But accidentally the disintegration
of a natural object is accompanied by the destruction of the
non-physical reality; for, when the animal dies, the health or
knowledge resident in it passes away too. Hence from these
considerations we may draw a conclusion about the soul too; for, if
the inherence of soul in body is not a matter of nature but like
that of knowledge in the soul, there would be another mode of
dissolution pertaining to it besides that which occurs when the body
is destroyed. But since evidently it does not admit of this dual
dissolution, the soul must stand in a different case in respect of its
union with the body.
3
Perhaps one might reasonably raise the question whether there is any
place where what is corruptible becomes incorruptible, as fire does in
the upper regions where it meets with no opposite. Opposites destroy
each other, and hence accidentally, by their destruction, whatsoever
is attributed to them is destroyed. But no opposite in a real
substance is accidentally destroyed, because real substance is not
predicated of any subject. Hence a thing which has no opposite, or
which is situated where it has no opposite, cannot be destroyed. For
what will that be which can destroy it, if destruction comes only
through contraries, but no contrary to it exists either absolutely
or in the particular place where it is? But perhaps this is in one
sense true, in another sense not true, for it is impossible that
anything containing matter should not have in any sense an opposite.
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