led "virtues" (rationes) by reason of their being in
corporeal matter, can nevertheless be so called in respect of their
origin, forasmuch as they are the effect of the typal ideas [rationes
ideales].

Reply Obj. 2: These active and passive virtues are in certain parts
of corporeal things: and when they are employed with local movement
for the production of certain results, we speak of the demons as
employing seeds.

Reply Obj. 3: The seed of the male is the active principle in the
generation of an animal. But that can be called seed also which the
female contributes as the passive principle. And thus the word "seed"
covers both active and passive principles.

Reply Obj. 4: From the words of Augustine when speaking of these
seminal virtues, it is easy to gather that they are also causal
virtues, just as seed is a kind of cause: for he says (De Trin. iii,
9) that, "as a mother is pregnant with the unborn offspring, so is
the world itself pregnant with the causes of unborn things."
Nevertheless, the "typal ideas" can be called "causal virtues," but
not, strictly speaking, "seminal virtues," because seed is not a
separate principle; and because miracles are not wrought outside the
scope of causal virtues. Likewise neither are miracles wrought
outside the scope of the passive virtues so implanted in the
creature, that the latter can be used to any purpose that God
commands. But miracles are said to be wrought outside the scope of
the natural active virtues, and the passive potentialities which are
ordered to such active virtues, and this is what is meant when we
say that they are wrought outside the scope of seminal virtues.
_______________________

THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 115, Art. 3]

Whether the Heavenly Bodies Are the Cause of What Is Produced in
Bodies Here Below?

Objection 1: It would seem that the heavenly bodies are not the cause
of what is produced in bodies here below. For Damascene says (De Fide
Orth. ii, 7): "We say that they"--namely, the heavenly bodies--"are
not the cause of generation or corruption: they are rather signs of
storms and atmospheric changes."

Obj. 2: Further, for the production of anything, an agent and matter
suffice. But in things here below there is passive matter; and there
are contrary agents--heat and cold, and the like. Therefore for the
production of things here below, there is no need to ascribe
causality to the heavenly bodies.

Obj. 3: Further, the agent produces its like.