II. To the Initial Arguments

443. To the first argument [n.423] I say that our senses too are not deceived about the Eucharist; for they per se perceive what is there, namely quantity, shape, color, and the like; nor is it possible now that our vision is deceived about the Eucharist, but there is only the intellect arguing, from what the senses apprehend, that the substance of bread is there. But this argument is sophistical, because although it happens thus for the most part yet not necessarily.

444. I say therefore that the senses of the blessed might perceive what our senses perceive, namely sensible accidents - nor would they in any way be deceived, just as our senses are not deceived; rather they would be deceived less than our senses are. But neither would the intellect of the blessed argue sophistically from the act of sensing as ours does.

445. To the point about doubt [n.423] I say that the blessed, left to their natural cognition, would not know by an act of sense that Christ’s body was here, but only by an act of intellect intuitively seeing that body, as was said about intuitive knowledge in the preceding question [nn.402-404].

446. To the second argument [n.424], that light at a point would not diffuse itself to the bodily organ so as to be visible, according to the common opinion which says that it is not possible for what is indivisible to be moved, from Physics 6.4.234b10-20. But this was discussed in Ord. II d.2 nn.301-304 about the motion of an angel.

447. And when you prove that it would diffuse itself spherically [n.424], this would have to be denied according to this way; indeed there would be need that it first have quantitative divisibility in itself before it might act on the passive subject.

448. Now the other argument, about the reflection of light from a point [n.424], is not cogent, because the first agent in reflection is not the light at a point that touches the body whence the reflection comes to be (if however light is at a point there), but it is the primary object itself from which the light is diffused; for the same object acts on direct, reflex, and refracted vision. Hence a point, when touching the surface of a mirror, does not diffuse the reflex ray; rather the first luminous thing (which diffuses its light as far as the mirror) immediately diffuses, in the form of a cause, the reflex ray.

449. And the reason is that because a natural agent acts according to the utmost of its power, when it is impeded from acting along the line most agreeable to natural action (namely a straight line, which is the shortest line) it acts along that line as much as it can, namely along a reflected straight line. And this is the reason why an image of the body diffused as far as the mirror is not seen in the mirror, but the body itself is of which it is the image.