Sir, - Fr Sean Fagan cites Aquinas as saying that "only as regards nature in the individual is the female something defective and manque" and "with reference to nature in the species as a whole the female is not something manque". This is unintelligible. If with reference to nature in the species as a whole the female is not something manque, why should it be that as regards nature in the individual she is something defective and manque? It is also a gross mistranslation. The Latin reads per respectum ad naturam particularem femina est aliquid deficiens et occasionatum .. . sed per comparationem ad naturam universalem femina non est aliquid occasionatum (Summa Theologiae 1, 92, ad 1).
Fr Fagan translates natura particularis as "nature in the individual" and natura universalis as "nature in the species as a whole". But in the language of Aquinas natura particularis does not mean "nature in the individual" and na- tura universalis does not mean "nature in the species as a whole". At Summa Theologiae, 1-2, 85, 6, co he explains that natura particularis means "the active and conserving power that is proper to each individual thing" (propria virtus activa et conservativa uniuscuiusque rei) and that natura universalis is "the active power found in a universal principle of nature" (natura vero universalis est virtus activa in aliquo universali principio naturae). A heavenly body, he says, might be such a power and, he goes on, "God is said by some people to be the power of nature" (Deus a quibusdam dicitur natura naturans).
In simpler words: natura particularis means the power of a particular bulb to grow to be a tulip, or the power of a particular sapling to grow to be an oak: natura universalis means much what we mean when we talk of the workings of nature or of the workings of God.
In the translation of Aristotle's De Generatione Animalium available to Aquinas, the male semen is supposed to "intend" (that is, naturally produce) male offspring, and if it does not, this is because of a weakness in the semen, or because the female reproductive material "conquers" (vincit) the male semen. The female offspring is therefore taken to be defective and occasionatum. Occasionatum means "not intended in itself but arising from some corruption or defect", as Aquinas says explicitly at In 2 Sent, 20, 2, 1, obj 1 (Illud occasionatum dicitur, quod non est per se intentum, sed ex aliqua corruptione vel defectu proveniens). It does not mean manque, as Fr Fagan translates it. What arises from corruption or defect need not itself be corrupt or defective. Wine arises from the corruption of grape sugar. It is occasionatum, but it is not itself corrupt, it is not defective, and it is not manque.
Faced with the Aristotelean text, Aquinas accepts, for the purpose of argument, that "with respect to the particular nature the female is deficient and occasionatum". With respect to what particuar nature? At Summa Contra Gentiles, 3, 94, n 10 he tells us explicitly that the particular nature is the power of the male semen. So the female is occasionatum with respect to the power of the semen, that is, it is not intended by this power. But, Aquinas argues, with respect to the general power of nature, the female is intended, intended indeed for the work of procreation. (Accordingly she is not unintended, she is not occasionatum, and hence she is not defective.) He goes on to point out that the "intention" of the general power of nature depends on God, who is the author of universal nature, that is, of this general power.
In other words, the female may be unintended and defective so far as the workings of the male semen is concerned. But she is intended by nature, and so she is not a defective part of the natural world. And God is the author of nature. Hence she is not defective so far as God is concerned. To a theologian such as Aquinas, it is this last that matters. Pity about the failure of the male semen.
May I add two things: (1) When Aquinas says that the female is "intended for the work of procreation", he is not saying that the female is solely or even principally intended for the work of procreation. In the immediately preceding paragraph he has explained that the principal work of both men and women is not to procreate, but to understand the world in which they live. (2) Aquinas is often mocked because he says that sex-differentiation could be affected by humidity. But there is abundant evidence that environmental factors can affect sex-differentiation. (Cf. S. T. H. Chan and Wai-Sum: Environmental and Non-genetic Mechanisms in Sex Determination, in C. R. Austin and R. G. Edwards: Mechanisms of Sex Differentiation in Animals and Men: New York, Academic Press, 1981.)
I published an article on these topics in New Blackfriars, May 1994. If anyone would like a copy of a revised version, perhaps they would write to me at Arts B102, University College, Dublin 4. - Yours, etc.,
From Michael Nolan
Harmony Ave,
Dublin 4.