for the
movement of the heart. The soul is found also in plants; the movement of the heart, however,
is characteristic of animals.
3. The movement does not seem to belong to either the sensitive or the intellectual soul
because the intellect and the senses move only by means of desire, while the movement of
the heart is involuntary.5
4. This movement does not seem to be a natural6 one either, since it goes now in this
direction, now in that, for it consists of a push and a pull, whereas natural movement extends
in one direction, as fire tends only upwards and earth downwards. It is, however, completely
unreasonable to say that the movement of the heart is a violent7 one, for it is plain that when
this movement ceases, the animal ceases or dies, whereas nothing that is contrary to a thing’s
nature preserves it. Indeed, it appears that this movement is entirely natural, for the life of
the animal and this movement are inseparably related to one another.
5. But some say that this natural movement flows not from some determinate nature within
the animal, but from some universal nature, or from an intelligence.8
6. But this is ridiculous. In all natural things the attributes characteristic of any genus or
species depend on some intrinsic principle. Those things are natural whose principle of
movement resides in them. But nothing is more characteristic of animals than the movement
of the heart, for when it ceases, their life perishes. It follows then that a principle of this
motion resides in animals themselves.
7. Further, if some movements were produced in earthly bodies by a universal nature, they
would not remain always in them, as we observe in the case of the ebb and flow of the sea
which depend on the movement of the moon and vary in accord with it. But the movement
of the heart
4
Plato speaks of three parts or functions of the soul in Republic, vol. IV, Bk. IV, 435 c 5 and in
Phaedrus, vol. II, 246 a 6—257 a 2. He identifies them in Republic, Bk. IV, 439 d 5, 439 d 8 & 439
e 3 as the rational part, the striving part, and the desiring part. Aristotle recognizes three kinds of
soul, namely, the nutritive, the sensitive, and the rational in the Nicomachean ethics, vol. II, Bk. I,
ch. 13.
5
Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics, vol. II, Bk. III, ch. 1, 1109 b 35, 1110 a 1: “Those things are
thought involuntary, which take place under compulsion or owing to ignorance.” For Aristotle’s
distinction between voluntary, nonvoluntary, involuntary and violent, vide: loc. cit.
6
For the various meanings of the word “natural” in Aquinas, vide: Deferarri and Barry, A lexicon
of St. Thomas Aquinas, Baltimore, 1949, Fascicle IV, p. 724.
7
Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 6, art. 5, p. 756 b: “Violence is directly opposed to the
voluntary, as well as to the natural. The voluntary and the natural have this in common, that each
proceeds from an intrinsic principle, but the violent proceeds from an extrinsic principle.”
8
I.e., an immaterial substance. The use of the word ‘intelligence’ is explained in Summa theologiae,
vol. I, Pars I, q. 79, art. 10 c. p. 491 b: “In some works translated from Arabic, the separate substances,
which we call angels, are called intelligences, perhaps because such substances are always exercising
the act of understanding.” The medical opinion referred to in Thomas’ De motu cordis depends
perhaps on the philosophical doctrine of Avicenna. Thomas says, ibid., vol. I, Pars I, q. 65, art. 4, c,
p. 399 b: “Avicenna and certain others did not hold that the forms of corporeal things subsist
essentially in matter, but in the intellect only.”

is always present in the animal. It does not then depend on a separated cause but on an
intrinsic principle.

14
 8. Others say that the principle of this movement in the animal is heat which, generated
through a spirit, moves the heart. But this is unreasonable. That which is prior in a thing
must be the cause. Now the movement of the heart seems to be prior in the animal and more
closely related to life than any alteration in heat. Therefore alteration in heat is not the cause
of the movement of the heart, but on the contrary the movement of the heart is rather the
cause of this alteration. Hence the Philosopher says in his book, The Movement of Animals:9
“Movement must come first, not such and such an alteration.”
9. Likewise, a perfect animal, which is one that moves itself, resembles most of all the
entire universe. Hence man, who is the most perfect of animals, is called by some a world in
miniature.10 Now the first movement in the universe is local movement,11 which is the cause
of alteration and of the other movements. Hence in the animal also local movement seems
more the principle of alteration than the converse. Hence the Philosopher, pursuing this
analogy, says in the eighth book of the Physics12 that movement is, as it were, a kind of life
that is naturally present in everything that exists.
10. Further, that which exists essentially is prior to that which exists accidentally. Now the
first movement of an animal is the movement of the heart; heat, however, causes local
movement only in an accidental way; for it is of the essence of heat that it alter, but it is
accidental to it that it cause local movement. It is then ridiculous to say that heat is the
principle of the movement of the heart, but we must assign to it a cause which can be
essentially the principle of local movement.
11. Therefore let us take as the principle of our contemplation what the Philosopher says
in the eighth book of the Physics,13 “We say that those things that have a principle of
movement within them are moved naturally. Hence an animal as a whole moves itself in a
natural way, but it happens that its body can be moved both naturally or in a way that is
contrary to its nature. It depends on the nature of the movement and the nature of the
elements of which the body is composed.” For when an animal is moved downwards, its
movement is natural both to the whole animal and to its body by the fact that in the body of
the animal the heavy element, which by nature moves downwards, is predominant. But when
an animal is moved upwards, the movement is natural to the animal because it proceeds
9
Aristotle, The movement of animals, vol. I, ch. 10, 703 a 2 24-25.
10
Cf. Democritus, fragment 34, in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, H. Diehls, Ed., vol. II, Berlin,
1956, p. 153. Also Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. VIII, ch. 2, 252 b 26. Summa theologiae, vol. I, Pars
I, q. 91, art. 1 c, p. 563 a: “Man is called a little world, because all the creatures of the world are in
some way found in him.”
11
Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, vol. II, Bk. XII, ch. 7, 1072 b 9, 1073 a 12.
12
Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. VIII, ch. 1, 250 b 14-15.
13
Ibid., vol. I, Bk. VIII, ch. 4, 254 b 16-20.

[25-26]

from its intrinsic principle, which is the soul; but it is not natural to a heavy body; hence in
this movement the animal becomes more tired.
12. Local movement in animals is caused by desire and by sensitive or intellectual
cognizance, as the Philosopher teaches in the third book of the De Anima.14
13. In other animals, then, the entire process of movement is natural; for they do not act
by purpose, but by nature; for the swallow makes its nest and the spider its web in a way that
is natural.16 It is characteristic of man alone to act by will, and not by nature.

15
 14. Nevertheless the principle of any of his acts is a natural one. For although he does not
naturally know the conclusions of the speculative and practical sciences, but discovers them
by reasoning, the first indemonstrable principles, from which he goes on to knowledge of
other things, are naturally known to him. Likewise, it is natural for man, led by desire, to
seek the ultimate end,16 which is happiness, and to flee misery. It is not natural for him to
seek other things, but because of his desire for the last end, he goes on to desire other things.
Thus the end is related to things desirable as the indemonstrable principle is to things intel-
lecttual, as is said in the second book of the Physics.17 Since then the movement of the all
the other members is caused by the movement of the heart, as the Philosopher shows in the
book, The Movement of Animals,18 other movements can be voluntary, but the first move-
ment, which is that of the heart, is natural.19
15. Now let us take into consideration that upward movement is natural to fire because it
results from its form; hence also the efficient cause, which produces the form, is essentially
one that causes local movement. Just as any natural movement results from the form of the
element, so also nothing keeps other natural movements from proceeding from other forms.
We see that iron naturally is moved towards a magnet, although this is not a movement
natural to it inasmuch as it is heavy or light, but inasmuch as it has such and such a form.
Therefore nothing keeps an animal, inasmuch as it has certain kind of form which is the soul,
from having a natural movement; and that which is causing this movement is that which
accounts for the form.
16. Now I say that the natural movement of the animal is that of the heart because, as the
Philosopher says in the book, The Movement of
14
Aristotle, De Anima, vol. I, Bk. III, ch. 10, 433 a 9-b 30.
15
Cf. Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. II, ch. 8, 190 a 26.
16
Summa theologiae, vol. I, Pars I, q. 18, art. 3 c, p. 128 b: “Although our intellect moves itself to
some things, yet others are supplied to it by nature, as are first principles, which it cannot doubt; and
the last end, which it cannot not will.”
17
Cf. Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. II, ch. 9, 200 a 15-25.
18
Cf. Aristotle, The movement of animals, vol. I, ch. 10, 703 a 14.
19
Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 17, art. 9. ad 2, p. 809 a: “In bodily movement the principle
is according to nature. But the principle of bodily movement proceeds from the movement of the
heart. Therefore the movement of the heart is according to nature, and not according to will.”

[26-27]

Animals,20 “an animal must be regarded as resembling a state that is well and lawfully
governed. For when order is once established in a state, there is no need for a special overseer
to supervise every activity, but each man does the work assigned him, and one task succeeds
another in an accustomed order. In animals this same thing takes place by nature, and
because each of the organs is naturally suited to execute its own function, there is no need
for the soul to be in each part as the principle of movement but it is in some principal part21
such as the heart which gives life to the other parts, for they execute naturally their own
functions.”
17. Therefore the movement of the heart is natural because it results from the soul,
inasmuch as it is the form of one particular body22 and primarily of the heart.23
18. And perchance because of this notion some have said that the movement of the heart
comes from an intelligence, as the Philosopher says in the eighth book of the Physics24 that

16
the movement of heavy and light bodies comes from an efficient cause inasmuch as it gives
the form which is the principle of movement. Now every property and movement proceeds
from some form according to its rank, as movement to the noblest place which is above
results from the form of the noblest element, namely, fire. But the noblest form that exists
in earthly bodies is the soul, which resembles most of all the principle of the movement of
the heavens. Hence the movement that results from it is most like the movement of the
heavens. Thus the movement of the heart in the animal is like the movement of the heavens
in the world.
20
Cf. Aristotle, The movement of animals, vol. I, ch. 10, 703 a 14.
21
Thomas does not oppose Aristotle on this point for he interprets him as referring here not to the
essence of the soul but merely to its power of originating movement. Cf. Summa theologiae, vol. I,
Pars I, q. 76, art. 8, ad 1. p. 462 a. Also Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. II, ch. 72, vol. XIII, p.
457.
22
Thomas argues in Summa theologiae, vol. I, Pars I, q. 76, art. 1 c., p. 447 b that the soul is the
form of the body. As a consequence of this, man has but one soul. Cf. ibid., vol. I, Pars I. q. 76, art.
3 c, p. 453 b.
23
Thomas does not mean that the soul resides in the heart as its domicilium. Its being the form of
the body precludes this. Because the soul is not united to the body as its mover, as in Platonic
psychology, it does not act on the body through an organ, but is whole and entire in each and every
part of the body. Vide: Summa theologiae, vol. I, Pars I, q. 76, art. 8 c, p. 461b. Thomas’ thinking is
in accord with St. Augustine who says in the De trinitate, Bk. VI, 6, 8 that the soul is “wholly in the
whole body, and whole in each part of it.” Migne, Patrologia latina, t. XLII, Paris, 1841, p. 929.
However, Thomas departs from the teaching of his master, St. Albert Magnus, who adopted the
opinion of Alfred of Sareshel. Alfred in his De motu cordis written about 1210 says: “The heart is
the dwelling place (domicitium) of the soul.” “Des Alfred von Sareshel (Alfredus Anglicus) Schrift
de Motu Cordis” von Clemens Bauemker in Bëitrage zur Geschicte der Philosophie des Mittelalters,
Band XXIII, Munster i. W., 1923, ch. VIII, p. 33. Albert in De anima, II, tract. I, ch. 7, says: “The
soul is in the heart, and from there it pours out its powers on the whole body, and so it is not wholly
in the whole body, in such a way that it would be whole in each part, but it is in each part by some
of its powers. . . . And this is the opinion of the Peripatetics. But there were and are certain men who
say that the soul is wholly in the whole body, but this was not the opinion of a certain Philosopher.”
Opera omnia, A. Borgnet, Ed. Paris, 1890. vol. 5, pp/ 204-205. By “a certain philosopher” Albert
indicates his debt to Alfred.
24
Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. VIII, ch. 4, 255 b 31—256a 3.

[27-28]

19. But the movement of the heart necessarily falls short of the movement of the heavens
as the effect falls short of the cause. The movement of the heavens is circular and contin-
uous, and this is appropriate to it inasmuch as it is the principle of all the movements of the
world; for by approach and recession a heavenly body confers on things the origin and end
of being, and by its continuity preserves the order in the movements that are not eternal. The
movement of the heart is the principle of all the movements that exist in the animal. Hence
the Philosopher says in the third book of The Parts of Animals25 that “the movements of
delight and sadness, and, in general, all the emotions seem to begin here,” namely, in the
heart, and to end here. Therefore in order that the heart be the principle and end of all the
movements in the animal, it has a certain movement, not circular but like circular movement,
namely, one consisting of a push and a pull. Hence the Philosopher says in the third book of
the De Anima26 “that which moves instrumentally is found wherever a beginning and an end
coincide. All things are moved by pushing and pulling; because of this something must

17
remain at rest, as we see in the case of the wheel, and motion must originate from this
position.”
20. This movement is continuous throughout the life of the animal, except that a rest period
is inserted midway between the push and the pull27 because it falls short of circular motion.
21. By this principle then we can easily solve the objections of an adversary.
22. For we do not say that the movement of the heart is natural to it inasmuch as it is heavy
or light, but inasmuch as it is animated by a certain kind of soul; and the two movements
which seem opposed are, as
25
Aristotle, The parts of animals, vol. I, Bk. III, ch. 4, 666a 11-13.
26
Aristotle, De anima, vol. I, Bk. III, ch. 10. 433b 21-22, 25-27
27
Modern physiologists do not speak of a rest period between systole and diastole, but within dia-
stole, which is itself the resting place of the ventricle, there are periods of inactivity such as those of
isometric relaxation and diastasis. Vide: Best and Taylor, The living body, New York, 1958. pp. 169-
173. In Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 44, art. 1, sed contra, p. 943 b, Thomas cites the
definition of fear given by St. John of Damascus (c. 674-749) in which the word ‘systole’ appears.
John says in De fide orthodoxa, Bk. III, ch. 23, 1088: “Natural fear is a force which maintains being
by means of systole.” Migne, Patrologia Graeca, t. XCIV, Paris, 1964. John had taken over this
definition from the work of Maximus the Confessor (580-662), Disputatio cum Pyrrho, 297 D.
Migne, Patrologia Graeca, t. XCI, Paris, 1865. As used here, the word ‘systole,’ which we can
translated by ‘retreat’ or ‘contraction,’ lacks medical significance. But in the De motu cordis of
Alfred of Sareshel we find specifically medical meanings attributed to ‘systole’ and ‘diastole.’
However, they are used only with reference to the arteries. He first gives the explanation of those
who speak of a spirit flowing through the arteries: “They say that diastole results when the arteries
are full and stretched by spirit that flows through them; systole results when it leaves the arteries.”
Op. cit., ch. 11, p. 46. He then gives the explanation of those who oppose the doctrine of the flowing
spirits. According to this group, “Radiation causes diastole; its cessation causes systole.” (op. cit.,
ch. 11, p. 47). Thomas in Summa theologiae (vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 24., art. 2, ad 2, p. 850 b) uses these
terms in reference to cardiac activity: “In every emotion of the soul there is an increase or decrease
in the natural movement of the heart according as the heart is moved more or less intensely in systole
or diastole.”

[28-29]

it were, parts of a single movement composed of both, in so far as it falls short of the
simplicity of circular movement, which it imitates in so far as it goes from a point back to
the same point. And so it is not contradictory if it goes somehow in different directions,
because circular movement also is in some respects like this.
23. Nor must it be caused by apprehension and desire, although it comes from the sensitive
soul;28 for it is not caused by the sensitive soul through its own operation, but inasmuch as
it is the form and nature of one particular body.
24. The locomotion of the animal is caused by the operations of the senses and the emo-
tions; and because of this medical men distinguish vital operations from animal operations,
and say that when the animal ones cease, the vital ones remain. They call vital those opera-
tions which accompany the movement of the heart, for when they cease, life is at an end;
and this is reasonable. For “to live” is the “to be” of living things, as is said in the second
book of the De Anima:29 the “to be” belongs to each thing in virtue of its own form.

18
 25. There is this difference between the principle of movement of the heavens and the soul:
this principle is moved neither essentially nor accidentally; but the sensitive soul, although
not moved essentially, is moved accidentally. Hence diverse cognitions and emotions arise
in it. Hence the movement of the heavens is always uniform but the movement of the heart
varies according to the diverse emotions and cognitions of the soul. For the emotions of the
soul are not caused by the modifications of the heart but rather cause them.30 Therefore in
the passions of the soul, as for example in anger,31 the formal element is that which comes
from the
28
Thomas here tacitly concedes that the heart is moved neither by the nutritive nor by the
intellectual soul but maintains that its movement is caused by the sensitive soul. He is challenging
the statement of an adversary as presented in paragraph 3, supra. It is easy to take paragraph 3 for
Thomas’ own position, since this opusculum, being a letter, does not exhibit the clearly defined
didactic structure of Thomas’ major works. Dr. Walter Pagel in his splendid article (loc. cit. [see note
d]) seems not to have avoided this snare, for he writes of Thomas: “The author first analyses the
relationship between the heart and the soul. To start with he rejects the possibility that individual
faculties of the soul cause the movements of the heart: plants possess a nutritive, augmentative, and
generative soul, but no heart. Nor are the sensitive or intellectual faculties responsible, since the heart
moves involuntarily” (p. 141) and “The motion of the heart cannot be explained in terms of action
by any force outside the organism, or even any partial faculty of the soul.”
29
Aristotle, De anima, vol. I, Bk. II, ch. 2, 413b 1-2.
30
Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q, 38, art. 5, obj. 3, 922 b: “Sorrow and pain, in so far as
they affect the body, bring about a certain change in the heart.” Also loc. cit., ad 3, p. 922 b: “Every
good disposition of the body reacts in some way on the heart, as on the principle and end of bodily
movement.; ibid., vol. I, Pars I, q. 20, art. 1, ad 1, p. 144 a: “The act of the sensitive appetite is always
accompanied by some change in the body, especially in the heart, which . . . is the first principle of
movement in animals.”
31
Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q, 48, art. 2 c, 962 b: “The movement of anger produces
fervor of the blood and spirits about the heart, which is the instrument of the soul’s emotions. And
hence it is that, because of the great disturbance of the heart when one is angry, certain signs are
especially evident in the exterior parts of those who are angry.”

[29-30]

will. namely, the desire for vengeance; but the material element32 is what pertains to the
movement of the heart, namely, excitement of blood about the heart.
26. In natural things the form does not exist for the sake of the matter, but conversely, as
is made clear in the second book of the Physics,33 but in matter there is disposition for form.
Therefore it is not because the blood about the heart is excited that someone seeks
vengeance, but because of this someone is inclined to anger.34 He becomes angry, however,
out of desire for vengeance.
27. Although some variation in the rhythm of the heart occurs due to diverse apprehensions
and emotions, this variation of rhythm is not voluntary but involuntary, because it does not
take place at the command of the will. For the philosopher says in the book, The Cause of
the Movement of Animals,35 that often at the sight of something the heart and genitals are
moved without a command of the intellect, and he gives this reason: that animals necessarily
are affected by physical changes; but when the parts are affected, one undergoes increase,
and another decrease, so that each is moved and modified by natural changes that are related
to one another.

19
 28. The causes of the movements of the animal are warmth and cold,36 which, naturally
present internally and externally, make the movements of the aforementioned parts, the heart
and genitals, take place in any case independently of reason when an alteration occurs.37 The
intellect and imagination cause emotion, such as concupiscence, anger, and the like on
account of which the heart grows warm or becomes chilled.38
29. Let these words on the movement of the heart suffice.
32
Ibid., vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 22, art. 2, ad 3, p. 843 b: “In the definitions of the movements of the
appetitive part some natural change of an organ is found from the standpoint of matter; as it is said
that “anger is the excitement of blood about the heart.” Also, ibid., vol. I, Pars I, q. 20, art. 1, ad 2,
p. 144 a: “Let us distinguish in the emotions of the sense appetite a certain material element, namely,
the bodily change, and a certain formal element, which belongs to appetite. Thus in anger . . . the
material element is the excitement of blood about the heart, or something like this; but the formal
element is the desire for revenge.”
33
Aristotle, Physics, vol. I, Bk. II, ch. 9, 200 a 30-34.
34
Summa contra Gentiles, vol. XIII, Bk. I, ch. 89, p. 240: “Every emotion comes about
concomitantly with some bodily changes: for example, concomitantly with the contraction or dilation
of the heart, or something like this.”
35
Aristotle, The movement of animals, vol. I, ch. 11, 703b 7-20.
36
This is explained in Summa theologiae, vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 6, art. 1, ad 2, p. 753a.
37
A discussion of this is found in ibid., vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 17, art. 9, ad, p. 809 b.
38
Cf. ibid., vol. II, Pars I-II, q. 44, art. 3, ad 3, p. 945 b, where Thomas illustrates the chilling
effects of fear: “Because in fear heat leaves the heart, and goes from the higher parts to the lower,
the heart especially trembles in those who are afraid, and the members which are connected to the
chest, where the heart resides, also tremble. Hence the fearful tremble especially in their speech,
because the artery of speech is near the heart. The lower lip, and the entire lower jaw, because of
their connection with the heart, also tremble. Because of this, the teeth chatter. For the same reason,
the arms and hands tremble.”

Source:

Vincent R. Larkin, “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Heart,” Journal of the History of Medicine,
xv, 1 (January 1960), 22-30.

Transcribed from: Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 1960 XV(1):22-
30; doi:10.1093/jhmas/XV.1.22 © 1960 by Oxford University Press

[N.B. I have silently corrected a few typographical errors in the text.]

20
1. ON THE DATE OF THE WORK.

Cf. Friar Thomas D’Aquino. His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and Addenda.
By James A. Weisheipl (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1983), pp. 394-395:

A Brief Catalogue of Authentic Works

73. De motu cordis ad Magistrum Phillipum de Castrocaeli (Paris 1270-71). Extant MSS:
119.

According to the catalogue of Bartholomew of Capua, this letter and another on the mixture
of the elements (n. 74) were both addressed to a certain “master Philip of Castrocaeli,” who is
otherwise unknown. Mandonnet suggested that master Philip may have been a physician,
professor first at Bologna and later at Naples; but no evidence is given. The purpose of this
letter is to show that the motion of the blood12 and heart is produced by “nature” and not by
“soul” or any outside forces. Both Mandonnet and Walz give the date as Naples 1273;
Eschmann suggests Paris 1270-71. This is one of the treatises preserved by Godfrey of [394-
395] Fontaines (Paris MS Bibl. Nat. lat. 14546) as a topic of special current interest. *
EDITIONS” Perrier, Opuscula, I, 63-93 (basic text: Paris Bibl. Nat. lat. 14546); Parma v,
*16, 358-60; Vivès v. 27, 507-11; Marietti 1954, Opuscula Phil., 165-68.
No English translation. *

Cf. ibid., p. 485:

CORRIGENDA AND ADDENDA

395.1 Bibl.Nat. lat. 14546: Bible Nat. lat. 16297;

395.3 EDITIONS: add: Leonine ed., v.43 (Rome 1976), preface 95-122; text 127-
130;

395.6 No English translation: English trans.: “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Movement
of the Heart”, Vincent R. Larkin, Journal of the History of Medicine, 25 (1960),
22-30.

