Question Three Whether God is the Natural First Object that is Adequate Relative to the Intellect of the Wayfarer

108. Next after what was touched on in third article of the second question [nn.70, 99], about the first object of the intellect, that is, the adequate and precise object, the question is asked whether God is the natural first object that is adequate relative to the intellect of the wayfarer.

Argument that he is:

Because, from the preceding question [nn.97, 103], God is first, that is, most perfect among all intelligibles; and the first in any genus is cause of the other things in that genus being such, Metaphysics 2.1.993b24-26, as is plain: the first hot thing is cause of heat in all other things; therefore God is the reason for knowing all other things; therefore he is the first object of the intellect.

109. Further, as each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to knowledge [n.6, Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31]; but nothing is a being by participation save from unparticipating being; The Latin word here ‘imparticipato’ is from a deponent verb ‘imparticipor’; so it means ‘un-participating’ and not, as might first appear, ‘un-participated’. ¹⁴ therefore neither is anything known unless un-participating being is first known. There is proof of this is from Augustine, On the Trinity 8 ch.3 n.4, “We would not, when telling the truth, judge one thing to be better than another unless knowledge of the good were impressed on us.” And it seems he is speaking there about the negatively indeterminate good, about which he has said in the same chapter, “look at the good itself, if you can, and you will surely see God;” and this does not seem to be true save of the negatively indeterminate good, namely the good that is not determinable; of which sort is the first good.a

a.a [Interpolated text] On the contrary: the object that is first in primacy of adequacy receives the predication of everything contained under it; but God does not receive this sort of predication;     therefore etc     .

I. Opinion of Others

A. First Opinion

110. In this question there is an opinion which says that the first object of our intellect is the quiddity of a material thing, because a power is proportioned to its object [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.84 a.7].

111. Now there is a triple cognitive power: one is altogether separate from matter both in being and in operating, as the separate intellect; another is conjoined to matter both in being and in operating, as an organic power which in its being perfects matter and only operates through the medium of an organ, from which it is not separate in operating as neither in being; another is conjoined to matter in being only but it does not use a material organ in operating, as our intellect.

112. To these powers there correspond proportionate absolute objects. For to the altogether separate power, namely the first power, a quiddity altogether separate from matter ought to correspond; to the second an altogether material singular; so to the third corresponds the quiddity of a material thing that, although it be in matter, is yet not knowable as it exists in singular matter.

113. On the contrary: this cannot be sustained by a theologian, for the intellect, while existing as the same power in its nature, will per se know the quiddity of an immaterial substance, as is plain according to the faith about a blessed soul. But a power cannot, while remaining the same, have an act about anything that is not contained under its first object.

114. But if you say [Aquinas, ST Ia q.12 a.5] that it will be raised by the light of glory to the fact of knowing the immaterial substances - on the contrary: the first object of a habit is contained under the first object of the power, or at any does not go beyond it, because if the habit has regard to some object that is not contained under the first object of the power but goes beyond it, then the habit would not be the habit of that power, but would make it to be not that power but another one. There is a confirmation of this argument, that since a power, in the first moment of nature in which it is the power, has such and such object as first, then by nothing posterior in nature that presupposes the idea of the power can any other object become the first object of it. But every habit naturally presupposes the power.

115. Also, if this opinion [n.1] were posited by the Philosopher [On the Soul III.7.431a16-17, 8.432a7-9, Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.33], namely if he posited that our intellect, because of its infirmity among other intellects (namely the divine and the angelic), and because of its conjunction with the imaginative power in its knowing, has an immediate ordering to the phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.89 a.1] just as phantasms have an immediate ordering to the common sense, and that therefore, just like imagination, it is not moved by anything save by what is an object of the common sense (although it know the same object in a different way) - then he would thus be saying that our intellect, not only because of some state it is in but by the nature of the power, could not understand anything save what can be abstracted from a phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.88 a.1].

116. Against this there is a threefold argument. First that in an intellect knowing an effect there is a natural desire to knowing the cause, and that in an intellect knowing the cause universally there is a natural desire to knowing it in particular and distinctly; but a natural desire is not a desire for something that, by the nature of the desirer, is impossible for the desirer, because then the desire would be vain; therefore it is not impossible for the intellect, on the part of the intellect, to know an immaterial substance in the particular from the fact it knows the material substance that is the effect of it [cf. Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.2], and so the immaterial substance does not go beyond the first object of the intellect.

117. Besides, no power can know any object under an idea more common than is the idea of its first object. This is plain first by reason, because then the idea of the first object would not be adequate. It is also plain from an example, for sight does not know anything through an idea more common than is the idea of color or light, which is its first object; but the intellect does know a thing under an idea more common than is the idea of something imaginable [cf. n.115], because it knows a thing under the idea of being in general, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science for our intellect;     therefore etc     .

118. Besides, third [n.116] (and it returns as it were to the same as the second [n.117]): whatever is per se known by a cognitive power is either its first object or is contained under its first object; being as being is more common than what is sensible; it is per se understood by us, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science more transcendent than physics; therefore nothing can be the first object of our intellect which is more particular than being, because then being in itself would in no way be understood by us.

119. Therefore, it seems that what is supposed in the stated opinion [n.110] about the first object (and this when speaking of the power from the power’s nature) is false. And this is apparent because, if the first question [n.1] be solved by way of this opinion, saying that the sensible quiddity is the first object of the intellect, not God or being [nn.125, 137; Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.3], the solution is resting on a false foundation.

120. The congruity too that is adduced for the opinion [nn.110, 112] is no congruity. For power and object should not be assimilated together in their way of being, for they are related as mover and movable and these are related as dissimilar, because related as act and power. They are, however, proportionate, because this proportion requires dissimilarity in the things proportioned, as is commonly the case with a proportion - as is apparent in matter and form, part and whole, cause and caused, and other proportions. So, from such a mode of being of the power cannot be concluded a similar mode of being in the object.

121. An objection against this [n.120; Aquinas ST Ia q.85 a.2] is that, although a making agent can be dissimilar from its object (which is a passive object there), yet an operating agent should, in its knowing operation, be assimilated to the object it operates about, because the object is not passive there but is rather an agent and an assimilating agent. For everyone was agreed on this point, that knowledge comes to be through assimilation, nor did Aristotle contradict them about this [On the Soul 1.2.404b7-5b17, 3.8.431b29-2a1]. Therefore, required here is not only proportion but also likeness.

122. Response. It is one thing to speak of the mode of being of the power in itself, and another thing to speak of it insofar as it is under second act, or in proximate disposition to second act, which is different from the nature of the power. But now [sc. in this life] it is the case that the knowing power is assimilated to the known object. This is true through its act of knowing, which is a certain likeness of the object, or through the species, which disposes it proximately for knowing. But to conclude from this that the very intellect in itself naturally has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object, or conversely, is to commit the fallacy of the accident and of figure of speech - in just the way this inference does not hold: ‘the copper coin is assimilated to Caesar because it is assimilated to him through the image impressed on the coin, therefore the copper coin in itself has a like mode of being to the mode of being of Caesar’. Or more to the issue at hand, ‘an eye seeing through the species of the object is assimilated to the object, therefore sight has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object’. And so further, just as ‘certain visible things have matter (which is the cause of corruption and is in potency to contradictory opposites as mixed things are), certain lack such matter, as the heavenly bodies, therefore a certain sort of vision will exist in such matter, another without such matter, or a certain sort of organ is such, and another not such’. Until modern times material bodies were typically explained (at least by those who, unlike the ancient atomists, followed the elaborations of Aristotle) in terms of elements that were not parcels of matter or energy (like protons, electrons, quarks etc.), but the realized sense qualities of the hot, the cold, the wet, and the dry. All material bodies were various mixtures of these realized sense qualities, as water was a mixture of the wet and cold, fire a mixture of the hot and dry etc. All other bodies, including living bodies, were various mixtures of these first mixtures. But since such mixed bodies, however good their mixing may be, are composed ultimately of contraries (hot/cold, wet/dry), and since contraries act against each other, these bodies have a natural tendency to dissolve into their elements, or they are corruptible. The heavenly bodies, by contrast, are not corruptible, because they are not composed of contraries but of a distinct and single element without a contrary (sometimes called ‘ether’), which was a fifth element beyond the previous four, or in Latin a ‘quint-essence’. ¹⁵ Or still more to the issue at hand, ‘an idea in the divine mind, which is a likeness of the object, is immaterial, therefore the stone too of which it is the idea, is immaterial’. Because of this congruity, then, it does not seem congruous to narrow down the intellect, from the nature of its power, to the sensible object, so that it not go beyond the senses save only in mode of knowing.

