Whether There Is a Habit in the Body?
Objection 1: It would seem that there is not a habit in the body.
For, as the Commentator says (De Anima iii), "a habit is that whereby
we act when we will." But bodily actions are not subject to the will,
since they are natural. Therefore there can be no habit in the body.
Obj. 2: Further, all bodily dispositions are easy to change. But
habit is a quality, difficult to change. Therefore no bodily
disposition can be a habit.
Obj. 3: Further, all bodily dispositions are subject to change. But
change can only be in the third species of quality, which is divided
against habit. Therefore there is no habit in the body.
_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher says in the _Book of Predicaments_
(De Categor. vi) that health of the body and incurable disease are
called habits.
_I answer that,_ As we have said above (Q. 49, AA. 2 seqq.), habit is
a disposition of a subject which is in a state of potentiality either
to form or to operation. Therefore in so far as habit implies
disposition to operation, no habit is principally in the body as its
subject. For every operation of the body proceeds either from a
natural quality of the body or from the soul moving the body.
Consequently, as to those operations which proceed from its nature,
the body is not disposed by a habit: because the natural forces are
determined to one mode of operation; and we have already said (Q. 49,
A. 4) that it is when the subject is in potentiality to many things
that a habitual disposition is required. As to the operations which
proceed from the soul through the body, they belong principally to
the soul, and secondarily to the body. Now habits are in proportion
to their operations: whence "by like acts like habits are formed"
(Ethic. ii, 1, 2). And therefore the dispositions to such operations
are principally in the soul. But they can be secondarily in the body:
to wit, in so far as the body is disposed and enabled with
promptitude to help in the operations of the soul.
If, however, we speak of the disposition of the subject to form, thus
a habitual disposition can be in the body, which is related to the
soul as a subject is to its form. And in this way health and beauty
and such like are called habitual dispositions. Yet they have not the
nature of habit perfectly: because their causes, of their very nature,
are easily changeable.
On the other hand, as Simplicius reports in his _Commentary on the
Predicaments,_ Alexander denied absolutely that habits or
dispositions of the first species are in the body: and held that the
first species of quality belonged to the soul alone. And he held that
Aristotle mentions health and sickness in the _Book on the
Predicaments_ not as though they belonged to the first species of
quality, but by way of example: so that he would mean that just as
health and sickness may be easy or difficult to change, so also are
all the qualities of the first species, which are called habits and
dispositions. But this is clearly contrary to the intention of
Aristotle: both because he speaks in the same way of health and
sickness as examples, as of virtue and science; and because in
_Phys._ vii, text. 17, he expressly mentions beauty and health among
habits.
Reply Obj. 1: This objection runs in the sense of habit as a
disposition to operation, and of those actions of the body which are
from nature: but not in the sense of those actions which proceed from
the soul, and the principle of which is the will.
Reply Obj. 2: Bodily dispositions are not simply difficult to change
on account of the changeableness of their bodily causes. But they may
be difficult to change by comparison to such a subject, because, to
wit, as long as such a subject endures, they cannot be removed; or
because they are difficult to change, by comparison to other
dispositions. But qualities of the soul are simply difficult to
change, on account of the unchangeableness of the subject. And
therefore he does not say that health which is difficult to change is
a habit simply: but that it is "as a habit," as we read in the Greek
[*_isos hexin_ (Categor. viii)]. On the other hand, the qualities of
the soul are called habits simply.
Reply Obj. 3: Bodily dispositions which are in the first species of
quality, as some maintained, differ from qualities of the third
species, in this, that the qualities of the third species consist in
some "becoming" and movement, as it were, wherefore they are called
passions or passible qualities. But when they have attained to
perfection (specific perfection, so to speak), they have then passed
into the first species of quality. But Simplicius in his _Commentary_
disapproves of this; for in this way heating would be in the third
species, and heat in the first species of quality; whereas Aristotle
puts heat in the third.
Wherefore Porphyrius, as Simplicius reports (Commentary), says that
passion or passion-like quality, disposition and habit, differ in
bodies by way of intensity and remissness. For when a thing receives
heat in this only that it is being heated, and not so as to be able
to give heat, then we have passion, if it is transitory; or
passion-like quality if it is permanent. But when it has been brought
to the point that it is able to heat something else, then it is a
disposition; and if it goes so far as to be firmly fixed and to
become difficult to change, then it will be a habit: so that
disposition would be a certain intensity of passion or passion-like
quality, and habit an intensity or disposition. But Simplicius
disapproves of this, for such intensity and remissness do not imply
diversity on the part of the form itself, but on the part of the
diverse participation thereof by the subject; so that there would be
no diversity among the species of quality. And therefore we must say
otherwise that, as was explained above (Q. 49, A. 2, ad 1), the
adjustment of the passion-like qualities themselves, according to
their suitability to nature, implies the notion of disposition: and
so, when a change takes place in these same passion-like qualities,
which are heat and cold, moisture and dryness, there results a change
as to sickness and health. But change does not occur in regard to
like habits and dispositions, primarily and of themselves.
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