 | |
Ars Brevis | | |
4. Man
11.4 Questions about the Fourth
Subject, or Man
79. Can man learn more about God
through affirmation than through negation?
And the answer is that it is through
affirmation. Now God's existence is not
due to the things without which He exists,
but rather to the things without which He
cannot exist.
80. Question: why does man act through
a specific form? Go to the second species
of rule E, where the solution is implied.
81. By increasing his acts, does man
increase his essence? The answer is that
no man is his own maker.
82. Question: when a man wants to
remember something, and cannot
remember it, which is more lacking:
memory or intellect? We say that it is
memory, as it is naturally quicker to
restore an old species to the intellect than
to the will.
83. Question: how do the soul and the
body enter into the composition of man?
The answer is that in man, spiritual and
corporeal goodness make up one
goodness, and so with the other principles.
84.Question: what is human life? We
answer that it is the form which is
composed of the vegetative, sensitive,
imaginative and rational powers.
86. Question: is man visible? The answer
is no, because the sight can only see
colors and shapes.
87. Question: are the intellect and the
memory one and the same power in man?
The answer is no, because if they were
one and the same power, the intellect
would not acquire species successively,
nor would it let them be forgotten, nor
could it ignore them. Further, it would hold
on to its objects so strongly as to defeat
free will. And this is enough said about
man.
|