Abstract

It has been pointed out that St. Albert the Great, in defining the human soul as it is in itself, turns to Avicenna rather than to Aristotle. There is, he says, a twofold definition of the human soul, one in relation to the body according as it is the act and mover of a body, and one in itself according as it is a substance. And it is better to speak of the soul as a perfection than as a form, since forma signifies something essentially related to matter, whereas perfectio does not; and the soul, as substance, can subsist without a body as a sailor can without a ship. Indeed, the only difference between the soul and an angel is that the soul ‘is inclined’ to a body as its act, whereas an angel is not. The Aristotelian definition of the soul as form has application to the soul in its relation to the body; but to express what the soul is in itself we must turn to the Avicennian definition of the soul as perfection.