c. To the Other Reasons that were Adduced

159. To the arguments added on.

To the first argument [n.89] I say that one can prove through it that two bodies could not be together, because a natural agent does not intend to expel one body unless it introduces another body. If, then, there were no repugnance in two bodies being in this place here, a natural agent in moving this body to that ‘where’ would not expel the other body and so nature could make two bodies to be together. So, because the conclusion is manifestly unacceptable, I say that there are some repugnancies in respect of created and limited power that created virtue cannot deal with simultaneously, and yet they are not simply incompossible. An example: it is as impossible for nature to make a virgin conceive as to make two bodies to be in the same place and one body to be in diverse places; for created virtue has no power with respect to these at the same time, although their absolute simultaneity does not involve a contradiction simply, as was seen [nn.96-97], and therefore they are possible for God.

160. To the second [n.90] I say that one could concede that the matter of a body in two places might be changed by two agents into two forms, nor would a new miracle there be needed, but the matter would through the old miracle be fitted to receive the action of those agents.

161. However I say otherwise, that if the same thing is put in two places, it does not follow that the same matter would be informed by two forms at the same time, whether of the same or different species, and that one could argue in the same way about this one and about that, whether the agents were posited as of the same or different species.

162. As to the example about food [n.90] I say that the same thing would happen with food taken by diverse things in diverse ‘wheres’ as would happen if two stomachs were to come to be in the same place and the food was in each of them. For then either one power would totally overcome the other and all the food would be converted into its body; or the powers would be equal, and then they would convert the food equally, one into its body and the other into its; or the powers would be unequal yet not such that one would entirely overcome the other, and then the stronger would convert more of the food into its body and the weaker would convert less food into its. So as you would have to speak there about the stomachs of animals existing together and about the food received into each, so I speak in the same way here, following the second proposition set down above [n.130].

163. The same point serves for the other argument [n.90], about fires next to wood in diverse places; I say the same as you would have to say if two fires by the power of God were next to the wood.

164. And if you ask, “What should be said then? Surely the wood would be converted into fire, and into which fire and by which fire? For not more by one fire than the other because they are equal; nor into one fire only, because the agents are two and total agents, and there cannot be two total causes of the same effect.” - I say that either they would generate a more perfect fire, and so the effect would be divisible according to perfection if the substantial form could have part and part, just as one would say about heat. But if they were to generate an altogether indivisible effect, yet they would generate it in the same manner of efficient causality where neither of them could be the cause of the total effect, because the effect would happen after so brief an alteration that it would not suffice for ignition by either agent precisely. And then this proposition is true, that “two total causes totally causing cannot be causes of the same effect.”

165. To another argument [n.92] I say that an animal that exists in some ‘where’ without nutriment, would be nourished in that place if it took in appropriate food in another ‘where’. For although the local motion of the food to the stomach would not be the same here as there (and no wonder, because from the fact that the ‘where’ is different, so can the local mP3otion to the thing in that ‘where’ be different), yet the conversion of food into the substance of the thing to be fed is the same here as there, because the conversion is the generation of a part of the substance of the thing nourished, and the whole substance of the thing nourished and any part of it is prior to the ‘where’, and so will not vary with variation in the ‘where’.

166. And when the addition is made “if it had sufficient food in both places it would be nourished twice” [n.93], I say that either it would take in the food in both places and consequently it would receive food superfluously, because half of it would suffice for its nourishment; or it would take in one part in one place and the other in the other, and in each place (from what has been said [nn.140-141]) it would be sufficiently nourished.

167. To the argument about the small fire [n.91] I answer using the second proposition [n.130]. For let a fire be put in one place and much combustible material next to it as it is in that ‘where’ alone - what you would say then about the fire with respect to that material I say now, for either the fire would act precisely on some part of the material, or if it acted on any part, then, if we suppose that the whole matter is together, it would act on it yet with little intensity. I speak in the same way as to the matter at hand, that the action will not be intense on any part of the matter in comparison with the action it would have on one part if it acted on no other part. And no wonder, because natural virtue works less on more things than on fewer, and on many than on one.

168. To the argument about figure [n.84, Christ’s body on the cross and in the pyx], I say that although figure seems to be quality yet it follows the ‘where’.

169. To the other point about whole and part [n.84, about being curly because curly as to the hair], I say that a part outside the whole has nothing outside the whole that it does not have in the whole; for the actuality that is attributed to a part not in the whole outside the whole is only by way of making a precision.

170. But on the contrary: because continuity is an absolute form and consequently is prior to the ‘where’, then the same body cannot be continuous in one place and not continuous in another; and consequently neither is there a part here and a non-part there in the way that being continuous with another is called a part.

171. Look for the response.a

a.a [Interpolation ] - One can say that figure is double. One is an absolute form and it belongs to the category of the quality ‘form or an abiding form in something’, and so it does not follow ‘where’. Another is figure that is the siting of parts in place and in the container of them, and this is relative form that follows the ‘where’; and the argument proceeds in this latter way. But on this matter see d. 12 q.4 n.387, in the response to the question there ‘But about different shapes...’