Chapter 47 — That intellectual substances are capable of willing

Now these intellectual substances must be capable of willing.

For there is in all things a desire for good, since the good is what all desire, as philosophers teach. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.1, 1094a1–2.) This desire, in things devoid of knowledge, is called natural appetite: thus a stone desires to be below. In those which have sensitive knowledge, it is called animal appetite, which is divided into concupiscible and irascible. In those which understand, it is called intellectual or rational appetite, which is the will. Therefore, intellectual substances have a will.

Again. That which is by another is reduced to that which is by itself as preceding it; and hence, according to the Philosopher in Physics 8, (Aristotle, Physics 8.5, 257a26–27.) things moved by another are reduced to the first self-movers. Also, in syllogisms, the conclusions which are known from other things are reduced to self-evident first principles. Now, in created substances, we find some which do not move themselves to act, but are moved by force of nature: for instance, inanimate things, plants and dumb animals, for it is not in them to act or not to act. Therefore, there must be a reduction to some first things which move themselves to action. But the first in created things are intellectual substances, as shown above. (Ch. 46.) Therefore, these substances move themselves to act. Now this is proper to the will, by which a substance has the dominion of its action, because it is in it to act and not to act. Therefore, created intellectual substances have a will.

Moreover. The principle of every operation is the form by which a thing is actual, since every agent acts insofar as it is actual. Therefore, the mode of an operation consequent upon a form must be in accordance with that form. Hence a form that does not proceed from that which acts by that form causes an operation over which the agent has no dominion, but if there be a form that proceeds from that which acts by it, the agent will have dominion over the consequent operation. Now natural forms, upon which natural movements and operations are consequent, do not proceed from those things whose forms they are, but wholly from extrinsic agents, since by a natural form a thing has being in its own nature, and nothing can be cause of its own being. Therefore, things that are moved naturally do not move themselves: for a heavy body does not move itself downwards, but its generator, which gave it its form. (Aristotle, Physics 8.4, 255b22–256a3.)

Again, in dumb animals, the forms, sensed or imagined, which result in movement are not discovered by the dumb animals themselves, but are received by them from exterior sensibles which act on their senses, and judged of by their natural estimative faculty. Hence, though they are said to move themselves after a fashion (insofar as one part of them moves, and another is moved), yet the actual moving is not from themselves, but partly from external objects sensed, and partly from nature. For insofar as their appetite moves their members, they are said to move themselves, in which they surpass inanimate beings and plants; and insofar as the act of their appetite is in them a necessary sequel to the forms received through their senses and the judgment of their natural estimative power, they are not the cause of their own movement. Hence they have not dominion over their own action. But the form understood, by which the intellectual substance acts, proceeds from the intellect itself, being conceived and, after a fashion, thought out by it. This may be seen in the form of art, which the craftsman conceives and thinks out, and by which he works. Accordingly, intellectual substances move themselves to act as having dominion over their actions. Therefore, they have a will.

Again. The active force should be proportionate to the patient, and motive power to the movable. Now in things possessed of knowledge, the apprehensive power is related to the appetitive, as the motive power to the movable, since that which is apprehended by the sense, imagination, or intellect moves the intellectual or animal appetite. But intellective apprehension is not confined to certain objects, but is of all things: hence the Philosopher says in On the Soul 3 of the passive intellect that it is that by which we become all things. (Aristotle, On the Soul 3.5, 430a10–16.) Hence the appetite of an intellectual substance has a habitude to all things. Now it is proper to the will to have a habitude to all things: hence the Philosopher says in Ethics 3 that it is of both the possible and the impossible. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.2, 1111b19–22.) Therefore, intellectual substances have a will.