Article 26

In the twenty-sixth article, (This article, including the response is identical to De 30 Articulis, a. 20. The response to the same question is different in De 43 Articulis, a. 33.) the question is raised whether the statement that the material of the semen ('Corpus Spermatis.' In view of the Greek of which this is a translation (see the following footnote), it seems best to take the 'spermatis' as a dative of possession. Literally, then, "the sperm's body/material part.) that the spirit (the power of the soul's beginning) goes out with is separate from the body and is a divine thing that, as such, is called the intellect, (This is an incomplete translation of book two of Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals of Aristotle (chapter 3, 737 a 7). The complete text reads: Τὸ δὲ τῆς γονῆς σῶμα, ἐν ᾧ συναπέρχεται [τὸ σπέρμα] τὸ τῆς ψυχικῆς ἀρχῆς, τὸ μὲν χωριστὸν ὂν σώματος, ὅσοις ἐμπεριλαμβάνεταί τι θεῖον (τοιοῦτος δ᾿ ἐστὶν ὁ καλούμενος νοῦς).) can or ought to be explained as follows: that the spirit or generative power is called the intellect by way of likeness because as the intellect operates without an organ, so also does a power.

The Commentator [Averroes] puts forward this explanation while commenting on these words from the seventh book of the Metaphysics: therefore as it is said that in substances, the principle is. He says, for that reason, Aristotle says in De Animalibus that the powers that are in the semen are like the intellect because they act by the activity of the intellect and powers do not act by a bodily instrument. (Averroes on VII Metaph. comm. 31 (ed. Venetiis 1552, vol. VIII, fol. 85 va 18-21).)