2. Against this Opinion.

289. Against what is said in the first member [n.286].

If there were only one animal such that another in the universe would not be possible, the footprint of it would still not be the image of it, because a footprint would still not be a likeness of the whole but of a part, and an image is a likeness of the whole. Yet, also, it would not then represent [the animal] confusedly, that is, according to an idea common to itself and others.

290. It will be said that it does [represent confusedly], just as now the sun is a universal, though it would be impossible for there to be many suns [cf. Algazel, Logic ch.3]. And the science that is about the sun is about it under the idea of a universal, and not about this sun; and so the intelligible species does represent the universal, not this particular, even though the universal can only exist in this particular.

291. Against this [n.290]: If it is in respect of something insofar as it is a ‘this’ that the footprint is not an image, the proposed conclusion is obtained [n.289], and this when supposing, by whatever supposition, that nothing could be abstracted from ‘this’. But still, supposing [that nothing could be abstracted], something could represent this whole as ‘this’ and something represent a part of this as ‘of this’.

292. Again, if the parts of animals diverse in species, which parts make an impression on soft thing yielding to them, were alike in quantity and figure, the footprint too would not lead to knowledge of them under the idea of species, but only under the idea of genus. If in the same species there were such parts that were unlike in quantity and figure, the footprint would lead to knowledge of the individual as a ‘this’, though not to knowledge of the whole as represented wholly. Therefore, species or not species is an accidental difference.

293. Concerning this point then [n.285], I say that a footprint is the likeness of a part of an animal, by which part the footprint is impressed on something yielding to it. But a likeness, when expressed, of a part is not a likeness, when expressed, of a whole. For [it is a likeness] neither according to the idea of the whole in itself, nor even according to the idea by which the whole is immediately known. But [it is a likeness] only by inference, and from the fact that the thing represented is known to be some part of the whole. And therefore, if this supposition is false - for example, because the impressing thing was separate from the whole (as if a foot amputated from the body were impressing the footprint) - the soul would be in error about the whole to which the sort of part that impresses the footprint naturally belongs. It is plain too that, if the whole body were thus impressed on the dust, just as the foot was impressed on it, this left-behind impression would truly be the image and likeness of the whole, just as now the footprint is the likeness of a part.

294. Applying this also to the issue at hand [n.281], it does not seem that the first distinction set down between footprint and image [n.286] is true, because no creature represents God save according to common concepts, and not according to special concepts, namely, of the most specific species. So there is no difference between creature and creature in representing God in a common and non-common idea.

295. Also what is said in the second member, that the footprint consists in the three relations [n.287], does not seem true. For although the idea of footprint states a respect, in the way in which a likeness is really a respect, yet, just as a likeness is not said to exist in a respect precisely but in something absolute in which the idea of likeness is founded, so too the idea of footprint seems not to exist in a respect precisely but in something on which the respect is founded. And the proof of this is as follows, that the footprint is like the thing of which it is the footprint, from which footprint, when known, the thing is known.     Therefore , the footprint can be known naturally before that of which it is the footprint; but a relation cannot be known naturally before the term; therefore etc     .

296. Again, as to the statement that the three respects belong to the three modes of relatives [n.287], this seems false. For the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-30, when setting down the difference of the two modes relative to the third, maintains that in the first two modes the relation is mutual, in the third not, but one thing is said to be related to another thing because the other thing belongs to it; and every relation of creature to God is non-mutual, but God is only said to be related to the creature because the creature is related to him; therefore every respect of a creature to God is according to the third mode.

297. Also, what he brings forward about the first mode of likeness [n.287] is not valid, because the likeness (which is of the thing exemplified to what exemplifies it) does not belong to the first mode, because it is not a likeness of univocity. Rather it belongs to the third mode, as appears manifestly from the Philosopher [Metaphysics 5.15.1020b30-32], who puts the relation of knowledge to knowable, and the relation, universally, of measured to measure, in the third mode; and the exemplar has the idea of measure with respect to what it is the exemplar of;     therefore etc     .