2. DE MOTU CORDIS: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW.

Cf. Walter Pagel, William Harvey’s Biological Ideas: Selected Aspects and Historical
Background. (Basel/New York, 1967), Circular Symbolism, Heart and Blood Before
Harvey, pp. 90-93:

(b) St Thomas Aquinas on the Movement of the Heart (pl. 5, 6)

The Opusculum or rather Letter de motu cordis of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)10 has
occasionally been looked upon as a work on the motion of the blood—an appraisal that was
largely due to a misunderstanding of the term “circular.”11 The latter does occur in this Opus-
culum, but appertains to the motion of the heart and not of the blood. It is, however, a work
that displays interesting aspects and deserves a short discussion in the present context, if only

12
Contrary to what is here asserted, the word “blood” nowhere appears in the letter; cf. the next excerpt.

21
to the show the variety of meanings attaching to “circular” and “circulatio” and for the
influence it exerted in the era of the Renaissance.
It is regarded as a genuine work and has been translated and commented upon in recent
times.12
Ever since the reception of the philosophy of Aristotle and the acceptance of his psycho-
physical ideas in the early thirteenth century, the heart had formed the central focus of
biological speculation. This is seen in the role which it played in Alfred of Sareshal’s De motu
cordis, written before the death, in 1217, of Alexander Neckham to whom it is dedicated. 13
Some of St Thomas’ statements seem to be directed against Alfred.14 St Thomas’ speculation
is mainly concerned with the soul as the vital principle causing and directing the motion of the
heart, its character as a “natural” motion and its analogy with the motion of the heavens—its
“circularity”.
Its result is that the movement of the heart is due to the soul as the form of the body and
primarily of the heart. With this St Thomas does not mean that the soul resides in the heart.
Differing from Alfredus who made it the dwellingplace (domicilium) of the
10
De motu cordis ad Magistrum Phillipum, Opusculum Omnia, Antwerp 1612 opus XXXV,
p. 214. First ed. (folio) Milan, Beninus et Joh. Ant. de Honate. – Edition also used by the
present writer: Venetiis 1490 (ed. with a life of St Thomas by Anton Pizamanus) published in
4o by Herman Liechenstein Coloniensis, sig. J verso to J 2 verso = a separate edition with
another opusculum – Libelli doctoris Sancti Thomae aquinatis occultorum naturae effectum
Et proprii cordis motus causas declarantes studentibus phusice summe necessari appeared at
Leipzig—per Jacobum Thaner of Würzburg—1499.
11
BAYON, H. P. William Harvey, Physician and Biologist: His precursors, opponents, and
successors Part III, Annals of Sci. 1958, III, 445.
12
LARKIN, VINCENT R. St Thomas Aquinas on the movement of the heart. J. Hist. Med.
1960, XV, 22-30. See also idem, St Thomas Aquinas on the combining of the elements. Isis
1960, LI 67-72—a translation of St. Thomas’ De mixtione elementorum, like De motu cordis,
a letter addressed to a Master Philip (ab. 1270).
13
Excerpta a libro Alfredi Anglici de motu cordis item Costar-ben-Lucae de differentia animas
et spiritas liber translatus a Johanne Hispalensi. ed. C.S. BARACH Innsbruck 1878. – C.
BAEUMKER, C. Des Alfred von Sareshal (Alfredus Anglicus) Schrift De motu cordis,
Münster 1923. – Idem, Die Stellung des Alfred von Sareshal (Alfred Anglicus) und seiner
beginnenden XIII. Jarhunderts. Sitzber, Kgl. Bayer, Akad. d. Wiss. Philos-hist. Kl. 1915, IX
München 1913.
14
See below.

[90-91]

soul,15 St Thomas regarded the latter as the form of the body as a whole. In this he followed
Plotinus and St Augustine who regarded the soul as “wholly in the whole body, and whole in
each of its parts.”16 The movement of the heart that appears first in the developing organism
is the principle of all the movements that exist in the animal, and under this aspect is linked
with the soul, the vital principle of the organism as a whole.17
Secondly, the motion of the heart is natural. It is so, however, not in the ordinary sense of
motus naturalis, predicated of a body because it is heavy or light and thus follows one
direction, but because movement is immanent to the heart that is animated by a certain kind
of soul18 and not due to external force causing the so called motus violentus.19 Nor finally is it
caused by such external force as heat—for it is the very movement of the heart that engenders
heat.20
In all these points opposition to Alfred’s stipulations is recognisable. The latter had denied
the intimate connexion of the motion of the heart with the soul: it is not a motus animalis as it
is independent of appetitus and intelligentia practica. Alfredus refutes its natural character,

22
as the heart does not follow its weight and move to the centre, but remains on its level;
moreover it is moved by an outside force, namely the heat which distends air and blood. Its
movement, therefore, belongs to the same category as the movement of smoke that moves
upwards and that of a burning torch which leads the fire in a downward direction.21
According to St Thomas the movement of the heart is a rhythmically repeated series of
pushing and pulling actions. Though continuous throughout the life of the animal this move-
ment is not strictly circular because there is a rest period inserted midway between the push
and the pull. It is a movement not circular, but “like circular movement” (habuit—namely,
cor—quendam motum non circularem, sed similum circulari compositum). This circularity
comes about because the heart and its movement are the principle and end of all the move-
ments that exist in the animal. It results from the soul, the “form” of the body and primarily of
the heart—the noblest form that exists in earthly bodies—and thus resembles the principle of
the movement of the heavens. It follows that the movement of the heart must be like that of
the heavens. It necessarily falls short of the latter, as the effect falls short of the cause. On the
other hand, it imitates its perfect and uninterrupted—“simple”—circular movement in so far
as it goes from the a point back to the same point (quem tamen imitator in quantum est ab
eodem in idem). Though consisting of two parts—systole and diastole22—it is
15
Cor igitur domicilium est. Alfred De motu cordis, ed. Baeumker loc. cit. in note [13], p. 35,
l. 18; p. 45, l. 10; p. 45, l. 20; anima igitur, quae sensus et motus et vitae principium est, arcem
corporis, id est cor, inhabitat: p. 86, l. 8 and similar passages as compiled in the index to
Baeumker’s ed. p. 103. See also Barach loc. cit. in note [13], p. 70: [remainder of note
omitted].
16
Hoti hole en pasi kai en hotooun autou hole: Plotinus, Ennead. IV, 2, 1. ed. H.F. Mueller
Berol. 1880, vol. II, p. 6. – ARISTOTLE, De Anima lib. I , cap. 5; 412b. – We return to this
in the chapter on Marcus Marci later in this book, see p. 314.
17
Therefore the movement of the heart is natural because it results from the soul, in as much
as it is the form of one particular body and primarily of the heart. Thomas Aquinas on the
Heart 17 tr. VINCENT R. LARKIN loc. cit. in note [12]. To this [see] LARKIN’S long note
23 on Thomas’ departing from the teaching of his master Albertus Magnus who adopted the
opinion of Alfred of Sareshal. See above our footnote [25] with the passage from Baruch. The
basic ref. to Aristotle is

[91-92]

De motu animal. cap. 10; 703 a 29 and 703 b 1 seq. and 703 a 19.

really a single movement. Its composite structure does not therefore exclude it from being
“natural” although its “naturalness” does not follow from this, but from its animation by a
certain kind of soul—the sensitive soul as the form and nature of a particular kind of body. 23
Nor is its going in different directions a point against its circularity, also as circular movement
is in some respects like this.
From this short analysis of St Thomas’ treatise it emerges, then, that he indeed speaks of a
circular movement or at least one that comes close to the “simple” circular motion of the
heavens. It is not the movement of the blood with which he is concerned, however, but that of
the heart. In this “circular” means that it starts from one point and returns to it—so does the
blood, but in quite a different way. The blood sets out from the heart and returns to it after
having travelled a long distance. St. Thomas knows nothing of this or at all events does not
mention it. The circularity with which he deals merely indicates the rhythmical repetition of a
movement that is uniformly composed of two acts: that of pull and push, of pulsus and tractus,
of systole and diastole.
Perhaps this should be associated with a term used by the—older—Maimonides (1135-
1204). The latter speaks of the circular movement of the arteries. This is compared with the

23
“moving of a ball, since the palpitation of the artery is explained to the senses by the
termination of the circuit (gemirath ha-sibbuh).”24
This seems to allude to the very passage which St Thomas quotes from Aristotle, De Anima:
“that which is the instrument in the production of movement is to be found where a beginning
and an end coincide, as for example in a ball and socket joint; for there the convex and the
concave sides are respectively an end and a beginning (that is why one remains at rest while
the other is moved): they are separate in definition, but not separate spatially. For everything
is moved by pushing and pulling. Hence just as in the case of a wheel, so here there must be a
point which remains at rest, and from that point the movement must originate.”25
The similar way in which this matter is treated by Maimonides and St Thomas may justify
the suggestion that the latter was influenced by Maimonides therein. An additional influence
on St Thomas may be found in the use of the terms systole and diastole with regard to the
arteries by Alfred of Sareshel. He stipulates that the spirit of life is not moved, but emanates
from the left ventricle of the heart by irradiation. He says, the flux of the spirit through the
arteries causing them to be repleted and elevated has been called diastole and its cessation
systole. Alfred, then, in common with Maimonides speaks of the rhythmically repeated
movement
18
Tr. LARKIN 22.
19
Tr. LARKIN 4.
20
Tr. LARKIN 8.
21
ALFREDUS ANGLICUS, ed. Bauemker, loc. cit. in note [13], cap. IX; De specie motus
cordis, p. 35-37.
22
Tr. LARKIN 19-22, referring to Aristotle, De anima, III, 10; see below note [25] and text
to this note.
23
Tr. LARKIN 22.
24
LEIBOWITZ, J.O. in Korath 1935, I, 7-8 with ref. to the IVth Particula of Maimonides,
Aphorismi, which deals with the pulse. [remainder of note omitted]
25
ARISTOTLE, De anima lib.III, cap. 10; 433 b 21-22; 25-27 tr. J.A. SMITH, Oxford 1931.
See also ARISTOTLE De motu animal. cap. 10; 703 a 19; see above note [22] and below
p.276, note [115]. Also: GALEN, Defin. med., cxii, Kühn, XIX, 377.

[92-93]

of the arteries—he does not mention it with reference to the heart. By contrast, St Thomas
does.26
26
ALFREDUS ANGLICUS, ed. Bauemker, loc. cit. in note [13], cap. XI; Quod spiritus vitae
non movetur, sed fit irradiatione virtutis p. 461L diastolen igitur irraditio, sistolen spadulatio
fecit, as against: repleta et elevata arteria per fluentem spiritum diastolem fieri dicunt; sistolen
vero, cum arterio egressus fuerit, p. 46-47. See to this: Larkin loc. cit. in note [12], p. 28 note
27 to passage 20 of Thomas’ De motu cordis on the medical meanings attributed by Alfred to
systole and diastole, but used exclusively with reference to the arteries. By contrast Thomas
speaks of the rest period inserted midway between push and pull of the heart (paragr. 20) and
the increase or decrease in its natural movement in systole and diastole in every emotion. For
the latter Larkin quotes from Summa theolog. vol. II, pars I-II, q. 24, art. 2, ad 2, p. 850b, ed.
Ottawa 1941.

24
3. SUPPLEMENTAL TEXTS.

a. Whether the acts of the external members are commanded?

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia-IIae, q. 17, art. 9 (tr. Fr. Laurence Shapcote):

Objection 1: It would seem that the members of the body do not obey reason as to their acts.
For it is evident that the members of the body are more distant from the reason, than the powers
of the vegetal soul. But the powers of the vegetal soul do not obey reason, as stated above
(A[8]). Therefore much less do the members of the body obey.

Objection 2: Further, the heart is the principle of animal movement. But the movement of
the heart is not subject to the command of reason: for Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat.
Hom. xxii.] says that “the pulse is not controlled by reason.” Therefore the movement of the
bodily members is not subject to the command of reason.

Objection 3: Further, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 16) that “the movement of the genital
members is sometimes inopportune and not desired; sometimes when sought it fails, and
whereas the heart is warm with desire, the body remains cold.” Therefore the movements of
the members are not obedient to reason.

On the contrary, Augustine says (Confess. viii, 9): “The mind commands a movement of
the hand, and so ready is the hand to obey, that scarcely can one discern obedience from
command.”

I answer that, The members of the body are organs of the soul’s powers. Consequently
according as the powers of the soul stand in respect of obedience to reason, so do the members
of the body stand in respect thereof. Since then the sensitive powers are subject to the
command of reason, whereas the natural powers are not; therefore all movements of members,
that are moved by the sensitive powers, are subject to the command of reason; whereas those
movements of members, that arise from the natural powers, are not subject to the command of
reason.

Reply to Objection 1: The members do not move themselves, but are moved through the
powers of the soul; of which powers, some are in closer contact with the reason than are the
powers of the vegetal soul.

Reply to Objection 2: In things pertaining to intellect and will, that which is according to
nature stands first, whence all other things are derived: thus from the knowledge of principles
that are naturally known, is derived knowledge of the conclusions; and from volition of the
end naturally desired, is derived the choice of the means. So also in bodily movements the
principle is according to nature. Now the principle of bodily movements begins with the
movement of the heart. Consequently the movement of the heart is according to nature, and
not according to the will: for like a proper accident, it results from life, which follows from
the union of soul and body. Thus the movement of heavy and light things results from their
substantial form: for which reason they are said to be moved by their generator, as the
Philosopher states (Phys. viii, 4). Wherefore this movement is called “vital.” For which reason
Gregory of Nyssa (Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxii) says that, just as the movement of generation
and nutrition does not obey reason, so neither does the pulse which is a vital movement. By
the pulse he means the movement of the heart which is indicated by the pulse veins.
Reply to Objection 3: As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 17,20) it is in punishment of sin
that the movement of these members does not obey reason: in this sense, that the soul is
punished for its rebellion against God, by the insubmission of that member whereby original

25
sin is transmitted to posterity. But because, as we shall state later on, the effect of the sin of
our first parent was that his nature was left to itself, through the withdrawal of the supernatural
gift which God had bestowed on man, we must consider the natural cause of this particular
member’s in submission to reason. This is stated by Aristotle (De Causis Mot. Animal.) who
says that “the movements of the heart and of the organs of generation are involuntary,” and
that the reason of this is as follows. These members are stirred at the occasion of some
apprehension; in so far as the intellect and imagination represent such things as arouse the
passions of the soul, of which passions these movements are a consequence. But they are not
moved at the command of the reason or intellect, because these movements are conditioned
by a certain natural change of heat and cold, which change is not subject to the command of
reason. This is the case with these two organs in particular, because each is as it were a separate
animal being, in so far as it is a principle of life; and the principle is virtually the whole. For
the heart is the principle of the senses; and from the organ of generation proceeds the seminal
virtue, which is virtually the entire animal. Consequently they have their proper movements
naturally: because principles must needs be natural, as stated above (Reply obj. 2).

26
b. On the causes of animal motion:

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima translated by Kenelm Foster,
O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven, 1951), Book III, lectio 15:

TEXT
433a9–433b27

BOOK III, CHAPTER X

THE PRINCIPLES OF MOVEMENT IN LIVING BEINGS CONTINUED

WHAT THEY ARE

It seems that there are two motive-forces, mind and appetency (if one is to account imagi-
nation a sort of mind. For many follow the imagination instead of intellectual knowledge,
while in other animals there is no intellect or reason at all, but only imagination). Both of these
effect movement in place then,—intellect and appetency. §§ 818-19

Now, the intellectual power which reasons to some purpose in view, and is practical, differs
in its end from the speculative. Appetition also is always for a purpose; for that of which there
is desire is the principle of the practical ‘intellect. The last end is the first principle of action.
Hence, it seems reasonable to take these two as the motive forces, appetition, and the practical
reason. For the object of appetite causes motion; and it is for this that reason also initiates
movement, the desirable being its principle. And when imagination moves, it only does so
with appetition. Therefore there is one single mover,—the object desired. For if there were
two movers, intellect and appetition, they would move in virtue of some common principle.
Now reason does not appear to cause movement apart from appetency; for will is an appetency.
When there is movement by reason there is also movement by will. But appetition moves apart
from reason, for concupiscence is a sort of appetition. §§ 820-5

All intellect, then, is right, but imagination and appetition may be right or not right. Hence,
while the object of appetite is always what motivates, this can be either a good or only a
seeming good. Not, however, every good, but the practical good. Now a practical object is that
which is able to be other than it is. It is therefore evident that what moves the soul is a power
of this kind called appetite. §§ 826-7

For those who divide the soul into parts, if they split it up by: distinguishing its powers, a great
many parts result: the vegetative, the sensitive, the intellective, the deliberative, and lastly the
appetitive. These differ from one another much more than do the concupiscible and irascible.
§ 828

Since appetites may run counter to one another, this occurs when reason and desire are
contrary (and only in beings possessing a time-sense. Reason commands restraint for the sake
of some future thing, but desire is for what is now present. For what appears desirable at any
given instant appears desirable without qualification and good without qualification, because
the future is not apparent). § 829

The motive-force will therefore be specifically one,—the desirable, or the appetite itself; and
first of all the desirable, for this is what causes motion without itself being moved, simply
through being understood or imagined,—but numerically there are several moving factors. §
830

27
Since there are these three: the mover; secondly, that by which it moves; thirdly, that which is
moved; and since the mover is double (the immobile one, and the mover that is also moved)
the immobile mover is, accordingly, the practical good, whereas that which both moves and is
moved is the appetite. For the subject desiring is moved in so far as it desires, and its desire is
an act or movement of a certain kind. What receives the motion is the animal. But that by
which it moves is an organ, already something corporeal. Hence, what pertains to it must be
studied along with activities common to body and soul. § 831

Now, in short, organic movement arises where the principle and term are the same: as in the
joint of a hinge are the convex and the concave,—the latter being the end, the former the
beginning. Hence one is at rest while the other moves They are distinct in idea, but inseparable
spatially. All things move by pushing and pulling. Hence there must, as in a circle, be
something that stays still; from which [point] movement begins. §§ 832-5

ST. THOMAS’S COMMENTARY

LECTIO FIFTEEN

§ 818. So far the Philosopher has pursued his enquiry into the principle of local movement in
animals by the method of refuting unsatisfactory solutions; but now he states the positive truth
on the matter: first, showing in general what that principle is; and secondly, at ‘Generally
then’, how it varies in different subjects. The first point again divides into (a) a statement of
the motive principle in animals; and (b), at ‘The motive-force will therefore’, an analysis of
the factors at work when this principle is in action. Again (a) subdivides into three points: (1)
That there are two motive-principles; which (2) he reduces to one, at ‘Now the intellectual
power’, while with (3) he answers an objection (at ‘Since appetites.’) already raised.

First, then, he says that the foregoing examination makes it clear that neither the vegetative
nor the sensitive part is the motive-principle, since they are found in things that do not move.
So it would seem that the moving principles are two: intellect and appetency. Note, however,
that he includes imagination under intellect; for it resembles intellect in that it impels to action
in the absence of sense-objects.

§ 819. For in their actions many people follow the changes in their imaginations rather than
rational knowledge; for instance, those who act impulsively without reflection. Besides, other
animals ate obviously only impelled to action through imagination, not through intellect or
reason; but men through both intellect and imagination. Clearly, then, both these are motive-
principles: intellect (including imagination) and appetition.

§ 820. Then at ‘Now the intellectual,’ he reduces the two to one; and this in three stages: (1)
justifying the reduction; (2), at ‘All intellect, then, is right,’ using it to show the cause of a
particular accidental factor in animal movements; and (3) refuting, at ‘For those who divide’
an early division of the powers of the soul.

First, then, he says that the mind as a motive-principle is the mind in so far as it reasons for
some purpose other than mere reasoning; in other words, it is the practical reason, which
differs from the speculative by a different finality; for while the latter regards truth for its own
sake and nothing else, the practical reason relates its knowledge of truth to some deed to be
done.

§ 821. Now obviously every appetition is for some end beyond itself. It is absurd to say that
desire is for the sake of desiring; desire is essentially a tendency to ‘the other’. Moreover, an
object of desire is always the practical reason’s starting point; what is first desired provides
the end whence its deliberations begin. If we wish to weigh a course of action we first lay

28
down some end and then deliberate about the means, moving back, so to say, from what is to
come later on to what is immediately to be done at the beginning. So he adds that the last thing
that the practical reason considers is the first thing that has to be done—i.e. the starting point
of the whole action. This is why it is reasonable to assert that both appetition and the practical
reason are motive-principles; for the object desired certainly incites to action, and it is also
what the practical reason first considers; so that the latter is said to impel to action because the
starting point of its deliberations, the object desired, does so.

§ 822. And what is said of the intellect may be applied to the imagination; if it moves it does
so only in virtue of an object desired: of which it contains, like the intellect, a representation.

§ 823. So it is clear that there is ultimately one mover, the object desired. For this both moves
appetition and affords a starting point for the practical intellect—the two motive-principles
which have been assumed.

§ 824. And it is reasonable that these two principles should be reduced to unity in the object
of desire; for if both intellect and appetition are principles with respect to one and the same
movement they must, as such, share the same specific nature; since a single effect implies
always a single cause of precisely that one effect. Now it cannot be said that appetite is a
moving principle through sharing the specific nature of intellect, but rather e converso; for
intellect only moves anything in virtue of appetition. It moves by means of the will, which is
a sort of appetition.

§ 825. The explanation of this (given in Book IX of the Metaphysics) is that the practical
reason is essentially balanced between alternatives; nor can it initiate movement unless
appetition fixes it exclusively upon one alternative. Appetition, on the other hand, can move
to action independently of reason, as we see in the case of the concupiscible desire which is a
sort of appetite. He mentions this desire rather than the irascible because, unlike the irascible,
it has no admixture of rationality (as he shows in Book VII of the Ethics). Clearly, then, the
motive-principles are reducible to the one object of appetition.

§ 826. Next at ‘All intellect then’ he applies what has been said to a particular accidental factor
in movement or action, explaining why we go amiss in our actions. ‘All intellect’, he says, ‘is
right’, by which he means that we never err about the first principles of action, about such
truths as ‘it is wrong to do harm to anyone’, or ‘injustice is never right’, and so on. Those
principles correspond to the equally infallible first principles of the speculative reason. But as
for the consequences of these first principles, if we apprehend them aright it is because our
thought is consistent with our grasp of the principles, whereas if we deviate from the truth the
fault lies in our reasoning. Appetition and imagination (motive-principles likewise) may be,
on the other hand, either right or wrong. Hence if we act amiss it is, in the last analysis, because
we fall short of what we intellectually know; and our previous conclusion stands, that the final
motive-impulse comes from the object of desire.

§ 827. Now this object is either a real good or a seeming good: it is a real good if the mind’s
original correct judgement is maintained; it is only a seeming good if appetite or imagination
cause a deflection from that judgement. Yet not every good is desirable as a cause of action,
but only the good-as-term-of-action, i.e. a good that is actually related to our actions. And
precisely as such no such good is always good in the same way; for it must vary in relation to
ourselves. That is why the ultimate and absolute good, regarded in its universality, does not,
as such, move us to act. Clearly, then, the final motive force derives from the soul itself acting
through the appetitive power.

29
§ 828. Then at ‘For those who divide’, he rejects an old division of the motive parts of the soul
into the rational, irascible and concupiscible potencies. If, he says, the intention was to
enumerate the potencies which are really distinct from each other, others should have been
included, namely the vegetative, sensitive, intellectual, deliberative and appetitive powers.
These last two are distinguished in the same way and for the same reason as, in the Ethics,2
Book VI, Aristotle distinguishes the ratiocinative faculty, which has to do with contingent
matters, from the scientific faculty which has to do with necessary objects. All these parts of
the soul differ more than the irascible and concupiscible, which are both included in the
sensitive appetite. Hence that old division was incomplete.