123. In agreement here are Aristotle [n.115] and the article [nn.186-187] that the quiddity of a sensible thing is now [sc. in this present life] the adequate object, understanding ‘sensible’- properly, or that it is included essentially or virtually in the sensible thing;-16 in another way, understanding quiddity as specific quiddity (whether remote or included virtually, they both reduce to the same thing). It is not now, therefore, because it is the object of the highest sense, the intellect’s adequate object, because the intellect understands everything included essentially in the sensible thing, right up to being (under which difference in no way do the senses know it), and also up to what is included virtually, as relations (which the senses do not know). Nor is it necessary here to make the distinction that only the sensible thing is the object doing the moving; the terminating entity, because included in the sensible thing in some way or other, is not only the term but also a mover, at least it moves the intelligence through the proper species in the memory, whether generated by itself or something else.

124. In disagreement: the object that is adequate, from the nature of the power, to the intellect [nn.186-187] is nothing under being. This, the article [nn.186-187], is against Aristotle. And the first reason here well opposes Thomas [n.113]. But does natural reason really show this? If so, it is much more in contradiction with Aristotle [n.115]; if not I reply to the ‘Against this there is a threefold argument’ [n.116].

To the first [n.116]: every antecedent about [there being a] natural desire for a is more obscure than is a plurality [of natural desires; Metaphysics 10.3.1054a28-29, “multitude is prior in idea to what is indivisible, on account of the senses”], unless it be proved a posteriori. And if there is a proof it is in us (from promptness toward the act of desire), it is not valid unless it be shown that true apprehension precedes the act, that the act immediately follows a true apprehension. To the second [n.117]: being, as it is a certain single intelligible, is contained under the sensible quiddity above expounded.-17 The other argument [n.118], about metaphysics, proves that being as ‘this intelligible’ is understood by us; but if it were the first object, this would be according to its whole indifference to everything in which it is preserved, not as a single intelligible thing in itself - and anything you like of that indifference could be understood [cf. Ord. Prol. n.33]. Therefore, it is not the adequate object now [for this present life].

There still remains the major of the second argument and the major of the third [nn.117, 118, first lines, that only the first object, or what falls under it, is known]. They seem evident at this sort of sign0. For these two occurrences of the symbol - inserted by Scotus, see n.124, second paragraph ¹⁶, At the same symbol above in n.123. See previous footnote. ¹⁷, The Vatican editors report that a like symbol, corresponding to this one, is not found in Scotus’ manuscripts. ¹⁸ For being, insofar as it is being, is more common than any other concept of first intention (a second intention is not the first object), and it is understood thus without any contraction at all being understood along with it, or a relation to sensibles or any relation.

B. Second Opinion

125. There is another opinion [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24, q.8], which posits that God is the first object of the intellect, and the fundamental reasons for it are those that were adduced for the first part of the question [nn.108-109], arguing to the main point. And for the same reasons it posits that God is the first object of the will, because God is the reason for willing everything else - the way the opinion adduced the authority from Augustine On The Trinity VIII ch.6 n9, “Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just, and not the form itself where we see what a just mind is, so that we too can be just? Or is it that, unless we loved this form, we would in no way love him we believe to be just, whom we love because of this form? But while we are not just, we do not love it enough to have strength to be just.”

126. Against this opinion I argue as follows: the natural first object of any power has a natural order to that power; God does not have a natural order to our intellect under the idea of moving it, save perhaps under the idea of some general attribute, as that opinion supposes;     therefore God is only the first object under the idea of that attribute, and so that general attribute will be the first object - or, according to the opinion that I held before [n.19] (that God is only understood under the idea of being [nn.56-60]), he will not have a natural order save under such universal concept. But a particular that is only understood in something common is not the first object of the intellect, but rather that common thing is. Therefore etc     .

127. Further, it is certain that God does not have a primacy of adequacy because of being common, so as to be asserted of any object per se intelligible to us. Therefore, if he has some primacy of adequacy this will be because of virtuality, namely that he contains virtually in himself everything per se intelligible. But not for this reason will he be the object adequate to our intellect, because other beings move our intellect by their own virtue, so that the divine essence is not moving our intellect to knowing him and all other knowables. And as was said before in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. nn.152, 200-201], the essence of God is for this reason the first object of the divine intellect that it alone moves the divine intellect to knowing itself and all the things knowable by that intellect.

128. Through the same reasons [nn.126-127] is it proved that substance could not, on the ground that all accidents are attributed to it, be posited to be the first object of our intellect, for accidents have their own power to move the intellect. Therefore, substance does not move to knowledge of itself and of all other things.

II. To the Question

129. To the question then [n.108] I say in brief that no object of our intellect natural to it can be posited on the basis of the above sort of virtual adequacy, for the reason touched on against the primacy of a virtual object in God or in substance [nn.127-128]. Either then no first object will be posited, or one must look for a first object that is adequate because of the commonness in it. But if being is posited as equivocal between created and uncreated being, substance and accident, then, since all these are per se knowable to us, no object seems it can be posited to be the first object of our intellect either because of its virtuality or because of its commonness. But by positing the position I set down in the first question of this distinction, about the univocity of being [nn.26-55], the fact that there is some first object of our intellect can in some way be preserved.

130. To understand this I first make clear of what sort the univocity of being is and to what things it extends [nn.131-136, cf. n.45], and second from this I make clear the issue at hand [sc. about being and the first object of the intellect, nn.137-151].

A. Of What Sort the Univocity of Being is and to What Things it Extends.

131. As to the first point I say that being is not a univocal assertion in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because not of ultimate differences, nor of the proper passions of being. (A difference is called ultimate because it does not have a difference - because it is not resolved into a quidditative and qualitative concept, a determinable and determinate concept; but there is only a qualitative concept of it, just as an ultimate genus has only a quidditative concept.)

132. The first claim, namely about ultimate differences, I prove in two ways. First as follows: if differences include being univocally said of them, and these differences are not altogether the same, then they are diverse entities in some respect the same. Such are differences properly, from Metaphysics 5.9.1018a12-13, 10.3.1054b25-27. Therefore, ultimate differences will be differences properly; therefore they differ in other differences. But if these other differences include being quidditatively, the same follows about them as about the former, and so there would be a regress to infinity in differences; or a stand will be made at some differences that do not include being quidditatively, which is the conclusion intended, because they alone will be ultimates [see also n.136 below].

133. Second as follows: just as a composite being is composed of act and potency in the thing, so a composite concept per se one is composed of a potential and actual concept, or composed of determinable and determining concept. Just as therefore the resolution of composite being stops ultimately at simply simples, namely at ultimate act and ultimate potency, which are diverse primarily, such that nothing of one includes anything of the other (otherwise this one would not be act primarily, and that one would not be potency primarily, for what includes something of potentiality is not act primarily) - so in the case of concepts must it be that every concept that is not simply simple [n.71], and yet is per se one, is resolved into a determinable and determining concept, such that resolution stops at simply simple concepts. That is, it stops at a concept that is determinable only, such that it include nothing determining it, and at a concept that is determining only, which does not include any determinable concept. The concept that is determinable only is the concept of being, and the concept that is determining only is the concept of ultimate difference. Therefore, these will be diverse primarily, such that one never includes the other.

134. The second claim, namely about the properties of being [n.131], I prove in two ways. First as follows: a property per se in the second mode A predication is per se in the second mode when the subject falls into the definition of the predicate, as ‘man is capable of laughter’, since laughter is expulsion of sound on the apprehension of the ridiculous, and only a man, a rational animal, has both a mind to apprehend the ridiculous (which is a sort of incongruity apprehended in things) and a physical mouth to expel sound on that apprehension. Angels, by contrast, can apprehend the ridiculous but do not have mouths to produce sound; their laughter is virtual. Brute animals have mouths to produce sound but no apprehension of the ridiculous (at least qua ridiculous). A predication is per se in the first mode, by contrast, when the predicate falls into the definition of the subject, as precisely in ‘man is a rational animal’. ¹⁹ is predicated of the subject (Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a37-b5); therefore, the subject is put in the definition of the predicate as something added (from ibid. and Metaphysics 7.5.1031a2-14). Being therefore falls into the idea of its property as something added. For being does have its own properties, as is plain from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 4.2.1004b10-17, where he maintains that, just as a line qua line has properties, and number qua number, so there are certain properties of being qua being. But being falls into the idea of them as something added; therefore it is not in their quidditative idea as per se in the first mode. This is also confirmed by the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-b5, ‘On the status of principles’, where he maintains that per se predications are not convertible; because if a predicate is said per se of a subject, the converse is not said per se but per accidens. Therefore if this predication ‘being is one’ is per se in the second mode, the predication ‘one is being’ is not per se in the first mode but per accidens as it were, as this proposition ‘what is capable of laughter is man’.

