Dist. 18, Art. 2, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/18/q/bon-sent-II-d18-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the production of the soul of Eve and of all other human beings.*

Next, inquiry is made concerning the second article, namely concerning the production of the soul of Eve herself and, consequently, of every other soul beyond the soul of Adam. And concerning this, three things are asked.

The first question is whether the souls of all human beings are one substance, or diverse.

Second, granted that they are diverse, it is asked whether they were brought into being simultaneously, or successively.

Third, granted that they were brought forth successively, it is asked whether the soul is by traduction.

### Question I. *Whether the souls of all human beings are one substance, or diverse.*

Concerning the first, the procedure is thus, and it is shown that the souls of all human beings are one soul in number, not diverse.

*On the contrary side.*

1. Everything that is individuated and multiplied to the multiplication and individuation of another, depends substantially upon that other; but the intellective soul does not depend substantially upon the body, since it can be substantially without it: therefore it is not individuated nor multiplied according to the individuation or multiplication of the body.

2. Likewise, the bodies of two human beings are more assimilated in complexion and nature than the diverse members of the same body — as my flesh to your flesh, more than my bone to my flesh: therefore if one soul can be vivifying of diverse members of one body, in such a way that in those members it has diverse influences according to their various dispositions, it seems much more strongly that one soul could be the perfection of two bodies similar to each other.

3. Likewise, multiplication in individuals of the same species is attended to for the sake of conservation, that being may be perpetuated in many what could not be perpetuated in one; but the rational soul is incorruptible, as will be shown below: therefore it seems that in it there is no multiplication according to number: therefore in diverse human beings it is not numbered, but is the same in number.

4. Likewise, if the intellective soul were individuated according to the body, consequently what was received in it would be individuated according to the exigency of the body; but the intellective soul receives the universal form, as it is universal: therefore if the form existing in the soul is not individuated, by equal reasoning neither can the soul, insofar as it is in this body, be individuated.

5. Likewise, in order that the rational soul understand something, it is necessary that from itself as understanding and from the understood thing there should come to be one; but it happens that the souls of diverse human beings understand altogether the same thing: therefore it happens that one and the same thing is united to them. But whatever things are the same as one and the same thing, are the same as each other: therefore the souls of many human beings are one and the same substance in number.

6. Likewise, the act and office of spiritual substance is to rule and to move corporeal substance: therefore, if nothing is idle in nature, one is never to posit a spiritual substance that does not move a corporeal one; but if there were diverse substances in diverse human beings, since it happens that they are separated from their proper bodies, it would happen that at some time they ceased from act, and so were idle: but if this is incongruous, it is incongruous that many human beings have diverse rational souls.

**On the contrary:**

*Fundamenta.*

1. As the Philosopher says, « act has to come to be first in its proper matter »; but the rational soul is the act and entelechy of the human body: therefore, since human bodies are diverse, diverse will be the rational souls perfective of those bodies.

2. Likewise, it is necessary that the perfection and the perfectible be proportionable to one another: therefore neither does the perfectible exceed the perfection, nor the perfection the perfectible itself. If, therefore, the rational soul is the perfection of the human body, that rational soul which is the perfection of this body is not the perfection of another body; and so it is impossible that it should perfect another body.

3. Likewise, from the same source comes being and being-one or being-distinct; but each thing has being from its perfection: therefore also distinction. If, therefore, one human being is distinguished from another, then also the perfection of one human being from the perfection of another; but the perfection of a human being, insofar as he is a human being, is the rational soul itself, not merely the sensitive: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, this very thing is seen by a manifold reduction to the impossible. The first of these is, because if the same soul is in many human beings, since one is knowing, another ignorant, one good, another evil, one even hates another; it would then follow that two contraries would be in the same subject according to number, and the same thing would be contrary to itself. But if this is impossible, it remains that also that from which it follows — namely, that one and the same soul is in many human beings — is impossible.

5. Likewise, if one and the same soul is in many, after death the just has nothing more than the impious: therefore good remains unrewarded and evil unpunished: therefore the world is disordered, and God is unjust, and foolish is he who does any good. Therefore, if this is so impossible that it is not only against faith but also against right reason, it is impossible that many human beings have the same rational soul.

6. Likewise, if one rational soul is in diverse human beings, then after death one is no more blessed than another. If therefore one does not come to beatitude except through virtue, and many there are who in this life do not have virtues: therefore many there are who do not come to beatitude. If therefore the soul of all is the same, none are beatified: therefore in vain was the human being made, in vain was the whole world made. And if this is altogether false and impious, it is false and impious that one soul be in many.

### Conclusio.

> According to faith, reason, and experience it stands firm that diverse human beings have diverse rational souls.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that in this question many philosophizing men said many false and vain things.

*Error 1.* For certain philosophers believed that not only is the soul the same in all human beings, but also in all animals. For they believed that the soul is nothing other than God; and of this position were Pythagoras and Varro, as Augustine says in the book *On the City of God* concerning Varro. But they especially supposed this of the human soul on account of its dignity and spirituality with respect to the *agent* intellect; with respect to the *possible* intellect, however, they believed it to be the same as *hyle*, because the soul can receive all things, and so is denuded of all forms. — *It is reproved.* But to posit this is not philosophy, but manifest folly. For since the soul is variable and changeable and susceptible of goodness and malice, it altogether cannot be *God*. Since, again, it is the noblest form among natural forms, giving act and completion to the body and distinct from other natural forms, it cannot be *hyle*.

