Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

Having seen that happiness does not consist in goods of fortune, St. Thomas wishes to show that neither does it consist in goods of the body, such as health, beauty, strength, and the like¹: just as Carneades the Academic thought².

I. It is proved. First, because these goods are common to the good and the evil; and they are unstable; and they are not subject to the will.

Second, because the good of the soul is better than the good of the body, just as the soul is better than the body.

Third, because goods of this kind are common to man and to other animals.

Fourth, because, since many animals are superior to man with respect to the goods of the body—for some are swifter than he, and some stronger, and so of others—it would follow that man would not be the best of animals.

II. But concerning the third reason a doubt is raised, because the opposite seems rather to be concluded from that assumption. For the more common a good is, the more divine it is, as is said in I Ethics³. Therefore, if the good of the body is more common than any other spiritual good of man, as belonging both to man and to the brute, it follows that it is more divine. And thus happiness consists in it rather than in a spiritual good.

2. Further, some argue against the conclusion. First: Health preserves being. Therefore it is the best, just as sickness is the worst because it takes away being.

Second: When health is removed, every good of man is removed. Therefore, etc.

Third: Death is the most terrible of all things⁴. Therefore to live is the highest of desirable things, by the topic from contraries. Therefore, etc.

III. To the first of these, it is answered from the doctrine of St. Thomas in IV Sent., the same article⁵, ad 3, that the assumed proposition holds true of what is common according to the participation of one and the same thing numerically; for what is more common in this way is more divine, just as the divine nature is common to all inasmuch as all participate in it according to some likeness. But it does not hold true of what is common according to predication, in which way the good of the body is more common than the spiritual good of man. Therefore the reason does not weaken the proposition.

2. To the first argument against the conclusion, it is said that it rather concludes the opposite. First, because from the fact that health is ordered to the preservation of being, it follows that it is not the highest good. Next, because not even the preservation of human being itself can be the ultimate end of the human will and reason. Which St. Thomas shows in Iª II^ae, q. 11, art. 5, because it is impossible that the preservation in being of a thing ordered to another as to an end should be its ultimate end. But it is manifest that man is ordered to another as to an end, since he is not himself the highest good. To the reason, therefore, the consequence is denied.

To the second, the assumption is denied. Nay rather, even when health is removed, many goods of man remain: namely, the good of the intellect, and the good of virtue.

To the third, it is said that death is the most terrible of all things among bodily evils. Therefore nothing else follows except that to live is the highest of desirable things among bodily goods, but not that it is the highest good simpliciter.