SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS                        359
action of its own, it subsists without the body; ... it must therefore
be produced directly, and since it is not a material substance, it cannot
be produced by way of generation; it must necessarily be created by
God. Consequently to suppose that the intelligence [or intelligent
soul] is the effect of generation is to suppose that it is not a pure and
simple substance, but corruptible like the body. It is therefore heresy
to say that this soul is transmitted by generation." What is true of
the soul should be true of all other form, since no form is a material
substance. The utmost possible relation between any two individuals
is that God may have used the same stamp or mould for a series of
creations, and especially for the less spiritual: "God is the first model
for all things. One may also say that, among His creatures some serve
as types or models for others because there are some which are made
in the image of others"; but generation means sequence, not cause.
The only true cause is God. Creation is His sole act, in which no sec-
ond cause can share. " Creation is more perfect and loftier than gen-
eration, because it aims at producing the whole substance of the
being, though it starts from absolute nothing."
Thomas Aquinas, when he pleased, was singularly lucid, and on this
point he was particularly positive. The architect insisted on the con-
trolling idea of his structure. The Church was God, and its lines ex-
cluded interference. God and the Church embraced all the converging
lines of the universe, and the universe showed none but lines that con-
verged. Between God and man, nothing whatever intervened. The
individual was a compound of form, or soul, and matter; but both
were always created together, by the same act, out of nothing. "Sim-
pliciter fatendum est animas simul cum corporibus creari et infundi."
It must be distinctly understood that souls were not created before
bodies, but that they were created at the same time as the bodies they
animate. Nothing whatever preceded this union of two substances
which did not exist: "Creatio est productio alicujus rei secundum
suam totam substantiam, nullo praesupposito, quod sit vel increatum