*Error 2.* Others, however, have opined otherwise, namely that the human or intellectual soul, insofar as it is intellectual, is one in all human beings — not only with respect to the *agent* intellect, but also with respect to the *possible* intellect. — *Two reasons.* And the reason that moved them to posit this was the immateriality and incorruptibility of the soul itself. For since it is immaterial and not depending on the body, it cannot be individuated through the body, since it is neither a body nor a power in a body, as the Philosopher says. Since it is incorruptible, it does not need to be multiplied, since it can be conserved as one in number. — And this was the position of the Commentator on the book *On the Soul*, which he also wishes to impose on Aristotle and to draw from his words, both because he posits the world to be eternal, and so innumerable human beings have preceded; and also because he posits that no spiritual substance is such as not to have a body to move; but if diverse souls were in diverse human beings, when separated they would at some time cease from the act of moving; they would also be infinite in act, since the motion of the heavens has had no beginning, according to the Philosopher.

*The error is set out.* In order, however, to avoid the objections adduced to the contrary, the Commentator distinguishes three parts in the human soul. His words on the third book of *On the Soul* are these: « It is to be supposed that in the soul there are three parts of intellect, of which one is the *receiving* intellect, the second the *effecting*, the third the *made*; and two of these are eternal, namely the agent and the receiving, but the third is generable and corruptible ». Now the third soul, which he calls generable and corruptible, he names the *passive* intellect; and that he says is nothing other than imagination. Whence afterwards he adds: « The passive intellect is corruptible, and without it nothing is understood. By the passive intellect I mean the imaginative power ». Whence he wishes to say that, just as in vision there is color, and there is light, and there is the seeing eye, so it stands in the intellect that the imaginative species are like the color, the agent intellect is like the light, and the possible intellect is like the eye. And just as vision is effected from the concurrence of those three, so intellect is effected from the concurrence of those three; and just as from the diversity or defect of color is caused diversity or defect of the act of seeing, so from the diversity existing in imaginative likenesses or in imagination is caused diversity in the intellect of many and even defect of the act of understanding in the same human being, since we understand nothing except in a phantasm. And to this extent the Philosopher says that intellect is corrupted when something interior is corrupted — intellect, I say, not any whatsoever, but the *acquired*. And by these things which have been said, he strives to deflect the inconveniences which follow upon this opinion.

*It is reproved by a threefold reasoning.* But however much he may color this opinion, it is most wicked and heretical. For it is against the Christian religion, since it takes away the recompense of merits, which would not be if the soul of all were one. — It is also against *right reason*. *To be noted.* For it is plain that the intellective soul, insofar as it is intellective, is the perfection of the human being insofar as he is human. If, therefore, human beings are not diverse only insofar as they are animals, but insofar as they are human beings, they have not only diverse imaginations and sensitive souls, but also diverse intellects and rational souls. — It is also against *sensible experience*, since diverse human beings have diverse and contrary thoughts and affections. But if you should say that this comes from the diversity of species existing in the imagination, this amounts to nothing, because they are not only diversified in those intelligibles which are drawn out from sense, but also in those which are above all imagination — such as the virtues, which are understood through their essence, not through an imaginary species, just as is God himself, whom some love, some despise.

*Conclusion.* Repudiating, therefore, this position as heretical and false, it must be said according to faith and truth that diverse human beings have diverse rational souls, and the reasons proving this are to be conceded.

*Solution of the contrary arguments.*

1. To that which is first objected to the contrary — that the intellect does not depend on the body, therefore cannot be individuated by it — it must be said that the intellect is individuated according to the indigence of the body; nevertheless its individuation is not from the body, but from its own principles, namely matter and its form, which it has of itself, as it subsists in itself, as has been determined above.

2. To that which is objected — that one soul can perfect diverse members — it must be said that the cases are not alike, for the reason that all members are continuous and reduced to one principal member in the body, by the mediation of which there is influx, motion, and sense to the other members, as is evident in the heart; the bodies of diverse human beings, however, are not continuous nor reduced to one member: and therefore they cannot have one perfection.

3. To that which is objected — that numerical multiplication takes place for the conservation of the species — it must be said that, as in the preceding has been said, this is not the whole nor the chief cause; rather the principal reason is for the manifestation of divine goodness; *To be noted.* and this is chiefly in souls, which are many, that to them may be distributed the multiform graces of God, and that the integrity and number of that supernal city may be completed.

4. To that which is objected — that the soul receives a universal form, as it is universal — it must be said, *To be noted*, that although that form which the soul receives is universal by indifference to many singulars to be known, nevertheless in reality that species which is in the soul is a certain singular accident, which qualifies and disposes the soul itself and is diversified in diverse souls; just as science also, which in diverse knowers is one and another, although it be of one single thing.

5. And by this is evident the response to the next. *To be noted.* For when it is said that for the act of understanding it is required that from the understood thing and the understanding there be made one: this is to be understood as regards the species, which is united to the intellect, not as regards the extrinsic object itself. But that species which is united to the intellect has a relation to the intellect in which it is and to the object to which it is and which it represents; and although in relation to the object it has a unity in a certain manner in diverse knowers, because it is directed to the same thing, inasmuch as it is the account and likeness of the same — nevertheless, in relation to the soul in which it is, it has diversity. And an example may be taken from species received in two mirrors, or in two eyes.

6. To that which is objected — that the office of spiritual substance is to move a body — it must be said, *It is deficient in two ways.* that that argument is deficient in two ways. First, because spiritual substance is not principally made for this. For all motion will cease, which the Philosopher was ignorant of; whence his reasoning is vain when he assumed the number of movers according to the number of moveables and motions; for there are many more Angels than there are orbs that are moved; nor are they made for this, but for enjoying God. — *To be noted.* It is also deficient in this, that although the soul be separated from the body, nevertheless it will resume its body at some time through the resurrection — which also the Philosopher was ignorant of; and therefore it is no wonder if in things of this kind he is deficient. For it is necessary that one philosophizing slip into some error, unless he be helped by the ray of faith.