If the soul is not accidentally related to body as a pilot is related to a ship, but is the substantial form of that body, responsible for even such humble and obviously physical processes like digestion, how could it possibly still exist in a disembodied state? Aquinas comes dangerously close to denying that it can do so. He thinks the soul’s condition after death is unnatural to it and that the soul will be unable to exercise many of its powers in that condition.