135. Second as follows: being seems to be sufficiently divided (as regard division into the things that include it quidditatively) into uncreated being and into the ten categories and the essential parts of the ten categories. At least it does not seem to have more things quidditatively dividing it, however it may be with these divisions. Therefore if ‘one’ and ‘true’ include being quidditatively, being will be contained under some one of them. But being is not one of the ten categories, as is plain; nor is it of itself uncreated being, because it belongs to created beings. So it would be a species in some genus, or an essential principle of some genus. But this is false, because every essential part in any genus, and all the species of any genus, include some limitation, and so any transcendental would be of itself finite, and consequently would be repugnant to infinite being, and could not be said of infinite being formally - which is false, because all transcendentals state perfections simply and belong to God supremely.

136. Thirdly it can be argued (and herein is confirmed the first argument [n.132] for this conclusion [n.131]), that if ‘one’ includes being quidditatively, it does not include precisely being, because then that being would be its own property. Therefore it includes being and something else. Let that something else be a; either then a includes being or it does not. If it does, ‘one’ would include being twice, and there would be an infinite regress. Or, wherever a stop will be made, let that last thing, which belongs to the idea of ‘one’ and does not include being, be called a: the ‘one’, by reason of the included ‘being’, is not a property [of being], because the same thing is not a property of itself, and consequently that other included thing, which is a, is primarily the property, and is such that it does not include being quidditatively. And so, whatever is primarily a property of being does, thereby, not include being quidditatively. The term ‘one’ states a property of being (it states being as undivided). So if ‘being’ belonged to the quiddity of ‘one’, and if therefore the predication ‘one is being’ were per se in the first mode with ‘being’ falling into the definition of ‘one’, then the ‘being’ which falls into the definition of ‘one’ would be the definition of a property of being, and being would be a property of itself. So if, to avoid this, ‘one’ is said to include being and something else in its definition, as in ‘one is undivided being’, then the something else, namely ‘undivided’, either includes being in its definition or it does not. If it does, then ‘undivided’ is defined as ‘undivided being’ and wherever ‘undivided’ appears one can replace it with the definition ‘undivided being’. Consequently, to say ‘one is undivided being’ is to say ‘one is undivided being being’, and then to say ‘one is undivided being being being’, and so on ad infinitum. So if, alternatively, one makes a stop at ‘undivided’ and does not define ‘undivided’ as ‘undivided being’, and if therefore in the definition of one as ‘undivided being’ the ‘being’ is excluded from the definition of ‘undivided’ but is still included in the definition of ‘one’, then this ‘one’ is, after all, not the relevant property of being but rather the ‘undivided’ is, and this ‘undivided’ cannot now, ex hypothesi, include ‘being’ in its definition. ²⁰

B. About the First Object of the Intellect

137. As to the second article [n.130] I say that it follows from these four reasons [nn.132-135 - with n.136 as a fifth complementing the first] that, since nothing can be more common than being and since being cannot be a common univocal term asserted in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles (because not so asserted of ultimate differences, nor of the properties of them) - it follows that nothing is a first object of our intellect on account of its commonness in the ‘what’ as to every per se intelligible. And yet this notwithstanding, I do say that the first object of our intellect is being, for in being there comes together a double primacy, namely of commonness and virtuality; because every per se intelligible either essentially includes the idea of being, or is contained virtually or essentially in something that essentially includes the idea of being. For all genera and species and individuals, and all the essential parts of genera, and uncreated being, include being quidditatively; but all ultimate differences are included in some of these essentially, and all the properties of being are included virtually in being and in what falls under being. Therefore, the things for which being is not a univocal term asserted in their ‘what’ are included in those for which being is thus univocal. And thus is it plain that being has a primacy of commonness in respect of the first intelligibles, that is, in respect of the quidditative concepts of genera and species and individuals, and of the essential parts of all of them, and of uncreated being. And being has a primacy of virtuality in respect of all intelligibles included in the first intelligibles, that is, in respect of the qualitative concepts of ultimate differences and of proper properties.

138. But as to my supposing [n.137] that there is a commonness to being said in the ‘what’ as to all the aforesaid quidditative predicates [n.137] - the proof of it as to all of them is the two arguments set down in the first question of this distinction [nn.27, 35], to prove being’s commonness to created and to uncreated being. To make the point clear I go through them in some fashion:

The first as follows: for, as to any of the aforesaid quidditative concepts [n.137], it is possible for the intellect to be certain that it is being while in doubt as to the differences that contract being to such a concept;a and so the concept of being as it belongs to that concept is other than the concepts under being which the intellect is doubtful of, and other in the way it is included in each of the concepts under it, for the differences that contract them presuppose a same common concept of being that they are contracting. In other words, the intellect is certain that all the stated concepts of being are beings but in doubt as to how or what differentiates or contracts them. So the intellect has a concept of being common to, and undifferentiated from, all the kinds and categories of being whose differences it is doubtful of. So the concept of being it has is, as far as it goes, the same for them all, that is, univocal. ²¹

a.a [Interpolated text] whether it be such a being or not, it is another concept of quidditative being and of the differences that the intellect is doubtful about.

139. The second reason I treat of as follows: just as the argument was also made [n.35] that God is knowable to us naturally only if being is univocal to what is created and what is uncreated, so can the argument be made about substance and accident. For if substance does not immediately move our intellect to an intellection of itself but only the sensible accident does, it follows that we will be able to have no quidditative concept of substance unless some such concept can be abstracted from the concept of an accident; but no such quidditative concept is abstractable from the concept of an accident save the concept of being.

140. And as to the supposition made about substance [n.139], that it does not move our intellect immediately to an act about itself, the proof of this is that whatever by its presence affects the intellect,a the absence of it can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected - as is plain from On the Soul 2.2.425b21, that sight has perception of darkness, namely when light is not present and when therefore the sight is then not being affected. Therefore, if the intellect is naturally moved by substance immediately to an act about that substance, the consequence would be that when substance was not present it could be naturally known not to be present, and so it could naturally be known that the substance of bread is not in the consecrated host on the altar, which is manifestly false.

a.a [Interpolated text] “.. .in its absence it cannot be thus affected:” such is true of the senses, which are not moved in the absence of the object; but what is added ‘it can be known in its absence’ is true indeed of the intellect, which reflects on its own act when the act is present, and on the absence of the act when it is not present; but then the example about sight needs explicating. The first major [“whatever by its presence affects the intellect, its absence can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected”] suffices for the point at issue; the second [ “.in its absence it cannot be thus affected” supra here] is more manifestly probative. It is indeed true, but not proved by the example [of sight].

141. Response [to the above]: the proof [n.140] disproves intuitive knowledge of substance, because of that knowledge is the major true [sc. “the intellect perceives absence when it is not being affected”]; but it does not disprove abstractive knowledge, which does not fail because of a real absence of the object; neither then is its absence perceived.

142. Again, what is assumed about the senses [n.140] is dubious; since the senses do not retain the species of the object in the absence of the object and do not receive the species of darkness, how will they know darkness?

143. Against the first [n.141]: abstractive cognition necessarily presupposes that, at some point, the real presence was obtained of the thing that abstractive cognition, or the species, remains over from - the species being the principle of abstractive cognition. He who has only seen the eucharist never had the real presence of the object that is the cause, intermediately, of the abstractive intellection. Someone else who did see some other bread did have [that real presence]. Therefore, the first will not have abstractive cognition of bread, the second will - which is flatly against experience, because each can have a like act in himself of understanding that he is experiencing bread.

If it be said, in shameless denial, ‘suppose the first one afterwards saw another bread, then he will afterwards be capable of the abstractive knowledge of bread that he was not capable of before’ - he experiences the opposite in himself, for he is disposed now in like way as before. Again, he who can know an absent object abstractively can know it intuitively when it is present in existence; and if you know the substance of something known abstractively, then you know it intuitively when it is present; and then the absence etc. [n.140: “when substance was not present it could be naturally known not to be present, and so it could naturally be known that the substance of bread is not in the consecrated host on the altar, which is manifestly false”].