§ 829. Next, at ‘Since appetites may’, he meets an objection already touched upon, namely
that if desire were a motive force, nobody would be continent; the continent, by definition, do
not follow their desires. But this difficulty vanishes if we consider that in man there are
contrary appetites, of which the continent follow one and reject the rest. Contrariety of desires
springs out of an opposition between reason and the concupiscible appetite; and this happens
‘in beings possessing a time-sense’, i.e. that are aware, not of the present moment only, but of
past and future as well. For sometimes the mind forbids a man to indulge a desire in view of
what will happen in the future if it is indulged: thus a man in a state of fever sees with his mind
that he ought to abstain from drinking wine. But desire prompts one to take things for the sake
of ‘what is now’ i.e. in the present moment. For what is here and now pleasant seems
absolutely pleasant and good if it is not related to the future.

§ 830. Then at ‘The motive-force’ he analyses the process of the movements in question; and
this in three stages. First, he shows how the factors in movement are at once many and one.
Next, at ‘Since there are these three’, he explains how they are interrelated. Finally, at ‘Now,
in short’, he briefly defines each of the factors on which movement depends. First, then, he
observes that if the moving principles are considered formally and specifically they are
reducible to one, to the object of desire or appetite; for this is the absolute starting point of
movement, inasmuch as, being itself unmoved, it initiates movement through the mind or the
imagination. And because the secondary motive-principles only move in virtue of their share
in the primary one, therefore they all as such partake of the nature of this primary one. And
yet, though specifically one, they are numerically many.

§ 831. Then at ‘Since there are these three’, he interrelates three factors in movement: (1) the
mover, (2) the organ by which it moves, and (3) the thing moved. Now the mover is twofold:
an unmoved mover, and a mover that moves through being moved itself. In the case of animals,
the unmoved mover is some actual good influencing desire through the intellect or imagina-
tion. The mover moved is the desire itself, for whatever desires is moved inasmuch as it
desires, desire itself being a certain act or movement in the sense that we give to the term
‘movement’ when we apply it to activities that are consequent upon actuality, such as sensing
and understanding. Then the thing moved is the animal itself. And the organ by means of
which desire issues into movement is a part of the body; it is the primary motor-organ; hence
it has to be treated along with the activities common to body and soul (and is, in fact, examined
in the De Causa Motus Animalium). But here and now we are concerned particularly with the
soul.

§ 832. Next, at ‘Now, in short” he briefly states his view on the organ of local motion. He says
that the primary organic motive-principle must be such that the movement starts and finishes
in the same point, proceeding in a circle, as it were, and having a swelling out at the starting
point and a concavity at the end. For the contractual movement draws the organ into concavity,
while the expansive impulse, whence movement begins, follows a swelling out of the organ.

30
 § 833. Now, granted that this primary organ is both the starting point and term of movement,
it must, as starting point, be motionless, and, as term, in movement; and both these at once.
For in any movement the starting point itself does not move, all movement must proceed from
the motionless,—as, for instance, while the hand is moving the arm is still, and while the arm
moves the shoulder is still. However, these two factors in the organ, the motionless and the
moved, though distinct in thought, are substantially and spatially inseparable.

§ 834. And that the organ is both starting point and term (and therefore both motionless and
moved) is clear from the fact that all animal movements consist of impulsions and retractions.
In impulsion the motive force comes from the starting point, for the impelling agent thrusts
itself forward against what is impelled. But in retraction the motive force comes from the term,
for the drawing power draws something back to itself Thus the first organ of local motion in
animals must be at once both a starting point and a term.

§ 835. So then there must be in it something that stays still and yet initiates motion. And in
this it resembles circular movement: for a body revolving in a circle is kept as a whole in the
same place by the immobility of the centre and the poles. In thought it may move as a whole,
but not in reality. In reality it keeps to one place. But its parts are changing their places really,
and not only in thought. And so it is with the heart: it remains fixed in the same part of the
body while it dilates and contracts and so gives rise to movements of impulsion and retraction.
Thus it is, in a sense, both motionless and moving.

N.B. For purposes of comparison, I give next an alternate translation of the last part of St.
Thomas’s Commentary.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle. trans. R. A. Kocourek
(Minn.: College of St. Thomas, 1946), Bk. III, lect. 15, nn. 830-835, pp. 170-171:

830. Then, when he says, “it follows that while that which originates…”, he shows the order
of motion. And with respect to this he does three things. First he shows how the moving
principles are one and how they are many. Secondly, he shows how they are ordered to each
other, where he says, “All movement involves three…”. Thirdly, he treats in summary each
one of these which are required for motion, where he says, “To state the matter summarily…”
Therefore he says first that if the moving principles are considered formally and according to
species, there will be one mover, namely the appetible; for this is the unmoved mover, in so
far as it is imagined or understood. For it is clear that the second movers are not moved except
in so far as they participate in the first. And therefore all things agree in the species of the first
mover. But although all things agree in the species of the first mover, still they are many in
number.

831. Then, when he says, “All movement involves three…”, he assigns the order of motion;
and he says that there are three things which are found in motion. One which is the mover,
another is the organ by which the mover moves, and the third is that which is moved. But the
mover is twofold; one indeed immobile, and another which is a moved mover. Therefore in
the motion of the animal, the mover which is not moved is the actual good which moves the
appetite in so far as it s understood or imagined. But the moved mover is the appetite itself;
because everything which seeks in so far as it seeks is moved, and to seek itself is a kind of
act or motion in the sense that motion is the act of the perfect as was said of the operation of
the intellect and sense. But what is moved is the animal. But the organ by which the appetite
moves is something corporeal, namely what is the first organ of motion; and therefore we must
consider an organ of this sort among the operations common to soul and body. For he treats
of this in a book on the cause of motion of animals. For in this book he intends to treat of the
soul by itself.

31
 832. Then, when he says, “To state the matter summarily…”, he treats in summary of local
motion; and he says, in summary, that the first mover organically must be such that the
beginning and end of the motion are the same thing, just as in a kind of ball and socket joint,
in which there is convex and concave, one of which is, as it were the end and the other the
beginning. For the concave is as the end, but the convex seems to be the principle of the
motion. For according to concavity it is contracted in itself, according to convexity its dilation
is noticed, as the principle of motion and pulsation is produced by it.

833. And because in itself there is the beginning and end of motion; but the beginning of
motion must be immobile in each thing moved, just as when the hand is moved the arm is at
rest, and when the arm is moved the shoulder is at rest, and just as every motion proceeds from
something immobile, it is necessary that in the very organ of motion itself, which is the heart,
there be something at rest, in so far as it is the beginning of motion, and something which is
moved, in so far as motion is terminated in it. And these two in themselves, namely the resting
and the moved are diverse in definition, although they are inseparable from each other in
subject and in magnitude.

834. And that it is necessary that it be the beginning and end of motion and consequently at
rest and mobile is clear from the fact that every motion of the animal is composed of pushing
and pulling. But in pushing, that which is moving is only the beginning of motion because that
which pushes removes from itself that which is pushed. But in pulling that which moves is the
end of the motion, because the pulling moves to itself that which is pulled. And because of
this it is necessary that the first organ of local motion in the animal be both as the beginning
of motion and the term.

835. And therefore it is necessary that in this there be something fixed, and still that [is]
whence the motion begins, just as appears in circular motion. For the body which is moved
circularly because of the immobility of the center and pole, does not change place totally
except perchance in reason; but according to the whole it remains in the same place according
to subject; but the parts vary their place in subject, and not in reason only; thus also it is in
every motion of the heart. For the heart remains fixed in the same part of the body, but it is
moved according to dilation and constriction, [170-171] so that it causes the motion of pushing
and pulling; and thus in a way it is mobile and in a way at rest.

Cf. Aristotle, Movement of Animals, ch. 4 (799b 33-800a 11) (tr. A.S.L. Farquharson):

To resume, must there be something immovable and at rest outside of what is moved, and
no part of it, or not? And must this necessarily be so also in the case of the universe? Perhaps
it would be thought strange were the origin of movement inside. And to those who so conceive
it the word of Homer2 would appear to have been well spoken: [35] ‘Nay, ye would not pull
Zeus, highest of all from heaven to the plain, no not even if ye toiled right hard; come, all ye
gods and goddesses! Set hands to the chain’; [700a] for that which is entirely immovable
cannot possibly be moved by anything. And herein lies the solution of the difficulty stated
some time back, the possibility or [5] impossibility of dissolving the system of the heavens, in
that it depends from an original which is immovable. Now in the animal world there must be
not only an immovable without, but also within those things which move in place, and initiate
their own movement. For one part of an animal must be moved, and another be at rest, and
against this the [10] part which is moved will support itself and be moved; for example, if it
move one of its parts; for one part, as it were, supports itself against another part at rest.
2
See Iliad VIII 20-22.

Cf. Aristotle, ibid., ch. 10 (703a 3—703b 2) (tr. A.S.L. Farquharson):

32
 Although from the point of view of the definition of [5] movement—a definition which gives
the cause—desire is the middle term or cause, and desire moves being moved, still in the
material animated body there must be some material which itself moves being moved. Now
that which is moved, but whose nature is not to initiate movement, is capable of being passive
to an external force, while that which initiates movement must needs possess a kind of force
and power. Now experience shows us that animals do both possess connatural spirit and derive
power from this. [10] (How this connatural spirit is maintained in the body is explained in
other passages of our works.) And this spirit appears to stand to the soul-centre or original in
a relation analogous to that between the point in a joint which moves being moved and the
unmoved. Now since this centre is for some animals in the heart, in the rest in a [15] part
analogous with the heart, we further see the reason for the connatural spirit being situate where
it actually is found. The question whether the spirit remains always the same or constantly
changes and is renewed, like the cognate question about the rest of the parts of the body, is
better postponed. At all events we see that it is well disposed to excite movement and to exert
power; and the functions of movement are thrusting and pulling.
Accordingly, the organ of movement must be capable of expanding [20] and contracting;
and this is precisely the characteristic of spirit. It contracts and expands naturally, and so is
able to pull and to thrust from one and the same cause, exhibiting gravity compared with the
fiery element, and levity by comparison with the opposites of fire. Now that which is to initiate
movement without [25] change of structure [i.e. without alteration (B.A.M.)] must be of the
kind described,13 for the elementary bodies prevail over one another in a compound body by
dint of disproportion; the light is overcome and kept down by the heavier, and the heavy kept
up by the lighter.
We have now explained what the part is which is moved when the soul originates movement
in the body, and what is the reason for this. And the animal organism must be conceived after
the similitude of a well-governed commonwealth. When [30] order is once established in it
there is no more need of a separate monarch to preside over each several task. The individuals
each play their assigned part as it is ordered, and one thing follows another in its accustomed
order. So in animals there is the same orderliness—nature taking the place of custom—and
each part naturally doing his own work as nature [35] has composed them. There is no need
then of a soul in each part, but she resides in a kind of central governing place of the body,
and the remaining parts live by continuity of natural structure, and [703b] play the parts Nature
would have them play.

Cf. Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, III. 4 (665a 27-666b 1) (tr. William Ogle):

We have now dealt with the neck, the oesophagus, and the windpipe, and have next to treat
of the viscera. These are peculiar to sanguineous animals, some of which have all of them,
others only a part, while no bloodless animals have any at [30] all. Democritus then seems to
have been mistaken in the notion he formed of the viscera, if, that is to say, he fancied that the
reason why none were discoverable in bloodless animals was that these animals were too small
to allow them to be seen. For, in sanguineous animals, both heart and liver are visible enough
when the body is only just formed, and while it is still extremely small. [665b] For these parts
are to be seen in the egg sometimes as early as the third day, being then no bigger than a point;
and are visible also in aborted embryos, while still excessively minute. Moreover, as the
external organs are not precisely alike in all animals, but each creature is provided with such
as are suited to its special mode of life and motion, so is it with the internal parts, these also
differing in different animals.

13
Notice that St. Thomas adduces these words as being said of the heart, rather than of the spirit; cf. De Motu,
n. 8.

33
 Viscera, then, [5] are peculiar to sanguineous animals; and therefore are each and all formed
from sanguineous material, as is plainly to be seen in the new-born young of these animals.
For in such the viscera are more sanguineous, and of greater bulk in proportion to the body,
than at any later period of life, it being in the earliest stage of formation that the nature of the
material and its abundance are most conspicuous. There is a heart, then, in all sanguineous
animals, [10] and the reason for this has already been given. For that sanguineous animals
must necessarily have blood is self-evident. And, as the blood is fluid, it is also a matter of
necessity that there shall be a receptacle for it; and it is apparently to meet this requirement
that nature has devised the blood-vessels. These, again, must necessarily have one primary
source. For it is preferable that there shall be one such, [15] when possible, rather than several.
This primary source of the vessels is the heart. For the vessels manifestly issue from it and do
not go through it. Moreover, being as it is homogeneous, it has the character of a blood-vessel.
Again its position is that of a primary or dominating part. For nature, when no other more
important purpose stands in her way, places the more honourable part in the more honourable
position; and the [20] heart lies about the centre of the body, but rather in its upper than its
lower half, and also more in front than behind. This is most evident in the case of man, but
even in other animals there is a tendency in the heart to assume a similar position, in the centre
of the necessary part of the body, that is to say of the part which terminates in the vent for
excrement. For the limbs vary in position in different animals, and [25] are not to be counted
with the parts which are necessary for life. For life can be maintained even when they are
removed; while it is self-evident that the addition of them to an animal is not destructive of it.
There are some who say that the vessels commence in the head. In this they are clearly
mistaken. For in the first place, according to their representation, there would be many sources
for the vessels, and these scattered; and secondly, these sources would [30] be in a region that
is manifestly cold, as is shown by its intolerance of chill, whereas the region of the heart is as
manifestly hot. Again, as already said, the vessels continue their course through the other
viscera, but no vessel spreads through the heart. From this it is quite evident that the heart is a
part of the vessels and their origin; and for this it is well suited by its structure. For its central
part consists of a dense and hollow [666b] substance, and is moreover full of blood, as though
the vessels took thence their origin. It is hollow to serve for the reception of the blood, while
its wall is dense, that it may serve to protect the source of heat. For here, and here alone in all
the viscera [5] and indeed in all the body, there is blood without blood-vessels, the blood
elsewhere being always contained within vessels. Nor is this but consistent with reason. For
the blood is conveyed into the vessels from the heart, but none passes into the heart from
without. For in itself it constitutes the origin and fountain, or primary receptacle, of [10] the
blood. It is however, from dissections and from observations on the process of development
that the truth of these statements receives its clearest demonstration. For the heart is the first
of all the parts to be formed; and no sooner is it formed than it contains blood. Moreover, the
motions of pain and pleasure, and generally of all sensation, plainly have their source in the
heart, and find in it their ultimate termination.14 This, indeed, reason would lead us to expect.
For the source must, whenever [15] possible, be one; and, of all places, the best suited for a
source is the centre. For the centre is one, and is equally or almost equally within reach of
every part. Again, as neither the blood itself, nor yet any part which is bloodless, is endowed
with sensation, it is plain that that part which first has blood, and which holds it as it were in
a receptacle, must be the primary source of sensation. And that this part is the heart is [20] not
only a rational inference, but also evident to the senses. For no sooner is the embryo formed,
than its heart is seen in motion as though it were a living creature, and this before any of the
other parts, it being, as thus shown, the starting-point of their nature in all animals that have

14
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, De Motu Cordis, n. 17: “Now the motion of the heart is the principle of every
motion which is in an animal; and so the Philosopher in the third book of On the Parts of Animals (ch. 4, 661a
13-14) says that ‘the motion involved in pleasure and pain and all other sensations seem to begin there, namely,
in the heart, and terminate there.’” (tr. B.A.M.)

34
 blood. A further evidence of the truth of what has been stated is the fact that no sanguineous
animal is without a heart. For the primary source of blood must of necessity be present in them
all. It is true that [25] sanguineous animals not only have a heart but also invariably have a
liver. But no one could ever deem the liver to be the primary organ either of the whole body
or of the blood. For the position in which it is placed is far from being that of a primary or
dominating part; and, moreover, in the most perfectly finished animals there is another part,
the spleen, which as it were counterbalances it. Still further, the liver contains no spacious
receptacle in its substance, as [30] does the heart; but its blood is in a vessel as in all the other
viscera. The vessel, moreover, extends through it, and no vessel whatsoever originates in it;
for it is from the heart that all the vessels take their rise. Since then one or other of these two
parts must be the central source, and since it is not the liver which is such, it follows of
necessity that it is the heart which is the source of the blood, as also the primary organ in other
respects. For the definitive [35] characteristic of an animal is the possession of sensation; and
the first sensory part is that which first has blood; that is to say is the heart, which is the source
of blood [666b] and the first of the parts to contain it.

On the heart of an animal as being analogous to the “middle” of the universe, cf. St. Thomas
Aquinas, Exposition of Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens, trans. P. Conway and F. R
Larcher (Ohio, 1964), Book II, lect. 20, n. 485:

485. Then at [343] he refutes the aforesaid reason [argument] and says that in the aforesaid
reason [argument] the Pythagoreans used the word “middle” as though one called “middle”
absolutely, i.e., univocally, both the middle of a magnitude, and the middle of a thing
according to nature, i.e., that through which the nature of a thing is preserved – as we see in
animals that the middle by which the nature of an animal is preserved, namely, the heart, is
not the same as the middle of the body’s size, for that would be the umbilicus. A similar
viewpoint must be taken with respect to the whole heaven, i.e., to the whole universe. Hence
they should not be concerned with the whole universe as though it needs a guardhouse in such
a way that such a prison or guardhouse would have to be assigned to the center, which is the
middle of magnitude. It is necessary, rather, to seek that which is the middle of nature in the
universe, as in the case of an animal, and ask what is its condition according to nature, and
which place naturally befits it.

He explains these two things, showing first how the middle of the universe is as corresponding
to the heart of an animal. And he says that it is a principle of other bodies, and most honorable
among other bodies: and this is the sphere of the fixed stars.

But it is not the middle place but rather the place of the outermost container that belongs to it,
for that which is the magnitudinal middle among the places of the universe is more like an
ultimate than like a principle. The reason is that the middle is contained and determined by all
the others, while that which is the “end,” i.e., the extremity, among bodies according to the
order of place, has the nature of a determinant and container. But it is manifest that the
container is more honorable than the contained, and the end more honorable than the thing
ended – since the contained and the terminated pertain to the notion of matter, but to be a
container and that which terminates to the notion of form, which is the substance of the whole
consistency of things. Consequently, containing bodies are more formal and contained bodies
are more material. And therefore, in the whole universe, just as the earth which is contained
by all, being in the middle, is the most material and ignoble among bodies, so the outermost
sphere is most formal and most noble, while among the elements fire is above all containing
and formal.

Finally, he sums up [344] and concludes that in regard to the place of earth, some have an
opinion such as has been described.

35
For the text of Aristotle, cf. De Caelo (On the Heavens) II. 13 (293a 15—293b 15) (tr. J.
L. Stock):

[15] It remains to speak of the earth, of its position, of the question whether it is at rest or in
motion, and of its shape.

I. As to its position there is some difference of opinion. Most people—all, in fact, who regard
the whole heaven as finite—say it lies at the centre. But the Italian [20] philosophers known
as Pythagoreans take the contrary view. At the centre, they say, is fire, and the earth is one of
the stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre. They further construct
another earth in opposition to ours to which they give the name counter-earth. In all this they
are not seeking for theories [25] and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing
their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their
own. But there are many others who would agree that it is wrong to give the earth the central
position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their [30]
view is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more
precious than earth, and the limit than the intermediate, and the circumference and the centre
are limits. Reasoning on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre
of the sphere, but rather fire. The Pythagoreans have a further reason. They hold that the most
important part of the world, [293b] which is the centre, should be most strictly guarded, and
name it, or rather the fire which occupies that place, the ‘Guardhouse of Zeus’, as if the word
‘centre’ were quite unequivocal, and the centre of the mathematical figure were always the
same with [5] that of the thing or the natural centre. But it is better to conceive of the case of
the whole heaven as analogous to that of animals, in which the centre of the animal and that
of the body are different. For this reason they have no need to be so disturbed about the world,
or to call in a guard for its centre: rather let them look for the [10] centre in the other sense
and tell us what it is like and where nature has set it. That centre will be something primary
and precious; but to the mere position we should give the last place rather than the first. For
the middle is what is defined, and what defines it is the limit, and that which contains or limits
is more precious than that which is limited, seeing that the latter is the matter and the former
the essence of [15] the system.

36
c. Pneuma as vital spirit and its relation to the fifth element called aither:

On pneuma in general, cf. Galen II. Claudius Galenus. Philosophy:15

On the basis of his philosophical studies, Galen came to the conclusion that the various bodily
functions were induced by the Pneuma or universal spirit. He believed the pneuma to be a fine,
spirit-like material which drifted through the universe and which controlled and organized
physical bodies. Galen distinguished between three types of spirit: the spiritus vitalis or life
spirit, originating in the heart and flowing through the arteries; the spiritus animalis or animal
spirit to be found in the brain and nerves; and the spiritus naturalis, or natural spirit, formed
in the liver. However, Galen also believed that the life process was sustained by food, which
was converted into blood in the liver. Blood from the liver nourished the heart, lungs and other
organs, including the brain. Waste materials were also thought to be removed by the blood.
Thus, blood circulation and metabolism are critical elements of Galenic physiological theory,
and Galen was the first person to suggest a relationship between food, blood and air.

Cf. Stefan Stenudd, Qi-energy Info. Qi synonyms:16

But pneuma was central in the theories of the Greek physician Galen (Klaudios Galenos, 131-
201 CE), which were the basics of medicine all the way to the 17th century. His thoughts on
pneuma can be described as biological applications of Aristotle’s ideas about the quin-
tessence. According to Galenos, pneuma entered through the lungs, and was in the liver
transformed to natural spirit (pneuma physikon, in Latin spiritus naturalis), which entered the
blood. He also talked about a vital spirit (pneuma zotikon, in Latin spiritus vitalis), which
traveled through the heart and the blood, setting the body in motion, and a spirit of the psyche
(pneuma psychikon, in Latin spiritus animalis), which traveled from the brain out to the
nerves, for the senses to function.

For Aristotle, cf. On the Generation of Animals, II. 3 (736b 29—737b 6) (tr. Arthur Platt):

Now it is true that the faculty of all kinds of soul seems to have a connexion with a matter
different from and more divine than the so-called elements; but as one [30] soul differs from
another in honour and dishonour, so differs also the nature of the corresponding matter. All
have in their semen that which causes it to be productive; I mean what is called vital heat. This
is not fire nor any such force, but it is the spiritus included in the semen and the foam-like,
and the natural principle in the spiritus [pneuma], being analogous to the element of the stars.
Hence, whereas fire generates [737a ] no animal and we do not find any living thing forming
in either solids or liquids under the influence of fire, the heat of the sun and that of animals
does generate them. Not only is this true of the heat that works through the semen, but
whatever other residuum of the animal nature there may be, this also has still a vital principle
in [5] it. From such considerations it is clear that the heat in animals neither is fire nor derives
its origin from fire.
Let us return to the material of the semen, in and with which comes away from the male the
spiritus conveying the principle of soul. Of this principle there are two kinds; the one is not
connected with matter, and belongs to those animals in which is included something divine
(to wit, [10] what is called reason [nous]), while the other is inseparable from matter. This
material of the semen dissolves and evaporates because it has a liquid and watery nature.
Therefore we ought not to expect it always to come out again from the female or to form any
part of the embryo that has taken shape from it; the case resembles that of [15] the fig-juice

15
(www.geocities.com/IslamPencereleri/galen_2.htm [10/25/09])
16
(http://www.qi-energy.info/qi-synonyms-P.htm [10/30/09])

37
 which curdles milk, for this too changes without becoming any part of the curdling masses. It
has been settled, then, in what sense the embryo and the semen have soul, and in what sense
they have not; they have it potentially but not actually.
Now semen is a secretion and is moved with the same movement as that in virtue [20] of
which the body increases (this increase being due to subdivision of the nutriment in its last
stage). When it has entered the uterus it puts into form the corresponding secretion of the
female and moves it with the same movement wherewith it is moved itself. For the female’s
contribution also is a secretion, and has all the parts in it potentially though none of them
actually; it has in it potentially even those parts [25] which differentiate the female from the
male, for just as the young of mutilated parents are sometimes born mutilated and sometimes
not, so also the young born of a female are sometimes female and sometimes male instead.
For the female is, as it were, a mutilated [or ‘defective’] male, and the catamenia are semen,
only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul. For this
reason, [30] whenever a wind-egg is produced by any animal, the egg so forming has in it the
parts of both sexes potentially, but has not the principle in question, so that it does not develop
into a living creature, for this is introduced by the semen of the male. When such a principle
has been imparted to the secretion of the female it becomes an embryo. [35] Liquid but
corporeal substances become surrounded by some kind of covering on heating, like the solid
scum which forms on boiled foods when cooling. All bodies are held together by the [737b]
glutinous; this quality, as the embryo develops and increases in size, is acquired by the sinewy
substance, which holds together the parts of animals, being actual sinew in some and its
analogue in others. To the same class belong also skin, blood-vessels, [5] membranes, and the
like, for these differ in being more or less glutinous and generally in excess and deficiency.

Cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, II. 4 (739b 20-32) (tr. Arthur Platt):

[20] When the material secreted by the female in the uterus has been fixed by the semen of
the male (this acts in the same way as rennet acts upon milk, for rennet is a kind of milk
containing vital heat, which brings into one mass and fixes the similar material, and the relation
of the semen to the catamenia is the same, milk and the [25] catamenia being of the same
nature)—when, I say, the more solid part comes together, the liquid is separated off from it,
and as the earthy parts solidify membranes form all round it; this is both a necessary result and
for a final cause, the former because the surface of a mass must solidify on heating as well as
on cooling, the latter because the foetus must not be in a liquid but be separated [30] from it.
Some of these are called membranes and others choria, the difference being one of more or
less, and they exist in ovipara and vivipara alike. (emphasis added)

Cf. A. L. Peck, Aristotle, Generation of Animals (London, 1942, rprt. 1963). From the In-
troduction, Sec. 32:

It may be noted here that the physical substance concerned throughout the theory of - is
pneuma [= spiritus] (a substance “analogous to aither,” the “fifth element,” the “element of
the stars”),17 with which Soul is “associated”; and it is this pneuma which Soul charges with a
specific “movement” and uses as its “instrument” in generation just as it does in locomotion,
and as an artist uses his instruments, to which he imparts “movement,” in order to create his
works of art.

17
It being the vital heat in the pneuma which makes it to be the element analogous to that of the stars. As we
shall see, just as there is a material pneuma which the soul as form uses to produce motion in things here be-
low, so, too, with the heavenly bodies: there must be something like pneuma which the mover of the heavens
makes use of to move other things.

38
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 118, art. 1, obj. 3-4, ad 3-4 (tr. Fr. Laurence
Shapcote):

Objection 3. Further, the generator begets its like: so that the form of the generator must be
actually in the cause of generation. But neither the sensitive soul itself nor any part thereof is
actually in the semen, for no part of the sensitive soul is elsewhere than in some part of the
body; while in the semen there is not even a particle of the body, because there is not a particle
of the body which is not made from the semen and by the power thereof. Therefore the
sensitive soul is not produced through the semen.

Objection 4. Further, if there be in the semen any principle productive of the sensitive soul,
this principle either remains after the animal is begotten, or it does not remain. Now it cannot
remain. For either it would be identified with the sensitive soul of the begotten animal; which
is impossible, for thus there would be identity between begetter and begotten, maker and made:
or it would be distinct therefrom; and again this is impossible, for it has been proved above
(76, 4) that in one animal there is but one formal principle, which is the soul. If on the other
hand the aforesaid principle does not remain, this again seems to be impossible: for thus an
agent would act to its own destruction, which cannot be. Therefore the sensitive soul cannot
be generated from the semen.

<…>

Reply to Objection 3. This active force which is in the semen, and which is derived from the
soul of the generator, is, as it were, a certain movement of this soul itself: nor is it the soul or
a part of the soul, save virtually; thus the form of a bed is not in the saw or the axe, but a
certain movement towards that form. Consequently there is no need for this active force to
have an actual organ; but it is based on the (vital) spirit in the semen which is frothy, as is
attested by its whiteness. In which spirit, moreover, there is a certain heat derived from the
power of the heavenly bodies, by virtue of which the inferior bodies also act towards the
production of the species as stated above (115, 3, ad 2). And since in this (vital) spirit the
power of the soul is concurrent with the power of a heavenly body, it has been said that “man
and the sun generate man.” Moreover, elemental heat is employed instrumentally by the soul’s
power, as also by the nutritive power, as stated (De Anima ii, 4).

Reply to Objection 4. In perfect animals, generated by coition, the active force is in the semen
of the male, as the Philosopher says (De Gener. Animal. ii, 3); but the foetal matter is provided
by the female. In this matter, the vegetative soul exists from the very beginning, not as to the
second act, but as to the first act, as the sensitive soul is in one who sleeps.18 But as soon as it
begins to attract nourishment, then it already operates in act. This matter therefore is
transmuted by the power which is in the semen of the male, until it is actually informed by the
sensitive soul; not as though the force itself which was in the semen becomes the sensitive
soul; for thus, indeed, the generator and generated would be identical; moreover, this would
be more like nourishment and growth than generation, as the Philosopher says. And after the
sensitive soul, by the power of the active principle in the semen, has been produced in one of
the principal parts of the thing generated, then it is that the sensitive soul of the offspring
begins to work towards the perfection of its own body, by nourishment and growth. As to the
active power which was in the semen, it ceases to exist, when the semen is dissolved and the
(vital) spirit thereof vanishes. Nor is there anything unreasonable in this, because this force is
not the principal but the instrumental agent; and the movement of an instrument ceases when
once the effect has been produced.

18
In contrast, the seed of the male possesses a prior grade of potency (cf. De An. II. 1, 412b 27—413a 3); cf.
also St. Thomas, comm. ad loc.; also de Pot., q. 3, art. 9, s.c.; ibid., ad 9; SCG II, c. 89, n. 3.

39
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent., dist. 18, q. 2, art. 3, c. (tr. B.A.M.):

…But the position of Aristotle is much more reasonable, seeing that nothing begins either to
come to be or to be generated except in accordance with the manner in which it has being:19
and so we concede the sensible and vegetative soul to be transmitted.
Now the manner of its transmission is like this; for, since every univocal and proximate
agent introduces into its patient its species, and food, insofar as it undergoes change and is
altered, turns into nourishment for the body (the reason being that it nourishes insofar as it is
in potency to flesh, as is said in On the Generation of Animals I,text 39, and in On the Soul,
text 45), it [namely, the food that is to be turned into the substance of the body] must, at the
end of the process, receive the species and virtue of nourishment. Therefore before the final
assimilation, when it is turned into a determinate part in act such as flesh and bone, the virtue
of the species exists in it indeterminately to this or that [species] with respect to the proper
virtue of a determinate part. And so since the seed is the final residue of food at its closest
approximation to its final conversion, there is in it a potency to the whole and not any part in
act.
But before it is resolved by the act of the generative virtue in separation from the rest of its
kind, that indistinct potency exists in it just as the form of the whole which does not exist in
the part except in potency. But when it is separated, it is produced in act having such a po-
tency and form; just as we also observe in annulose animals,20 in which, according to the
Philosopher, there is one soul in act, and many in potency; whence, when it is divided an
animate part is produced having a distinct soul. Still, they differ in this, seeing that by reason
of the slight differentiation into organs in those animals the part is practically identical to the
whole, and so a perfect soul remains in the part just as existed in the whole.

Now the seed when it has been separated is not yet similar to the whole in act, but is in
proximate potency. And therefore after its division the soul does not remain in act but in
potency, on account of which it is said in On the Soul II, that the seed lives in potency and not
in act.
Now this potency is not passive in the seed of the male in the way in which we say that wood
and stones are in potency to a house (for in this way there is a power in the menstruum of the
woman) but it is an active potency, just as we say the form in the mind of the artisan is in
potency to a house. Whence the Philosopher in Book 17 of On Animals compares it to art; and
this power Avicenna and the Commentator in Book 7 of the Metaphysics call the formative
virtue: which virtue, in fact, with respect to the mode of operating is a mean between the
intellect and the other powers of the soul. For the other powers in their operations use
determinate organs: but the intellect uses none. But this uses something bodily in its operation
which does not yet have a determinate species. Now the subject and organ of this power is the
vital spirit enclosed in the seed; whence in order for a spirit of this sort to be contained in the
seed it is foamy, and this is the cause of its whiteness. Now to this spirit the formative virtue
is conjoined in the manner of a mover rather than in the manner of a form, even if in some
way it is its form. Whence the Commentator in Book 7 of the Metaphysics says that that virtue
is included in the seed in some way just as the movers are united to the orbs.21

19
That is to say, if the result of generation is a composite of matter and form, the generator must also be such,
and so the principle of such a composite cannot be a form separated from matter.
20
Cf. Collins English Dictionary, s.v. “annulose: adj. (of earthworms, crustaceans, and similar animals) hav-
ing a body formed of a series of rings; segmented.” Since the part possesses the same species as the whole
from which it was severed, it must possess that form in act right from the start. Conversely, the seeds of both
the male and the female are in proximate potency to such a form: the male containing its active principle, albeit
virtualiter; the female, its passive one.
21
On this comparison see our remarks below.

40
For the basis of the foregoing doctrine in Aristotle, cf. On the Generation of Animals (tr.
Arthur Platt), Bk. I, c. 19 (726b 1—727a 3):

We have previously stated that the final nutriment is the blood in the sanguinea and the
analogous fluid in the other animals. Since the semen is also a secretion of the nutriment, and
that in its final stage, it follows that it will be either (1) blood or that which is analogous to
blood, or (2) something formed from this. But since [5] it is from the blood, when concocted
and somehow divided up, that each part of the body is made, and since the semen if properly
concocted is quite of a different character from the blood when it is separated from it, but if
not properly concocted has been known in some cases to issue in a bloody condition if one
forces oneself too [10] often to coition, therefore it is plain that semen will be a secretion of
the nutriment when reduced to blood, being that which is finally distributed to the parts of the
body. And this is the reason why it has so great power, for the loss of the pure and healthy
blood is an exhausting thing; for this reason also it is natural that the off-spring should
resemble the parents, for that which goes to all the parts of the [15] body resembles that which
is left over. So that the semen which is to form the hand or the face or the whole animal is
already the hand or face or whole animal undifferentiated, and what each of them is actually
such is the semen potentially, either in virtue of its own mass or because it has a certain power
in itself. I mention these alternatives here because we have not yet made it clear from the
distinctions drawn hitherto whether it is the [20] matter of the semen that is the cause of
generation, or whether it has in it some faculty and efficient cause thereof, for the hand also
or any other bodily part is not hand or other part in a true sense if it be without soul or some
other power, but is only called by the same name as the living hand.
[30] On this subject, then, so much may be laid down. But since it is necessary (1) that the
weaker animal also should have a secretion greater in quantity and less concocted, and (2) that
being of such a nature it should be a mass of sanguineous liquid, and (3) since that which
Nature endows with a smaller portion of heat is weaker, and since it has already been stated
that such is the character of the female—putting all these considerations together we see that
the [727a] sanguineous matter discharged by the female is also a secretion. And such is the
discharge of the so-called catamenia.

It is plain, then, that the catamenia are a secretion, and that they are analogous in females to
the semen in males.

On the relation of the celestial element to the sublunar, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theol., Ia, q. 91, art. 1, ad 2 (tr. Alfred J. Freddoso):

Reply to objection 2: Even though a celestial body is, absolutely speaking, more noble than
an earthly body, nonetheless, a celestial body shares less in common with the activity of the
rational soul. For in a certain way a rational soul takes its knowledge of truth from the sensory
powers, whose organs cannot be formed from a celestial body, because a celestial body cannot
be acted upon (cum sit impassibile).

Nor is it true that a bit of the fifth essence (aliquid de quinta essentia) enters materially into
the composition of the human body; this claim is made by some who hold that the soul is
united to the body by the mediation of a certain sort of light (cf. q. 76, a. 7).

First of all, their claim that light is a body is false (cf. q. 67, a. 2). Second, it is impossible for
any part of the fifth essence to be divided off from a celestial body or to be mixed in with the
elements—and this because of the celestial body’s impassibility. Hence, a celestial body can
enter into the composition of mixed bodies only through the effect of its power.

41
But to return to our immediate object, it is now clear that the vital heat belonging to the seed
stands to it just as the corresponding quality in the stars—which is their vital heat—stands
to the aither, the pneuma being its immediate subject, while the element aither stands to it
as its ‘principle’. But inasmuch as the one bears “the principle of soul”, the virtus formativa
of Thomas, so, too, would the other: cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 118, art.
1, sc. (tr. Fr. Laurence Shapcote, O.P.):

On the contrary, The power in the semen is to the animal seminally generated, as the power
in the elements of the world is to animals produced from these elements—for instance by pu-
trefaction. But in the latter animals the soul is produced by the elemental power, according to
Genesis 1:20: “Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures having life.” Therefore also
the souls of animals seminally generated are produced by the seminal power.

With respect to the comparison of the natural motion of the heart to that of the heavens, as
Aristotle shows, the expansion and contraction of the heart is due to that of the pneuma
which he held to be diffused throughout the body. Now as we have seen, Aristotle and St.
Thomas explain the way in which the heart moves as being comparable to the motion of a
wheel, which requires a fixed point as its center, the counterpart of which in the heavens lies
in the two poles of the celestial sphere. But if the former requires vital spirit in order to
produce motion, would not also the heavens? That is to say, corresponding to the material
principle the soul uses as an instrument must there not likewise be such a principle em-
ployed by the mover of the celestial orb? In other words, corresponding to the sublunary
pneuma there must be a celestial ‘spirit’ with respect to which the former is said to be the
likeness: “I mean what is called vital heat. This is not fire nor any such force, but it is the
spiritus included in the semen and the foam-like, and the natural principle in the spiritus
[pneuma], being analogous to the element of the stars” (GA II. 3, 737b 33-34). But “the
element of the stars” whose analogue here below is the principle of pneuma is nothing other
than aither, the fifth element, which moves with an everlasting circular motion and so
presupposes as its instrument a vital spirit pervading the cosmos as such. On this matter, cf.
St. Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent., dist. 18, q. 2, art. 3, obj. 2, ad 2. (tr. B.A.M.):

praeterea, omnis operatio naturae inferioris Further, every activity of a lower nature is re-
reducitur in virtutem caelestem, sicut in vir- duced to a heavenly virtue precisely as to the
tutem primi alterantis. virtue of the first altering thing.

sed per virtutem caeli anima sensibilis educi non But the sensible soul cannot be educed by the
potest, cum corpus caeleste inanimatum sit, et virtue of the heaven, since the heavenly body is
nihil agat ultra suam speciem; quia effectus non not alive, and nothing acts beyond its species,
potest esse potior causa agente. seeing that an effect cannot be more powerful
than its agent cause.

ergo videtur quod non per operationem naturae, Therefore it seems that it is educed in being not
sed per creationem in esse educatur. by the activity of nature, but by creation.

<…> <…>

ad tertium dicendum, quod supposito secun- To the third it must be said that, having sup-
dum fidem nostram quod caelum sit corpus posed according to the Faith that the heaven is
inanimatum, nihilominus tamen ponimus quod an inanimate body, we nevertheless hold that its
motus ejus sit ab aliqua substantia spirituali sicut motion comes from some spiritual substance as
motore: mover.

42
 et cum motus sit actus motoris et mobilis, opor- And since motion is the act of the mover as well
tet quod in motu non tantum relinquatur virtus as the mobile, it must be the case that there re-
corporalis ex parte mobilis, sed etiam virtus main in the motion not only a bodily virtue on
quaedam spiritualis ex parte motoris: the part of the mobile, but also a certain spiritual
virtue on the part of the mover.

et quia motor est vivens nobilissima vita, ideo And because the mover is a thing living with the
non est inconveniens, si motus caelestis, in- noblest life, it is not unfitting if the motion of the
quantum est in eo intensio et virtus motoris, per heavenly body, inasmuch as it exists in it by the
modum quo virtus agentis principalis est in in- intensity and power of the mover, in the way in
strumento, est causa vitae materialis, qualis est which the virtue of the principal agent exists in
per animam sensibilem et vegetabilem. the instrument, is the cause of material life, of
the sort which comes by the sensitive and vege-
tative souls.

In the foregoing passage St. Thomas distinguishes a bodily virtue from a spiritual one. In the
case of reproduction, a bodily virtue can only be the pneuma enclosed in the seed of the male
by reason of which it is foamy and white, and so must be something like the effervescence
observed in an active substance (about which see the following note); whereas a spiritual
virtue, as he also explains, is the movement imparted to the seed by the generator whereby
his form comes to exist in it virtualiter in the manner of an instrument, and therefore stands
to it just as the idea in the mind of an artisan stands to the instrument he employs in producing
his work. Applying these principles to the movement of the heavens, we maintain that, just
as the seed of the male consists in pneuma possessing vital heat as founded on the analogue
of the element of the stars, so, too, the heavenly body, understood as “the first altering thing”,
must possess a vital heat in the form of pneuma, itself founded on the element in which it
consists, the aither, or fifth element. Now as Aristotle explains in the case of animal motion,
“this spirit appears to stand to the soul-centre or original in a relation analogous to that be-
tween the point in a joint which moves being moved and the unmoved” (De motu. animal.,
ch. 10 (703a 12-14), for which reason must we not also suppose there to be a cosmic pneuma
standing in the same relation to the axis of the celestial sphere the poles of which, as we have
seen, are the counterparts to such a pivot-point? But, as is elsewhere explained,22 such a
virtue would move by being moved by the love that moves the sun and the other stars.23

22
Cf. Metaph. XII. 7 (1072a 19-1073a 12); for the correlative in animal motion, cf. De An. III. 10.
23
Paradiso, Canto XXXIII, at the end.

43
N.B. On the aforementioned quality of the pneuma, cf. the following definition: “Effer-
vescence. The bubbling of a solution due to the escape of gas. The gas may form by a
chemical reaction, as in a fermenting liquid, or by coming out of solution after having been
under pressure, as in a carbonated drink.”24 For evidence of the Philosopher’s understanding
of this property, cf. Gad Freudenthal, Aristotle’s Theory of Material Substance: Heat and
Pneuma, Form and Soul (Oxford, 1995), Ch. III, sec. 2.2, pp. 121-124; 128-129:

...To improve our insight into Aristotle’s ideas in pneuma we should consider here not only
the word, but the world too. I suggest that when Aristotle referred to the formation of pneuma
within the blood through the action of vital heat, he had in mind the singular characteristic
features of the process in which fresh milk is heated and eventually boiled, a procedure we
may safely assume he had occasion to observe. The action of heat on milk [121-122] almost
from the outset (above 30o C) causes the formation of minute bubbles throughout the liquid.
These tiny bubbles do not coalesce to form large ones and they do not immediately rise to the
surface, where they would vanish; rather, they persist in the liquid and rise only very slowly.
Thus, as long as milk is maintained warm, it contains bubbles through and through—it remains
thoroughly “pneumatized” in the precise sense of the term. ...The continued existence of bub-
bles throughout the liquid—its pneumatization—thus is a phenomenon which is characteristic
of milk and indeed is due to some very specific chemical features.34

Now Aristotle considers milk one of the fluids produced in the body through the concoction
of the blood, and my suggestion is that he took it as a model of how the pneuma can durably
remain suffused in the blood: milk is the paradigmatic instance lurking behind the notion of a
pneumatized fluid as a fluid in which an aeriform substance continuously inheres without
separating off and rising to its natural place. That this is how Aristotle pictured the
pneumatization seems to be confirmed by his description of male semen, which, like milk, is
blood that has undergone further concoction: Aristotle says that the semen contains pneuma
in the form of tiny bubbles (GA 2. 2)—manifestly the pneuma of the semen does not separate
off the fluid.35 Similarly, when pneuma
34
[footnote omitted]
35
[footnote omitted] [122-123]

is produced in water by the action of the heat of the sun, a ‘frothy bubble’ is formed (GA 3.
11, 736a24).36

Our interpretation of Aristotle’s view of how connate pneuma is produced and maintained
can be confirmed by considering the four following accounts in which pneuma is explicitly or
implicitly involved:

(1) The most impressive one is Aristotle’s account of ‘spontaneous’ generation: ‘Animals
and plants are formed in earth and in the water because in earth water is present, and in water
pneuma is present, and in all pneuma soul-heat is present, so that in a way all things are full
of soul. (GA 3. 11, 762a19 ff.) Aristotle here says in so many words that (a) in all moisture
pneuma is—and this means, is potentially—present, so that (b) upon heating by the sun’s
generative37 heat (c) pneuma is formed (just as in the living body), which (d) carries vital,
generative, heat. There is no essential difference, then, between sexual and ‘spontaneous’
generation in Aristotle’s physiology: from a physiological point of view, the only difference
relates to the source of the vital heat. ...In

24
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

44
 36
[footnote omitted]
37
GA 3. 11, 762a14; cf. Also 2. 3, 737a3; 2. 6 743a33 f. And Ch. 1, n. 54. [123-124]

‘spontaneous’ generation that initial pneuma is produced by the action of the heat of the sun.
[intervening text omitted, but cf. GA 3. 4, 755a17 ff. on yeast making dough rise, and
Meteorology, 4. 3, 380b23 on the ripening of fruit]

On [128-129] what grounds, then, can warmer (and purer) pneuma be assumed to travel higher
than less warm pneuma?
For Aristotle’s answer, we must turn to his theory of exhalations, whose rationale was
precisely to bridge the gap between the two competing construals of the elements [one being
according to their proper places; the other according to the primary qualities (B.A.M.)] a gap
which forbade one to say that something rises because it is hot.50 Physically speaking, the
connate pneuma is somewhat analogous to what, on the scale of the entire world, Aristotle
calls ‘exhalation’. Aristotle, as is well known, postulates the existence of a moist and a dry
exhalation, raised by the sun from water (the sea, etc.) and the earth, respectively (e.g.
Meteorology I. 4, 341b5ff.). In the present context we are interested in the first only. The
‘exhalation from water’, also called ‘vapour’ (atmis, Meteorology I. 9, 346b33; 2. 2, 354b31;
2. 4, 359b34. ff.), Aristotle says, is ‘most naturally moist and warm’ (Meteorology I. 3, 340b2f
f.) 51 The vapour results from the action of heat on water, then, as connate pneuma results from
blood within the body (except that the vapour, unlike the connate pneuma, separates off). Now
the idea that the exhalations produced by the sun rise is self-evident: it is part of their
definition. 52 On the basis of the theory of exhalations, then, the connate pneuma can indeed
be held to rise by virtue of its heat, and the more so the hotter (and purer) it is.
51
... Meteor,, I. 9, 346b29ff.
52
[footnote omitted]

Note Freudenthal’s description of pneuma as “aeriform substance”. And note as well the
comparison of the aither with semen suggests that the former, like the latter, is of a fluid
nature.

N.B. On the nature of the transformation such as is involved in concoction, cf. Summa
Contra Gentiles III, n. 152, arg. 3 (tr. Michael Augros):

Whenever something is moved by an agent to something which is the property of that agent,
then the thing in motion must in the beginning of the motion undergo the impressions of the
agent imperfectly, receiving what the agent gives it as something foreign to it [matter is
reluctant, but then takes on things as its own], but in the end of the motion the things given to
it by the agent become proper to it. E.g. wood is heated by fire, and that heat is not proper to
the wood, but beyond its nature; but in the end, when the wood is ignited, the heat becomes
proper and connatural to it.

