3. A Doubt about the Mother’s Action through Seed-Reason

52. But there is here a doubt, because if, according to what was said in the question on seed-reasons [Lectura 2 d.18 nn.26-28, 36], a seed-reason is not the principle of action in generation, for it does not then remain, just as neither does the substance it is consequent to, but it is only the reason for acting in the alteration that precedes generation (and here [in Christ’s case] no alteration preceded generation) - then the result is that there was here on the part of the Mother no action through seed-reason, and so neither through any active force in the matter provided.

53. This would have to be conceded according to what was there said [n.52]; but yet the Mother herself was able immediately to act in the instant of generation, because she was immediately present and had active generative force with respect to the term of the action.

54. And perhaps so it is in the case of other mothers, that they act not only through the active force in the matter provided but that also - after the active force in the seed, just like the substance in which it is, has been corrupted in the instant of generation - they act immediately for producing the term of generation.

55. And this seems probable, because once the body - thus altered in that instant -has been put in place through a divine power outside the womb, generation would not happen, and yet there would be the same passive element there and the same proximate agents from the mother alone (as it seems). And then, if the seed of the father is posited to be corrupted in that instant, namely because it is part of the offspring, the mother would more truly be acting than the father, because she is acting immediately in the instant of generation and the father is not, but is so only in the preceding alteration through the active force that was in his seed; or if it be posited that the father’s seed remains in the instant of generation and the active force remains in it, and the seed is not converted into the body of the offspring but, after the formation of the body, dissipates into something else, then still in the instant of generation the mother will be able to act and the father through the diminished force in the seed.

56. Nor does it seem particularly unacceptable to attribute so much action to the mother, because, once the father’s seed has been emitted, the whole of the ensuing formation up to birth seems principally to follow the conditions of the mother (whether she have a warm and well disposed womb etc.).