Secondly, its in dependence on the body, in that manner of working; for though the operations of the soul require the concurrence of the common sense and imagination, yet that is by way only of conveyance from the object, not by way of assistance to the elicit and immediate act. They only present the species, they do not qualify the perception. Phantasmata are only objecta operation is; the objects they are, not instrumenta operandi, the instruments of the souls working. The Act of understanding is immediately from the soul, without any the least concurrences of the body there▪ unto, although the things whereon that act is fixed and conversant, require, in this estate, bodily organs to represent them unto the soul; as light doth not at all concur to the act of seeing, which solely and totally floweth from the visive faculty, but only serves as an extrinsical assistance for qualification of the Medium and object ⟨p. 404⟩that must be seen. And this reason Aristotle 1hath used to prove, that the understanding, which is principally true of the whole soul, is not mixed with any body, but hath a nature altogether divers there-from, because it hath no bodily organ, as all bodily powers have, by which it is enabled to the proper acts that belong unto it. And hereon is grounded another reason of his, to prove the Soul immaterial, because it depends not on the body in its operations, but educeth them immediately from within it self, as is more manifest in the Reflection of the soul, upon its own nature, being an operation (as he expressly2 speaketh) separable there-from, the soul being not only actus informans, a form informing, for the actuating of a body, and constitution of a compound substance, but actus subsistens too, a form subsisting; And that per se, without any necessary dependence upon matter. It is an act, which worketh as well in the body, as whereby the body worketh.
Secondly, its in dependance on the body, in that manner of working; for though the operations of the soule require the concurrence of the commonsense and imagination, yet that is by way only of conveyance from the object, not by way of assistance to the elicite and immediate act. They only present the species, they doe not qualifie the perception. Phantasmata are only objecta operation is; the objects they are, not instrumenta operandi, the instruments of the soules working. The Act of understanding is immediatly from the soule, without any the least concurrences of the body there▪ unto, although the things whereon that act is fixed and conversant, require, in this estate, bodily organs to represent them unto the soule; as light doth not at all concurre to the act of seeing, which solely and totally floweth from the visive faculty, but only serves as an extrinsecall assistance for qualification of the Medium and object ⟨p. 404⟩that must be seene. And this reason Aristotle 1hath used to prove, that the understanding, which is principally true of the whole soule, is not mixt with any body, but hath a nature altogether divers there-from, because it hath no bodily organ, as all bodily powers have, by which it is enabled to the proper acts that belong unto it. And hereon is grounded another reason of his, to prove the Soule immateriall, because it depends not on the body in its operations, but educeth them immediately from within it selfe, as is more manifest in the Reflexion of the soule, upon its owne nature, being an operation (as hee expresly2 speaketh) seperable there-from, the soule being not only actus informans, a forme informing, for the actuating of a body, and constitution of a compound substance, but actus subsistens too, a forme subsisting; And that per se, without any necessary dependance upon matter. It is an act, which worketh as well in the body, as whereby the body worketh.
- 1lib. 3. de Ani•a. cap. 5.
- 2Ibid. cap. 6.
