The human body is an animated body. Throughout St. Thomas’ writing, it has been kept in mind that there can not be any discussion of the body without an awareness that it has being only in union with the soul. To speak of the human body as if it were only a material thing no different from any other corporeal being, is not to speak of the body of man as it is. A human …showed first 75 words of 1086 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1086 total…enjoyed by man, will be complete only when it is enjoyed by the whole man, will be complete only when it is enjoyed by the whole man, body-and-soul. From the standpoint of perfection of species, the soul is more perfect and more like God when united to the body, because it then constitutes a complete species; man is perfect man only when the two principles of his essence are united in an actually existing being.