First Decade, Chapter Nine
On the immunity and nobility of the intellect and will, powers of the soul, with respect to celestial bodies; under this chapter seven principal questions will be explained
Principal Question One
On the intellect and will with respect to celestial bodies, under which five little questions will be resolved
Little Question One of Principal Question One
Whether the powers of the rational soul are subjected to and necessitated by celestial bodies
It is asked whether the will and intellect, powers of the rational soul, are subjected to and necessitated by celestial bodies.
To this it first seems that the answer must be affirmative. For instruments move and change things through the power of the principal agent. But celestial bodies are instruments of spiritual substances and angels. Since these are superior to souls and their powers, they therefore impress something upon them and move them. Consequently, celestial bodies, as instruments, will have power over souls and their powers.
The minor premise is proved through Dionysius, who says in chapter 8 of On the Divine Names: “Divine wisdom joins the ends of the first things to the beginnings of the second things.” On precisely this basis, the Philosopher in Book XII of the Metaphysics assigned the number of angels according to the number of celestial motions.
Second, it is argued thus: that which through generation is subjected to celestial bodies is changed and necessitated by them, so that a celestial body is the cause of its acts. But the soul is subjected to celestial bodies through generation; therefore, it is changed and necessitated by them.
The minor premise is proved: the sun and a human being generate a human being, according to Book II of the Physics. They do not generate matter, because matter is ingenerable and incorruptible, according to Book I of the Physics. Therefore, they generate the form, which is the rational soul.
Third, it is proved that celestial bodies change the intellective power, thus: the operation of the human intellect is per se subjected to the motion of the heaven because the intellect is subjected to the phantasy. For “one who understands must contemplate phantasms,” according to Book III On the Soul. But the phantasy is per se subjected to the motion of the heaven, as is every sensitive cognition, upon which every doctrine and every intellectual discipline depends, according to Book I of the Posterior Analytics. Therefore, and so forth.
Fourth, it is proved that the will is subjected to the stars, thus: that which is causally and directly subjected to the higher motions is varied and altered from one disposition into another. But the will, according to what the Philosopher adduces in Books I and II On the Soul concerning the opinion of Empedocles and Democritus, is varied and altered according to the diverse dispositions of time, which is an affection of the motion of the heaven, according to Book IV of the Physics. Therefore, the will is causally and directly subjected to celestial bodies.
This is also evident from experience. For many human beings, according to the dispositions of the times, are joyful and sad, benevolent and irascible. Therefore, and so forth.
But to the contrary is what Damascene says: celestial bodies are in no way the cause of human acts.
I answer that it must be said that celestial bodies are said to act upon effects in two ways: namely, per se and directly, or per accidens and indirectly.
In the first way, celestial bodies do not act upon the soul and its rational powers. For if they acted per se and directly upon the soul, it would follow that souls were produced through transmutation, like other natural things, as Democritus and Empedocles said, positing no difference between sense and intellect.
Not seeing the distinction between the acts and operations of intellect and sense, or between the sensitive and intellective appetites, they said that the intellect was an organic and material power which followed the transmutation of the body, just as sense does.
Consequently, they said that, because the transmutation of inferior bodies follows the transmutation of superior bodies, the soul also, and intellectual operation, would follow the motion of celestial bodies, according to that saying of Homer:
Such is the intellect among gods and earthly human beings As the Father of men and gods gives upon the day,
that is, the Sun or Jupiter, whom they called the supreme God.
And thus they believed that the intellect, like sense, was generated by supercelestial bodies and, consequently, was acted upon and impressed by supercelestial bodies directly and per se.
Theologians reject this opinion, maintaining that the law and order of divine providence wills that each thing be moved immediately by the cause proximate to it. The proximate mover of the will, however, is the good shown by the intellect, because the object of appetite is the good, or the apparent good, by which it is moved, just as sight is moved by color.
Hence they say that it belongs to God alone to move the will immediately and actively, and to secondary agents to move it only persuasively; but it is not moved impressively by celestial bodies. For if this occurred, there would never be an evil choice in us, since nature, acting per se and directly, always acts and moves in an ordered manner.
The Philosopher also rejects the same opinion in Book IV of the Metaphysics and Books I and II On the Soul.