144. To the objection about the senses [n. 142]. Darkness is known by argument -not by the sight but by the power that argues thus, ‘the eye is looking, and it is not blind, and it is not seeing; so there is darkness’. The fact is plain: if one of the three premises is passed over the conclusion does not follow. None of the three propositions is known to sight as knowing that proposition, or the union [‘is’] or separation [‘is not’] of the extreme terms, because neither is the third one known (which there would more seem to be knowledge of). Because sight does not know its own act when it is present; This act of seeing is known to be sure, but by the interior common sense, not by the exterior sense of the eyes, which see the visible object but not themselves. ²² therefore it does not know the privation when the act is not present.

There is an explanation for Aristotle’s remark that there is sight of darkness [n.140]; because darkness is privation of sight’s object; therefore darkness is cause of sight’s not being affected, and thus is darkness perceived, not by sight but by another power, which takes privation of act in the sight for presence [sc. of privation].

145. No quidditative concept, then, of substance is possessed naturally that is caused by substance immediately, but only one that is first caused by or abstracted from accident; and it is a concept only of being.

146. By the same fact is also proved the proposed thesis [n.139] about the essential parts of substance. For if matter does not move the intellect to an act about matter, and if the substantial form does not either, I ask what simple concept of matter or form will be had in the intellect. If you say that it is some relative concept (as of a part), or a concept per accidens (as of some property or matter or form), I ask what the quidditative concept is to which this per accidens or relative concept is attributed. But no quidditative concept can be had save one that is impressed by or abstracted from what moves the intellect, namely by or from an accident; and it will be a concept of being. And so nothing will be known of the essential parts of substance unless being is something common univocal to them and to accidents.

147. These arguments [nn.27-44, 138-139] do not include the univocity of being that is said in the ‘what’ as to ultimate differences and properties [nn.132-136].

This is shown about the first argument [nn.27, 138], because: Either the intellect is, as to some such [ultimate difference or property], certain that it is a being (doubting whether it is this one or that one), yet not certain that it is a being by quiddity instead of by a sort of predication per accidens. Or in another way, and better, any such concept is simply simple [n.71], and so cannot be conceived in some respect and be unknown in another respect, as is plain from the Philosopher, Metaphysics 10.10.1051b25-28, about concepts simply simple; for it is not possible to be deceived about them as it is about the quiddity of complex ones. But this is not to be understood as if a simple understanding may be formally deceived in intellection of a quiddity, because there is no true or false in simple intellection. But as to a composite quiddity it is possible for a simple understanding to be deceived virtually. For if the idea is in itself false, then it includes a false proposition virtually. But what is simply simple does not include virtually, proximately, or formally a false proposition, and so there is no deception about it; for either it is attained totally, or it is not attained, and then it is altogether unknown. Error or deception is possible in two ways in general. Either terms are combined in a statement in a way they are not combined in fact, as when the cat is said to be in the garden although it is in the house. Or a single but complex term combines in itself what is not or cannot be combined in fact, as a round square or the thirty third day of June. The first kind are actually false or deceptive because they actually state what is not the case. The second kind are virtually false or deceptive because, while they actually state nothing (they are terms, not combinations of terms), they imply a false statement, as that some square is round or that a certain day is the thirty third of June. However, if there are concepts that are simply simple, and do not combine several elements and are not placed with other terms in a statement, then these can in no way be false or deceptive; for they neither state anything nor combine anything. Such concepts are either known fully or not known at all. ²³ About no simply simple concept then can there be certitude as to something of it and doubt as to something else of it.

148. Through this are things plain as to the second argument set down above [n.35], because such a simply simple concept is altogether unknown unless the whole of it in itself be conceived.

149. In a third way can response be made [sc. to objections] as to the first argument [sc. in addition to the two, the ‘Either.. .Or’, in n. 147, about the argument in n.27]. For the concept about which there is certitude is different from those about which there is doubt. And if that certain same concept is preserved with either of two doubtful ones, it is truly univocal in the way it is taken with either of the two of them. But it is not necessary that it be present in the ‘what’ in both of them. But either it is so, or it is univocal to them as a determinable to what determine it [as ‘being’ is determinable by the ‘in itself’ or ‘in another’ that determine it to substance or accident] or as a denominable to what denominate it [sc. as ‘being’ is denominable by the ‘undivided’ or ‘divided’ that denominate it as ‘one’ or ‘many’; cf. n.133].

150. Hence in brief: being is univocal in everything. But it is univocal in non-simply simple concepts when said of them in the ‘what’. In simply simple concepts it is univocal but as determinable or denominable, and not as said of them in the ‘what’, because this includes a contradiction [nn.132-136].

151. From these points [nn.129-150] is apparent how a double primacy comes together in being, namely the primacy of commonness in the ‘what’ as to all non-simply simple concepts, and the primacy of virtuality (in itself or in what is under it) as to all simply simple concepts. And that this double concurrent primacy suffice for being to be the first object of the intellect (though being have neither of the primacies precisely as to all per se intelligibles) - I make this clear through an example: because if sight were per se cognitive of all properties and differences of color in general and of all species and individuals, and yet color were not included quidditatively in the differences and properties of colors, sight would still have the same first object that it now has, because, by running through them all, nothing else would be adequate to it. So the first object would not then be included in all its per se objects, but every per se object would either include it essentially or would be included in something essentially or virtually including it. And thus would a double primacy come together in it, namely primacy of commonness on its own part and primacy of virtuality in itself or in what falls under it. And this double primacy would suffice for the idea of the first object of this power.a

a.a [Cancelled note by Scotus] If good be posited to be the first object of the will, how is truth per se wantable, since truth does not have good for first or for virtual predicable with respect to itself, or even with respect to what has a subordinate concept that contains it essentially or virtually?

C. Arguments against the Univocity of Being and their Solution

152. Argument is made against this univocity of being [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.28 q.3, a26 q.2, a.21 q.2 ad 2]:

From the Philosopher Metaphysics 3.10.998b22-24, that according to him in that place being is not a genus, because then, according to him, difference would not be a per se being; but if being were a common assertion in the ‘what’ of several things different in species, it would seem to be a genus. A genus is asserted of a species through the difference proper to each species, as the genus ‘animal’ is said of the species ‘man’ through the difference ‘rational’. Accordingly, the difference cannot already be included in the genus, because then the genus would be the genus only of things with that difference. For if ‘animal’ included ‘rational’, then ‘animal’ could only be the genus of man and of no other animal. If ‘being’, therefore, is a genus, and differences are outside the genus, then differences cannot be being, which would mean they could hardly differentiate anything. To avoid this result and to allow differences also to be being, the solution seems to be to deny that being is a genus. But if being is a common term predicated in the ‘what’ of the things that fall under it (as ‘animal’ is a common term predicated in the ‘what’ of the several species of animal), then being does seem to be a genus. Therefore, being cannot be such a common or univocal term. ²⁴

153. The same Aristotle also, in Metaphysics 4.2.1003a23-35, b11-14, maintains that being is said of beings as healthy is said of things healthy, and that metaphysics is one science, not because everything it is about is said according to one thing, but because it is said in relation to one thing, namely not univocally but analogically. Therefore, the subject of metaphysics is not univocal but analogical.

154. The same Aristotle also, Metaphysics 7.1.. .18-20, 4.1030a23-27, b2-3, says that accidents are only beings because they are of being, as logicians say that ‘not-being is’ and ‘the not-knowable is knowable’, and as a vase is said to be ‘healthy’. In all these examples there is no univocity to the term said of many things.

155. And Porphyry, Book of Predicables 3, “If one call all things beings, one will,” he says, “be naming them equivocally.”

