1. First Opinion

a. Exposition of the Opinion ‘

9. About the manner of nutrition there is an opinion [Lombard, Sent. II d.50 ch.15 n.2] that nothing of the food passes over to the truth of human nature, but that only what is contracted from parents belongs to the truth of human nature, and that this is multiplied in itself so that increase happens (an example is taken from the multiplication of loaves in the Gospel [Matthew 14.19-21, 35-38]). But what is generated from the food adheres like a warm fluid to the natural heat so that this heat is not extinguished (the way oil adheres to a wick). And in this way is food needed, though it is not converted into the truth of human nature.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

10. Against this:

First, that the vegetative power is no less perfect in man than in brutes; therefore, it is no less capable of the vegetative power’s operation, which is to nourish in the way that to nourish means to convert the substance of food into the substance of the thing to be nourished (for so it is in the brute); therefore such conversion through the vegetative power can occur in man. And there is a confirmation. For a man is generated in perfection of quantity just as a brute is, and the continuous loss of parts happens in him just as in a brute. So there must be increase and restoration here of what is lost just as there is there. But there this is because the term of action is truly something of the substance of the thing to be nourished and increased. Confirmation: we could not posit increase to be possible in man in this way [n.9] save by a miracle (as is plain of the multiplication of loaves); why then would human nature be more deficient as to acquisition of perfect quantity after imperfect quantity than the nature of an ox?

11. Again, according to this way it follows that in man there would be some flesh that was simply incorruptible for the whole of his life, or that, if it were corrupted, it could never be restored; for it could only be restored through nutrition, which restoration is denied. Both alternatives are unacceptable: the first because the incorruptible part would be of a different species from the other corruptible parts of flesh; the second because then what belongs to the truth of human nature in man would become always less and less.

12. Again, the parts of flesh that are generated from food are truly animated with the intellective soul; therefore they belong truly to the substance of that which lives with such [intellective] life. The antecedent, though it seem manifest, can yet be proved, because any part of the flesh is animated with the sensitive soul, because some operation of sensation and touch can be exercised in any part of the flesh. And any part of the flesh is animated with the vegetative soul, because any part of its due quantity is able to have some action of the vegetative soul; but the sensitive and intellective soul exist in man along with the intellective soul, Ord. II d.1 n.321.