a. Exposition of the Opinion

13. Another statement [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet II q.10] is that the flesh formed first, handed on from parents, belongs to the truth of human nature, but the food later passes over into what belongs to the truth of human nature. However, it does so in this way, that it is converted into what pre-exists, not by receiving a new form either in whole or in part, but only by the fact that, when the form of food in it falls away, the preexisting form of the flesh succeeds to it in the matter.

14. This is made clear by an example [Henry, Quodlibet IV q.36], because so it is with the intellective soul, that it newly perfects the matter that was under the form of food, and yet the intellective soul is not new in itself either in whole or in part.

15. It is also made clear by the authority of the Philosopher, On Generation 1.5.321b25-2a4, “The flesh grows in species not in matter, and the flesh remains in species while the flesh in matter flows and reflows.” But if a new form of flesh were introduced in nutrition, and if, by equal reason, a part of the form of flesh that was there before were to cease to be by being lost, then not only would the matter of flesh flow and reflow but the form of it also would, which seems to be against the Philosopher.

16. Third by reason [Henry, ibid.], because if in nutrition the matter of the food were to receive another form of flesh that was not there before, then this matter would only make with the pre-existing flesh a single thing by contiguity or continuity with it, and then nutrition would be a sort of juxtaposition of new flesh with pre-existing flesh, which the Philosopher denies in the aforementioned place [n.15]. There is also the consequence that no part of the nourished thing would be nourished or of the increased thing increased, because the part that the new flesh was put next to would not be.