156. Again, Physics 1.2.185a20-21 [Henry, Summa a.21 q.2 ad 3], against Parmenides and Melissus, “The beginning is that being is said in many ways.” And he [Aristotle] argues that if all things are one being, then they are either this one being or that one being, which would not follow if being were univocal, just as this does not follow: every man is one man, therefore he is this one man or that one man. If ‘being’ were univocal to all beings, as ‘man’ is univocal to all men, then the statement that being is one would no more be to say that being is this one being or that one being than the statement that man is one would be to say that man is either this one man or that one man. Rather, it would be to say that being is one species as man is one species. ²⁵

157. Again by reason [Henry, Summa a.28 q.3, a.26 q.2]: if being were univocal as to the ten categories, then it would divide into them through differences. So let a and b be two such differences: therefore either these two include being, and then in the concept of any most general genus there would be trifling repetition; or these are not beings, and then non-being would belong to the understanding of being. A genus is divided into species through the addition of a difference, as animal, say, is divided through the differences ‘winged’ and ‘footed’ into winged animals (birds etc.) and footed animal (horses etc.). So if being is a genus divided into the categories of substance and accidents by differences in the same way, and if these differences include being (as the differences ‘in-itself being’ and ‘in-another being’), then substance will have to be defined, say, as ‘in-itself being being’, and accidents as ‘in-another being being’, and so on, which is trifling repetition. Alternatively, if the differences are not beings, then substance and accidents will be defined by differences that are not beings, or by things that do not exist. ²⁶

158. To the first argument [n.152]. It is not necessary that the arguments of Metaphysics 3 assert what they conclude, because the Philosopher is intending there to argue to opposite sides of the questions he is disputing (as he himself says by way of preface in the introduction, 3.1.995a24-b4), yet two opposite conclusions cannot be reached unless one or other argument is sophistical (hence the Commentator on the Metaphysics [Averroes, Metaphysics 3 com.3] says of the first argument there for the first question disputed that it is a fallacy of the consequent: ‘if contraries belong to the same science, then non-contraries do not belong to the same science’ The argument is of the form, ‘if contrary, then same science; but not contrary; therefore not the same science’, which is to infer a denial of the consequent from a denial of the antecedent. The inference is fallacious, as is clear in this example of Rover the dog: if Rover is a cat, Rover is an animal; Rover is not a cat; therefore Rover is not an animal. ²⁷). Also, this argument specifically [n.152] should not be held to be conclusive. For he argues there, “wherefore if ‘one’ or ‘being’ is a genus, no difference will be either ‘one’ or ‘being’,” and my question is: Either he intends to infer that the difference ‘one’ or ‘being’ will not be per se in the first mode, and in this way the conclusion is not unacceptable as far as ‘one’ is concerned. Or he intends to infer the negative absolutely, and then the consequence is not valid; for it is not the case that, if ‘rational’ is a difference with respect to ‘animal’, therefore ‘rational is not animal’ but that ‘it is not per se animal in the first mode’.

[Although the above about the argument be true], yet if one holds that this argument [n.152] is valid, it proves rather the opposite than the conclusion intended. For not because of equivocation does it remove from being the idea of genus (on the contrary, if being were equivocal as to the ten genera, there would be ten genera, because the same concept, by whatever name it be signified, has the idea of genus the same); rather does it remove the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness, The Vatican editors helpfully refer to Topics 4.6.127a28-30: “If then we assign being as a genus, it will plainly be the genus of everything by the fact it is predicated of them; for of nothing is a genus predicated save of its species.” ²⁸ namely because it is predicated of difference in the first mode per se, and from this could it be concluded that being is not a genus.

159. And to see how this is be true [sc. “it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness”] - although however it was said before [nn.131-133] that being is not predicated of ultimate differences in the first mode per se -I draw a distinction in the case of differences, that some difference can be taken from the ultimate essential part, which is a different thing and a different nature from that from which the concept of genus is taken; it is as if a plurality of forms is posited and genus is said to be taken from the prior essential part and the specific difference from the ultimate form. Then, just as being is said in the ‘what’ of the essential part from which such specific difference is taken, so is it said in the ‘what’ of such difference in the abstract, such that, just as ‘the intellective soul is a being’ is said in the ‘what’ (taking the same concept of being as is said of man or of whiteness), so is ‘rationality is a being’ said in the ‘what’, if ‘rationality’ is such a difference.

But no such difference is ultimate, because contained in such a difference are many realities in some way distinct (with the sort of distinction or non-identity that in the first question of the second distinction I said existed between essence and personal property [Ord. I d.2 nn.388-410] - or a greater distinction, as will be explained elsewhere [Ord. II d.1 q.4 n.25, a.6 n.5, IV d.11 p.1 a.2 q.1 n.54]). And then such a nature can be conceived in a certain respect, that is, in respect of some reality and perfection, and in a certain respect not known - and therefore a concept of such a nature is not simply simple [n.147]. But the ultimate reality or real perfection of such a nature (from which reality the ultimate difference is taken) is simply simple; this reality does not include being quidditatively but has a concept simply simple. Hence if such a reality be a, this statement ‘a is a being’ is not said in the ‘what’, but is per accidens, and this whether a state that reality or state the difference in the abstract that is taken from such reality.

160. Therefore did I say before [nn.133, 150] that no difference simply ultimate includes being quidditatively, because it is simply simple. But some difference, taken from an essential part (which part is the nature in the real thing, different from the nature from which genus is taken) - that difference is not simply simple and it does include being in its ‘what’. And from this fact, that such a difference is being in its ‘what’, it follows that being, because of the excessive commonness of being, is not a genus. For no genus is said in the ‘what’ of any difference under it, neither of the difference that is taken from the form, nor of the difference that is taken from the ultimate reality of the form (as will be plain in Ord. d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.16, 14); for always that from which the concept of genus is taken is in itself potential with respect to the reality from which the concept of the difference is taken - or with respect to the form if the difference is taken from the form.

161. And if you argue against this [Averroes, Metaphysics IV com.3] that, if ‘rational’ includes being quidditatively, and if any like difference does (namely any difference that is taken from an essential part, not from its ultimate reality), then, by adding such difference to the genus, there will be trifling repetition because ‘being’ will be said twice If the difference ‘rational’ includes being in its whatness then ‘rational’ is equivalent to ‘rational-being’, and the genus ‘animal’ (which also includes being in its whatness on this view) is equivalent to ‘animal-being’, and then to say ‘man is a rational animal’ will be equivalent to the trifling repetition, ‘man is a rational-being animalbeing’. Also and incidentally (as in the earlier footnote to n.136), if ‘rational’ means ‘rational-being’, then to say ‘man is a rational animal’ amounts to saying ‘man is a rational-being animal’ and then, by repeated substitution of ‘rational-being’ for ‘rational’, to saying ‘man is a rational-being-being animal’, and so on ad infinitum. ²⁹ - I reply that when two things inferior to a third are so related that one denominates the other [e.g. ‘white animal’], the term common to them in particular [‘being’] denominates itself. Just as ‘whiteness’, which is inferior to being, denominates ‘animal’, which is inferior to being, and therefore, just as this statement ‘the animal is white’ is denominative [‘white’ denominated from ‘whiteness’], so ‘being’, which is superior to ‘white’, can denominate ‘animal’ [sc. as in ‘the animal is beingal’ ‘Beingal’ is a made-up adjective from ‘being’ and the suffix ‘-al’, mimicking Scotus’ own made up adjective ‘ent-ale’ from ‘ens’. ³⁰], or denominate being taken particularly for animal [sc. as in ‘the animal-being is beingal’]. For example, if the denominative were ‘beingal’, this proposition would be true ‘some being is beingal’. And just as I concede an accidental denomination there without trifling repetition - nor yet does the altogether same thing, conceived in the same way, denominate itself [‘being is beingal’ is not trifling repetition nor is ‘being’ altogether the same, or conceived in the same way, as ‘beingal’] - so here with ‘rational animal’. For in ‘animal’ being is included quidditatively [sc. ‘animal-being’] and in ‘rational’ being is included denominatively [sc. ‘rational-beingal’]; and just as rationality is being so rational is denominated by being. There would be trifling repetition here in ‘rationality animal’ [= ‘rational-being animal-being’], not here in ‘rational animal’ [= ‘rational-beingal animalbeing’]; just as there would be here in ‘whiteness animal’ [= ‘white-being animal-being’], not here in ‘white animal’ [‘white-beingal animal-being’].

162. To the next argument [n.153], which is said about Metaphysics 4, I say that the Philosopher in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11 concedes that there is an essential order between species of the same genus, because he maintains there that in a genus there is one first that is the measure of the others. Now things measured have an essential order to the measure, and yet, notwithstanding such attribution, everyone would concede that the concept of a genus is one, otherwise the genus would not be predicated in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species. For if the genus did not have one concept, different from the concepts of the species, no concept would be said in the ‘what’ of many things, but each concept would only be said of itself, and then nothing would be predicated as genus of species, but as the same of the same.

