Meisner's fourth opinion is refuted
Article XIII. Meisner's fourth opinion is refuted.
1. Meisner's fourth opinion agrees with the preceding that the soul is not educed from the seed's potency but translated from parent to offspring and infused with the seed into the womb, so the seed is actually animated as soon as emitted. It differs in holding that the soul in the seed is not cut off or partitioned from the father's soul but generated and produced anew by it. Meisner (p. 924): as soon as the parent transfuses seed into the mother's womb, he transmits with it a soul — not his own or a part of it, but one like his own.
2. Something can come to be from something in four ways: effectively (effect from efficient cause); materially (a small nail from a mass of iron); subjectively (educed from a subject's potency, as material forms from matter); constitutively (natural bodies from matter and form).
3. On Meisner's view the father's soul creates the child's. What produces from nothing creates; the father's soul produces the child's from nothing; so it creates and has infinite power. The child's soul is not from the father's by partition (Meisner admits); not subjectively educed from its potency (or it would exist in the father's soul as in a subject); not constitutively (the father's soul is not a constitutive part). So from nothing — creation by the father's soul — which is absurd.
4. The likeness from light is inept. Light is educed from matter's potency (Fonseca): no one doubts light is educed from air's potency; when another torch is brought to a shining one, flame is educed from the applied torch's matter.
5. A power to procreate like souls without eduction from matter would belong to the rational soul as such, not as vegetative — and that cannot be granted without creation.
6. Both parents emit seed (Scholastics on Sent. 3 — Scotus, Bonaventure, Major, Ockham, and others — and physicians from anatomy: Galen, Fernel, Lemnius, Vesalius, Laurentius). If both seeds are animated, two souls in one fused seed; if only one, why does generation not always follow when sufficiently disposed seed is emitted?
7. It is absurd that a true miracle should occur whenever a father emits sufficiently disposed seed and animation (hence generation) does not follow — yet that would follow on Meisner's view with nature's course miraculously held back.
8. Every rational thing is a human; seed actually animated by a rational soul would be a human before the body is formed — absurd.
Latin
ART. XIII. Refellitur quarta sententia, quae est Balthasaris Meisneri. 1. Quarta sententia, quam amplectitur Balthasar Meisnerus, in hoc convenit cum praecedente, quod statuat animam non e potentia seminis educi, sed a parente in prolem traduci, & una cum semine in matricem infundi; ac proinde semen quamprimum emittitur, esse actu animatum: differt tamen ab ea, quatenus asserit animam illam in semine existentem non fieri ex anima patris per decisionem & partitionem animae paternae, sed ab ea generari & produci de novo. Hanc sententiam explicans Meisnerus pag. 924. sic ait: quamprimum parens semen transfundit in uterum genitricis, unc una cum semine transmittit animam, non quidem suam aut suae partem, sed suae similem. 2. Quatuor sunt modi quibus aliquid fieri dicitur ex aliquo. 1. Fit aliquid ex aliquo effective, ut effectus a causa efficiente. 2. Fit aliquid ex aliquo materialiter, quomodo dicimus exiguum clavum fieri ex ingenti massa ferri, & exiguum annulum ex ingenti massa auri. 3. Fit aliquid ex aliquo subjective, illud videlicet quod ex alicujus subjecti potentia educitur, quomodo dicimus omnes formas materiales fieri & educi ex potentia materiae. 4. Fit aliquid ex aliquo constitutive, quomodo dicimus omnia corpora naturalia fieri ex materia & forma. 3. His positis, sic probatur animam patris creare animam filii ex Meisneri sententia: Quod producit aliquid ex nihilo, illud creat: at anima patris producit animam filii ex nihilo, ex Meisneri sententia: Ergo creat, atque proinde infinitam virtutem habet; nam producere ex nihilo seu creare infinitam virtutem arguit: propositio major est perspicua, nam nititur definitione creationis. Probatur minor: anima filii non fit ex anima patris decisive, seu per divisionem & partitionem, ut ipse Meisnerus fatetur. Tertio, non fit ex ea subjective, h.e. non educitur ex ejus potentia, quia quod educitur ex alicujus subjecti potentia, illud in eo subjecto recipitur & in eo existit; sed nemo dixerit animam filii existere in anima patris tanquam in subjecto. Quarto, anima patris non est pars constitutiva animae filii: ergo anima filii non fit ex ea constitutive. Ergo fit ex nihilo; ergo creatur ab anima patris — quod absurdum est. 4. Quod autem ad illam similitudinem a lumine petitam attinet: tenendum est eam ineptam esse, & nullo modo pro ejus sententia facere; nam lumen educitur de potentia materiae, ut omnes fatentur: unde Fonseca, 5. Metaph. cap. 2. quaest. 4. sect. 1.: Nemo (inquit) dubitat lumen educi de potentia aeris; & certe cum faci lucenti admovetur fax alia, manifestum est ex potentia materiae istius facis admotae educi flammam. 5. Praeterea, facultas procreativa similium animarum absque eductione ex potentia materiae competit animae rationali per se, & non quatenus est vegetativa — at hoc Meisnero concedi non potest sine creatione. 6. Quarto: In generatione uterque parens emittit semen, ut docent non solum Scholastici Theologi complures, lib. 3. Sent., ut Scotus, Bonaventura, Major, Occamus, Lichetus, Gabriel; sed etiam Medici multis manifestis indiciis ab Anatomica experientia ductis convincunt, quae hoc loco in medium afferre non possum; ea tamen scriptis mandarunt Galenus, Fernel, Levinus Lemnius, Vesalius, Laurentius, & multi alii. Hoc igitur posito sic argumentor: Semen utriusque parentis vel est animatum, vel alterum tantum. Si utrumque, duae animae in uno semine conflato; si alterum tantum, cur non semper generatio sequitur quando semen sufficienter dispositum emittitur? 7. Quinto: absurdum est toties verum & proprie dictum miraculum fieri, quoties pater semen sufficienter dispositum emittit & illam emissionem animatio & proinde generatio non consequitur — quod tamen sequeretur si Meisneri sententia vera esset, naturae cursu miraculose inhibito. 8. Sexto, omne rationale est homo: at semen, si actu animatum anima rationali, esset homo — absurdum ante formationem corporis.
About this text
Robert Baron — Philosophia theologiae ancillans from the 1658 Oxford Latin. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII On Being and Essence; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV On the origin of the soul and the propagation of sin. Later Exercitationes / remainder of 213 pp remain.
English follows locked 1658 Oxford Latin. Prima Art. I-XII from IA PDF leaves ~15-53. Secunda Art. I-XV from PDF leaves 56-107 / printed pp.54-105 (tess+pdftotext+DjVu). No modern English copied. Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
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Wing B887. IA bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_philosophia-theologi-an_baron-robert_1658. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV (De origine animae & propagatione peccati). Not whole Philosophia (213 pp). Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
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