being in matter subject
to quantity. The proof taken from the weight of bodies is not to the
purpose. First, because addition of quantity does not cause weight;
as is proved (De Coelo et Mundo iv, 2). Secondly, it is false that
weight retards movement; on the contrary, the heavier a thing, the
greater its movement, if we consider the movement proper thereto.
Thirdly, because action is not effected by local movement, as
Democritus held: but by something being reduced from potentiality to
act.

Reply Obj. 4: A body is not that which is most distant from God; for
it participates something of a likeness to the Divine Being,
forasmuch as it has a form. That which is most distant from God is
primary matter; which is in no way active, since it is a pure
potentiality.

Reply Obj. 5: The term of a body's action is both an accidental form
and a substantial form. For the active quality, such as heat,
although itself an accident, acts nevertheless by virtue of the
substantial form, as its instrument: wherefore its action can
terminate in a substantial form; thus natural heat, as the instrument
of the soul, has an action terminating in the generation of flesh.
But by its own virtue it produces an accident. Nor is it against the
nature of an accident to surpass its subject in acting, but it is to
surpass it in being; unless indeed one were to imagine that an
accident transfers its identical self from the agent to the patient;
thus Democritus explained action by an issue of atoms.
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [I, Q. 115, Art. 2]

Whether There Are Any Seminal Virtues in Corporeal Matter?

Objection 1: It would seem that there are no seminal virtues in
corporeal matter. For virtue (_ratio_) implies something of a
spiritual order. But in corporeal matter nothing exists spiritually,
but only materially, that is, according to the mode of that in which
it is. Therefore there are no seminal virtues in corporeal matter.

Obj. 2: Further, Augustine (De Trin. iii, 8, 9) says that demons
produce certain results by employing with a hidden movement certain
seeds, which they know to exist in matter. But bodies, not virtues,
can be employed with local movement. Therefore it is unreasonable to
say that there are seminal virtues in corporeal matter.

Obj. 3: Further, seeds are active principles. But there are no active
principles in corporeal matter; since, as we have said above, matter
is not competent to act (A. 1, ad 2, 4). Th