Cf. ibid, arg. 6:

The impression of the agent does not remain in the effect if the action of the agent is ceased,
unless the impression is turned into the nature of the effect. For the form and properties of
generators, in the end, remain in the things generated after the generation, because they are
made natural to them. And likewise habits are difficult to change, because they are turned into
the nature, but dispositions and passions (properties), either of bodies or of animals, remain
sometime after the action of the agent, but not forever, because they are in them as on the way
to nature.

45
d. Supplement: On natural definitions: How they are dialectical:

Cf. Charles De Koninck, Natural Science as Philosophy (repr.; Québec: Laval University,
1959), p. 1:

We are often told of a distinction between philosophical psychology and experimental

psychology. This is a distinction that I do not understand. Take the beginning of the De Anima,
where Aristotle shows that even here we must provide natural definitions as distinguished
from the logical or dialectical. His example is that of ‘anger’. It is true that anger is ‘a desire
for vengeance’. But this definition is purely formal, somewhat like the definitions of
mathematics, i.e. ‘per species’. Now, in mathematics, formal definitions are sufficient to the
subject, since the subject is abstract; anger, however, is also something physical, as may be
seen in the behavior of any person in a rage. If we are to form a natural definition of what
anger is, we will have to add something to that ‘desire for vengeance’, such as ‘attended by
an effervescence of the blood about the heart’. A psychology which would confine itself to
formal definitions would be no more than dialectical. (Notice, however, that this natural
definition of anger is itself only dialectical, but dialectical in a different sense. For
propositions—and a definition is virtually a proposition—may be called dialectical for two
different reasons: either because the composition or division of the known terms which it
comprises is no more than probable; or because one or both of the terms themselves are
insufficient, which is the case of purely formal definitions of natural things. We have to do
with something less than dialectical when the terms are themselves no more than likely
constructs, even though they have some basis in experience. Such was the case of Aristotle’s
‘incorruptible’ heavenly bodies, and of Dalton’s ‘atoms’.) In the definition of anger as ‘a
desire for vengeance attended by an effervescence of the blood about the heart’, the former
part is certain, though dialectical; the latter part, taken by itself, is natural, yet dialectical qua
insufficient even as a natural definition. Natural, because it refers to something sensible;
dialectical because no more than provisional.

Cf. Charles De Koninck, The Unity and Diversity of Natural Science:

We must consider still another difficulty, one which is more obvious in our time, and that
seems to justify the distinction between philosophy of nature and natural science. The ancients
did not respect the prodigiously fruitful role of fictions—“logical fictions”, as Bertrand Russell
calls them. Nor did Galileo or Newton, for the matter of that; a fact ironically brought out by
Newton’s famous hypotheses non fingo. (Newton actually contrived most fruitful fictions,
though he failed to realize that they were fictions.) The contemporary mathematical physicist
knows that he can probe into the world of nature only by means of mental constructions
suggested in part by experience, in part by mathematics. They are fictions in the strict sense
of this term, whose power we must not underrate. The atom, for instance, is largely a logical
fiction. If you have any doubts, look at what has happened to atoms since Dalton’s days. (I
say “largely”, for in physics the mental constructs must have some foundation in experience
and experiment, else they could hardly lead to further knowledge of nature)….
Now, all this faces us no doubt with a deep enough cleavage between diverse modes of
knowing the things in nature. But does this cleavage restrict natural philosophy to our initial
gropings under investigation? What we are agreeing to call philosophy of nature is
experimental too, though not quite after the manner of mathematical physics nor even of
advanced biology. I pointed out long ago that in the study of nature we must distinguish
between strictly scientific knowledge (in Aristotle’s sense) and that which is called dialectical,
as providing no more than an opinion. Now, opinions are still enunciated in words, and are in
fact true or false if it be speculative knowledge that we mean to express. Notice, however, that
an opinion is not a fiction in the strict sense of this term. It is, at bottom an inquisitive

46
proposition. The opinion that “the world is eternal” still leaves open the question whether the
world really is or has to be eternal. We can unfold what we mean by “world” and by “eternal”,
but can we in truth say the latter of the former? The notions of “world” and “eternal”, though
vague, have a relatively stable meaning. What we are questioning is not their meaning, of
course, but their connection in a proposition. Is such a proposition necessary? Is the eternity
of the world a fact?
But in mathematical physics, when words are used to describe, not how things are in fact,
but merely how a certain symbolic construction has been laid down, e.g., that of the atom, we
must be aware that, unlike the terms used in a statement about nature, the symbols, the con-
struction, and the names we choose to employ for the purpose of communication do not have
a stable meaning. The only stable meaning the word “atom” ever had was that of “indivisible”.
In other words, we are now entitled to question not merely the connection of the terms, but the
very terms themselves. At any rate, these are utterly provisional, whereas what “world” or
“eternal” stand for are not.

47
e. On the principle of the motion of the heavens:

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II: Creation. Translated, with an
Introduction and Notes by James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, 1975), cap. 70, nn. 1-7:

Chapter 70

THAT ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF ARISTOTLE THE INTELLECT MUST BE

SAID TO BE UNITED TO THE BODY AS ITS FORM

[1] Now, since Averroes seeks to confirm his doctrine especially by appealing to the words
and proof of Aristotle, it remains for us to show that in the Philosopher’s judgment we must
say that the intellect, as to its substance, is united to the body as its form.

[2] For Aristotle proves in the Physics [VIII, 5] that in movers and things moved it is
impossible to proceed to infinity. Hence, he concludes to the necessity of a first moved thing,
which either is moved by an immobile mover or moves itself. And of these two he takes the
second, namely, that the first movable being moves itself; for what is through itself is always
prior to that which is through another. Then he shows that a self-mover necessarily is divided
into two parts, part moving and part moved; whence it follows that the first self-mover must
consist of two parts, the one moving, the other moved. Now, every thing of this kind is ani-
mate. The first movable being, namely, the heaven, is therefore animate in Aristotle’s opinion.
So it is expressly stated in De caelo [II, 2] that the heaven is animate, and on this account we
must attribute to its differences of position not only in relation to us, but also in relation to
itself. Let us, then, ask with what kind of soul Aristotle thinks the heaven to be animated.

[3] In Metaphysics XI [7], Aristotle proves that in the heaven’s movement two factors are to
be considered: something that moves and is wholly unmoved, and something that moves and
is also moved. Now, that which moves without being moved moves as an object of desire; nor
is there any doubt that it moves as a thing desirable by that which is moved. And he shows
that it moves not as an object of concupiscent desire, which is a sense desire, but of intellectual
desire; and he therefore says that the first unmoved mover is an object of desire and under-
standing. Accordingly, that which is moved by this mover, namely, the heaven, desires and
understands in a nobler fashion than we, as he subsequently proves. In Aristotle’s view, then,
the heaven is composed of an intellectual soul and a body. He indicates this when he says in
De anima II [3] that “in certain things there is intellect and the power of understanding, for
example, in men, and in other things like man or superior to him,” namely, the heaven.

[4] Now the heaven certainly does not possess a sensitive soul, according to the opinion of
Aristotle; otherwise, it would have diverse organs, and this is inconsistent with the heaven’s
simplicity. By way of indicating this fact, Aristotle goes on to say that “among corruptible
things, those that possess intellect have all the other powers,” thus giving us to understand that
some incorruptible things, namely, the heavenly bodies, have intellect without the other
powers of the soul.

[5] It will therefore be impossible to say that the intellect makes contact with the heavenly
bodies by the instrumentality of phantasms. On the contrary, it will have to be said that the
intellect, by its substance, is united to the heavenly body as its form.

[6] Now, the human body is the noblest of all lower bodies, and by, its equable tempera-
ment most closely resembles the heaven, which is completely devoid of contrariety; so
that in Aristotle’s judgment the intellectual substance is united to the human body not
by any phantasms, but as its form.

48
 [7] As for the heaven being animate, we have spoken of this not as though asserting its accord-
ance with the teaching of the faith, to which the whole question is entirely irrelevant. Hence,
Augustine says in the Enchiridion: “Nor is it certain, to my mind, whether the sun, moon, and
all the stars belong to the same community, namely, that of the angels; although to some they
appear to be luminous bodies devoid of sense or intelligence.”25 (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 70, art. 3 (tr. Fr. Laurence Shapcote):

Objection 1: It would seem that the lights of heaven are living beings. For the nobler a body
is, the more nobly it should be adorned. But a body less noble than the heaven, is adorned with
living beings, with fish, birds, and the beasts of the field. Therefore the lights of heaven, as
pertaining to its adornment, should be living beings also.

Objection 2: Further, the nobler a body is, the nobler must be its form. But the sun, moon,
and stars are nobler bodies than plants or animals, and must therefore have nobler forms. Now
the noblest of all forms is the soul, as being the first principle of life. Hence Augustine (De
Vera Relig. xxix) says: “Every living substance stands higher in the order of nature than one
that has not life.” The lights of heaven, therefore, are living beings.

Objection 3: Further, a cause is nobler than its effect. But the sun, moon, and stars are a cause
of life, as is especially evidenced in the case of animals generated from putrefaction, which
receive life from the power of the sun and stars. Much more, therefore, have the heavenly
bodies a living soul.

Objection 4: Further, the movement of the heaven and the heavenly bodies are natural (De
Coel. i, text. 7,8): and natural movement is from an intrinsic principle. Now the principle of
movement in the heavenly bodies is a substance capable of apprehension, and is moved as the
desirer is moved by the object desired (Metaph. xii, text. 36). Therefore, seemingly, the
apprehending principle is intrinsic to the heavenly bodies: and consequently they are living
beings.

Objection 5: Further, the first of movables is the heaven. Now, of all things that are endowed
with movement the first moves itself, as is proved in Phys. viii, text. 34, because, what is such
of itself precedes that which is by another. But only beings that are living move themselves,
as is shown in the same book (text. 27). Therefore the heavenly bodies are living beings.

On the contrary, Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii), “Let no one esteem the heavens or the
heavenly bodies to be living things, for they have neither life nor sense.”

I answer that, Philosophers have differed on this question. Anaxagoras, for instance, as
Augustine mentions (De Civ. Dei xviii, 41), “was condemned by the Athenians for teaching
that the sun was a fiery mass of stone, and neither a god nor even a living being.” On the other
hand, the Platonists held that the heavenly bodies have life. Nor was there less diversity of
opinion among the Doctors of the Church. It was the belief of Origen (Peri Archon i) and
Jerome that these bodies were alive, and the latter seems to explain in that sense the words
(Eccles. 1:6), “The spirit goeth forward, surveying all places round about.” But Basil (Hom.
iii, vi in Hexaem.) and Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii) maintain that the heavenly bodies are
inanimate. Augustine leaves the matter in doubt, without committing himself to either theory,
though he goes so far as to say that if the heavenly bodies are really living beings, their souls
must be akin to the angelic nature (Gen. ad lit. ii, 18; Enchiridion lviii).

25
See the excerpt from the Prima Pars below.

49
 In examining the truth of this question, where such diversity of opinion exists, we shall do
well to bear in mind that the union of soul and body exists for the sake of the soul and not of
the body; for the form does not exist for the matter, but the matter for the form. Now the nature
and power of the soul are apprehended through its operation, which is to a certain extent its
end. Yet for some of these operations, as sensation and nutrition, our body is a necessary
instrument. Hence it is clear that the sensitive and nutritive souls must be united to a body in
order to exercise their functions. There are, however, operations of the soul, which are not
exercised through the medium of the body, though the body ministers, as it were, to their
production. The intellect, for example, makes use of the phantasms derived from the bodily
senses, and thus far is dependent on the body, although capable of existing apart from it. It is
not, however, possible that the functions of nutrition, growth, and generation, through which
the nutritive soul operates, can be exercised by the heavenly bodies, for such operations are
incompatible with a body naturally incorruptible.

Equally impossible is it that the functions of the sensitive soul can appertain to the heavenly
body, since all the senses depend on the sense of touch, which perceives elemental qualities,
and all the organs of the senses require a certain proportion in the admixture of elements,
whereas the nature of the heavenly bodies is not elemental. It follows, then, that of the
operations of the soul the only ones left to be attributed to the heavenly bodies are those of
understanding and moving; for appetite follows both sensitive and intellectual perception, and
is in proportion thereto. But the operations of the intellect, which does not act through the
body, do not need a body as their instrument, except to supply phantasms through the senses.
Moreover, the operations of the sensitive soul, as we have seen, cannot be attributed to the
heavenly bodies. Accordingly, the union of a soul to a heavenly body cannot be for the purpose
of the operations of the intellect. It remains, then, only to consider whether the movement of
the heavenly bodies demands a soul as the motive power, not that the soul, in order to move
the heavenly body, need be united to the latter as its form; but by contact of power, as a mover
is united to that which he moves. Wherefore Aristotle (Phys. viii, text. 42,43), after showing
that the first mover is made up of two parts, the moving and the moved, goes on to show the
nature of the union between these two parts. This, he says, is effected by contact which is mu-
tual if both are bodies; on the part of one only, if one is a body and the other not. The Platonists
explain the union of soul and body in the same way, as a contact of a moving power with the
object moved, and since Plato holds the heavenly bodies to be living beings, this means
nothing else but that substances of spiritual nature are united to them, and act as their moving
power. A proof that the heavenly bodies are moved by the direct influence and contact of some
spiritual substance, and not, like bodies of specific gravity, by nature, lies in the fact that
whereas nature moves to one fixed end which having attained, it rests; this does not appear in
the movement of heavenly bodies. Hence it follows that they are moved by some intellectual
substances. Augustine appears to be of the same opinion when he expresses his belief that all
corporeal things are ruled by God through the spirit of life (De Trin. iii, 4).

From what has been said, then, it is clear that the heavenly bodies are not living beings in
the same sense as plants and animals, and that if they are called so, it can only be equivocally.
It will also be seen that the difference of opinion between those who affirm, and those who
deny, that these bodies have life, is not a difference of things but of words.

Reply to Objection 1: Certain things belong to the adornment of the universe by reason of
their proper movement; and in this way the heavenly luminaries agree with others that conduce
to that adornment, for they are moved by a living substance.

Reply to Objection 2: One being may be nobler than another absolutely, but not in a particular
respect. While, then, it is not conceded that the souls of heavenly bodies are nobler than the
souls of animals absolutely it must be conceded that they are superior to them with regard to

50
 their respective forms, since their form perfects their matter entirely, which is not in
potentiality to other forms; whereas a soul does not do this. Also as regards movement the
power that moves the heavenly bodies is of a nobler kind.

Reply to Objection 3: Since the heavenly body is a mover moved, it is of the nature of an
instrument, which acts in virtue of the agent: and therefore since this agent is a living substance
the heavenly body can impart life in virtue of that agent.

Reply to Objection 4: The movements of the heavenly bodies are natural, not on account of
their active principle, but on account of their passive principle; that is to say, from a certain
natural aptitude for being moved by an intelligent power.

Reply to Objection 5: The heaven is said to move itself in as far as it is compounded of mover
and moved; not by the union of the mover, as the form, with the moved, as the matter, but by
contact with the motive power, as we have said. So far, then, the principle that moves it may
be called intrinsic, and consequently its movement natural with respect to that active principle;
just as we say that voluntary movement is natural to the animal as animal (Phys. viii, text. 27).

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Exposition of Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens, trans. P. Con-
way and F. R Larcher (Ohio, 1964), Book I, lect. 18, n. 458:

Lecture 18: The first difficulty, concerning the number of motions of the stars, is solved. The
number shown to agree with modern astronomers.

458. Having proposed the two doubts, the Philosopher here starts to solve them.

First he solves the first question;

Secondly, the second one (L. 19).

As to the first he does two things:

First he shows what ought to be assumed in order to make the first question easier to resolve;
Secondly, he gives the solution, at 459.

He says therefore first [324] that the reason why the first question is difficult is that we investi-
gate the heavenly bodies as though they were merely an orderly system of bodies without
being animated. As a consequence, it seems to us that the order of their motions should be in
accord with the order of numbers and according to the position of the bodies. But if the pro-
blem at hand is to be settled, we must assume that they have not only some sort of life but also
actions – this being proper to things with a rational soul, which act for an end as being masters
of their act, and do not act by the sole impulse of nature as do all irrational things. If this is
assumed, nothing is seen to be occurring unreasonably if the number of their motions does not
proceed according to the position of the bodies. For the diversity and number of the motions
is to be taken more in terms of a relation to the final good, which is the principle in all things
able to be done [i.e., voluntary actions], as is plain from the words of the Philosopher in Ethics
VII and Physics II.

One should note in this regard that it makes no difference whether we suppose that the
heavenly bodies are moved by intellectual substances united to them after the manner of a
soul, or by these as separated. But there would be no way to solve this question if they were
moved by the sole impulse of nature, as heavy and light bodies are.

51
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book II, Dis-
tinction 14, Question 1, art. 3 (tr. Erik Norvelle):26

Article 3: Whether the motion of the heavens is due to an intelligence

Regarding the third issue, we proceed as follows.

1) It appears that the motion of the heavens is not from a soul or from an intelligence. For the
motion of the heavens is a natural motion, as the Philosopher states in On the Heavens, Book
I. But a natural motion is that whose principle is a form of a natural body. Therefore it appears
that the motion of the heavens is from its natural form, and not from anything which moves
by understanding.

2) Further, every motion [caused] by a soul is accompanied by labor and suffering, as is stated
in On the Heavens, Book II. But the motion of the heavens is not of this sort, because it would
not be able to be continuous and uniform. Therefore it is not moved by a soul.

3) Further, an intellective soul is not connected to a body except by the sensitive and vegetative
soul, as is clear from the comparison of the parts of the soul with the species of figures in On
the Soul, Book II. But the heavenly bodies cannot have a sensitive or vegetative soul, because
they do not have a composite body, which would be required in order that it be an instrument
for a vegetative and sensitive soul. Therefore it appears that [the heavens] cannot be moved
by an intellective soul.

4) Further, every body moved by a soul has a left and a right, as well as other differences of
position. But the heavenly body, being completely uniform, does not have this kind of
diversity of parts. Therefore it appears that it cannot be moved by a soul.

But on the contrary,

1) it is proven in Physics, Book VII, that [the heavenly body] is moved by itself. But something
moved by itself cannot exist, as is shown in the same place, unless it is that sort of thing of
which one part is a mover, and another part the moved. But every such motion is the motion
of an apprehensive power. Therefore it is necessary that the motion of the heaven be from
some apprehensive power.

2) Every natural motion is from a body existing outside of its own location. But this is
impossible to posit in the heavens. Therefore, the motion of the heavens is from some kind of
apprehension.

I respond by saying that concerning this issue there are multiple opinions. For some say that,
just as the motion of other simple bodies is from their corporal natures, so also will be the
motion of the celestial body. But this appears not to be true. For every motion is from some
motor. But in the motion of simple bodies, even though the natural form is the principle of
motion, it is nevertheless not the motor. The essential motor, however, is the generator which
gives form, and the accidental [motor] is that which removes that which blocks motion, as is
proven in Physics, Book VIII, but this is totally inappropriate for the celestial body. And
further, a natural motion is to one place only, and is perfected by natural rest, and is of a body

26
* This translation is based on the Latin text contained in Scriptum super Sententiis Petri Lombardi. Parma,
1856. This translation is for informational purposes only, and should not be cited for the purposes of academic
publications without prior comparison with the Latin text. Translation by Erik Norvelle, published under a
Creative Commons 2.0 Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. (Norvelle’s note)

52
which exists outside of its natural place, all of which is also foreign to the heavenly body. And
thus others say that it must be the case that the motion of the heavenly body is from another
intelligent being endowed with will, but not immediately from God Himself: for this does not
correspond to the order of divine wisdom, the effect of which comes to the last things through
middle things, as Dionysius states. And thus Gregory [the Great] states that corporeal creatures
are governed by spiritual creatures; and thus it is probable that some created intellect is the
proximate motor of the heavens. Nevertheless it should be known that the philosophers posited
diverse motors in diverse moved and mobile things, and thus they demonstrated the number
of intelligent movers on the basis of the number of these [moved and mobile things]. However,
they assigned to every sphere two motors: one conjoined, which they called the soul of the
sphere, and another separated, which they called an Intelligence. The reason for this position
was that an Intelligence, according to these thinkers, possesses universal forms, and is
therefore not appropriate for immediately directing the renewals of the diverse motions of the
heavens, or those things which are educed by the motor of the heavens. Hence it is necessary
that there be a motor in which there are the particular forms which direct [the lesser things] in
motion, and this they called the soul of the sphere.

But this position is partly heretical, and partly can be held in a Catholic manner. For these
same [thinkers] hold that things proceed in an ordered fashion from God, i.e. the Intelligences
are created immediately by the First Cause, which is God, and from [the Intelligences] the soul
of the sphere proceeds; and from this there is produced the substance of the sphere itself.
Therefore it can be said that the proximate motor is its form or soul, because it gives itself
existence, like a cause proportioned to itself. But this our faith does not suffer, since it posits
that only God is the creator of things, as was stated above. And thus we can say that the
Angels, which move the spheres in a proximate fashion, are motors, but not forms or souls,
because the spheres receive only motion from them, but not existence. But we can sustain
[their position] in this respect, as we said, in that the higher Angels, which have more universal
forms, are separated and remote motors; whereas the inferior Angels, which have more
particular forms, as was stated before, are proximate motors. Thus also Avicenna says that
[those beings] called Intelligences by the philosophers are what, according to the Law, are
called higher Angels, such as Cherubim and Seraphim; whereas the Souls of the spheres are
said to be lesser, and these are called ministering Angels.

1) In response to the first argument, it should be stated that, just as the Commentator says in
the first book of his commentary on On the Heavens, the motion of the heavens is said to be
natural, not because its active principle is some natural form, but because the celestial body
itself is of such a nature that it naturally is susceptible to such a motion [imparted] by some
intellect, not having a natural repugnance to this voluntary motion, as there is in us. For nature
is not said only in regards to the form, but also in regards to matter.

2) Regarding the second argument: the Philosopher is speaking against those who posited the
heavens to be of the [same] nature as the inferior bodies, for then that motion would be caused
by a soul against the nature of the moved body, and thus labor and suffering would be
necessary present in causing motion. But if we posit that that motion is from an intellect
according to the condition of the body moved, there will not then be violence nor labor.

3) Regarding the third argument: as the Commentator states in his book On the Substance of
the Spheres, the heavenly body is neither generable nor corruptible, as are our bodies; and thus
it does not need any vegetative form. Similarly, also, its motor does not acquire cognition from
things, but has a kind of active knowledge; and thus it does not need a sensitive soul; and thus
according to the philosophers the soul of the heavens and that of man are not said univocally.

53
 4) Regarding the fourth argument: according to the Philosopher, the celestial body can be
assigned differences of position; and thus its ‘right’ is said to be the East, from whence the
motion originates; and its ‘left’ is the West, and ‘above’ is the southern pole, and ‘below’ is
the Northern pole, and ‘ahead’ is the upper hemisphere, and ‘behind’ is the lower hemisphere.
Nevertheless, these parts, as the Commentator himself states, are assigned differently to the
heavenly body and to our bodies, in two regards. First, in us these parts are diversified by
figure and power, but this is not the case in the heavenly body, since it is spherical everywhere.
Secondly, in us that determinate part which is right never becomes left, but in the heavenly
body that part of the sphere which is now right, later becomes left, because the part which is
now in the East will later be in the West. This occurs because the power which brings out
motion in us is the act of the body to whom organs are affixed, i.e. muscles and nerves, but
this is not the case in the heavenly body. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Exposition of Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens, trans. P. Conway
and F. R Larcher (Ohio, 1964), Book I, lect. 3, nn. 313-315:

Lecture 3:

How, according to the Philosopher’s opinion, the differences of position

befit the parts of the heaven

313. After determining the question of the positional parts of the heaven according to the
opinions of others, the Philosopher here discusses them according to his own opinion. As to
this he does three things:

First he shows that such positional differences must be in the heaven;

Secondly, he explains which dimension determines “up” and “down” in the heaven, at 320;
Thirdly, he shows which part of the heaven is up, and which is down, 323.

