B. About the Order of Perfection (and of Adequacy) in Intelligibles

95. Now about the order of perfection [n.69]. And I make the distinction that a thing more perfectly intelligible for us can be understood in two ways, either simply or according to proportion. An example: the eye of an eagle is simply more perfect with respect to the sun than is my vision with respect to a candle, and yet my vision is more perfect proportionally, that is, it has more of the idea of vision in proportion to the visibility of the candle than the vision of an eagle may have in respect of the visibility of the sun.

96. This distinction is obtained from the Philosopher, Parts of Animals I.5.644b31-33, where he maintains that, although we have least knowledge of immaterial things (‘least’ is to be understood as to proportion), yet this knowledge is more desirable than the considerable knowledge that can be had of material things, which is considerable in relation to those knowables.

97. Speaking, therefore, of the order of the knowledge that is more perfect simply, I say that the most perfect thing knowable by us, even naturally, is God (hence the Philosopher places happiness herein, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17), and, after him, the most specific species that is more perfect in the universe, and then the species next to it, and so as far as the ultimate species; and after all the most specific species comes the proximate genus abstracted from the most perfect species, and so on by always making resolution [sc, to the next proximate genus]. And the reason for all these is that the attainment of a more actual and more perfect object is a simply more perfect intellection, because this intellection has an essential perfection on the part of the intellect equal to any other intellection, or not less, and a perfection much greater on the part of the object, both of which, namely the perfection of the power and the perfection of the object, are cause of the most perfect intellection.

98. If we speak of perfection or of a knowledge more perfect in proportion to the knowable thing, I say that sensibles from more perfect senses, and sensibles that move them more effectively, are, according to proportion, knowable more perfectly, in that our intellect reaches them more according to the degree of their knowability; and the sensibles that are more remote from them are less knowable, according to proportion to their knowability.

99. The third primacy, namely of adequacy [n.69], will be spoken of in the next question [nn.108-201], or elsewhere [in the Ordinatio].