163. Similarly, the Philosopher in Physics 7.4.249a22-23 says that ‘equivocations are latent in a genus’, because of which there cannot be comparison according to genus. However, there is no equivocation as far as the logician is concerned, who posits diverse concepts, but there is equivocation as far as the philosopher is concerned, because there is no unity of nature there. Thus all the authorities, therefore, that there might be in the Metaphysics and Physics which would be on this subject, could be given an exposition because of the real diversity of the things that there is an attribution in with which, however, there stands a unity of concept abstractable form them - as was plain in the example [n.162]. I concede then that the whole of what accident is has an essential attribution to substance, and yet from this accident and from that a common concept can be abstracted [n.145].

164. To the points made from Metaphysics 7 [n.154] I reply that the text of the final paragraph on that material solves all the authorities from the Philosopher (the text which begins there ‘But clearly that...’, 4.1030b4-12). For the Philosopher says there that “what is first and simply definition and the ‘what it was to be’ belongs to substances; and not only to them but to other things it belongs simply, yet not first.” And he proves it there, that the idea that signifies the ‘what’ of the name is the definition [n.16], if that of which the idea is per se said is per se one. “But ‘one’ is said as being also is said,” and understand ‘per se being’; and “per se being indeed signifies ‘this’, and ‘this something’, and quantity another, quality another,” which is true of per se being, because in Metaphysics 5.7.1017a22-27 he divided ‘being per se’ into the ten categories; so each of them is per se one, and so the idea of them is a definition. And he concludes this there, “For which reason there will be an idea and definition of man, and differently of white and of substance” - because of substance per se and first, of white simply and per se but not first, of white man in a certain respect and per accidens. Hence in that chapter he treats principally of such ‘being per accidens’, of which sort is ‘white man’, because there is of it no definition. ‘Being’, therefore, and ‘what’ or ‘has a definition’, and any of these, is said simply of accident or of attributes, as also of substance, but not equally first. And notwithstanding the ordering, there can well be univocity.

165. As to Porphyry [n.155], he himself alleges someone else, saying “he speaks equivocally.” Who ‘speaks’? Aristotle, of course, about whom Porphyry is speaking. A place where Aristotle said this is not found in the Logic. In the Metaphysics he says it, as has already been alleged and expounded [n.164]. If someone want to treat of Porphyry’s authority, how his argument from the authority of Aristotle is of value for his purpose, it could be given an exposition, but I do not wish to dwell on it.

166. To what is argued about Physics 1 [n.156], I reply: for destroying the opinion of Parmenides and Melissus [sc. the opinion that everything is one] “the beginning” is to accept that being is said ‘in many ways’, not ‘equivocally’, but ‘in many ways’, that is, ‘about many things’. One must inquire which of these things they mean. Just as, if they were to say ‘everything is one animal’, it would be against them to distinguish ‘animal’ and to ask which animal they mean, either all animals or “one man or one horse” [Physics 1.2.185a24]. Again, when you say the argument of the Philosopher would not be valid against them if being were univocal, I reply that the consequence [‘either this one man or that one man’, n.156], when descent is made under a predicate standing for [its instances] only confusedly, does not hold formally, but there is [a fallacy of] figure of speech and a fallacy of the consequent. In other words, the argument of the Philosopher against Parmenides and Melissus fails regardless of any question of the univocity of being, because it fails by taking the predicate ‘one’ determinately when the argument takes it confusedly (which is to take in one figure of speech what is meant in another figure). If however there is no fallacy of figure of speech but ‘one’ is meant determinately not confusedly (as Parmenides and Melissus did seem to mean it), then the Philosopher’s argument does not fail. In either event, the matter of the univocity of being is irrelevant. ³¹ Yet if they did mean, as the Philosopher imputes to them, that ‘all things are one’ not speaking of ‘one’ confusedly but of some determinate one thing, then on the antecedent so understood [‘if all things are one being’] the consequent that everything is this one or that one does indeed follow. No reply is given by Scotus to the objection of Henry in n.157, but the reason is probably that it was effectively answered in the discussion of the first objection [nn.152-161], that there will be no trifling repetition when the thesis about how being is said of things is properly explained. ³²

III. About the Other Transcendentals

167. Now that these points about being have been seen [nn.129-166], a further doubt remains: whether any other transcendental that seems to have an equal commonness with being could be posited as the first object of the intellect.

And it is posited that there is, and this is that true is the first object of the intellect, and not being. There is a threefold proof.

168. First as follows [Henry, Summa 48 q.1]: distinct powers have distinct formal objects, from On the Soul 2.4.415a17-22, 6.418a10-17; intellect and will are distinct powers; therefore, they have distinct formal objects, which does not seem possible to sustain if being is posited as the first object of the intellect; but if true is so posited, distinct objects can well be assigned.

169. Second as follows [Henry, ibid., a.34 q.3]: being is of itself common to the sensible and the non-sensible; but the proper object of any power is the object of it under some proper idea; therefore, in order for being to be the proper object of the intellect, it must be determined and contracted to intelligible being by something by which sensible being is excluded. But such contracting thing seems to be the true, which asserts of itself the idea of what manifests or is intelligible.

170. Again, third as follows [Henry, ibid.]: an object is not the proper object of a power save according as it is the proper mover of the power; but something only moves a power as it has some relationship to it; therefore being, according as it is something absolute and not possessed of any relation to the intellect, is not the proximate and immediate object. But that according to which being has formally a relation to the intellect is truth because, according to Anselm On Truth ch.11, “truth is correctness perceptible only to the mind.”

171. But against this conclusion about truth I argue as follows: the first, that is, the adequate object [of a power] is adequated to it either in commonness or in virtuality or in both primacies run together; the true is in none of these ways adequated to the intellect; being is so adequated, as was made plain [n.137];     therefore etc     .

Proof of the first part of the minor [“the true is not adequated to the intellect in commonness.”]: the true is not asserted in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because it is not asserted in the ‘what’ of being, nor of anything per se under being.

The second part of the minor [“the true is not adequated to the intellect in virtuality”] is proved along with the third [“there is a double primacy in being, of commonness and virtuality”], because things under the true, although they include it essentially, do not include all intelligibles virtually or essentially, because this trueness, which is in a stone, does not essentially or virtually include stone but, conversely, the being that is stone includes truth - and so on about any other beings and their truths.

172. Again, true is a property of being and of anything under being; therefore, when being or anything under being is understood precisely under the idea of the true, it is only understood per accidens and not in its quidditative idea. But knowledge of anything according to its quidditative idea is the first and most perfect knowledge of it, from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a31-b2. Therefore, no knowledge of anything precisely under the idea of true is the first knowledge of an object, and so neither is truth the first idea, precisely, of knowing an object.

173. The argument [n.172] is confirmed from Prior Analytics 2.21.67a33-36, since knowledge of a mule as mule stands along with ignorance of this mule as this mule. For just as, when making comparison with a habit, an inferior element is extraneous to its superior, about which superior that habit first is, so much more will the object be extraneous to its property, in comparison either with the habit or the power. The habit or science of physics, which is a habit in the power of the intellect, has for first object being as movable or changeable (what today we might call the elemental energies of things). Living beings are movable or changeable things under that general heading, but they are extraneous as such to the first object of physics. Similarly, the property of living objects that is their character (as tame or wild) is extraneous to the first object of physics. ³³

174. Again, the object of a habit does not naturally precede the object of the power; but the first object of metaphysics, which is a habit of the intellect, is being, which is prior naturally to the true (and it is not true that what is a property of being is first the subject of metaphysics);     therefore etc     . The science of metaphysics is a habit in the intellect, the power of knowing. The first object of metaphysics is being. Being is prior to the true, for the true, like one, is a property of being, and a property of the first object of a science cannot be the subject that that science first deals with. So, if the first object of the power of the intellect were the true, the first object of the habit of metaphysics would precede the first object of the power. The consequent is false; therefore etc. [NB. The punctuation of the translation of this paragraph does not entirely follow the punctuation of the Latin text printed by the Vatican editors.] ³⁴

175. I reply to the arguments for the opposite, reducing them to the opposite side.

To the first as follows: that, just as the will cannot have an act about something unknown, so it cannot have an act about an object under some formal idea of the object which idea is thoroughly unknown.     Therefore any idea according to which something is an object for the will is knowable by the intellect; and so the first idea of the object of the intellect cannot be an idea that is distinguished from the idea of what can be willed, if in any way there be such [cf. canceled note to n.151].a

a.a [Interpolated text] Again, the intellect sets down a difference, and an agreement, between the good and the true; therefore etc     .

176. This is also plain about any properties of being whatever of which there is distinct knowledge - of good under the idea of good just as of true under the idea of true -because, according to Avicenna Metaphysics VI ch.5, “if some science were about all causes, that would be noblest which was about the final cause,” the idea of which cause, according to many, is goodness [cf. Ord. Prol. n.195].