About the first he does two things:

First he proves his proposition;

Secondly, he excludes certain objections, at 317.

314. With respect to the first he gives the following argument [236]:

It has been previously determined that in things possessing a principle of motion, namely, in
living bodies which possess a moving principle within themselves, there are found “such
powers,” i.e., differences of position according to the respective virtues in the parts, and not
merely with respect to us, as in the case of non-living bodies which do not possess within
themselves an active principle of motion but a passive one only, as is said in Physics VIII. But
the heaven is animated and possesses a principle of motion.

That the heaven is animated he supposes from something proved in Physics VIII, namely, that
all mobile beings must be reduced to one first self-mover that possesses its own active
principle of motion and not merely its own passive principle, as some mentioned by Simplicius
would claim. For they say that Aristotle called the heaven animate not because it had a rational
soul but inasmuch as it had a kind of life implanted in its body in such a way, however, that
the soul in it is nothing other than the nature of such a body. But that this is false is clearly
shown by the words of Aristotle in Metaphysics XII to the effect that the first mover, which is
completely immobile, moves the heaven as an object of thought and desire moves something.
Consequently, it follows that, according to his opinion, the heaven is according to its soul
something that desires and understands. And according to this, the motion of the heaven

54
 proceeds from its nature and from its soul: from its nature, indeed, as from a secondary and
passive principle, inasmuch, namely, as such a body is apt to be moved in such a way; from
its soul, however, as from a primary and active principle of motion.

315. Now in regard to this way of causing motion, it makes little difference whether the
heaven is moved by a conjoined spiritual substance called its soul, or by a separated
spiritual substance, except that a greater dignity accrues to the heaven if it is considered
moved by a conjoined spiritual substance. This last consideration led Plato and Aristotle
to posit an animated heaven.

Someone could object, however, that although it is more noble for a body to have a spiritual
substance conjoined to it, yet for the spiritual substance it is nobler to be separated from a
body. For this reason Plato was led to say that it is for the good of the rational soul to be
separated from the body at some time. Now according to this, since the mover is nobler than
the moved and since motion depends more on the former, it seems better to say that the
substance moving the heaven is separated from the body than to say that the heaven is
animated; for this will give greater nobility to the motion of the heaven. Otherwise it would
seem, following Plato’s opinion, that the soul of the heaven would be in a worse condition
than the human soul.

But an answer to this could be that in one sense it is nobler for the human soul to exist outside
the body than in the body, namely, to the extent that it moves the body with labor against its
nature. But in respect to the natural existence of the soul it is better for the soul to be in the
body, because through it the soul attains the perfect existence of its species. Consequently, if
there be a spiritual substance whose power is determined to the motion of the heaven, which
it moves without labor, as was said above, then for that substance it is nobler to be in such a
body than to be separated; because the action is more perfect which is performed through a
conjoined instrument than with a separated instrument. But a separated substance whose
power is not determined to this effect is absolutely nobler…. (emphasis added)

That the soul is the noblest form in lower things St. Thomas Aquinas explains in On the
Motion of the Heart (De Motu Cordis), n. 15 (tr. B.A.M.):

15. The motion of the heart is therefore natural as following upon the soul, inasmuch as it is
the form of such a body, and principally of the heart. And perhaps in accordance with this
understanding of the matter some have said that “the motion of the heart is caused by an
[angelic] intelligence,” inasmuch as they held the soul to be from an intelligence, just as
Aristotle says in the eighth book of the Physics (ch. 4, 256a1), the motion of heavy and light
things comes from that which generates them, inasmuch as it gives the form which is the
principle of motion. For every property and motion follows on some form according to its
condition, just as upon the form of the noblest27 element, fire, for example, follows motion to
the noblest place, which is above. Now the noblest form in lower things is the soul, which
most approaches to a likeness to the principle of the motion of the heavens. And so the motion
following upon it is most similar to the motion of the heavens: for the motion of the heart in
an animal is like the motion of the heavens in the world.

That the body is the noblest of all lower bodies he explains in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book
II: Creation. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by James F. Anderson (Notre Dame,
1975), cap. 70, n. 6:

27
“Noblest”, that is, that which has “the highest rank”, so to speak.

55
 [6] Now, the human body is the noblest of all lower bodies, and by its equable temperament
most closely resembles the heaven, which is completely devoid of contrariety; so that in Aris-
totle’s judgment the intellectual substance is united to the human body not by any phantasms,
but as its form.

f. The circular movement of the heart in relation to that of the heavens:

Cf. Walter Pagel, William Harvey’s Biological Ideas: Selected Aspects and Historical
Background. (Basel/New York, 1967), William Harvey’s Circular Symbolism, pp. 82-83:

In Harvey’s own words: “I began to think by myself whether it (the blood) has a certain
motion, as it were in a circle, which afterwards I found to be true, and that the blood is pro-
pelled from the heart through the arteries into the body and all parts … and back again through
the veins … to the right auricle…. This may be called circular motion, in the same way in
which, accord- [82-83] ing to Aristotle, air and rain emulate the circular motion of the bodies
above. For the moist earth evaporates when heated by the sun; the vapours lifted up are con-
densed, and condensed into rain come down again, moisten the earth and in this manner gener-
ation takes place and similarly tempests and atmospheric phenomena develop through the
circular motion of the sun, his approach and recession.*

In the same way in all likelihood it should happen in the body through the motion of the
blood that all parts are nourished, warmed and quickened by the warmer, more perfect, va-
porous, spirituous and so to speak nutritious blood: that by contrast the blood in these parts is
cooled down, thickens and as it were becomes effete—whence it returns to its principle,
namely the heart, the fountain and hearth of the body in order to recuperate its perfection; here,
through the natural, potent, fervent heat, as it were the treasure of life, it is made fluid again
and pregnant with spirits and so to speak balsam is dispersed from here again, and all this
depends upon the motion and beat of the heart.

Thus the heart is the principle of life and the sun of the microcosm (just as proportionally
the sun deserves to be called the heart of the world); it is through its virtue and heat that the
blood is moved, perfected, quickened and protected against corruption and clotting. It is this
intimate hearth—the fundament of life and author of all—that is devoted to the whole body,
nourishing, heating and quickening it.”[31]
[31]
HARVEY, De motu cap. VIII. ed. 1628, p. 42, ed. Roterod. 1648, p. 102 (“coepi egomet
mecum cogitare, an motionem quandam quasi in circulo haberet.”), tr. WILLIS, p.46.

* In the foregoing passage Harvey has in mind Post. An., II. 12 (96a 5-8), which I give next.
And notice how his understanding of the circulation of the blood seems to demand the circu-
lar motion of the heart: for just as the cycle of evaporation and condensation follows the
circular motion of the heavens, so would the blood that of the heart. Harvey, however, does
not pursue this part of the analogy, but rather considers the blood’s effect on the body as
resembling that of rainfall on the earth. Conversely, whereas St. Thomas does not consider
the relation of the heart’s movement to that of the blood, its circulation would seem to follow
for him from Harvey’s principles.

Cf. Aristotle, Post. An., II. 12 (95b 37—96a 8) (tr. E.S. Bouchier):

We see with regards to matters in process that production is effected in a circular manner, and
we observe that this may happen when the major and minor and also the middle terms are each

56
 of them consequences of the other, and it is then that conversion takes place. Now we proved
at the outset [96a] (Pr. An. II. 5-7) that causes and effects may be proved circularly, and that
is the meaning of the circular process. In the case of matters of production the method may be
regarded as follows. [5] When the earth has been moistened vapours must arise. When that
happens a cloud is produced. From the cloud comes rain, and as a result of the rain the earth
must be moistened. Hence the process has returned to its starting point, and when any one of
the terms is present another follows, when that is present a third follows, and when the third
is present the first recurs again.

Cf. Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas translated by

Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., Bk. II, lect. 12:

Lecture 12

(95b38-96a20)

HOW IN THINGS THAT COME TO BE RECIPROCALLY, A CAUSE WHICH IS NOT

SIMULTANEOUS WITH THE EFFECT IS TAKEN AS MIDDLE IN A DEMON-
STRATION

HOW ONE DEMONSTRATES THROUGH CAUSE DIFFERENTLY, IN THINGS THAT

OCCUR ALWAYS AND IN THINGS THAT OCCUR AS A GENERAL RULE

b38. Now we observe in Nature— a2. In actual fact— a8. Some occurrences are universal—
a12. For if A is predicated— a20. We have already explained

After showing how one must take the middle, which is the cause, in things that come to be in
a direct line, the Philosopher now shows how one should take it in the case of things that come
to be in reciprocal generation. First, he proves his proposal. Secondly, he elucidates it with
examples (96a2).

In regard to the first it should be noted that because the circular movement of the heavens is
the cause of generation in sublunar things, it is stated in On Generation II that a kind of circular
reciprocity is found in generation in the sense that earth is generated from water, and water in
turn from earth.

He says therefore (95b38) that since we observe a certain pattern of generation in things
that are generated circularly, it is possible in these cases also to follow what has been
established above, namely, to syllogize from what is subsequent, provided that the terms
of the demonstration are taken in such a way that middle and extremes follow one upon
the other: because in the case of things that are generated in that way, there is a kind of
circular conversion in the sense that one passes from the first thing to the last thing, and
then a return is made from the last to the first; although these things are not numerically
but specifically the same, as is explained in On Generation II. Hence it does not follow that
the same numerical thing is prior and subsequent, or is cause and effect.

And this is suitable to the process of demonstrations, for, as has been established in the fore-
going, whenever conclusions are converted, i.e., whenever some of the premises can be
syllogized from them, this is a circular demonstration. And although this is not fitting if the
very same thing which was first the conclusion is later the principle of the same numerical
thing (otherwise the same thing would be at once better known and less known), nevertheless
if they are not entirely the same, as happens in things that are circularly generated, there is
nothing unfitting.

57
Then (96a2) he uses examples to elucidate what he has said, saying that a circular process
is seen to occur in the works of nature. For if the earth is saturated with rain, it is neces-
sary that the action of the sun release vapors from it; when these are released and borne
aloft, it is necessary that clouds be formed; and after they are formed, it is necessary that
rain water be formed; and when this is formed, it is necessary that in falling upon the
earth it saturate it. Now this saturation of the earth was the very thing we took as being
first; however, it is not the same saturation as the one from which we first began.

Thus it is clear that a cycle has been achieved in the sense that with one of them exist-
ing, another comes to be; and that other existing, still another comes to be; and that one
existing, a return is made to the first, which is not numerically the same, but specifically
the same. Yet this cycle of causes cannot be found according to the order which is found in
per se causes; for in per se causes it is necessary to reach some one thing which is first in each
genus of causes as is proved in Metaphysics II. But the fact that water is generated from fire,
and fire in turn from water, is not per se but per accidens. For being is generated per se not
from actual being but from potential being, as it is stated in Physics I. Therefore, if we proceed
from cause to cause in per se causes, there will not be a cycle. For we will accept as the effici-
ent cause of the rain-soaked earth, the heat of the air which is caused by the sun, but not vice
versa; but the material cause we take as water, whose matter is not vapor but the common
matter of the elements.

Then (96a8) he shows how one demonstrates through the cause differently in things which
occur always and in things which occur as a general rule. Concerning this he does three things.
First, he proposes what he intends. Secondly, he proves what he has proposed (96a12).
Thirdly, he sums up (96a20).

He says therefore first (96a8) that there are some things which come to be universally both as
to time, because always, and as to subject, because in all cases; either because they maintain
themselves as unchangeable things which are not subject to coming to be, or because they
come to be as changeable things which always follow a uniform pattern, as in the case of
heavenly movements. Again, there are other things which do not occur in the sense of always,
but as a general rule. An example of this is that every human male develops a beard as a
general rule, although it does not occur always. Therefore, just as in the case of things that
occur always, it is necessary to take a middle which is always, so in the case of things which
occur as a general rule, it is necessary to take a middle that occurs as a general rule.

Then (96a12) he proves that if one is to conclude to something that occurs as a general rule it
is necessary to take a middle which occurs as a general rule. For if one were to assume the
opposite by taking a middle which occurs universally and always; for example, if A, which is
the major extreme, is predicated universally of B, which is the middle, and B of C, which is
the minor extreme, then it follows of necessity that A is predicated universally of C both as to
time and as to subject, which is the same as being predicated always and of each thing. Hence,
we are now saying that for something to be predicated universally is the same as being
predicated of all and always. But it has been assumed that A is predicated of C as a general
rule. Therefore, it is necessary that the middle, which is B, should be taken as existing as a
general rule.

Thus it is obvious that certain immediate principles of things which occur as a general rule can
be taken, such that those principles exist or come to be as a general rule. Yet such demonstra-
tions do not enable one to know that what is concluded is true absolutely but only in a qualified
sense, namely, that it is true in the majority of cases. And this is the way that the principles
which are taken possess truth. Hence sciences of this kind fall short of sciences which deal
with things absolutely necessary, so far as the certitude of demonstration is concerned.

58
 Then (96a20) he sums up what has been said, saying that we have now established how the
quod quid which is practically identical with the propter quid is assigned among syllogistic
terms, inasmuch as we have shown how the several genera of causes are middles of demonstra-
tion according to the respective diversities of things. We have also shown in what sense there
is or is not demonstration or definition of the quod quid. (emphasis added)

g. On cyclical processes:

Cf. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, II. 11 (336b 35-338b 19) (tr. H. H. Joachim):

Wherever there is continuity in any process (coming-to-be or ‘alteration’ [337b] or any kind
of change whatever) we observe consecutiveness, i.e. this coming-to-be after that without any
interval. Hence we must investigate whether there is anything which will neces-sarily exist, or
whether everything may fail to come-to-be. For if it be true to say of some-thing that it will
be, it must at the same time be true to say of it that it is; whereas, [5] though it be true to say
of something now that it is going to be, it is quite possible for it not come-to-be—thus a man
might not go for a walk, though he is now going for a walk. And since in general amongst the
things which are some are capable also of not-being, it is clear that the same character will
attach to them no less when they are coming-to-be: in other words, their coming-to-be will not
be necessary.
Then are all the things that cometo-be of this character? Or, on the contrary, [10] is it
absolutely necessary for some of them to come-to-be? Is there, in fact, a distinction in the field
of coming-to-be corresponding to the distinction, within the field of being, between things that
cannot possibly not-be and things that can not-be? For instance, is it necessary that solstices
shall come-to-be, i.e. impossible that they should fail to be able to occur?
Assuming that what is prior must have come-to-be if what is posterior is to be (e.g. that
foundations must have come-to-be if there [15] is to be a house: clay, if there are to be found-
ations), is the converse also true? If foundations have come-to-be, must a house come-to-be?
It seems that this is not so, unless it is necessary absolutely for the latter to come to be. If that
be the case, however, a house must come-to-be if foundations have come-to-be, as well as vice
versa. For the prior was assumed to be so related to the posterior that, if the latter is to be, the
prior also must have come-to-be before it. If, therefore, it is necessary that the posterior should
come-to-be, the prior [20] also must have come-to-be: and if the prior has come-to-be, then
the posterior also must come-to-be—not, however, because of the prior, but because the future
being of the posterior was assumed as necessary. Hence, in any sequence, when the being of
the posterior is necessary, the nexus is reciprocal—in other words, when the prior has come-
to-be the posterior must always come-to-be too.
Now if the sequence of occurrences is to proceed ad infinitum downwards, the [25] coming
to-be of any determinate later member will not be absolutely, but only conditionally,
necessary. For it will always be necessary that some other member shall have come-to-be
beforehand, on account of which it is necessary that this should come-to-be: consequently,
since what is infinite has no beginning, neither will there be in the infinite sequence any
‘primary’ member which will make it necessary for the remaining members to come-to-be.
Nor again (ii) will it be possible to say with truth, even in regard to the members of [30] a
limited sequence, that it is absolutely necessary for any one of them to come-to-be. We cannot
truly say, e.g. that it is absolutely necessary for a house to come-to-be when foun-dations have
been laid: for (unless it is always necessary for a house to be coming-to-be) we should be faced
with the consequence that, when foundations have been laid, a thing, which need not always
be, must always be. No: if its coming-to-be is to be necessary, it must be always in its coming-
to-be. For what is of necessity coincides with what is always, since that which ‘must be’ cannot
possibly not-be. Hence a thing is eternal if its being is necessary: and if it is eternal, it is of
[338a] necessity. And if, therefore, the coming-to-be of a thing is necessary, its coming-to-be
is eternal; and if eternal, necessary.

59
 It follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely necessary, must [5] be
cyclical—i.e. must return upon itself. For coming-to-be must either be limited or not limited:
and if not limited, it must be either rectilinear or cyclical. But the first of these last two
alternatives is impossible if coming-to-be is to be eternal, because there could not be any
beginning , whether the members being taken downwards (as future events) or upwards (as
past events). Yet coming-to-be must have a beginning [10] (if it is to be necessary and
therefore eternal), nor can it be eternal if it is limited.30 Consequently it must be cyclical. Hence
the nexus must be reciprocal. By this I mean that the necessary occurrence of this involves the
necessary occurrence of something prior: and conversely, given the prior, it is also necessary
for the posterior to come-to-be. And this will hold continuously throughout the sequence: for
it makes no difference whether we take two, or by many, members. [15] It is in circular
movement, therefore, and in cyclical coming-to-be that the absolutely necessary is to be found.
In other words, if the coming-to-be of any things is cyclical, it is necessary that each of them
is coming-to-be and has come-to-be: and if the coming-to-be of any things is ‘necessary’, their
coming-to-be is cyclical.
And this is reasonable; for circular motion, i.e. the revolution of the heavens, was seen on
other grounds to be eternal since precisely those movements which [338b] belong to, and
depend upon, this eternal revolution ‘come-to-be’ of necessity, and of necessity will be. For
since the revolving body is always setting something else in motion, the movement of the
things it moves must also be circular. Thus, since the upper movement is cyclical, the sun 31
moves in a determinate manner; and since the sun moves thus, the seasons in consequence
come-to-be in a cycle, i.e. return upon themselves; and since they come-to-be cyclically, so in
their turn do the things [5] whose coming-to-be the seasons initiate.
Then why do some things manifestly come-to-be in this cyclical fashion (as, e.g. showers
and air, so that it must rain if there is to be a cloud and, conversely, there must be a cloud if it
is to rain), while men and animals do not ‘return upon themselves’ so that the same individual
comes-to-be a second time (for [10] though your coming-to-be presupposes your father’s, his
coming-to-be does not presuppose yours)? Why, on the contrary, does this coming-to-be seem
to constitute a rectilinear sequence?
In discussing this, we must begin by inquiring whether all things return upon themselves in
a uniform manner; or whether, on the contrary, though in some sequences what recurs is
numerically the same, in other sequences it is the same only in species. In consequence of this
distinction, it is evident that those things, whose substance—that which is undergoing the
process—is imperishable, will be numerically, as well as specifically, the same in their
recurrence: for the [15] character of the process is determined by the character of that which
undergoes it. Those things, on the other hand, whose substance is perishable (not imperish-
able) must ‘return upon themselves’ in the sense that what recurs, though specifically the same,
is not the same numerically. That is why, when Water comes-to-be from Air and Air from
Water, the Air is the same ‘specifically’, not ‘numerically’: and if these too recur numerically
the same, at any rate this does not happen with things whose ‘substance’ comes-to-be-whose
‘substance’ is such that it is essentially capable of not-being.
30
The text is corrupt at this point.
31
Reading ku/kl% o) h(/lioj.

Cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Generation and Corruption by Thomas Aquinas, tr. by Pierre
Conway & R. F. Larcher (Columbus, 1964), Bk. I, lect. 7 complete:

Lecture 7

The cause on the part of matter in generation never fails.

60
52. After presenting an objection against the aforesaid solution, the Philosopher here intro-
duces another question, the answer to which resolves the previous objection. About this he
does two things:

First, he introduces the question and resolves it;

Secondly, he uses this solution to resolve the main question (L. 8).

With respect to the first he does three things:

First, he presents the question;

Secondly, he tackles the question, at 54;
Thirdly, he resolves it, at 57.

Regarding the first he does two things:

First he introduces the question [52] and says that “these,” namely, the previous objection
should be handled to the extent that the proposition requires, and that, in order to get a better
understanding, we should inquire into the reason why generation always exists, i.e., both
absolute generation and generation “with respect to a part,” i.e., generation in a qualified sense.
Now those who posit that the world and motion are perpetual must also posit perpetual
generation. What the force of Aristotle’s arguments is with regard to the perpetuity of
motion and the eternity of the world we have explained in Physics VIII and in On the
Heavens I.

53. Secondly [53], he explains the question he has introduced and says that one cause that
may be assigned of the eternity of generation is that which is called “whence the principle
[beginning] of motion comes,” i.e., the moving or efficient cause; another cause may be
assigned, which is matter. And this is the one to be assigned now, namely, the material—
for the moving cause has been discussed in the tract on motion,” i.e., in Physics VIII,
where it was said that there exists a certain immobile mover for all time, namely, the
mover of the heavens, and a mover which is always moved, namely, the heavens.

To determine concerning one of these, namely, the first mover, pertains to another part of
philosophy, the part which is first among all the parts; hence in Metaphysics XII the
Philosopher determined concerning the cause of the perpetuity of motion and of generation.
But regarding the other mover, namely, the mover which causes perpetual generation because
it is itself continually being moved, it will later be assigned, at the end of the present book,
how this is the cause “of each of the aforesaid,” i.e., of the perpetuity of generation absolutely
speaking and in the qualified sense.

But now we must assign the cause why in perpetuity, generation and corruption do not
desert nature, and which is the cause “classed under the head of matter,” namely, the
material cause. And lest this seem to be foreign to the proposition, he [Aristotle] adds that
perhaps it will at the same time be shown both what must be said about this question and what
must be said of absolute generation and corruption.

54. Then [54] he pursues the question brought up.

First, he presents an objection that would deny perpetuity of generation;

Secondly, he rejects some answers to this objection, at 55.

61
He says therefore first [54] that there seems to be sufficient reason to inquire as to the
cause why generation is “folded around,” i.e., eternally revolves in nature, if that which
is corrupted absolutely falls into non-being. For just as what is generated absolutely
comes to be from non-being absolutely, so what is corrupted absolutely would seem to
fall into non-being absolutely, in the sense that this non-being would be absolutely
nothing. For that into which it falls cannot be a “something,” i.e., a substance, for since
absolute corruption is of substance, what is corrupted absolutely must fall into non-
substance. Consequently, neither can the non-being at which corruption ends be quality,
or quantity, or “where,” or any of the other predicaments, since accidents cannot exist
without substance.

If, therefore, generation and corruption go on forever, it seems that some being will always be
falling into non-being. Consequently, there is always being subtracted some one or other of
the things having natures. Now, it is plain that whatever is finite will be consumed if something
is continually removed from it. Hence, if the whole universe, from which each and every being
is generated, is finite, and if generation is ab aeterno, then all being should have been
exhausted long ago, so that nothing should be left now but emptiness, i.e., the void.

