II. To the Initial Arguments

25. As to the argument [n.7], the reply is made that the matter is rightly predicated of an artificial thing, since the matter is the whole substance of an artifact; hence a box is not only called ‘wooden’ but also ‘wood’. Now a sacrament, inasmuch as it is a thing of reason, is likened to an artifact.

26. But this reply is nothing, because a part of matter is not predicated of an artifact (for a house is not stones, but other things along with stones are necessary for the being of a house). For, as was said before [n.18], nothing is posited in the concrete in the definition of a concrete thing save that of which the accident is predicated or can be predicated in the concrete; but no accident is predicated of a part of its subject.

27. One should say,     therefore , when upholding the Master’s definition [n.6], that cleansing would not be a part of the foundation that baptism includes, but is the whole foundation, though a remote one, and between this and the relation of sign there are certain mediating relations of reason, as was said [n.24; d.1 n.198].

28. And if it be objected that cleansing cannot be described in either way [nn.25, 27] because it formally imports a relation of reason, and a relation of reason is not any real thing or things; therefore etc     . - my reply is that just as a relation of reason in the concrete is said of an external thing (in the way that this statement is true ‘this word ‘man’ is a name or sign of human nature’), so conversely in the definition of this sort of concrete thing one can put ‘external thing’ as something added, as the foundation of the relation; therefore the objection is not valid.