Part 1677

om what has been said.

* Objection 1: * It would seem that the act of the sensitive appetite is not commanded. For the Apostle says (Rom. 7:15): "For I do not that good which I will": and a gloss explains this by saying that man lusts, although he wills not to lust. But to lust is an act of the sensitive appetite. Therefore the act of the sensitive appetite is not subject to our command.

* Objection 2: * Further, corporeal matter obeys God alone, to the effect of formal transmutation, as was shown in the FP, Q[65], A[4]; FP, Q[91], A[2]; FP, Q[110], A[2]. But the act of the sensitive appetite is accompanied by a formal transmutation of the body, consisting in heat or cold. Therefore the act of the sensitive appetite is not subject to man's command.

* Objection 3: * Further, the proper motive principle of the sensitive appetite is something apprehended by sense or imagination. But it is not always in our power to apprehend something by sense or imagination. Therefore the act of the sensitive appetite is not subject to our command.

* On the contrary, * Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xvi.] says: "That which obeys reason is twofold, the concupiscible and the irascible," which belong to the sensitive appetite. Therefore the act of the sensitive appetite is subject to the command of reason.

* I answer that, * An act is subject to our command, in so far as it is in our power, as stated above (A[5]). Consequently in order to understand in what manner the act of the sensitive appetite is subject to the command of reason, we must consider in what manner it is in our power. Now it must be observed that the sensitive appetite differs from the intellective appetite, which is called the will, in the fact that the sensitive appetite is a power of a corporeal organ, whereas the will is not. Again, every act of a power that uses a corporeal organ, depends not only on a power of t