Sect. 131Division and Order of the Vital Forces in ManDivision and Order of the Vital Forces in Man

I. As man is a microcosmos, we can distinguish in his nature three different degrees of life. The first is vegetative life, which performs the functions of nutrition, growth, and propagation, and is common to man, animal, and plant. Next comes sensitive life, made up of the knowledge obtained through the senses and of the tendencies or appetites connected therewith; this life is common to man and animal. Lastly, we have the intellectual or spiritual life, consisting in intellectual knowledge and volitions directed by the intellect. This life man has in common with God and with the angels; it is the highest order of life in man, the object and the rule of the other vital functions.

II. Qualities or privileges which Divine liberality freely gave to man at his creation, or which Divine justice had bound itself to confer upon him by reason of his supernatural end, do not belong to human nature: because they do not necessarily flow from the human essence, or constituent principles. On the other hand, the nature of man contains not only the vital perfections which elevate him above the brute creation and make him the image of God, but also the imperfections inherent in the lower degrees of life. Human Nature, considered apart from the elevating influence of God and the deteriorating influence of sin, but with the perfections and imperfections necessarily connected with the human substance, is called by the Schoolmen nature pure and simple. Even after the Fall, the nature of man is still what it was when first created; all the essential perfections of the original nature continue to be transmitted, and all the imperfections of nature in its present state already existed, at least radically, in the original nature. This doctrine was denied by the Reformers, who held an essential and intrinsic difference between human nature as it was before, and as it is after, the Fall.