FOURTH ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 50, Art. 4]

Whether There Is Any Habit in the Intellect?

Objection 1:  It would seem that there are no habits in the intellect.  For habits are in conformity with operations, as stated above (A. 1).  But the operations of man are common to soul and body, as stated in De Anima i, text. 64.  Therefore also are habits.  But the intellect is not an act of the body (De Anima iii, text. 6).  Therefore the intellect is not the subject of a habit.

Obj. 2:  Further, whatever is in a thing, is there according to the mode of that in which it is.  But that which is form without matter, is act only:  whereas what is composed of form and matter, has potentiality and act at the same time.  Therefore nothing at the same time potential and actual can be in that which is form only, but only in that which is composed of matter and form.  Now the intellect is form without matter.  Therefore habit, which has potentiality at the same time as act, being a sort of medium between the two, cannot be in the intellect; but only in the conjunction, which is composed of soul and body.

Obj. 3:  Further, habit is a disposition whereby we are well or ill disposed in regard to something, as is said (Metaph. v, text. 25).  But that anyone should be well or ill disposed to an act of the intellect is due to some disposition of the body:  wherefore also it is stated (De Anima ii, text. 94) that “we observe men with soft flesh to be quick witted.”  Therefore the habits of knowledge are not in the intellect, which is separate, but in some power which is the act of some part of the body.

On the contrary, The Philosopher (Ethic. vi, 2, 3, 10) puts science, wisdom and understanding, which is the habit of first principles, in the intellective part of the soul.

I answer that, concerning intellective habits there have been various opinions.  Some, supposing that there was only one possible [See First Part, Q. 79, A. 2, ad 2] intellect for all men, were bound to hold that habits of knowledge are not in the intellect itself, but in the interior sensitive powers.  For it is manifest that men differ in habits; and so it was impossible to put the habits of knowledge directly in that, which, being only one, would be common to all men.  Wherefore if there were but one single “possible” intellect of all men, the habits of science, in which men differ from one another, could not be in the “possible” intellect as their subject, but would be in the interior sensitive powers, which differ in various men.