, the atmosphere is displaced by the motion of these species.
Thirdly, because accidents do not pass from subject to subject, so
that the same identical accident which was first in one subject be
afterwards in another; because an accident is individuated by the
subject; hence it cannot come to pass for an accident remaining
identically the same to be at one time in one subject, and at another
time in another. Fourthly, since the atmosphere is not deprived of
its own accidents, it would have at the one time its own accidents
and others foreign to it. Nor can it be maintained that this is done
miraculously in virtue of the consecration, because the words of
consecration do not signify this, and they effect only what they
signify.

Therefore it follows that the accidents continue in this sacrament
without a subject. This can be done by Divine power: for since an
effect depends more upon the first cause than on the second, God Who
is the first cause both of substance and accident, can by His
unlimited power preserve an accident in existence when the substance
is withdrawn whereby it was preserved in existence as by its proper
cause, just as without natural causes He can produce other effects of
natural causes, even as He formed a human body in the Virgin's womb,
"without the seed of man" (Hymn for Christmas, First Vespers).

Reply Obj. 1: There is nothing to hinder the common law of nature
from ordaining a thing, the contrary of which is nevertheless
ordained by a special privilege of grace, as is evident in the
raising of the dead, and in the restoring of sight to the blind: even
thus in human affairs, to some individuals some things are granted by
special privilege which are outside the common law. And so, even
though it be according to the common law of nature for an accident to
be in a subject, still for a special reason, according to the order
of grace, the accidents exist in this sacrament without a subject, on
account of the reasons given above (Q. 75, A. 5).

Reply Obj. 2: Since being is not a genus, then being cannot be of
itself the essence of either substance or accident. Consequently, the
definition of substance is not--"a being of itself without a
subject," nor is the definition of accident--"a being in a subject";
but it belongs to the quiddity or essence of substance "to have
existence not in a subject"; while it belongs to the quiddity or
essence of accident "to have existence in a subject." But in this