Breviloquium

After the corporeal and incorporeal nature, something must be said about the nature composed from both: first from the part of the mind, second from the part of the flesh, third from the part of the whole human being.¹ Concerning the rational soul, then, the following is to be held in sum according to sacred doctrine: namely, that it is a form that is a being, living, understanding, and using freedom. A form that is a being—not from itself nor from the divine nature, but led by God from nothing into being through creation. — A living form—not from an extrinsic nature but through itself; not with mortal life but with perpetual life. — An understanding form, not only the created but also the “creative essence”² to whose image it was made through memory, understanding, and will. — Likewise a form using freedom, because it is always free from coercion; but from misery and fault it was free in the state of innocence, though not in the state of fallen nature; and this freedom from coercion is nothing other than the faculty of will and reason, which are the principal powers of the soul.³ Now the reason for understanding the foregoing is this: since the first principle is most blessed and most benevolent, by its supreme benevolence it communicates its blessedness to the creature—not only to the spiritual and near, but also to the corporeal and distant. Yet it communicates to the corporeal and distant mediately, because “this is the law of divinity, that the lowest be led back to the highest through the middle.”⁴ And therefore it made beatifiable not only the angelic and separate spirit, but also the conjoined spirit, namely, the human. The rational soul is therefore a beatifiable form. And because to arrive at the reward of blessedness is not glorious except through merit; nor can one merit except in what is done voluntarily and freely⁵, it was necessary for freedom of choice to be given to the rational soul through the removal of all coercion; because this is of the nature of will, that it cannot be coerced in any way, though through fault it is made miserable and a slave of sin. Again, because the beatifiable form is capable of God through memory, understanding, and will; and this is to be made in the image of the Trinity on account of unity in essence and trinity in powers: therefore the soul had necessarily to understand God and all things, and thereby to be marked with the image of God. — And because nothing blessed can lose blessedness, nothing could be beatifiable unless it were incorruptible and immortal⁶, it was necessary for the rational soul by its nature to live with immortal life.

Lastly, because everything that is beatifiable from another and immortal is changeable according to well-being and incorruptible according to being; therefore the soul is neither from itself nor from the divine nature, because it is changeable; nor produced from something nor generated through nature, because it is immortal and incorruptible; and thus this form cannot be brought into being through generation, because everything naturally generable is naturally corruptible. — From these things it is clear how the end of blessedness imposes the necessity of the aforesaid conditions on the soul itself ordered to blessedness.

Since, however, insofar as it is beatifiable it is immortal, when it is united to a mortal body it can be separated from it; and hence it is not only a form but also a “this something”⁷, and therefore it is united to the body not only as perfection but also as mover; and thus it perfects through essence what it likewise moves through power. And since it gives not only being but also life, sensation, and understanding, therefore it has vegetative, sensitive, and intellective power, so that through vegetative power it generates, nourishes, and augments: it generates as a what, nourishes as a quality, and augments as a quantity.⁸ — Through the sensitive power it apprehends sensibles, retains what it has apprehended, and composes and divides what it has retained: it apprehends through the fivefold external sensitive power, corresponding to the five principal bodies of the world;⁹ it retains through memory, and composes and divides through phantasy, which is the first collative power.¹⁰ — But through the intellective power it discerns truth, flees evil, and desires good: it discerns truth through the rational power, repels evil through the irascible power, and desires good through the concupiscible power.

Again, because discernment of truth is cognition, while flight from evil and appetite for good are affective, therefore the whole soul is divided into cognitive and affective. Further, since knowledge of truth is twofold—either of truth as truth, or of truth as good—and this either of the eternal, which is above the soul, or of the temporal, which is below it—hence the cognitive power, namely intellect and reason, is divided so that intellect is speculative and practical, and reason is the superior and inferior portion; these names designate diverse offices rather than diverse powers.¹¹

Lastly, since appetite can tend toward something in two ways, namely according to natural instinct or according to deliberation and choice, hence the affective power is divided into natural will and elective will, which is properly called will.¹² And since such election is indifferent to either alternative, therefore it proceeds from free choice. — And because this indifference arises from preceding deliberation and conjoined will, hence free choice is the faculty of reason and will, so that, as Augustine says, it comprehends all the aforesaid rational powers. For he says¹³: “When we speak of free choice, we speak not of a part of the soul, but certainly of the whole.” For from the concurrence of those powers, of reason returning upon itself and of the concomitant will, arises the integrity of freedom, which is the principle of merit or demerit, according to the election of good or evil.