177. As to what, therefore, is taken in the argument [n.168] about the distinction of objects, I reply: distinct powers are disposed to each other in three ways - either they are altogether disparate or they are ordered, and then either in the same genus (as the higher and lower cognitive power), or in another genus of powers, as the cognitive power in relation to its appetitive power.

178. In the first way powers that are distinct have objects altogether distinct, because none of them (from the fact they are disparate) operates per se about the object that the other operates per se about. Such are the exterior senses, as sight and hearing.

179. In the second way distinct powers have subordinate objects, such that, just as the superior power can have per se an act about anything that the inferior power can have per se an act about, so the first object of the superior power contains under itself the first object of the inferior power - otherwise that object would not be adequate to the superior power. Hence the first object of sight is, in its commonness, contained as inferior under the first object of the common sense.

180. In the third way powers are so disposed to each other that if the appetitive power is adequate to the cognitive power in operating about certain objects, the same thing would be the first object of each power, and under the same formal idea on the part of the object. But if the appetitive power have an act about some knowable things and not others, then the object of the appetitive power will be inferior to the object of the cognitive power.

181. To the issue in hand. Intellect and will fall into the third member [n.177], and if the will be posited to have an act about everything intelligible (whatever idea it is understood under), the same thing will be posited as the object both of the will and of the intellect and under the same formal idea. If not, but it is case that the will only has an act about intelligibles that are an end, or beings for an end, and not about things able merely to be speculated about, then the object of the will would be posited as in some way a particular with respect to the object of the intellect; but it will always be the case that being is the object of the intellect

182. The second reason [n.189] I bring to the opposite side, because an object proportioned to the superior power is common to the object proper to the inferior power (from the aforesaid distinction [nn.177, 179]) - and so being, according as it is something that abstracts from the sensible and non-sensible, is truly the proper object of the intellect, because the intellect, as the superior power, can have an act about the sensible as about the non-sensible. Hence this abstraction, which seems to be a non-appropriation [sc. of the sensible and non-sensible], is sufficiently an appropriation as to the superior power.

Herewith do I reply to the argument, because the commonness of being to the sensible and the non-sensible is the reason for appropriating it to the power that is operative about each object per se, of which sort is the intellect. And although the sensible is contained under being as thus common, yet it is not sensible, that is, not the object of sense, in common, but an intelligible, adequate to the intellect, for a respect proper to an inferior does not have to be proper to a superior. That which the sensible is states such a respect [proper to an inferior], a respect that belongs to some quality, to all and only it [sc. sensible quality]. But the intelligible, although it belongs to some being in a way that the sensible does not, yet not to all and only it; rather, it belongs to nothing only but to being in common; not as being is ‘this something’, as a certain intelligible singular, but as it is common to every intelligible, and this according to a mode of commonness stated before [n.137].

183. The third argument [n.170] I bring to the opposite side, because I say that the idea of an object is that according to which it is mover of a power, just as the idea of what is active or acts is said to be the form according to which the agent acts. Now such idea of an object cannot be a respect to a power; and the Philosopher speaks in this way in On the Soul 2.7.418a26-30. Where he assigns the first object of sight, he says that “that of which sight is as of its object is the visible,” not in the first mode per se but in the second, so that it is put in the idea of the visible. But if the formal idea of the object of a power were the relation to such power, then the first object of sight would be the visible per se in the first mode, because visibility itself would the formal idea of the object. And then it would be easy to assign first objects, because the first object of any power would be the correlative of such power - as visible the correlative of sight, audible the correlative of hearing. In the second mode per se the subject falls into the definition of the predicate, and in the first mode per se the predicate falls into the definition of the subject. So, in the statement ‘the object of sight is the visible’, if it is per se in the second mode, the term ‘visible’ is being defined by ‘object of sight’ and not ‘object of sight’ by ‘visible’. But if the statement is meant per se in the first mode, as it will be if the formal idea of the object of a power is a relation to that power (which is the claim of the third argument, n.170. being rejected here), then ‘object of sight’ is being defined by ‘visible’, and defining objects of powers becomes easy, in fact, directly verbal, as ‘the object of seeing is the seeable’ etc. But things are the other way round, and the object of a power precedes and is understood before the power is, as Scotus shows from Aristotle. ³⁵ And in this way did the Philosopher not assign first objects of powers, but he assigned certain absolutes [sc. not relations], for example color of sight, sound of hearing etc. [ibid. 6.418a10-17]. Hence if ‘true’ state a formal respect to the intellect (about which elsewhere [Scotus, Quodlibet q.8 nn.13-14, and infra n.323]), the consequence is the opposite of what is proposed on this point [sc. by Henry, n.170]. From this follows that that idea is not the formal idea of the object, but things other than it.

184. It is plain, then, from what has been said [from the beginning of the question, n.129, onwards], that nothing can be as fittingly posited to be the first object of the intellect as being - neither some virtual first, nor some other transcendental; because about any other transcendental there is proof through the same means as there was about the true [nn.171-183].

IV. Doubt about the First Object of the Intellect for this Present State

185. But there remains a doubt why, if being according to its most common idea is the first object of the intellect, anything contained under being cannot naturally move the intellect, as was argued in the first argument for the first question [n.25]; and in that case it seems that God, and all immaterial substances, could be naturally known by us, which has been denied [nn.56-57]. Indeed, this has been denied about all substances and all essential parts of substances, because it has been said [n.137] that they are not conceived in any quidditative concept save in the concept of being.

186. I reply. That is assigned to be the first object of a power which is adequate to the power by reason of the power, but not that which is adequate to the power in any state, just as the first object of sight is not posited to be what is adequate to sight existing in a medium that is illuminated by a candle precisely, but what is of a nature to be adequate to sight of itself, as far as concerns the nature of sight. But now, as was proved before [nn.113-119] (against the first opinion about the first, that is, adequate object of the intellect, which opinion posits the quiddity of a material thing to be the first object), nothing can, in idea of first object, be made adequate to our intellect by the nature of the power save the most common object; however what is adequate to the intellect in idea of what moves it for this present state is the quiddity of a material thing, and therefore the intellect for this present state will not understand other things that are not contained under this first mover of it.

187. But what is the idea of this state? I reply: a ‘state’ seems to be nothing but a ‘stable permanence’ secured by laws of wisdom. Now it has been secured by those laws that our intellect for this present state understands only the things whose species shine forth in a phantasm - and this either because of penalty for original sin, or because of the natural concord of the powers of the soul in operating, according as we see a superior power operate on the same thing that an inferior power operates on, if each is going to have perfect operation. And so in fact it is in our case, that, as to whatever universal we understand, we have a phantasm actually of a singular instance of it. However, this concordance, which is in fact for this present state, does not belong to the nature of the intellect from the fact it is an intellect; nor even from the fact it is in a body, because then it would have a like concordance in a glorious body, which is false. Wherever this present state comes from, then, whether from the pure will of God, or from punitive justice (which cause Augustine points to On the Trinity 15 n.50, “What is the cause,” he says, “why you cannot see the light with a fixed gaze unless, to be sure, it is infirmity? And who made it for you save, to be sure, iniquity?”) - whether, I say, this is the total cause, or there is some other one, at any rate there is, from the fact the intellect is a power and a nature, no first object of it save something common to all intelligibles, even though the first object, adequate to it in moving it, be for this present state the quiddity of a sensible thing.

188. And if you say, granted that being in common would be the adequate common object for this present state, yet separate substances would not move the intellect save in a greater light than is the natural light of the agent intellect - this reason seems no reason. First, because if such light is required, there is no reason on the part of the intellect, from the fact it is such a power, why it could not now have such light; for it is of itself receptive of such light, otherwise it could, while remaining the same, never receive it. Second, because when a pair of agents run together for some effect, the more that one of them can supply the place of the other, the more is a lesser perfection required in the other - and sometimes no perfection at all if it supply the whole place of the other; but the object and light run together for acting on the possible intellect; therefore, the more the object is more perfect and more able to supply the place of light, the more does a lesser light suffice, or at any rate a greater light is not required. But the first intelligible is light maximally and able maximally to supply the place of intellectual light; therefore if, as far as concerns its own part, it be conceived under the first object adequate to our intellect for this present state, there would not be any defect on the part of the light without its being able to move our intellect.