55. Then [55] he excludes two answers. The first was that of the ancient natural philosophers
who, in order to account for the perpetuity of generation, attributed infinity to the principles.
For all who posited one principle, such as fire or air or water or something in-between, endow-
ed that principle with infinity. Democritus however assumed infinite empty space, as well as
an infinitude of indivisible bodies. Likewise, Anaxagoras posited an infinitude of similar parts
as principles. All these tenets are rejected by the Philosopher, who says that it cannot be that
the reason why generation does not cease is because that is infinite from which something is
generated, whether there be one principle or many principles. For such a thing is impossible,
since, as was proved in Physics III and in On the Heavens I, there is in nature no infinite in
act.

56. A second answer is now presented and refuted [56]. For someone could say that, although
there is not present in nature any infinite in act, there is nevertheless an infinite in potency, as
is evident in the division of a continuum. Consequently, someone could say that, just as, even
though it is not infinite in act, something can be taken ad infinitum by division from a contin-
uum without its being consumed, so too, from natural body, out of which all things are gener-
ated, even though it is not infinite, something can be taken which, by corruption, falls away to
non-being, yet without its ever being totally consumed.

But this is excluded. For if, from a finite continuum, as is said in Physics III, the same quantity
is always removed, it will, no matter how large, be finally consumed—for example, if one
should continue to remove a palm’s breadth from the diameter of the heaven. But a continuum
is divided ad infinitum if subtraction is always made according to the same proportion—for
example, if a continuum be divided in half, and the half into half, and so on infinitely. The
same holds for any other ratio. Such a division having been made, it is plain that what is taken
after the half will always be less than what was taken before—for the half of the half is always
less than the half of the whole. Hence Aristotle concludes that, if this is the way that generation
and corruption are to endure forever, i.e., in the way that a continuum is forever divided, then
whatever is generated later will always have to be smaller in quantity, so that, by virtue of
what is subtracted from natural body being always less, the original quantity will not be totally
consumed. But we do not see this happen, namely, what is generated being always less. Conse-
quently, the way generation and corruption endure ad infinitum cannot be similar to the
division of a magnitude ad infinitum.

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 57. Then [57] having rejected the false solutions, he concludes to the true one, namely, that
the reason why the transmutation of generation and corruption must be unfailing, or
“unceasing,” i.e., unceasing, is that the corruption of this is the generation of something
else, and vice versa. For generation per se is indeed from a being in potency, i.e., from matter,
which is as the subject of natural things—it is accidental to the matter out of which something
is generated that it be the subject of another form, with respect to which it is being in act, and
at the same time of the privation of the form to be induced, with respect to which it is non-
being in act. On this account Aristotle in Physics I says that generation is per accidens from a
being in act, but per se from a being in potency.

Similarly, a thing is per se corrupted into a being in potency, which indeed is now subject to
another form, according to which it is a being in act, and to the privation of the previous form,
with respect to which it is now non-being in act. Consequently it does not follow that what is
corrupted departs completely from the whole nature of things, for although that which is
corrupted becomes non-being, yet something else remains, namely, that which has been
generated. Accordingly matter cannot remain without being subjected to some form. That is
why, upon the corruption of one thing, another is generated, and upon the generation of
one thing another is corrupted. Consequently, there is in generation and corruption a
certain cycle which gives it the aptitude to last forever.

Finally he concludes with the summary that the aforesaid cause should be considered suf-
ficient as to why there should be absolute generation and corruption with respect to each and
every thing in perpetuity. This is true on the supposition that the world and motion are
eternal—which, however, the Catholic faith does not suppose, as has been said elsewhere.
(emphasis added)

h. That nature is cyclical:

Cf. John Henry Newman, The Second Spring: A sermon delivered to the First Provincial
Council of Westminster, 1852:

A Sermon by John Henry Newman, D.D.

[Preached on July 13, 1852, in St. Mary’s College, Oscott, in the First Provincial Synod of
Westminster, before Cardinal Wiseman and the Bishops of England.]

Surge, propera, amica mea, columba mea, formosa mea, et veni. Jam enim hiems transiit,
imber abiit et recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra.—Cant., c. ii. v. 10-12.

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For the winter is now
past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land.

We have familiar experience of the order, the constancy, the perpetual renovation of the
material world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory as is every part of it, restless and
migratory as are its elements, never-ceasing as are its changes, still it abides. It is bound
together by a law of permanence, it is set up in unity; and, though it is ever dying, it is ever
coming to life again. Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of organization, and one
death is the parent of a thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but a testimony, how fleeting,
yet how secure, how certain, is the great whole. It is like an image on the waters, which is ever
the same, though the waters ever flow. Change upon change,—yet one change cries out to
another, like the alternate Seraphim, in praise and in glory of their Maker. The sun sinks to
rise again; the day is swallowed up in the gloom of the night, to be born out of it, as fresh

63
 as if it had never been quenched. Spring passes into summer, and through summer and
autumn into winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate return, to triumph over
that grave, towards which it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We mourn over the
blossoms of May, because they are to wither; but we know, withal, that May is one day to
have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops,—
which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never
to despair. (emphasis added)

Cf. Chris Weinkopf, “A Brief History of Time” (April 9, 1995):28

With or without astronomy, casual observation over the course of one’s life makes the cyc-
lical nature of seasons self-explanatory. One need have no appreciation of the earth’s orbit
around the sun to discover that fall invariably follows summer, which is preceded by spring,
the successor of winter. This order is unfailing, and easily discernible to the naked or even
blind eye.

On the pagan view, cf. Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, I. xvi (tr. C. D.
Yonge, The Nature of the Gods and Divination, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1997, orig-
inal edition H. G. Bohn, 1853), Book II. VII:

BOOK II.

VII. But where did we find that which excels all these things — I mean reason, or (if you
please, in other terms) the mind, understanding, thought, prudence; and from whence
did we receive it? Shall the world be possessed of every other perfection, and be destitute
of this one, which is the most important and valuable of all? But certainly there is nothing
better, or more excellent, or more beautiful than the world; and not only there is nothing better,
but we cannot even conceive anything superior to it; and if reason and wisdom are the greatest
of all perfections, they must necessarily be a part of what we all allow to be the most excellent.
Who is not compelled to admit the truth of what I assert by that agreeable, uniform, and
continued agreement of things in the universe? Could the earth at one season be adorned
with flowers, at another be covered with snow? Or, if such a number of things regulated
their own changes, could the approach and retreat of the sun in the summer and winter
solstices be so regularly known and calculated? Could the flux and reflux of the sea and the
height of the tides be affected by the increase or wane of the moon? Could the different
courses of the stars be preserved by the uniform movement of the whole heaven? Could
these things subsist, I say, in such a harmony of all the parts of the universe without the
continued influence of a divine spirit? (emphasis added)

See my paper on this subject.

28
(http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Chris/TIME2.html [12/21/09])

64
For the Judeo-Christian understanding of this subject, cf. An Exact Exposition of the Or-
thodox Faith by St John Damascene. Translated by E.W. Watson and L. Pullan. From Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 9. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace
(Buffalo, 1899), Book I, Chapter III:

CHAPTER III

Proof that there is a God.

…All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows
that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also
be subject to change, whether it be that they perish or that they become other than they are by
act of will[5]. But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly immutable.
For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed in the mode
of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant
that all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the
very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of various kinds? For the
things appertaining to the rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to
changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle
or a surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of increase and
decrease, of quality and of movement in space. Things then that are mutable are also wholly
created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot
have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some
one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is
also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?

And even the very continuity of the creation, and its preservation and government, teach us
that there does exist a Deity, who supports and maintains and preserves and ever provides
for this universe. For how[6] could opposite natures, such as fire and water, air and earth,
have combined with each other so as to form one complete world, and continue to abide in
indissoluble union, were there not some omnipotent power which bound them together and
always is preserving them from dissolution?

What is it that gave order to things of heaven and things of earth, and all those things that
move in the air and in the water, or rather to what was in existence before these, viz., to
heaven and earth and air and the elements of fire and water? What[7] was it that mingled
and distributed these? What was it that set these in motion and keeps them in their
unceasing and unhindered course[8]? Was it not the Artificer of these things, and He Who
hath implanted in everything the law whereby the universe is carried on and directed? Who
then is the Artificer of these things? Is it not He Who created them and brought them into
existence. For we shall not attribute such a power to the spontaneous[9]. For, supposing their
coming into existence was due to the spontaneous; what of the power that put all in order [10]?
And let us grant this, if you please. What of that which has preserved and kept them in harmony
with the original laws of their existence[11]? Clearly it is something quite distinct from the
spontaneous[12]. And what could this be other than Deity[13]?

5. Reading προαίρεσιν; a variant is τροπήν.

6. Athan., Cont. Gent.
7. Various reading, Who.
8. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
9. The Greek is τῳ αὐτομάτῳ, to the automatic; perhaps = to the accidental, or, to chance.
10. Or, Whose was the disposing of them in order?

65
 11. Or, Whose are the preserving of them, and the keeping of them in accordance with the
principles under which they were first placed?
12. παρα τὸ αὐτόματον; or, quite other than the spontaneous, or, than chance.
13. Athan., De Incarn. Verbi, near the beginning. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34. (emphasis added)

For a witness from the Jewish tradition, cf. M. Friedlaender, Essays on the Writings of Ibn
Ezra, Vol. 4 (London, 1886). First Essay. The Philosophy of Ibn Ezra, pp. 1-2:

HE who set a boundary to the ever-flowing billows of the sea, and said, “Thus far shalt thou
go and no further,” also limited the sphere of the all-investigating human mind. When,
however, in compliance with the exhortation of the prophet, “we lift our eyes on high, and see
who created these things,” we are not satisfied with only admiring the grandeur of the Universe
and the infinite wisdom of its Creator: we are anxious to know this great Architect, to
understand the mysterious art by which He became the Author of all Beauty, and to
comprehend the scheme of Providence by which all parts of the divine work are kept in
marvellous harmony. Moralists of old, poets and prophets have warned us in vain against
any attempts at realising such a desire as useless and even dangerous.1 The experience of
previous failures, of systems which flourished for some time and faded away, is likewise of
no avail. The restless human mind tries to break down every fence, in order to pass into regions
which are beyond its reach. When, on the one hand, change appears to be the rule of nature,
when the sun is observed to rise and set, clouds to
1
“Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are above
thy strength” (Ben Sira iii. 21). “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Eccl. i. 18)

2 ESSAYS ON THE WRITINGS OF IBN EZRA.

appear and disappear, seasons to come and go, generation to succeed generation, in short
all things to flow in a perpetual tide, and on the other hand, amidst all this change a certain
constancy is noticed, the question is naturally asked, When and how did this series of
successions commence? When will it end? We are as much at a loss to form a conception of
its absence as to comprehend its continuance from infinity to infinity. (emphasis added)

Cf. Archibald Geikie, Elementary Lessons in Physical Geography (London, 1886), Intro-
duction pp. 2-3:

4. This variety [sc. observable “on the face of the earth”] is everywhere associated with life
and movement. Consider, for instance, the unvarying succession of day and night; the order-
ly march of the seasons; the constant or fitful blowing of the winds; the [2-3] regular circling
of the ocean tides; the ceaseless flow of rivers; the manifold growth and activity of plant and
animal life! Surely it was no strange thought when men in old times pictured this world as a
living being. And even though we cannot look on the earth as a living thing in the sense in
which a plant or animal is so called, yet in view of all that multitudinous movement which is
ever in progress upon its surface, and on which, indeed, we know that our own existence de-
pends, there is evidently another sense in which we may speak of the life of the Earth.

66
i. Supplement: The comparison of the universe with a living thing: That the divine encloses
(or ‘pervades’) all of nature:

Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII. 8 (1074b 1-14) (tr. W. D. Ross):

[1074b] Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a
tradition, in the form of a myth [en muthou schemati], that these [celestial] bodies are gods,
and that the divine encloses the whole of nature.29 The rest of the tradition has been added
later in mythical form [ta de loipa muthikos ede prosektai] with a view to the [5] persuasion
of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency; they say these gods are in the form
of men or like some of the other animals, and they say other things consequent on and similar
to these which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first point from these
additions and take it alone—that they thought the [10] first substances to be gods, one must
regard this as an inspired utterance, and reflect that, while probably each art and each science
has often been developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others,
have been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient treasure. Only thus far, then, is
the opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest predecessors clear to us. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In XII Meta., lect. 10, n. 31 (tr. B.A.M.):

Next, when he says, They are handed on, he compares the things that have been discovered
about immaterial substances to ancient and popular beliefs. And he says that certain things
were handed on by the ancient philosophers about the separated substances and were dis-
missed by those coming after them as being in the manner of fables, namely, that they are
gods, and that what is divine contains [or encloses] nature as a whole. And this, in fact, may
be gathered from the things above, if all immaterial substances be called gods. But if only the
first principle be called God there is only one God, as is clear from the things already said. But
the rest [sc. of their traditions] have been introduced in the manner of fable for the persuasion
of the multitude who cannot grasp intelligible things, and insofar as it was the best [expedient]
for delivering the laws, and for their usefulness to human social life [conversationis humanae],
so that from inventions of this sort the multitude would be persuaded to tend to virtuous acts
and turn away from vices. And what was introduced in the manner of fable he explains, adding
that they said the gods were similar in form to men and to certain other animals. For they
put down in the manner of fable certain men made into gods, and certain animals, and
certain things consequent to those things, and they said other similar things. (emphasis
added)

Cf. Alexander Wilder, New Platonism and Alchemy: The Eclectic Philosophy:

Aristotle declares: “The divine essence pervades the whole world of nature; what are styled
the gods are only the first principles. The myths and stories were devised to make the religious
systems intelligible and attractive to the people, who otherwise would not give them any
regard or veneration.”

<…>

29
Cf. Aristotle and St. Thomas on Thales’ understanding of the soul in the excerpts given below. Cf. also Rose
Cherubin, “Notes on Anaxagoras and Philolaus”. George Mason University: “Rather, he [sc. Anaxagoras,
speaking of Nous,] seems to mean some sort of cosmic mind, something that pervades the cosmos (frr. 11, 12,
14)….” (emphasis added) (www.gmu.edu/courses/phil/ancient/anph2.htm [12/18/08])

67
 He [Proclus] also repeats the words of Aristotle: “There are many inferior theoi but only one
Mover. All that is concerning the human shape and attributes of these deities is mere fiction,
invented to instruct the common people and secure their obedience to wholesome laws. But
the First Principle is neither fire, nor earth, nor water, nor anything that is the object of sense.
A spiritual substance is the cause of the Universe, and the source of all order, all beauty, all
the motions and all the forms which are so much admired in it. All must be led up to this one
primitive substance, which governs in subordination to the First. This is the general doctrine
of the ancients, which has, happily, escaped the wreck of truth amid the rocks of popular errors
and poetic fables.”

On the motion of the heavens as founding the comparison with life, cf. St. Thomas Aqui-
nas, De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart), n. 9 (tr. B.A.M.):

9. Again, a perfect animal, which is one that moves itself, most approaches to a likeness of the
whole universe: and so man, who is the most perfect of animals, is by some called a “micro-
cosm”. Now in the universe the first motion is local motion, which is the cause of alteration
as well as the other motions, for which reason even in animals the principle of alteration
appears to be local motion. And so the Philosopher in the eighth book of the Physics (ch. 1,
250 b 14-15), pursuing this resemblance, says that motion is “like a kind of ‘life’ existing in
all things”.30

For related notions, cf. the Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima by Thomas Aquinas
translated by Kenelm Foster, O.P. and Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven, 1951):

TEXT
404b30–405b30
BOOK I, CHAPTER, II, CONTINUED
PREVIOUS THEORIES
SOUL AS IDENTIFIED WITH THE ELEMENTS

It seems that Thales, from what they recollect of him, was also of opinion that the soul
was a cause of motion,—if it is a fact that he said that the magnet had a ‘soul’ because it
attracts iron. §58

TEXT

30
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 18, art. 1. obj. 1, ad 1 (tr. Alfred J. Freddoso):

Objection 1: In Physics 8 the Philosopher says that motion is, as it were, a sort of life in all things that
exist by nature. But all natural things participate in motion. Therefore, all natural things participate in
life.

<…>

Reply to objection 1: This passage from the Philosopher can be understood to apply either to the first
motion, viz., the movement of the celestial bodies, or to motion in general. And in both senses motion
is said to be like the life of natural bodies according to a certain likeness and not properly speaking. For
the motion of the celestial bodies in the universe of corporeal natures is like the motion of the heart by
which life is conserved in an animal. Similarly, every natural motion is, as it were, a certain likeness of
a vital operation in natural things. Hence, if the whole corporeal universe were a single animal, so that
(as some have claimed) its motion were from an intrinsic mover, then it would follow that its motion is
the life of all natural bodies. [N.B. For St. Thomas, the motion of the heavens comes from a conjoined
mover; cf. STh, Ia, q. 70, art. 3.]

68
 404b30–405b30
BOOK I, CHAPTER, II, CONTINUED
PREVIOUS THEORIES
SOUL AS IDENTIFIED WITH THE ELEMENTS

§ 58. Next, at ‘It seems that Thales’, he states the opinion of a philosopher called Thales who
had only this in common with the others mentioned above, that he identified soul with a motive
force. This Thales was one of the Seven Wise Men; but while the others studied moral
questions, Thales devoted himself to the world of nature and was the first natural philosopher.
Hence Aristotle remarks ‘from what they recollect etc.’, referring to those who said that water
was the basic principle of things. For Thales thought that the way to find the principle of
all things was by searching into the principle of living things, and since all the principles
or seeds of living things are moist, he thought that the absolutely first principle must be
the most moist of things; and this being water, he said water was that principle. Yet he
did not follow his theory to the point of saying that soul was water; rather, he defined it as that
which has motive force. Hence he asserted that a certain stone, the magnet, had a soul because
it moved iron. Anaxagoras and Thales, then, are included in the present list; not for identifying
the soul with fire, but because the former said that the soul was the source of knowledge and
sensation, and the latter that it was at the origin of movement. <…>

§ 62. Then at ‘Some cruder thinkers’, Aristotle states an opinion of some who made water the
first principle. For there were certain rather crude followers of Thales who tried to make the
principle of one particular thing an analogy of the first principle of Nature as a whole.
Observing that moisture was fundamental to living things they concluded that it must be
the first principle of all things; in short, that the latter was water. So far indeed they
followed their master, Thales; but whereas he, though admitting water to be the first
principle, would not, as we have seen, allow that the soul was water, but rather a motive
force, his cruder disciples (such as Hippo) asserted that it was water. Hippo tried to refute
those who said the soul was blood with the argument that blood is not the generating seed
(which they called ‘the inchoate soul’) of animate things. He identified this with water on
account of its humidity. (emphasis added)

TEXT
409b18–411a7
BOOK I, CHAPTER V, CONTINUED
EMPEDOCLES’S THEORY OF COGNITION
SOUL NOT COMPOSED OF THE ELEMENTS

§ 190. And a certain philosopher named Orpheus having fallen into a rather similar error in
what he said about the soul, he too is mentioned here. Orpheus was one of those three early
thinkers who were, so to say, poet-theologians; for they wrote in verse on philosophy and
about God. The other two were Museus and a certain Linus. Orpheus, a wonderful orator
whose words had power to civilise wild and brutish folk, was the first man to induce his
fellows to live together in society. For this reason it is said of him that he could make rocks
dance to the sweet sounds of his harp, which really means that his eloquence could melt the
hardest hearts. And after these three poet-philosophers came the seven sages, of whom Thales
was one. Now this Orpheus thought that the whole air was alive, was indeed a sort of
living soul, and that the so-called souls of living bodies were really nothing but the air
these bodies breathed; and this idea he expressed in verse. But the Philosopher objects to
the Orphic theory, saying that it is just as inadequate as the others he has criticised; for there
are many animals that do not breathe at all, ‘a fact’, he says, ‘which was overlooked’ by those
who held this opinion. The criticism touches the inadequacy of the theory.

69
 TEXT
41a 8–411a25
BOOK I, CHAPTER V, CONTINUED
THE ELEMENTS HAVE NO SOUL

And some say that the soul is intermingled generally with the Universe. That is perhaps
why Thales thought that the whole world was full of divinities. § 192

This, however, involves several difficulties. For why does the soul in fire and air not result in
an animated being, whereas it does so in composite beings?—and that, even though it is
thought to be more excellent in the former. (And one might well query why the soul in the air
should be nobler and more enduring than that in animals.) On either count the theory is absurd
and unreasonable. To say that air or fire is an animal is among the most wanton of absurdities;
and if there is a soul in them, it is inconsistent not to call them animals. §§ 193-5

They seem to have held that there was a soul in these on the ground that the Universe is
made up of homogeneous parts; so that if animals become animate by partaking of the
containing element, they must say that the soul [of the Whole] is homogeneous with its
parts. § 196

If then the air, divided off thus, be homogeneous, but the soul be composed of heterogeneous
parts, something of it [the soul] will exist and something not. It is necessary then, either that
it be of homogeneous parts, or that it be not in any and every part of the whole. § 197

It is evident then, from what has been said, that the cause of knowledge being in the soul is
not that soul is made up of the elements; and that it is neither true nor apposite to say that it is
in motion. § 198

I That the distinction here referred to between parts of ‘soul’ refers to mortal and immortal existence is
St. Thomas’s interpretation of this passage (§ 197).

LECTIO THIRTEEN

§ 192. Having stated and rejected the theories and arguments of those who maintained that the
soul was composed of elements, the Philosopher is now led, by the same train of thought, to
discuss the notion, upheld by some, according to which a soul is intermingled with the ele-
ments. First, then, he states this opinion, and then, at ‘They seemed to have held’, the argument
used to support it. And the opinion itself is first stated and then, at ‘This, however,’ attacked.
There are, he says, some who see a soul intermingled with everything, whether simple
elements or things composed of these. This perhaps is what Thales meant when he said
that everything was full of gods; perhaps he thought that the entire Universe was alive
and its life was divine; that just as soul exists everywhere in each living thing so a god
was everywhere in the Universe31 and everything therefore was ‘full of divinities’. And
perhaps this was the notion that underlay idolatry.

31
For an analogue in the Judaic understanding of God, cf. Abraham Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud: The Major
Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages (New York, 1949), Chapter I. The Doctrine of God. Omnipresence, p. 6 given
above.

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 § 193, At ‘This, however,’ he points out, against this opinion, that it presents certain diffi-
culties. For instance, if a soul exists in air and in fire (and of these two especially this was
asserted) it is hard to see why it does not make ‘animated beings’ of them, i.e. why air and fire
are not animals. Things composed of several elements are animals precisely because they con-
tain a soul; and one would expect the soul to be all the more powerful where the element is
pure and simple.

§ 194. Again , one might ask, he says, why the soul which they place in the elements should
be considered higher and more immortal than the soul of things composed of elements. For
the latter constitute knowing, sentient animals; not so the former.

§ 195. But, however the objections are put, the result is damaging to this theory. To say that
fire or air is a living body is most improbable in itself; it is contradicted by experience; and is
unsupported by any good reason. And to deny that things which have souls need be living
bodies is most unreasonable; for it would follow that there was no difference between souls
that exist in bodies and those that do not.

§ 196. Then, at ‘They seem to have held’, he states the reason used in support of this theory
and refutes it; after which, at ‘It is... evident’ he draws a general conclusion from all the fore-
going discussions. The reason, he says, why some philosophers seem to have thought that
a soul existed in ‘these’, i.e. in all the elements, was that they thought that the whole and
the parts in elements were of the same nature, since the elements are simple. Observing
that that part of ‘the containing element’, i.e. the air, which came into contact with the
bodies of animals through their breathing, was the cause and principle of animal life,
they thought it necessary to conclude that the soul of the whole was ‘of the same specific
nature as the parts’, that is to say, that all the containing air was alive.