But if we speak about indirect and per accidens subjection, we say that the soul and its rational appetitive and intellective powers are subjected to celestial bodies and their impressions. This is insofar as the intellect and will in some manner receive from the interior and exterior powers, which are bound to bodily organs and are subjected to celestial bodies.
For the operation of the intellect, and consequently of the will, can neither begin nor be completed without the concurrence of the corporeal powers, which are the imaginative, memorative, cogitative, sensitive powers, and so forth.
Hence, when the operations of these organic powers are impeded because of some indisposition of the body or of the organs which serve such powers, the operation of the intellect, and consequently of the will, is impeded, as is evident in the frenzied, the lethargic, the sick, and so forth.
Nevertheless, the intellect and will stand in different ways with regard to this subjection. For the intellect necessarily receives from the inferior apprehensive powers. Hence, when the imaginative, cogitative, or memorative power is disturbed, the act of the intellect is necessarily disturbed.
For this reason it is said that, although the operation of the intellect is not effected by the motion of the heaven, the motion of the heaven is nevertheless required in order that the operation of the intellect may occur. For the operation of the intellect cannot occur unless sense concurs, and sense cannot concur without the influence of the motion of the heaven. Moreover, by the power of the motion of the heaven, contrary dispositions which impede the operation of the intellect are often removed.
The will, however, is a more proximate cause than the intellect, although it does not of necessity follow the inclination of the inferior appetites, insofar as it lies within the power of the will to follow the inclination of the concupiscible and irascible powers. Hence the inferior powers reach the will less than they reach the intellect.
Nevertheless, the will itself is also subjected occasionally and indirectly to the higher motions, insofar as some occasion for our choices is furnished from them according to the impressions which they possess.
For when the air is disposed by the supercelestial bodies toward intense cold, we choose to be warmed at a fire. And through the power of the heavens certain motions of the passions also arise within us, through which we are made choleric and prone to anger. Sometimes also a certain dyscrasia is caused in our body by the heaven, through which we choose to take medicine.
To the first argument, therefore, it must be said that the spiritual substances which move celestial bodies do indeed act upon corporeal things through the mediation of celestial operations. But they act upon the human intellect immediately by illuminating it, while they cannot change the will except by way of persuasion.
These things are from Thomas, First Part, question 115, article 4.
To the second it is said that the sun generates a human being, but not the intellective soul. Rather, it generates another substantial form educed from the potency of matter, which is afterward corrupted when the intellective soul arrives from without.
To the third it must be said that the operation of the intellect depends indirectly and per accidens upon the phantasy and exterior senses, but not per se and directly, as was said.
Or sometimes it is answered by denying the premise, because if the operation of the intellect depends upon the phantasy, this is by the power of the agent intellect; and if the operation of the intellect which is doctrine or discipline depends upon sense, the heaven does not concur universally, but only the agent intellect.
To the fourth it must be said that such alteration exists by reason of the body, upon which the motion of the heaven directly makes an impression, and not by reason of the intellect or will. For no such motion is caused in the intellect or will, but only in the body.
Consequently, it is denied that any persons possess some moral habit from their birth. To the Philosopher, however, it is said that he understands some persons to be naturally disposed at birth, and naturally rendered apt, toward moral habits of justice, temperance, and things of this kind. This is conceded.
And these things suffice with respect to the principal question.
Addition to Little Question One
This question can be understood more subtly from Gerson in the little work which he entitled the Trilogium of Theologized Astrology; from Lord Bonaventure in Book II, distinction 2, article 3, question 2; and, after these authors, from Gabriel Biel in Book II, distinction 14, sole question.
And against the astrologers, who say many false things, celestial bodies can indeed incline the will, but not efficiently by producing the act of willing within it, nor can they impose necessity in any manner, since the will remains free because of its liberty.
For a human being conquers temptations not only through grace but also through the liberty of the will. Thus, as the excellent Laurence, doctor of the Order of Servants, asserts in Book II, distinction 25, question 3, collation, all human acts will always be from free choice, mediately or immediately, because through the command of the will the other powers are moved into their acts.
Hence comes that saying of Ptolemy: “The wise man will rule the stars.”