a. About the First Opinion of Others

427. Argument [Richard of Middleton] for the first is that the soul is constituted in the middle between God and corporeal creatures; therefore just as the soul will be then perfectly subject to God as to its superior, so will it then perfectly dominate over its body as inferior.

428. To the contrary:

The soul is not repugnant to these qualities [of the body], even insofar as the qualities are contraries and are not reduced to the mean wherein they are active. This is plain because it supposes them thus to be in their susceptive subject, and nothing is repugnant to what it requires in its susceptive subject. Nor even is it repugnant to their effects, because although they act mutually, they only act by univocal action. At any rate their effects up to a considerable intensity are not repugnant to the soul, because they stand along with the soul now though they be intense to a considerable degree; therefore they will not be repugnant to it then as it is the ‘informing form’.

429. So if the soul prohibits the actions of these qualities then, it is not because of its repugnance to the action of them, but because of command through act of its will, with full dominion, as it were, over the body. This does not seem probable, because the highest angel cannot, through sole command of his will, impede the action of any natural cause; for bodily causes do not, as to their action or alteration, obey angels’ wish.