OF THE PASSIBILITY OF THE BODY (8–19).
11. Passions (or, affections) refer to something destructible; for it is passion that leads to destruction; it is the same sort of being that can be affected, and can be destroyed. Incorporeal entities, however, are not subject to destruction; they either exist or not; in either case they are non-affectible. That which can be affected need not have this impassible nature, but must be subject to alteration or destruction by the qualities of things that enter into it and affect it; for that which in it subsists is not altered by the first chance entity. Consequently, matter is impassible, as by itself it possesses no quality. The forms that enter into and issue from matter (as a substrate) are equally impassible. That which is affected is the composite of form and matter, whose existence consists in the union of these two elements; for it is evidently subject to the action of contrary powers, and of the qualities of things which enter into it, and affect it. That is why the beings that derive their existence from something else, instead of possessing it by themselves, can likewise by virtue of their passivity, either live or not. On the contrary, the beings whose existence consists in an impassible life necessarily live permanently; likewise the things that do not live are equally impassible inasmuch as they do not live. Consequently, being changed and being affected refer only to the composite of form and matter, to the body, and not to matter. Likewise, to receive life and to lose it, to feel passions that are its consequence, can refer only to the composite of soul and body. Nothing similar could happen to the soul; for she is not something compounded out of life and lifelessness; she is life itself, because her "being" or nature is simple, and is automatic.