e conditions are required to produce a perfect than an imperfect
thing.

Reply Obj. 3: The movement of the heavens causes natural changes; but
not changes that surpass the order of nature, and are caused by the
Divine Power alone, as for the dead to be raised to life, or the
blind to see: like to which also is the making of man from the slime
of the earth.

Reply Obj. 4: An effect may be said to pre-exist in the causal
virtues of creatures, in two ways. First, both in active and in
passive potentiality, so that not only can it be produced out of
pre-existing matter, but also that some pre-existing creature can
produce it. Secondly, in passive potentiality only; that is, that out
of pre-existing matter it can be produced by God. In this sense,
according to Augustine, the human body pre-existed in the previous
work in their causal virtues.
_______________________

THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 91, Art. 3]

Whether the Body of Man Was Given an Apt Disposition?

Objection 1: It would seem that the body of man was not given an apt
disposition. For since man is the noblest of animals, his body ought
to be the best disposed in what is proper to an animal, that is, in
sense and movement. But some animals have sharper senses and quicker
movement than man; thus dogs have a keener smell, and birds a swifter
flight. Therefore man's body was not aptly disposed.

Obj. 2: Further, perfect is what lacks nothing. But the human body
lacks more than the body of other animals, for these are provided
with covering and natural arms of defense, in which man is lacking.
Therefore the human body is very imperfectly disposed.

Obj. 3: Further, man is more distant from plants than he is from the
brutes. But plants are erect in stature, while brutes are prone in
stature. Therefore man should not be of erect stature.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Eccles. 7:30): "God made man right."

_I answer that,_ All natural things were produced by the Divine art,
and so may be called God's works of art. Now every artist intends to
give to his work the best disposition; not absolutely the best, but
the best as regards the proposed end; and even if this entails some
defect, the artist cares not: thus, for instance, when man makes
himself a saw for the purpose of cutting, he makes it of iron, which
is suitable for the object in view; and he does not prefer to make it
of glass, though this be a more beautiful material, because this very
beauty would be an