V. To the Initial Arguments

189. Reply to the main arguments of this question [nn.108-109]. As to the first [n.108] I say that not always is the most perfect thing cause with respect to imperfect things, when comparing imperfect things to any third thing (just as a perfect white thing is not cause of visibility for all visibles). Or if it is the cause, yet not the precise and adequate cause; and if it is the most moving cause, yet not the precise and adequate cause. But the first object of the intellect that we are speaking of in this question has to be the first thing adequate to the power.

190. To the second argument [n.109] I say that, if it be rightly argued, the inference should be ‘no participated being can be known unless it is from un-participating being’, and the inference should not be that ‘it cannot be known save by reason of a known un-participating being’; for then there are four terms [in the syllogism], because what is put in the conclusion is that ‘it is known through un-participating being’, which term was not in the second proposition. The syllogism being criticized is (to put it schematically): each thing is disposed to knowledge as it is disposed to being; a being by participation is from un-participating being; therefore a being by participation is known from un-participating being’s being known. The error is the addition of ‘being known’ to ‘un-participating being’ in the conclusion, which was not in the second premise and so gives four terms to the syllogism whereas a syllogism is only valid with three. Remove that addition (which addition is what produces the fourth term) and a revised conclusion follows: therefore a being by participation is known from un-participating being. But this conclusion no longer supports the thesis, namely that God is the first object of the intellect’s knowing. ³⁶ And the real reason for this defect indicated in the form of the argumentation was stated before in replying to the first argument of the second question of this distinction [n.100]; because although knowability does proportionally follow being, yet it does not follow it in being known save in relation to ‘the intellect that knows each thing according to the degree of its knowability’ [n.100]. So I say here that, although participating being necessarily concludes to un-participating knowability (and thus does it have participating knowability because of the unparticipating knowable), yet it is not known through the un-participating knowable as this latter is known, but as it is the cause that gives being to the former. And this was touched on in a certain argument about enjoyment in the fourth question of the first distinction [Ord. I d.1 n.148].

191. As to the remark [n.109] from Augustine On the Trinity 8 ch.3 n.4, I say that he is speaking about the knowledge of good in general that is impressed in us, that is, which is easily impressed in the intellect by singulars, because universal intentions [concepts] arise in anyone rather easily.

I prove this from the same Augustine in the same book, On the Trinity 8 ch.4 n.7, where he says, “We have knowledge of human nature implanted in us as a matter of rule, according to which knowledge we know that whatever we see of this sort is man or the form of man.” And just as according to this knowledge of man (which he says is “implanted as a matter of rule,” that is, easily abstracted from sensible objects) we judge about anything at all whether it is a man or not, so also could we by the same fact judge eminence in humanity, if it were present in what is in front of us,a which fact is clear from the impressed knowledge of whiteness whereby we judge not only that this thing in front of us is white but that this one is whiter than another. So I say here: this good thing that Augustine is speaking about in ibid. ch. 4 (knowledge of which is naturally impressed in the intellect) is good in common, and thereby do we judge, about the things in front us, that this one is better.

a.a [Interpolated text] just as about the things in front of us we judge that this is better than something else.

192. And that he is speaking [n.109] about the good that is ‘indeterminate privatively’, and not about the good ‘indeterminate negatively’ (in which latter good God is understood), is seen from this, that there, after he has enumerated the many particular goods, he says, “As to this good and that good, take away the ‘this’ and take away the ‘that’ and see the good itself, if you can” - that is: “take away the things that contract the idea of good to creatures and see the idea of good in common,” and in this “you have seen God,” as if in a first common concept wherein he can be naturally seen by us, and not in a particular one as he is “this essence.”

193. In like manner must be understood what Augustine prefaces in ibid. ch.2 n.3 at ‘God is truth’ there: “Do not ask what truth is; phantasms will immediately put themselves in the way.” I understand this as follows: when a universal concept is abstracted from a singular, the more universal it is the more difficulty the intellect has in resting in such a concept because, as was said before [n.187], “whatever universal we understand, we have a phantasm of a singular instance of it;” and that universal which is more similar to the singular shining forth in the phantasm we can understand more easily and for a longer time. Also the most universal concepts are more remote from the singular, and so it is very difficult to rest in the concept of the most universal ones. Therefore, when conceiving God in the most universal concept, “do not ask what it is,” do not descend to a particular concept in which that more universal concept is preserved, which more particular concept is closer to the phantasm. For, by descending to the sort of concept that shines forth more in the phantasms that confront us, “at once the serenity of truth, in which God was being understood, is lost to us” [ibid. ch.2], because at once is a contracted truth understood that does not belong to God - to whom belonged the noncontracted truth conceived in common.

194. To the contrary: ibid. ch.3 n.5, “If you could have per se gazed at the good, you would have gazed at God; and if you have inhered therein with love, you will be perpetually blessed.” Blessedness is not in universal good and the privatively indeterminate.

Again, ibid. ch.6 n.9, “Whence could men be just save by inhering in the form they look upon, so that thence they may be formed?” To be formed by the form of justice is not to be formed by an understood universal.

195. From the same chapter I too reply to ibid. ch.3 n.5, about the good and will [n.194 first paragraph]: “Since other things are only loved because they are good, let it be a shameful thing not to love, when clinging to them, the good itself whereby they are good.”

The argument [n.194] does well prove that the supreme good itself is more to be loved than the goods that participate in it, yet it does not prove that it is the first thing loved with the primacy of adequacy; because too, even if it be the reason of the goodness in other things, and so the reason of their lovability, yet it as loved is not the reason of the others as loved, for something can be deeply loved when it is not loved, as is plain when using what should be enjoyed or enjoying what should be used [Augustine, 83 Questions q.30].

196. And this meaning of Augustine’s is gathered from On the Trinity 9 ch.6 n.11, where in treating of the love of someone who is believed to be just, if afterwards he be found not to be just, “at once,” he says, “the love whereby I was being drawn to him, repelled and as it were thrust back, remains in the form it was when such I had loved him;” that is, if I loved justice, and loved him because I believed that in him was justice, if I find him unjust, my will springs back from him, but the love of justice itself, as of its object, still stands. This remark is not about any un-participating justice, but about the common idea of justice, which is loved for its own sake, and anything it is in is loved because of it.

197. On the contrary: the will is not of universals, both because it tends to the thing in itself, and because the love both of friendship and of concupiscence is love of something in its real existence, present or possible.

198. I reply [to n.197]. To the practical first principles in the intellect there corresponds some volition that is the principle of moral goodness, just as those principles are principles of practical truth in the intellect. It is plain too that any idea of the good and appetible can be understood in universal terms, and if it be thus shown to the will, why cannot the will have an act about its displayed proper object? Third, the appetitive singular, as singular only, does not have proper to itself a cognitive [power] for the universal.

199. To the metaphor of the motion of the soul to the thing [n.197 “the will tends to the thing in itself”], this is meant causally, because the will gives command for being joined to the desired thing in itself (but not formally save because the will is the active power of its own act). But it does not give command about the thing under a greater idea of existing than is apprehended by the intellect. On the contrary, desire and abstractive intellection are of the thing under the idea of it as existing just as much as under the idea of it as object (thus vision and enjoyment are of what is present); but desire moves effectively to the thing because it is a command; not so abstractive intellection.

200. To the second point [n.197, “the love both of friendship and of concupiscence is of something in its real existence”] I say that man shown in the universal is loved with love of friendship, and on that account is ‘this man’ loved; for thus is justice in the universal loved with love of concupiscence, and     therefore is ‘this justice’ loved with love of concupiscence for ‘this man’.

201. So also [to n.194 second paragraph] is the exposition plain of the authority of Augustine On The Trinity VIII ch.6 n.9, “Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just and not the form itself where we see what a just mind is etc     .” [n.125]. In that authority the form “where we see what a just mind is” must be understood to be justice itself in general; just as the form of man in general is that by which we see what is required to be a man, and by which form we judge that which is in front of us to be or not to be a man, according to him [n.191] in the same place [ibid. 8 ch.4 n.7]. Unless then we were to love the form in general we would not love him whom we believe to be just, whom by this form we love; just as, if you do not love the form of man in general, never will you love him, when he is front of you, because of the loved form of man. And, as long as we are not just, we love justice in general less than we should, because we love with a certain simple volition or a being pleased; and this is not sufficient to be just, but it is necessary to love justice with efficacious volition, namely a volition whereby he who wills would choose to observe justice in itself as the rule of his life. The justice here, then, is privatively indeterminate, and in accord with it do we judge of a just mind, and because of it do we love the mind we believe to be just.