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Objection 1: It would seem that the sensitive and intellectual
appetites are not distinct powers. For powers are not differentiated
by accidental differences, as we have seen above (Question 77,
Article 3). But it is accidental to the appetible object whether it
be apprehended by the sense or by the intellect. Therefore the
sensitive and intellectual appetites are not distinct powers.
Objection 2: Further, intellectual knowledge is of universals; and
so it is distinct from sensitive knowledge, which is of individual
things. But there is no place for this distinction in the appetitive
part: for since the appetite is a movement of the soul to individual
things, seemingly every act of the appetite regards an individual
thing. Therefore the intellectual appetite is not distinguished from
the sensitive.
Objection 3: Further, as under the apprehensive power, the
appetitive is subordinate as a lower power, so also is the motive
power. But the motive power which in man follows the intellect is not
distinct from the motive power which in animals follows sense.
Therefore, for a like reason, neither is there distinction in the
appetitive part.
On the contrary, The Philosopher (De Anima iii, 9)
distinguishes a double appetite, and says (De Anima iii, 11)
that the higher appetite moves the lower.
I answer that, We must needs say that the intellectual appetite is a
distinct power from the sensitive appetite. For the appetitive power
is a passive power, which is naturally moved by the thing apprehended:
wherefore the apprehended appetible is a mover which is not moved,
while the appetite is a mover moved, as the Philosopher says in De
Anima iii, 10 and Metaph. xii (Did. xi, 7). Now things
passive and movable are differentiated according to the distinction of
the corresponding active and motive principles; because the motive must
be proportionate to the movable, and the active to the passive:
indeed, the passive power itself has its very nature from its relation
to its active principle. Therefore, since what is apprehended by the
intellect and what is apprehended by sense are generically different;
consequently, the intellectual appetite is distinct from the
sensitive.
Reply to Objection 1: It is not accidental to the thing desired to
be apprehended by the sense or the intellect; on the contrary, this
belongs to it by its nature; for the appetible does not move the
appetite except as it is apprehended. Wherefore differences in the
thing apprehended are of themselves differences of the appetible. And
so the appetitive powers are distinct according to the distinction of
the things apprehended, as their proper objects.
Reply to Objection 2: The intellectual appetite, though it tends
to individual things which exist outside the soul, yet tends to them as
standing under the universal; as when it desires something because it
is good. Wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhetoric. ii, 4) that
hatred can regard a universal, as when "we hate every kind of
thief." In the same way by the intellectual appetite we may desire
the immaterial good, which is not apprehended by sense, such as
knowledge, virtue, and suchlike.
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