Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. As is said in the work Spirit and Soul, because of the friendship of the body and soul, the soul while joined to the body cannot be free; and though the soul cannot be destroyed, it can nevertheless fear destruction. But to fear is a sort of suffering. Therefore the soul while joined to the body suffers in itself, because the inability to be destroyed belongs to it in itself.

2. Whatever gives perfection to another is superior to it. But the body gives perfection to the soul, for the soul is united to the body that it may be perfected there. The body is therefore superior to the soul; and so the soul can suffer directly from the body to which it is united.

3. The soul is moved in place indirectly because it is indirectly in the place in which the body is directly. But a form or quality which is in the body directly is not said to be in the soul indirectly. Now, since a passion or suffering is concerned with a form or quality, being of the type of motion which is alteration, it therefore seems that the soul in the body cannot suffer indirectly.

4. Being moved indirectly is distinguished from being moved in part, as is made clear in the Physics. But the soul is part of a composite which is moved directly, as appears from The Soul. The soul should therefore not be said to be moved indirectly, but as a part with reference to the movement of the whole.

5. The direct is prior to the indirect. But in the passions of the soul the role of the soul is prior to that of the body, because the body is transformed by the apprehension and appetency of the soul, as is evident in anger, fear, and so on. It should therefore not be said that by those passions the soul suffers indirectly and the body directly.

6. Whatever is formal in anything is more important than what is material in it. But in the passions of the soul the role of the soul is formal, and that of the body is material. The formal definition of anger is that it is the desire for revenge; its material definition, that it is the boiling of the blood around the heart. In such passions, then, the role of the soul is more important than that of the body. Thus the conclusion is the same as before.

7. Just as joy and sorrow and such passions of the soul do not belong to the soul without the body, neither does sensing. But the soul is not said to sense indirectly. Then neither should it be said to suffer indirectly.

To the Contrary:

1'. Taken strictly passion is a certain motion in the line of alteration, as has been said. But the soul is not altered except indirectly. Then neither does it suffer except indirectly.

2'. The powers of the soul are not more perfect than the substance of the soul itself. But according to the Philosopher the powers do not grow old directly but only because of the failure of the body. Then neither does the soul suffer directly but only indirectly.

3'. Whatever is moved directly is divisible, as is proved in the Physics. But the soul is indivisible. It therefore is not moved directly, and so neither does it suffer directly.

REPLY:

If passion is taken strictly, it is impossible for anything incorporeal to suffer (pati), as was shown above. Then in a passion properly so called it is the body that suffers directly. Consequently, if such a passion belongs in any way to the soul, this is only inasmuch as it is united to the body, and therefore indirectly.

Now the soul is united to the body in two respects: (1) as a form, inasmuch as it gives existence to the body, vivifying it; (2) as a mover, inasmuch as it exercises its operations through the body. And in both respects the soul suffers indirectly, but differently. For anything that is composed of matter and form suffers by reason of its matter just as it acts by reason of its form. Thus the passion begins with the matter and in a certain sense indirectly belongs to the form. But the passion of the patient is derived from the agent, because passion is the effect of action.

A passion of the body is therefore attributed to the soul indirectly in two ways: (1) In such a way that the passion begins with the body and ends in the soul inasmuch as it is united to the body as its form. This is a bodily passion. Thus, when the body is injured, the union of the body with the soul is weakened; and so the soul, which is united to the body in its act of existing, suffers indirectly. (2) In such a way that the passion begins with the soul inasmuch as it is the mover of the body, and ends in the body. This is called a psychical passion. An example is seen in anger and fear and the like; for passions of this kind are aroused by the apprehension and appetency of the soul, and a bodily transformation follows upon them, just as the transformation of a mobile being follows from the operation of the mover in any one of the ways in which the mobile being is disposed to obey the motion of the mover. Thus, when the body is transformed by an alteration, the soul itself also is said to suffer indirectly.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. The soul does not fear destruction as if it would be destroyed in itself, but it fears the destruction of the composite through the separation of itself from the body. And even if it should fear its own destruction, this would be only in so far as there is some doubt whether upon the destruction of the body the soul is corrupted indirectly. Not even destruction, then, is compatible with the soul directly, and even the passion of fear is not attributable to it apart from its union with the body.

2. Even though the soul is perfected in the body, it is not perfected by the body, as Augustine proves. But either it is perfected by God or it perfects itself with the assistance of the body working at its command, just as the possible intellect is perfected by the power of the agent intellect with the help of phantasms which are made actually intelligible by this power.

3. Although a quality of the body by no means belongs to the soul, yet the act of being of the composite is common to soul and body, and likewise the operation. The passion of the body therefore overflows into the soul indirectly.

4. A passion happens to the composite of body and soul only by reason of the body. It therefore happens to the soul only indirectly. The argument proceeds, however, as if the passion belonged to the whole composite by reason of the whole and not by reason of one of the two parts.

5. Anger, and any passion of the soul for that matter, can be viewed in two ways: (1) According to the specific characteristic of anger. From this point of view it is primarily in the soul rather than in the body. (2) Inasmuch as it is a passion. From this point of view it is primarily in the body, for there it first gets the character of a passion. We accordingly do not say that the soul becomes angry indirectly, but that it suffers indirectly.

6. The answer to this difficulty is clear from what has just been said.

7. The soul is not said to sense indirectly any more than to rejoice, though it is said to suffer indirectly.