§ 197. At ‘If then’ he refutes this argument. The assumption is that, because the portion of the
air removed and inhaled by an animal is of a like nature to the air as a whole, the soul of the
animal itself is, as it were, a portion of the soul of the whole air. But on their own principle
this is clearly false; for, according to them, the soul of air ‘exists’, i.e. is immortal, as that
which has never ceased from vivifying animate beings, whereas the soul of this or that
particular animal ‘does not exist’, i.e. is not immortal. Therefore either of two awkward
consequences flow from this theory. If all the parts of air, those outside and those breathed in,
are homogeneous, then the same is true of the soul; but this has been disproved. But if the
soul’s parts are heterogeneous while the air’s are homogeneous, then the soul is not in every
part ‘of the whole’, i.e. of the whole air; which is against those who said that all the air had a
soul.

§ 198. Then at ‘It is evident’ Aristotle concludes this part of the discussion of earlier opinions.
Neither of these two predications made’ by the ancients was, he says, either true or well-
expressed; namely that knowledge in the soul is a consequence of its being composed of
elements, and that movement is in it for the same reason. So much should be clear to anyone
who has followed the discussion up to the present. (emphasis added)

One may therefore liken the world to an animal and its motive principle to the soul on the
basis of three things: (1) the ubiquity of motion in the universe; (2) the inference that a
‘motive force’ even in inanimate things like a magnet suggests that all things are full of soul;
and (3) the place of air in the phenomena of ‘life’; the foregoing reasons furnishing the
foundation for the comparison of the cosmos to a living thing. But in accordance with the
first explanation, one may therefore speak of a ‘soul’ of the world and the like without being
committed to the view that the world as such is an animal.

71
For the Christian alternative to the pagan point of view, cf. Tatian, Address to the Greeks, c.
iv (tr. J. E. Ryland):

CHAP. IV.--THE CHRISTIANS WORSHIP GOD ALONE.

For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic
encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some
of them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant? Does the sovereign order the payment
of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act as a bondsman and to
serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man; God alone is to be
feared,—He who is not visible to human eyes, nor comes within the compass of human art.
Only when I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather die than show myself
false and ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and
He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, not pervading matter, but the
Maker of material spirits, and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being
Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him we know from His creation, and
apprehend His invisible power by His works. I refuse to adore that workmanship which He
has made for our sakes. The sun and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own
servants? How can I speak of stocks and stones as gods? For the Spirit that pervades matter
is inferior to the more divine spirit; and this, even when assimilated to the soul, is not to be
honoured equally with the perfect God. Nor even ought the ineffable God to be presented with
gifts; for He who is in want of nothing is not to be misrepresented by us as though He were
indigent. But I will set forth our views more distinctly. (emphasis added)

On the right way of understanding the presence of God to the world, cf. Leo XIII, Divinum
illud munus (May 9, 1897), n. 9:

It is well to recall the explanation given by the Doctors of the Church of the words of Holy
Scripture. They say that God is present and exists in all things “by His power in so far as all
things are subject to His power; by His presence, inasmuch as all things are naked and open
to His eyes; by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being” (St.
Thomas, ST I.8.3). But God is in man, not only as in inanimate things, but because He is more
fully known and loved by him, since even by nature we spontaneously love, desire, and seek
after the good. Moreover, God by grace resides in the just soul as in a temple, in a most
intimate and peculiar manner. From this proceeds that union of affection by which the soul
adheres most closely to God, more so than the friend is united to his most loving and beloved
friend, and enjoys God in all fullness and sweetness. Now this wonderful union, which is pro-
perly called “indwelling,” differ[s] only in degree or state from that with which God beatifies
the saints in heaven....

Cf. also St. Thomas Aquinas, The Compendium of Theology; translated by Cyril Vollert, S.J.
(St. Louis, 1947), ch. 130:

CHAPTER 130
GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD BY GOD
Second causes do not act except through the power of the first cause; thus instruments operate
under the direction of art. Consequently all the agents through which God carries out the order
of His government, can act only through the power of God Himself. The action of any of them
is caused by God, just as the movement of a mobile object is caused by the motion of the
mover. In such event the mover and the movement must be simultaneous. Hence God must be
inwardly present to any agent as acting therein whenever He moves the agent to act.

72
 Another point: not only the action of secondary agents but their very existence is caused by
God, as was shown above. However, we are not to suppose that the existence of things is
caused by God in the same way as the existence of a house is caused by its builder. When the
builder departs, the house still remains standing. For the builder causes the existence of the
house only in the sense that he works for the existence of the house as a house. Such activity
is, indeed, the constructing of the house, and thus the builder is directly the cause of the
becoming of the house, a process that ceases when he desists from his labors. But God is
directly, by Himself, the cause of every existence, and communicates existence to all
things just as the sun communicates light to the air and to whatever else is illuminated
by the sun. The continuous shining of the sun is required for the preservation of light in the
air; similarly God must unceasingly confer existence on things if they are to persevere in exis-
tence. Thus all things are related to God as an object made is to its maker, and this not only so
far as they begin to exist, but so far as they continue to exist. But a maker and the object made
must be simultaneous, just as in the case of a mover and the object moved. Hence God is ne-
cessarily present to all things to the extent that they have existence. But existence is that which
is the most intimately present in all things. Therefore God must be in all things…. (emphasis
added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 104, art. 1, c. (tr. Fr. Laurence Shapcote):

I answer that, Both reason and faith bind us to say that creatures are kept in being by God.
To make this clear, we must consider that a thing is preserved by another in two ways. First,
indirectly, and accidentally; thus a person is said to preserve anything by removing the cause
of its corruption, as a man may be said to preserve a child, whom he guards from falling into
the fire. In this way God preserves some things, but not all, for there are some things of such
a nature that nothing can corrupt them, so that it is not necessary to keep them from corrup-
tion. Secondly, a thing is said to preserve another ‘per se’ and directly, namely, when what is
preserved depends on the preserver in such a way that it cannot exist without it. In this manner
all creatures need to be preserved by God. For the being of every creature depends on God, so
that not for a moment could it subsist, but would fall into nothingness were it not kept in being
by the operation of the Divine power, as Gregory says (Moral. xvi).
This is made clear as follows: Every effect depends on its cause, so far as it is its cause. But
we must observe that an agent may be the cause of the “becoming” of its effect, but not directly
of its “being.” This may be seen both in artificial and in natural beings: for the builder causes
the house in its “becoming,” but he is not the direct cause of its “being.” For it is clear that the
“being” of the house is a result of its form, which consists in the putting together and arrange-
ment of the materials, and results from the natural qualities of certain things. Thus a cook
dresses the food by applying the natural activity of fire; thus a builder constructs a house, by
making use of cement, stones, and wood which are able to be put together in a certain order
and to preserve it. Therefore the “being” of a house depends on the nature of these materials,
just as its “becoming” depends on the action of the builder. The same principle applies to
natural things. For if an agent is not the cause of a form as such, neither will it be directly the
cause of “being” which results from that form; but it will be the cause of the effect, in its
“becoming” only.
Now it is clear that of two things in the same species one cannot directly cause the
other’s form as such, since it would then be the cause of its own form, which is essentially
the same as the form of the other; but it can be the cause of this form for as much as it is in
matter—In other words, it may be the cause that “this matter” receives “this form.” And this
is to be the cause of “becoming,” as when man begets man, and fire causes fire. Thus when-
ever a natural effect is such that it has an aptitude to receive from its active cause an im-
pression specifically the same as in that active cause, then the “becoming” of the effect,
but not its “being,” depends on the agent.

73
 Sometimes, however, the effect has not this aptitude to receive the impression of its
cause, in the same way as it exists in the agent: as may be seen clearly in all agents which
do not produce an effect of the same species as themselves: thus the heavenly bodies cause
the generation of inferior bodies which differ from them in species. Such an agent can be
the cause of a form as such, and not merely as existing in this matter, consequently it is
not merely the cause of “becoming” but also the cause of “being.”
Therefore as the becoming of a thing cannot continue when that action of the agent
ceases which causes the “becoming” of the effect: so neither can the “being” of a thing
continue after that action of the agent has ceased, which is the cause of the effect not only
in “becoming” but also in “being.” This is why hot water retains heat after the cessation of
the fire’s action; while, on the contrary, the air does not continue to be lit up, even for a
moment, when the sun ceases to act upon it, because water is a matter susceptive of the fire’s
heat in the same way as it exists in the fire. Wherefore if it were to be reduced to the perfect
form of fire, it would retain that form always; whereas if it has the form of fire imperfectly
and inchoately, the heat will remain for a time only, by reason of the imperfect participation
of the principle of heat. On the other hand, air is not of such a nature as to receive light in the
same way as it exists in the sun, which is the principle of light. Therefore, since it has no root
in the air, the light ceases with the action of the sun.
Now every creature may be compared to God, as the air is to the sun which enlightens it.
For as the sun possesses light by its nature, and as the air is enlightened by sharing the sun’s
nature; so God alone is Being in virtue of His own Essence, since His Essence is His exis-
tence; whereas every creature has being by participation, so that its essence is not its existence.
Therefore, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iv, 12): “If the ruling power of God were withdrawn
from His creatures, their nature would at once cease, and all nature would collapse.” In the
same work (Gen. ad lit. viii, 12) he says: “As the air becomes light by the presence of the sun,
so is man enlightened by the presence of God, and in His absence returns at once to darkness.”
(emphasis added)

j. Supplement: The importance of water for life:

Cf. “Water”, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Sec. Effects on Life:32

From a biological standpoint, water has many distinct properties that are critical for the pro-
liferation of life that set it apart from other substances. It carries out this role by allowing
organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allow replication. All known forms of life
depend on water. Water is vital both as a solvent in which many of the body’s solutes dissolve
and as an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body. Metabolism is the sum
total of anabolism and catabolism. In anabolism, water is removed from molecules (through
energy requiring enzymatic chemical reactions) in order to grow larger molecules (e.g. star-
ches, triglycerides and proteins for storage of fuels and information). In catabolism, water is
used to break bonds in order to generate smaller molecules (e.g. glucose, fatty acids and amino
acids to be used for fuels for energy use or other purposes). Water is thus essential and central
to these metabolic processes. Therefore, without water, these metabolic processes would cease
to exist, leaving us to muse about what processes would be in its place, such as gas absorption,
dust collection, etc.

Water is also central to photosynthesis and respiration. Photosynthetic cells use the sun’s en-
ergy to split off water’s hydrogen from oxygen. Hydrogen is combined with CO2 (absorbed
from air or water) to form glucose and release oxygen. All living cells use such fuels and
oxidize the hydrogen and carbon to capture the sun’s energy and reform water and CO2 in the
process (cellular respiration).

32
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water [02/01/10])

74
k. On man as a microcosm: Pagan and Christian views on the divine which pervades all
things:

Cf. Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free-
masonry, prepared for the Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States: Charleston, 1871:

God, in the view of Pythagoras, was ONE, a single substance, whose continuous parts
extended through all the Universe, without separation, difference, or inequality, like the
soul in the human body.33 He denied the doctrine of the spiritualists, who had severed the
Divinity from the Universe, making Him exist apart from the Universe, which thus became no
more than a material work, on which acted the Abstract Cause, a God, isolated from it. The
Ancient Theology did not so separate God from the Universe. This Eusebius attests, in saying
that but a small number of wise men, like Moses, had sought for God or the Cause of all,
outside of that ALL; while the Philosophers of Egypt and Phoenicia, real authors of all the old
Cosmogonies, had placed the Supreme Cause in the Universe itself, and in its parts, so that, in
their view, the world and all its parts are in God. The World or Universe was thus compared
to man: the Principle of Life that moves it, to that which moves man; the Soul of the
World to that of man. Therefore Pythagoras called man a microcosm, or little world, as
possessing in miniature all the qualities found on a great scale in the Universe; by his
reason and intelligence partaking of the Divine Nature: and by his faculty of changing
aliments into other substances, of growing, and reproducing himself, partaking of
elementary Nature.

Thus he made the Universe a great intelligent Being, like man—an immense Deity, having in
itself, what man has in himself, movement, life, and intelligence, and besides, a perpetuity of
existence, which man has not; and, as having in itself perpetuity of movement and life,
therefore the Supreme Cause of all. Everywhere extended, this Universal Soul does not, in the
view of Pythagoras, act everywhere equally nor in the same manner. The highest portion of
the Universe, being as it were its head, seemed to him its principal seat, and there was the
guiding power of the rest of the world. In the seven concentric spheres is resident an eternal
order, fruit of the intelligence, the Universal Soul that moves, by a constant and regular
progression, the immortal bodies that form the harmonious system of the heavens. (emphasis
added)

Cf. Mortimer J. Adler, The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World
(Chicago, 1952), Vol. II, Chapter 51, “World” (Introduction):

HE who does not know what the world is,” writes Marcus Aurelius, “does not know where
he is. And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is,
nor what the world is.” According to the Stoic emperor, for whom “there is one universe
made up of all things, and one God who pervades all things,” man has only to exercise the
divine spark of reason in himself in order to be at home in a world which reason rules.
He does not hesitate long before the dilemma that “it is either a well-arranged universe or a
chaos huddled together.” In the belief that it is through and through an orderly world – a
cosmos rather than a chaos, governed by providence rather than by chance – Aurelius is
willing to assume whatever place destiny allots him in the universal scheme. “Everything
harmonizes with me,” he says, “which is harmonious to thee, O Universe.”

33
Cf. Aristotle’s obersvations that the divine encloses nature, and that the soul of the world is homogeneous
with its elements.

75
 With a Christian’s faith in God’s plan and providence, Montaigne is also willing to con-
ceive the universe as the stage on which man acts his destined part. But suppose, Montaigne
adds, that we consider “man alone, without outside assistance, armed solely with his own
weapons, and deprived of divine grace and knowledge, which is his whole honor, his strength,
and the foundation of his being.” How then does the world appear? Is it, in all its vastness, the
human habitat—the home of man, its lord and master?
Man deceives himself, Montaigne thinks, if he pictures the world thus, in terms of his own
reason and knowledge. What could lead him to believe, he asks, that the “admirable motion
of the celestial vault, the eternal light of those torches rolling so proudly above his head, the
fearful movements of that infinite sea, were established and have lasted so many centuries for
his convenience and his service? Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as that this
miserable and puny creature, who is not even master of himself . . . should call himself master
and emperor of the universe, the least part of which it is not in his power to know, much less
to command?”
If, as Montaigne thinks he should, man “feels and sees himself lodged here, amid the mire
and dung of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst, the deadest, and the most stagnant part
of the universe, on the lowest story of the house and the farthest from the vault of heaven,”
how absurd for him to imagine himself “above the circle of the moon, and bringing the sky
down beneath his feet.” Except “by the vanity of this same imagination” by which “he equals
himself to God,” how can he regard himself as occupying an exalted position in the universe?
Deprived of the religious faith that he is made in God’s image and that all the rest of the
visible universe is made for him, only presumption or conceit can save man from being
dwarfed by the world. But science robs man of such conceit, according to Freud. The cos-
mology that “is associated in our minds with the name of Copernicus” displaces man and
shrinks him. Humanity cannot hold on to “its naive self-love,” Freud writes, when it realizes
that the earth is “not the center of the universe, but only a tiny speck in a world-system of a
magnitude hardly conceivable.”
NOT ONLY IN THE reflections of Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, and Freud, but through-
out the tradition of the great books, the conception of the world or universe is inseparable from
the ideas of God and man. These three ideas always interpenetrate each other, though the
resulting pattern of thought varies according to the direction in which thought moves from any
one of the three to the other two.
Sometimes the whole universe lies on one side of the infinite distance between the Creator
and His creation, and man has a special place of honor in the hierarchy of beings which
constitutes the order of the created world. Though man is greater than the earth he treads or
the skies he watches, the whole world is less than God, Who has made it out of nothing and
Who, in the freedom of His act of creation, is unaffected by the world’s coming to be or passing
away. On this view, taken by Christian theologians, God is not part of the world, the world is
not part of God, nor is there any whole which embraces both; and if “world” means the
physical totality, then man belongs both to this world and to another—the realm of spiritual
creatures which is also part of the created universe.
Sometimes “world” means the all-embracing universe, uncreated and coeternal with the
divinity which dwells in it, a thing of soul as well as body, including mind as well as matter.
Whether God is the prime mover of the universe; the transcendent One from which emanates
in all degrees of being the multiplicity of intelligible and sensible things; the infinite substance
which exceeds the sum of all the finite things that exist only as its modifications; or the
Absolute Spirit which manifests itself historically in both physical and psychical nature—on
any of these views cosmology merges with theology, as in the theories of Aristotle, Plotinus,
Spinoza, and Hegel. For Spinoza and Hegel, as for the Stoics, to know the world is to know
God. Its order or structure is more than divinely instituted. It is the indwelling divinity itself.
Such views of the world tend, for the most part, to look upon the individual man as a
microcosm mirroring the macrocosm. The world’s body and soul, its matter and mind, are
there to be seen in miniature. Considering the philosophers who assert that “mind is the king

76
 of heaven and earth,” Socrates suggests in the Philebus that “in reality they are magnifying
themselves.” Nevertheless, the doctrine of a world soul animating the body of the universe is
repeatedly proposed in the dialogues of Plato as a way of understanding man; and that mad or
at least cryptic Platonist, Captain Ahab, gazing on the gold doubloon he has nailed to the mast
as a reward for sighting Moby Dick, observes in soliloquy that “this round gold is but the
image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician’s glass, each and every man in turn but
mirrors back his own mysterious self.”
A third alternative remains. Sometimes, as with Lucretius and later philosophers of a
materialist cast, the world is all there is, and all there is of it can be reduced to atoms and the
void. It is thrown together by blind chance rather than designed by a presiding intelligence.
The universe obeys no laws except the laws of its own matter in motion.34 “Nature has no
tyrants over her,” writes Lucretius, “But always acts of her own will; she has / No part of any
godhead whatsoever.” For their own happiness, Lucretius exiles his papier-mâché gods to the
interspaces where they “lead lives supremely free of care.” But man is not so fortunate.
In a world that is not made for him, and in which, godless, he must be entirely self-reliant,
man is burdened with heavy cares. Since he is one of nature’s progeny, he may not be wholly
alien in this world of material forces; but neither is he, like a beloved son, assured of nature’s
hospitality. The dominant note here is that of man against the world; and in this unequal
struggle science alone gives him the sense—or perhaps the illusion—that at least in his little
corner of the world his mind may dominate. Yet from time to time defeat reminds him that the
world remains unruly. Bridle its matter and harness its energies as he will, he holds no
checkrein to prevent his being overthrown. (emphasis added)

For the Judeo-Christian perspective, cf. “A Theologian’s Brief On the Place of the Human
Embryo Within the Christian Tradition.”35

The Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics Reproduced with Permission (Submitted to the House of
Lords Select Committee on Stem Cell Research by an ad hoc group of Christian theologians from
the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed traditions) Prepared by Rev David Jones MA MSt,
The Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, London.

Some theological principles

16. For a Christian, the question of the status of the human embryo is directly related to the
mystery of creation. In the context of the creation of things ‘seen and unseen’ 30 the human
being appears as the microcosm, reflecting in the unity of a single creature both spiritual and
corporeal realities.31 The beginning of each human being is therefore a reflection of the coming
to be of the world as a whole. It reveals the creative act of God bringing about the reality of
this person (of me), in an analogous way to the creation of the entire cosmos. There is a
mystery involved in the existence of each person.
30
Creed of Nicaea, N. Tanner Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils London: Sheed & Ward,
1990, I. p. 5.
31
Gregory of Nyssa On the Making of Man; John Damascene Exposition of the Orthodox
Faith II.12; Creed of Lateran IV, Tanner p. 230.

Cf. Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book II, ch. 13. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers: trans-
lations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. Vol. 7:

34
Of course the viewpoint of Isaac Newton finds a way to reconcile a world of matter in motion obeying fixed
laws and a belief in a provident cause setting all things on their course.
35
(http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mis/mis_02christiantradition1.html [11/18/08])

77
 For having made the body, He breathed into it a soul from the vital source of His own Spirit,
which is everlasting, that it might bear the similitude of the world itself, which is composed
of opposing elements. For he consists of soul and body, that is, as it were, of heaven and earth:
since the soul by which we live, has its origin, as it were, out of heaven from God, the body
out of the earth, of the dust of which we have said that it was formed.

N.B. On the ‘vital source’ of man’s soul, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, The Catechism of St.
Thomas Aquinas. The Apostle’s Creed. In The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas
Aquinas. Translated with a Commentary by Rev. Joseph B. Collins, S.S., D.D., Ph.D.
Introduction by Rev. Rudolph G. Bandas, Ph.D., S.T.D. et M. (Baltimore, 1939), The Eighth
Article, pp. 48; 50:

The Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas

THE EIGHTH ARTICLE: “I Believe in the Holy Ghost.”

Many benefits come to us from the Holy Ghost. (1) He cleanses us from our sins. The reason
is that one must repair that which one has made. Now, the soul is created by the Holy Spirit,
because God has made all things through Him; for God, by loving His goodness, created
everything: “Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast
made.”[18] Thus, Dionysius says: “Divine love did not permit Him to be without off-
spring.”[19] It is necessary, therefore, that the hearts of men, destroyed by sin, be made anew
by the Holy Ghost: “Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt
renew the face of the earth.”[20] <…> [49-50]

18. Wis., xi. 25.

19. Div. Nom., IV.
20. Ps. ciii. 30. (emphasis added)

Cf. Contra Errores Graecorum by St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. translated by Peter Damian
Fehlner, F.I. Re-edited and missing chapters supplied by Joseph Kenny, O.P., Chapter 27:

CHAPTER 27

How the assertion that the breath of life which God breathed into the face of man is not
the rational soul, but the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is to be understood.

Another doubt arises from Cyril’s statement that “when in Genesis 1109 God is said to have
breathed the breath of life into the face of man in order that man might become a living being,
we do not call this breath of life the soul. For were it the soul, the soul would be uncangeable
and would not sin because it would be of the divine essence; rather Moses said the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit was superimposed on the human soul.110 This is contrary to the explanation
of Augustine 111 who claims that by that breath is meant the human soul, and who shows how
from this it does not follow that it is of the divine substance: for it is a figurative way of
speaking, 112 meaning not that the Holy Spirit breathed as a body, but only that he made
the spirit, that is the soul, out of nothing. And what is more, it appears to contradict state-
ments of the Apostle who says in 1 Cor. 15 (45): The first Adam became a living being; the
last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical,
and then the spiritual”.

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 Here the life of the soul is expressly declared to be different from the life which is through the
Holy Spirit. Hence that inbreathing by which man became a living being cannot be understood
as the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, Cyril’s explanation cannot be described as literal, but only allegorical.

109
Rather Gen. 2:7.
110
Lib. 36, 5-12, from the Thesaurus ass. 34 (PG 75, 584 D).
111
De Gen. ad litt. VII, c 2 (PL 34. 356), abbreviated by Peter Lombard II Sent., d 17, c 1.
112
Figurative way of speaking: thus Peter Lombard, 1. c. (emphasis added)

Cf. also The Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 291:

291. …The Church’s faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the “giver
of life”, “the Creator Spirit” (Veni, Creator Spiritus), the “source of every good”.131

131 Cf. Nicene Creed: DS 150; Hymn “Veni, Creator Spiritus”; Byzantine Troparion of Pentecost Vespers, “O
heavenly King, Consoler”.

As a composite of body and soul, of matter and spirit, then, man is the image of the world,
the principles of which are earth and heaven; whereas the heart stands to the body as the
heaven to the world.

(c) 2013-2025 Bart A. Mazzetti.

See also:

De Mixtione Elementorum ad Magistrum Philippum de Castro Caeli (On the Combination

of the Elements to Master Philip of Castrocaeli). St. Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Bart A.
Mazzetti

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